Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Itchy & Scratchy Land With Mike Carlson

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

"This truly was the best vacation ever. Now let us never speak of it again." - Marge Simpson When The Simpsons head to a new, Krusty-sponsored amusement park, they find just about everything can possib-lie go wrong, from the lack of novelty "Bart" license plates to highly intelligent robots that turn evil via flash photography. But, like so many before them, the family soon learns that battling terrifying automatons can bring any dysfunctional group closer together. Our guest: Mike Carlson from Podcast: The Ride Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon movie podcast, and tons more. Event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons where our children need wine. I'm one of your host, Searing Gas Paine Land resident Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Henry Gilbert, ready with my 20-minute history on Uncle Aunt.

And who was our special guest on the line? Mike Carlson. And this week's episode is Itchy and Scratchy Land. Various about going to Itchy and Scratchy Land. This episode originally aired on September 25th, 1994, and as always, Henry will let us know what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Merrill Streep and Kevin Bacon topped the box office with The River Wild. previous one-a-cartoon podcast subject reboot debuts on ABC and in some eerie timing Michael Eisner announces that they won't be building

Disney's America in Virginia well the thing we most care about is of course the River Wild and I will say a river once through it it's the dominant River movie right the River Wild is more trashy and fun it's her and her like almost divorced husband stuck on a raft being held hostage on a kayak with Kevin Bacon appointing a gun at them. And they're annoying kid who sucks. I saw it in theaters, that dollar theater kind of thing.

I remember liking it. And what, Taryn Killam just was in a remake of it? Other people were two, but I remember he's in it. There was like a remake during the writer-actor strike last year. Yes. There was a remake called River Wilde. They dropped the the the. And it is Adam Brody, Layton Meester, and Taryn Killam.

Oh, there you go. Okay. So Layton Meester is the Merrill Streep of that, I'm assuming. They're comparable, right? Sure, yeah. It's a reboot the the CGI TV show that really trailblazed things

animated probably like within miles of your home in Vancouver, Bob. Yes, by Mainframe, a groundbreaking television show and for the longest time Americans did not get the dark third season. Mike, were you a reboot watcher as a toy boy? It would make sense that I was,

but I think I was off put by the visual style of it. So I never really, I watched a little. but I just could not get into it. You would have been impressed by all of its deep references to Star Wars and other comic books and also was future president of VC Comics,

Dan Didio, worked on it. Yes, I didn't remember that now that you're saying it. It's one of those things where I am fascinated by it, that being said, I haven't looked into it really since, and maybe this will get me in there as far as doing a deep dive. Oh, what? And also, like, one of their storyboarders

was like the main storyboarder for Mad Max Fury Road, and they did a Mad Max parody episode, too. Yeah, something like that. I just read the Mad Max Fury Road making of book. It's really, really long, really extensive. I think it's called Blood Sweat and Chrome. And yeah, that was that storyboard artist Colling Card. I believe he sent it to George Miller, and that's how he was able to work on Fury Road. Wow. In the episode, Bad Bob. And yes, Michael Eisner, he announced that Disney's America was supposed to be their a big new park they were going to do in Virginia. It was going to teach kids about history, got a lot of negative press.

As like, oh, is Mickey Mouse going to teach us about America's, like, slavery and the Civil War and all that? It got so much negative press and other things. I believe defunct land did a pretty good deconstruction, as they often do. And we'll talk more about it in the PTA disbands when there's an entire parody of what that could have been. Mike, when you were a youth, did you dream of going to Disney's America and where you just, disappointed when the news came down? You know, I wasn't tracking it so much as a kid. I was not into any of the like historical themed entertainment, really.

There was some field trip we took where we got to see like an Abe Lincoln animatronic in Illinois. And I liked that, but it wasn't as like exciting as seeing like, you know, Chewbacca or something or R2D2. So I feel like I have more, I shouldn't say I have more affection for the presidents because that's weird, right? To say that as a, like, you should have less affection for the presidents, I think as you get older. But I feel like now I'm more into like historical robot shows or I would be much more morbidly curious to see what like abomination they've made. Like what they've cobbled together with American history now than I would as a kid. As a kid, I would have been like,

oh, wow, Mickey Mouse is there. And it's like, oh, he's wearing a tri-corner hat. Yeah, but he's not wearing his regular outfit or like a space suit. Like a lot of the things would have made me feel a little less excited. I'm sure I would have gone and enjoyed it, but I wasn't as a kid I wouldn't have been so bummed if I heard that they canceled it as a kid. And why is Goofy flying the Confederate flag? Well, he is a Southerner, I guess, you know. It's brother against brother, man. Yes. That's how it was. There were a couple other bits of history where related theme parks that happened the week this episode aired, but I'll get to that in order as we reach it in the episode. But that's what happened the week this episode.

So dared. And joining us once again is Mike Carlson from Podcast the Ride and Mike last joined us for Season 12 Simpsons Tall Tales. Welcome back to the show, Mike. Hey, thank you for having me. That's been a while. It's been a while, right? Yes, I believe in that time period you have reproduced. Yes, I was going to say it's probably before I had a child. Congratulations, Mike. This is when we finally are telling you. It'd be late to congratulations. That's, yeah. Hey, better late than never, you know. But yeah, cool. We had to have at least one podcast The Ride member on like the ultimate theme.

Park episode of the Simpsons, right? Like, we couldn't do it without you. I mean, look, it's one of the top theme park podcasts in the world today. I don't want to be braggadocious or anything, but it's at least in the top 50 theme park podcasts. So you had that one of us. And you know what?

Last year, I got to not only meet Mike at Disneyland, we just happened to be there the same day, but I got to ride Pirates of the Caribbean with Mike and his family. It was a wonderful time. We did. Do we do jungle cruise as well? We did them both.

We did them both together. That was fun. Henry, it sounds like you won a contest. It did feel special to be like, wow. It's like I can talk about the ride with Mike while I'm on it. I mean, it'd probably been like cooler to ride it with an Imagineer, but like slightly down the list is a guy who like makes jokes about theme parks for a living. And also was, you know, to write it with your wife, Lindsay, who's also done the podcast and your child. It was fun to experience rides like through a.

kid's eyes. Yes. It does change things, have to admit. That is exciting because just, you know, being an old adult, sometimes you get a little jaded, you'll get a little cynical, but you go, oh, this is what it's all about, you know? This is the pure visceral joy of just, like, pointing at stuff. Because, like, with a kid, too, you're like, you never know what, like, this ride she'll latch on to.

Sometimes it's just like she wants to look at the ceiling or she just wants to see, like, the lights. And it'd be like, look it, it's red. It's the red light. Like, sometimes that's all you need. And you're like, you know what? Red light is cool. I think maybe we're not looking at the ceiling enough on those rides, except for it's a small world where the ceiling looks like you're in a gymnasium.

Yes, it's true. But yeah, it's fun to see what she likes about. And from ride to ride, it always changes. I'm sure you would rank this pretty highly in like all parodies of theme parks in television, right? Yeah, I mean, this is. got to be close to number one, I think. Theme park parody things.

It's even better than when they went to Duff Gardens and Selma's Choice, that ruled and was full of great Disney theme park jokes. And yet, this is even better than that. When they already had Golden Era Simpsons already do all the good jokes they could do about Disneyland, they found all new things to do.

Yeah. And now Homer and March get to go. They weren't there at Duff Gardens earlier a few seasons ago. Good point. I wonder, is that why they held it that maybe they were like, oh, Homer and charged and go, it saves them jokes to do of the whole family. Yeah. There's so many fun things in this episode. First off, Bob, as we love to point out, this is a start of season six in production order.

Yes, this is the first episode of production season six, a banger to start off on, I will say. Yeah, you know, David Merkin is show running for a second year in a row. It was his first television show he'd ever produced in animated form. He learned so much from it. they double down on everything they did awesome in season five. Six is arguably the best Simpson season ever, I think. It's six or seven I think we usually come to when we talk about this, right? Yes, I will say definitively.

I've hosted this podcast or co-hosted it rather for 12 years. I can say it is the best. Okay, I'm with you. Nobody argue, please. Especially if we consider it as production season six, meaning the first couple episodes of season seven that broadcast like whooshab, Mr. Burns, Part 2 in radioactive man. And this episode has a pretty interesting origin story in that it seems as if the U.S.

government was threatening to crack down on TV violence, and Fox reacted like a bunch of cowards, and they told David Merkin the showrunner, you guys can't do itchy and scratchy anymore. David Merkin's response is, not only will we do itchy and scratchy, I'm going to make an entire episode about them and make it our most violent episode ever. Fox's response to that is we will cut that content. And David Merkin said to them, what if the press found out of it? about this somehow. And that is how this episode came into being. And now imagine any showrunner

doing that to Disney. They would be executed in the town square of Disneyland to prove an example to everyone else. Right in the center of Main Street. Yes. That story of antagonism is so wonderful to me. Like, and it is because first off, they have the rule that they don't have to take notes. Like, that was still the rule then. But they always, Bill and Josh talked about this with Homer's phobia is that the censor side gets to cut things because they say they'll censor it for, you know, broadcast standard reasons. So that sounded like what they were going to pull. And Merkin even goes like, you know, somebody might hear about it in the press.

Like it's such a great, oh, it's him standing up. I really love that. Yeah, that's great. I mean, yeah, it feels like the networks wouldn't do that maybe to the president these days. I don't think, no. So I just like, you know, you like to see, you'd like to. to root for like a good side. So the good side is at least in this situation is the Simpsons being funny. And that's fun. And this episode has Merkin written all over it because obviously Jurassic Park, huge movie, still very big, probably just fresh out on video when this is going live on TV. David Merkin says, you guys love Jurassic Park? What if we parody Westworld instead? And I don't think I knew what Westworld was until I listened to the commentary for this episode 10 years later. I didn't see Westworld until. I didn't see Westworld until.

It was being shown at the Castro Theater in like 2009, I think is when I got to see it. It was like partnered with Terminator 1 and Robocop as a special like screening there. And it was, yeah, Westworld totally flew over my head as a kid watching this. I only, you see their arrival at a Chene Scratchelan. And so you're just thinking the whole thing is a Jurassic Park parody when really later you learn Jurassic Park was like Michael Crichton, reworking his ideas from Westworld and changed it from cowboys to Dines. I know. Yeah, Westworld.

I'm glad I never saw Westworld because I would have been like scared of theme parks maybe more as a kid. So it was a good thing I didn't realize it existed until I was an adult. And you know, Henry, I just rewatch West World after watching the Phoenician scheme and my new opinion is Michael Crichton,

a better director than Wes Anderson. Oh, out! The camera moves. Your attention is kept on the screen. People are not just mumbling at each other. There, I've said it. I'm just trying to troll Henry here. Sorry, Mike.

It's okay. I can handle it. Wes Anderson, the camera moves like twice per movie with a long tracking shot. It's very precise. It pivots on its tripod sometimes, let's say. I was trying to find who said this,

but I couldn't find, like, the first person to say this on social media. I just found many people repeating it. But this was a funny joke I saw that Michael Crichton seemingly hated theme parks. Why was that? And people said, it's because he was six foot nine

and he hated going to them. He was a very, Very tall man. Huge, huge man. So they're not doing their Jurassic Park parody. I also feel that Merkin is smart. He knows by the time this goes on TV, you will all be very sick of Jurassic Park parody,

so we're not going to do that. A lesser showrunner would have done that. And The Simpsons did do an explicit Jurassic Park parody. 24 years later in the Triasafora 29 segment, geriatric park, where the old people are turned into dinosaurs. Totally left my memory of that one. I had forgotten that. I've not seen that.

You know, I also love, you know, that Fox story I forgot to. Why Merkin, like, wanted to do it, I'm sure, is because he had just done two shows that Fox fucked with so much. Yes. That he probably also wanted to, after Get a Life and The Edge, he was like, you know what? No, Fox. You're not messing with my third television show. I wish I could be more like him in my life. Mm-hmm.

I wish I could, like, demand things like that. I did want to pull from Swartzwolder's only interview. He wrote this because he wrote this because he. He is like the itching and scratchy writer. He wrote Itchy and Scratchy in March and future Itchy and Scratchy episodes. He is asked about itching and scratchy in that New Yorker interview. And I love this quote. We could show horrendous things to the children at home,

as long as we portrayed them being shown to the Simpsons children first. Somehow this extra step baffled our critics and foiled the mob with torches. We agreed with them that this was wrong to show to children. Didn't we just show it being wrong? And look, here's more wrong stuff. You know, Bob, too, with that thing about them being cracked down on more violence, two production episodes later is Treehouse Five, which is one of the most violent ones they've ever done, too.

I think that one ends with the inside out people dancing at the end, correct? Yes, that's right. A very bloody episode. I mean, Mike, is this episode too bloody? You wouldn't want your child to see this one at their current age, right? It's a good question because, like, the inside out, family turning inside out, was a little upsetting to me as a kid. And then I think the most upsetting thing to me

was Homer falling down the cliff, honestly, because then he had blood on his mouth and it was like not, it was cartoonish, obviously, but like there was something about it that didn't feel as silly for whatever reason, even though it's a ridiculous cartoon silly thing. But I don't think I was ever bothered by any of the violence in itchy and scratchy land.

So if I'm going off of what I could handle, then maybe my daughter would be fine. But I don't know. We're all different. Oh, another thing I wanted to give on a timeline of this, just to show you where theme parks are, where they were in 1994, when this is aired. For the Disney parks, it was, 94 was a rough year for Disney

in that they lost Frank Wells. He passed away, and that caused a ton of upheaval. Jeffrey Katzenberg leaving. I think the only ride to debut in 1994 was Tower of Terror, or the Twilight Zone Tower Terror, I think it might have been, originally called. Yes. That's still obviously like 94 gives you that so that's like a legendary year but that's already when it feels like from the peak of like new rides and the movies are awesome. It definitely is like okay maybe the party isn't going to last forever. It felt like it was

going to but who knows? And Universal Studios had no big openings but they did announce they made the deal for Marvel Superhero Island that will five years later be many a happy memory for me at Islands of Adventure. Yes, and we'll be there maybe forever just out of spite. As long as it always looks like my childhood Marvel, I will never hate it. You can get as dusty and sunbleach as it can. I don't care. They just have to keep the paint looking okay, I think.

But you can't change it from being stuck in the 90s. Honestly, if you're a man of a certain age or a person of a certain age, you are lucky that this happened at that moment in time to preserve your child. comic book love in a theme park. It's kind of crazy if you think about just the timeline of what happened to the company and the luck of all of that or the chance, whatever. Yeah, but you know what? The look of, say, the Cyclops in Marvel Islands Adventure,

now apparently that is what Cyclops is looking like based on a teaser release today. That's a good point. Maybe all the heroes will look exactly like they do in Islands of Adventure. Maybe the Green Goblin will look like that felt Green Goblin. wanders around in one of these doomsday or Secret Wars movies. These films are becoming geyser-pleasers. They are, yes. It's a great point.

I mean, it is funny to think about the idea that, like, CBS in 30 years will just have superhero stuff on because it's for us, and we're all in our 60s, 70s, and 80s. That'll be the equivalent of the Dick Van Dyke solves mysteries TV shows. Which I watched an episode of a week and a half ago, diagnosis murder. Because it had George Decay, Walter Canig, and Billy Moomy on the episode guest starring.

Wow. This is superstar television, man. Yeah. Yeah. I felt like everyone was doing their third to last IMDB credit on that show. All three of those gentlemen are alive, though. Oh, you're right, yes. Yeah.

They're in the con circuit? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. I'm getting too off a topic. George, I'm going to see Voyage home Star Trek screening with Takeh at the end of the month. Oh, very nice. Yeah. He's really holding up.

Well, two things I want to mention, since we last covered this episode, episode nine years ago. When we first covered it in 2017, the 2016 series Westworld had just one season under its belt. It came to a close in 2022. I'm sure it had a great ending. I'm sure every mystery had a fantastic solution. I'm sure it's up there with Lost as one of the definitive TV shows of all time. So that happened putting Westworld on the map a little more than the Crichton movie, although I feel like this parody might be the most Westworld is known via the art of parody. And also, since we covered this episode, Henry, we started going to theme parks a lot. And one of us started going to theme parks more than a theme park podcaster. I guess if we talk about in a 14 month period of 2024 and 2025, I did go to all the Orlando parks, all of the Anaheim and Hollywood parks, Tokyo Disney and Universal Osaka. So in put that way, I suppose that is a lot of theme parks. Yeah, I mean, if people follow our podcast from that point onward, I feel like 2018 onward was everybody just going to theme parks constantly, then taking a brief break from the

pandemic and then going back to the theme park. So we have a lot more theme park experience now than we did in 2017, obviously. Well, that's great. I mean, look, you never have enough theme park experience. Oh, no. I know. I need to do like a full, we need to do Dollywood at a certain point in the next couple years. My husband and I have talked about it in that way too. It feels like we would need the Orlando bubble times two when visiting there, I feel like. I'm not wanting to leave. not wanting to visit other parts or just take our weddings, rings it off, and we're just like,

we're a couple of friends who liked Hollywood. Nashville might be, I don't know how close Nashville is to pigeon forge. I'm not sure. The Kid Rock have a bar in Nashville. I'm certain. He must, right. Now, this could be a controversial statement,

but Mike says you can never have too much theme park experience. I think I might have enough Universal Studios experience until I'm 50. I've been there, I don't know, three or four times in the past seven or eight years, and I think,

unless they build something that's appealing to me specifically, or they revamp Simpsonsland or something, I think I'm good for a while on that one. And you're speaking specifically Hollywood? Hollywood, yes. Okay. Hollywood. Hollywood is, I love Hollywood,

but Hollywood is definitely, and I'm reusing material, it's like kind of the Chili's to Go version of Universal Studios. And it's not quite the deal that Orlando is. Obviously, it's got a lot of the same rides and great rides, but it's all a little bit on top of each other. It's a mishmash. And it isn't quite exactly the same of like, oh, I'm going to this resort and I'm having a full vacation.

It makes a lot more sense to have it be like a locals park where you're like, I'm going to pop over there, go on Transformers, and then leave or go to Citywalk and go to Mark Routabell or whatever. We went there last year for our Do Boys episode. And my main thoughts were, oh, they're building a real ride. Good for them. Oh, you mean for the past of the furious one? Yes. Yeah, an actual ride. Yes.

I do like the 30 seconds of the mummy ride. Also though, Bob, you don't like log rides. So you've only done Jurassic Park. Well, you did it when in Jurassic Park. You've never done Jurassic World Char. Are you skipping one of the big rides there? Yeah, I think I'm good. Yeah.

Hey, of the however many days you've spent in Hollywood, I have been with you for three of those days because we did two days for No Boys. And then in 2017, we also went there as well, I think. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, I can just lie and say I have that role. Robots and water fear phobia. That's what will keep me off the Jurassic World Ride.

Though it's funny, Bob loves Meanwhile the Mummy Ride, and I did sit it out. You and Nina wrote it twice while I sat it out, because that one, meanwhile, is just, it's too violent for me. I just can't take it. Yes, I have sub-mechanophobia, and you cannot make fun of me because of that. Well, I was going to, but now I won't. When we first recorded this, I had not even been to Disneyland once, like, and it was my husband and I, we went on. our honeymoon and I think that was when the addiction began for us. We're like Disneyland is, I love it. Orlando's four Disney parks is so much Disney that it's like, yeah, I can't say

it's worse than Disneyland, but it is old man magic to me. Like it's an old man thing to say, but the Disneyland magic does feel different than being in Orlando to me. Oh yeah, I completely agree. Disneyland proper, the actual park itself versus like the magic kingdom. It's like Disneyland does have this magic. It's a different feeling there. So I get that. And also, Bob, I guess since the last time we cover this,

Disney owns the Simpsons now. And it's just a countdown until they are in Disney parks. We're waiting for the countdown to their secret Nazi ties. Or hey, maybe current Nazi ties if they ally with the current government. Sure. Yes, yeah. Good question. Good point.

Yeah. see if it's ever. I don't have a lot of hope for it in the Disney parks. I don't see them building a bunch of stuff, but I could be wrong. My hope for it is the Disney Plus. Simpsons does so good on there that I feel like the metrics are still strong for them. If the movie does good, if the sequel movie does good, that maybe they will like, I've said it before, Simpsons fits in great at Disney California Venture. There's tons of dead space in that park. You could set up a Springfield corner in there, but it'll never be as good as The Simpsons Ride and Universal

because it won't be as funny. It won't be made when the actors were younger. And they're not going to build as much as Springfield either, I would bet. Yeah, I've heard rumor, and this is like probably not even rumor, more like speculation, is like, it'll be like Fox Animation Restaurant Row. And that might be something. And that could be at Disney Springs or at a downtown Disney or something.

They'll have like a family guy restaurant. at Disney. Whatever, the drunken clam, right? Oh, that's right, yeah.

I'll have the freaking sweet burger. Hold the stewies. That show libels Walt Disney more is an anti-Semite than the Simpsons does.

That's surprised. That would be surprising. So who knows? Who knows what happens? It doesn't feel like it fits into what they build now, but I'd love to be wrong. I mean,

it's pretty rare they make something out of a TV show, an actual ride out of a TV show. That is true. But anyway, hey, what, all that Star Trek talk was not meaningless because the Simpsons get teleported

down as a couch gag. So we do have a Star Trek couch gag to start the episode. And I will say, I took notes for this episode, but I feel like I didn't have to, A, because I've seen this one a billion times, but also, I talked about being burned out on Universal. They show about 60% of this episode when you are in line

for The Simpsons' rights. I'm not complaining. It's great, but they show almost all of it. Isn't that amazing? They have all these things about, like, don't theme parks suck while you're standing? in the line. Like, I love that. Yeah, I mean, it's all, yeah, it's all stuff for like,

it feels so, if not wrong, but it feels so, like, outrageous because of how Disney is so, like, protective. In the line, even the newer animations, they have jokes about, like, food sure is expensive at a theme park, isn't it? Disney would never approve that as a joke. Yeah, we're ripping you off. I mean, there's little, like, once in a while you can find an anomaly in, like, a pre-show video or something where you go,

Oh, look, that joke was a little risque when it comes to making fun of us. But yeah, this one definitely you're like, wow, they're letting them say it's expensive here. Wow. You know, on the Star Trek thing, you guys will both be happy to hear that the 2026 project for me and my husband has begun. We're watching Star Trek The Next Generation together, which I have watched selected episodes since then, but I have not watched a little series since it ended in the 90s, like, and he's never seen it. Wow. Well, that's fun.

I mean, that's like one of my favorite shows ever. It's brave of you to start with season one, Henry. We decided we're going to do it for real. And I told him, and we know this. And boy, are there some rough, we're only like seven episodes in. I was like, wow, there's a reason I never pulled these up again, season one episode. Data is fully functional. You learn that in the second episode.

Yeah. Okay, tangent. But after watching it, I was like, okay, there must be like an explanation why this biological thing is working on data because it really shouldn't. And even on like the Star Trek Reddit, why I was sure the Star Trek nerds would have an answer. All their answers were, yeah, it's a badly written episode. They didn't know what data could do yet. And they never made up a reason why it works. Like, that's it.

That's it. I expect about a retcon. They should have retconed in one of the movies or something or figured out why. I expect that from Star Trek. But in the second regular episode, in the first real regular episode, everybody gets drunk and fucks. Like it's such a crazy second episode. like most shows, it gets better when the creator dies. Well, that's what I was going to say kind of the similar thing where it's like, Roddenberry

had that 60s horniness. So it definitely is there in those first two seasons. Obviously, there's stuff in the later seasons as well, but there's a specific type of like Roddenberry horniness that permeates the first two seasons. Do I remember correctly that his wife plays Deanna Troy's mom and gets naked? Is that? Major Barrett, who also does the computer's voice. That's right.

And she's Nurse Chapel in the original series. And was on that diagnosis murder episode. I watched a week and a half of them. Whoa. Wow. It's all coming together. All right. I get to Leonardo DiCaprio point.

Major Barrett. Wow, everybody, look. I have had to give myself a rule in watching TNG with my husband, too, of like, I get three pauses to say a fact. Or to be like, oh, well, you know, that's the guy who will play Quark in Deep Space Nine. He's playing one of the first Ferengis in this. Like, can't do this every five seconds in watching. Yeah, you're going to self-regulate.

Henry is the Amazon X-ray of his home. The episode begins with a violent, itchy and scratchy cartoon. A very good, I love this one that it starts with, oh, it doesn't pop like a balloon, but Scratchy will stand still to be poked hundreds of times and just start bleeding normally. I want to point out the attention to detail here

because the parody title is the last traction hero, that is the title of the cartoon. And the title card is a parody of that film's poster. Yeah, you're right. swinging on the ladder. And yeah, you're right. It is, yes, it's Arnold swinging on a rope

holding the little bull-haired boy, but in this case, he's holding itchy and itchy is stabbing him in the eye. Wes Archer is one of the best directors in Simpsons period, and this might be his best episode. We interviewed him years back,

and this is one he is very proud of. And he's very proud on the commentary, too. And he loved animating itchy and scratchy. I think he might have been the best itching and scratchy director also. Then after all the violence and blood, they then shift into promotion mode

which I would assume this is the writers making fun of when they were kids how heavily advertised on ABC programming the opening of Disneyland was and the opening of Disney World in the 70s but then in our childhoods in the 90s we were seeing that alive and well in ABC sitcoms on TGIF

yeah I think it was happening around the same time I want to say by 94 definitely I guess I could look this up I should have but the Roseanne episode feels like 94 to me. Definitely on the TGIF ones aren't far behind. It is 96. Okay. Well, there you. Okay. So they're formulating the plans. Michael Eisner and Bob Eiger are working on this. Because Bob Iger, president of ABC at the time, folks. Although, Henry, the full house episodes, The House meets the mouse, part one and part two. That's 93. And I believe you covered on a podcast The Ride, Mike.

We did a couple years ago. Kyle Mooney came on and we did a couple of those. I guess we did all of them. I'm trying to remember. But those are fun. Because, like, as a kid, I feel like paired, like, Wayne's World when they're making fun of an ad, that you understand that's a joke. That's funny. They're making fun of advertising. But then when, like, Full House was at Disney World, as a kid, I was just like, awesome. There was just no thought to, like, oh, this is an ad to make me want to go. I was just like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. These beloved characters in one of the greatest places on Earth, like, I never thought of it like that. From that Full House episode, I still have unaddressed childhood trauma of citing with Stephanie. the unfairness of Michelle getting her wish. That sounds like older sibling bias to me. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm pretty sure I was Stephanie's age.

She seems like she was 11 in that episode, and I would have been too. So yes, I was definitely on her side. And against Michelle, in most cases, against Michelle Tam. Yeah. You line up with the Tanner sibling that was closest to your age, I feel, also. I think she was born in 83, I'm guessing. I'm guessing Jody Sweeten was born in 83, 84.

So that's about where I'm at. And now the tradition continues with the Simpsons doing this very thing to advertise Galaxy's Edge. Well, that's a good point. Or a Marvel movie or something. Yeah. Ella McKay. El-Make. The cast of Ella McKay better promote Simpsons movie, too.

I want to see Emma Mackey, I don't know, doing the Simpsons Movie 2 challenge. Albert Brooks, Julie Kavner. Albert Brooks better at least be in the Simpsons movie, too. He'll be even more aged than he appears in Alamakee. I owe, I mean, he has to be, right? I mean, he was the villain of the Simpsons movie, so I wonder, will he be the villain of the Simpsons movie, too? Get Hank Scorpio.

Could we just not worry about it being a character that people don't know if they're not watching Simpsons? Please. Yes, I know. I would hope they've learned that every person who's going to go see the Simpsons movie is a giant nerd who goes to Frankieac every day and will know who Hank Scorpio is. Like literally in one of the Maggie shorts, they go to the Galaxy's Edge area.

Like it's not just like a reference to Mandalorian. It's Marge walking around the gift shop area of Galaxy's Edge. Yeah, no, that's pretty blatant, I would say. I mean, I can't be mad at it because I like in general Galaxy's Edge despite not seeing some of the characters I'd like to see there. But it is funny to see how far we've come with the Disney. of it all. Springfield's new theme park is out of control. You're wrong about that robot trying to be a friend.

Don't predict your founder. The Simpsons tomorrow at 8 on. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. Suckers. The Simpsons go on vacation. Jerk boy! On an all-new episode Sunday. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert, welcoming you to the break where nothing impossible I go wrong.

Big thank you this week to our game. Mike Carlson from Podcast the Ride. We couldn't think of doing an episode like Itchy and Scratchy Land without a theme park expert like Mike joining us, Podcast the Ride Rules. Check out that and follow him on Instagram to see all of the cool

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that our patrons all get to enjoy. Bart and Lisa are given their instructions. Krusty also tells them what they're supposed to do. And so Bart and Lisa, head to the parents. in our first clip. Kids, you heard the cartoon rat. If you haven't already run to your parents begging to go, do it now.

You won't be missing anything funny. I'll just be sitting here reading this grown-up's newspaper. Go now! Oh, everything's too damn expensive these days. Look at this Bible I just got. Fifteen bucks. And talk about a preaching book. Everybody's a sinner, except for this guy.

But now itchy and Scratchyland is cutting ticket prices in half. Can we go, Dad? Can we, can we, can we? Can we? Can we? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ask your mother. Yay! Mom, guess what? We're going to itchings. I've already planned our vacation.

We're going to the Highway 9 bird sanctuary. I understand they've installed a new bird feeder this year. It's shaped like a diner. And it's on this really tall pole. First off, I'm with Homer. is too damned expensive these days. It's true. That could be a sign of aging. I mean,

the inflation is crazy now. It's not just being in my 40s. It's true. It's true. Yeah, it's true. Pizza shouldn't be more than $20. It's wrong. I've heard this, but then you just end up eating bad pizza, right? Well, sure, yes, but even the bad pizza at dominoes is $20.

Even the bad food is expensive now, sadly. I'm paying with my health. Isn't that enough? Well, this is really a Merkin episode Because we have a Star Trek reference A lot of violence A slam on organized religion Yes, yeah

Homer's face looking at the Bible There's so many funny Homer faces in that It's a great quizzical look As he's staring at it And this scene has one of the most memorable drawings Of any episode The reaction shot of horror and disappointment As Marge is trying to sell the kids

On the Bird Sanctuary Yeah, it's a great The angle down on them is great They cut to it a second time because they know how good it is. And also, hey, Mike, now as a parent, have you yet use the Ask Your Mother defense on things? You know, I did it.

I want to say maybe for the first time, like, this week. Whoa. And I'm trying to remember what it was, but I definitely said, I think it was like one of those where, like, I was going to, we almost, like, sometimes we'll, like, almost trade off work. and watching our daughter.

And then I think it was like, can we do, I was asked if we can do some big thing that I'm going to have to like dismantle part of the bed. But I was going to have to leave this mess with my wife. So I was like, I can't like just dismantle this and leave. We can't build like a house out of cushions and then I bolt. I'm like, well, ask your mother about this just so she can sign off on it before I do it. Okay.

As a kid though, I feel like you. become savvy enough to know which parent to ask. And sometimes there's a parent that you don't ask anything because there's one parent that's a pushover. Yeah. If there's a pushover, it's me. That's true. Well, in my own thing, it was like, well, asking my dad to do those things, it would be like asking the mailman to deliver food. That's not his job. Right, right. He doesn't okay these things. What, is he going to buy me a toy? He wouldn't know where to go to buy me a toy to ask if I I can get it. Yes, good point.

So now I will know where to go to buy a toy for my daughter. Sure, sure. That's true. Other than that, yes. I'm not the authority. They do have to create the reasoning of the ticket prices are in half to explain how the Simpsons can afford such an expensive thing. I mean, now, like, again, prices have not stayed current with inflation from 1994 of theme park. I saw a headline, which is all I needed to read, of just saying, like, 4.4.

For some people in America, it is cheaper to fly to Tokyo and get a hotel there and go to their Disneyland than it is to fly to Orlando and go to any Orlando park. Sounds right. Yeah. There's been a couple articles in the last year or two talking about, you have to really save up if you're middle class to have one vacation every few years or that's your vacation, Disney, your whole, like the one you're going to take in your old life. So it's getting depressing. It's a little easier, I think, if you're local because you'll do like ticket deals and stuff. But yeah, if you're saving up, it's hard.

In Jenny Nicholson's video on the Star Wars Cruise thing, she had this great point that I never thought of before, have those ads with like your kid goes to Disney, all that stuff, that they are really like basically holding your child hostage to be like, they're only going to be six for one year. What are you going to do? Be a cheapskate, die without having doing this with your child? Yeah.

No, it's guilt. It's a lot, yeah. There's a full court press on your brain to try to figure out what kind of debt you should go into to do it upright, to do the full trip. They're getting the ticket prices for half the amount they usually cost. And then they're also driving, which is an important element. It lets them tell more jokes about the road trip. But also, this was very common in my neck of the woods. I lived in northeast Ohio and people would drive to Orlando, Florida. There's a joke later that implies the Simpsons drove more than 800 miles, but then I was looking at. at the distance, it's like a thousand miles from Youngstown, Ohio to Orlando, Florida. So those families are making the journey. That's what we did. Yeah. We were from Illinois. So we were like, yeah, coming from, yeah, probably $1,800 or whatever.

I don't know why we did that. I've asked, obviously it's a little cheaper to do it, but then you're not spending two nights in hotels. You're not spending the gas money. So I was like, why did we do that? It doesn't seem like it would be cheaper because airfare. was a lot cheaper 20, 30 years ago, too. So I don't know. Maybe it was a point of pride.

My parents don't have an explanation. There's just no answer. We also drove, but we had the benefit of being in, we were just three, three and a half hours from Orlando where we lived. And for Homer reasons, my dad hated theme parks. And we rarely went despite being relatively close to Orlando. This bit here, they don't waste time on, are we there yet? Or like they did with, can we go to Duff Gardens?

And in this case, just cut straight to it with the perfect joke of many in this episode that I had is the opening clip, Bart's dead, a great, great image. This has gotten memed a lot. Normally it is memed when it comes to faking a video game announcements. And you'll see the meme is very, very deep pride. And the one I do remember is Lisa pulling Bart in, mom, dad, Pickman 4. They wake up and Bart says, that's right, Pickman for cell phones. Because Pickman for iOS came out before Pickman 4. have to be Nintendo fan to really understand how heartbreaking that is.

Another Nintendo one that is also out of date because the game actually did finally come out. As we were waiting for a new Mario Kart, I think you reposted this one, Bob. It was like, you know, Mario Kart, there's a Mario Card 9. And then it'd be like, that's right. It's been nine years since Mario Card 8. Yes. Before World, yeah. Boy, did we love Mario Kart World.

What a great game. Hey, it was on your Game of the Year top 10. You could have omitted it. I finished 10 games then. We're hashing this out here. hear, Henry, remove it. It was low on my list. It was low on the list. I had a good time to eight hours.

I played it. I had a good time with it. Where does it rank in your all-time Mario Kart rankings? Oh, man. It's definitely below eight and certainly below the DS and 3DS entries. And I have more warm nostalgia for, you know, double dash is more fun than it too. But I wish it was better. It's sad. It's too bad. I think the only one's worse than it are the Game Boy Advance one, the Wii. game and the 3DS one I didn't like that much so

it's pretty low on my list I was a fan of seven well and you know what it's better than the ride of Mario Kart which oh yeah quite a lot yeah that just gave me a headache yeah a lot of people claim to like it lies I don't know if it's just kids

and they don't know any bad they're not sophisticated like we are I don't know I'm not sure I think you need to do two laps on that one is a tutorial lap and then you actually have to ride the ride Yeah, or you've done it many times like I have, and every time you're like just confused. I'm glad to know it doesn't get better because I've always wanted to go back

and see, did I miss something? Did I screw something up? Anytime, like if it's horror nights and there's no line, I'll go, I'm going to go on now and I'm open. My heart is open. I'm ready to love it. I would love to come in one day and go, fellas, I was wrong.

I love it. You just got to do it seven times and then you figure it out, but that has not happened yet. But I am open to it. The Donkey Kong ride, that's a good ride. I've written in Osaka. It's a good ride. I will, well, we did an episode that's coming out soon on the Donkey Kong ride.

We did it in Orlando. It's better than Mark O'clock. Oh, 100 times. It's like how the Millennium Falcon ride was like, well, this is the whole Jova ride until the real ride of Rise of the Resistance. So, Mike, I know how you feel about Rise of Resistance. I know. Where are my friends on it? Where are the moments of intimacy?

I don't like getting yelled at. Get over here. I don't think it's fun. I paid a lot of money to be here. Be nice. Kiss my ass a little. Come on. Bart and Lisa find a new road into convincing them to go,

which is talking about how the more adult or parent-themed areas of theme parks, which I guess in the 90s, I associate that more like Las Vegas is for families now kind of things. But, I mean, there's more direct pleasure island references. but this seemed like when they were starting to market like it's not just for kids. And now theme parks have to really apply to the child-free demographic among us like myself. Yes. There's always an end of it.

Like in Disneyland history, early on, it was kind of like, you know, if you're an adult, you go to Disneyland at night and hang. Like date night at Disneyland, there's a song on one of those, like, compilation albums. And they did market it for a while. I feel like more towards adults. And then I think as they add more ride and stuff, there's probably always like you can look at a graph and it'll be like, it was half adults, half kids.

And then it goes like, okay, now it's all kids. And then in the 90s with Pleasure Island, it's like back to like adults. And then Vegas then switches. And Vegas is less about adults and it's families in the 90s. But then that's kind of switched back,

even though there are themed experiences for the family now. But there's always like an ebb and flow to it. And you can probably seeing what media was produced. during the years you can tell, oh, that's when there was an uptick and, like, adults should come back to theme parks. But still no recipe-related bumper cars or rehab clinics. Well, that's true.

They keep opening up more places that sell alcohol in Disney parks. They'll have to, chemical dependency centers. This is where there's such a weird, and I still have no answer. There's no deleted scene, and I couldn't find a script for it. But it's so weird how Marge goes, Recipe-related bumper cars.

There's like a two long freeze frame on Bart and Lisa. It's funny because it's such a weird drawing. And then they celebrate like, Mom agreed. Yay! It's an odd joke, but I kind of appreciate it because they're gasping and excitement, and they're just waiting to see if anything will interfere with what they assume is going to happen. And when it doesn't, that's when they say yay. I also just love a drawing of any Simpson character with only their front teeth showing.

Like, it's such a goofy drawing of the characters. And this is where the Omar's. throws down the gauntlet that if she agrees to this vocation, as Bobby pointed out, it's a great Julie Cavner. Yes. For some reason, Julie Cabner grew up in Los Angeles, like literally went to Beverly Hills High School, but she says vocation in a way that no Southern California ever has. And so Marge says she doesn't want it to be like previous vocations. And those previous ones were both parodies of other movies. Yes. And one of these movies, I think Henry and I just saw this past year, which is Witness. When I saw Witness, my job.

Shaw hit the floor when someone mashed an ice cream cone in Harrison Ford's face. Yes, yeah, that it wasn't every, after I saw The Witness, it's how I realized, like, every comedy from the late 80s until, like, 2012, when they would make fun of the Amish, they usually were just referencing things revealed in Witness. But the specificity of the ice cream as Homer's being an asshole, like, that is the scene where Harrison Ford beats that guy's ass. Yeah. You don't really have to have seen. the movie, but if you watch Witness, Harrison Ford is the one Amish guy who will fight back because he is an undercover cop. He's not actually Amish. And then in the parody, we see that Homer has mashed more than one ice cream cone on more than one Amish person's body. He has gone on

like a coning spree. Until that donkey strikes him down. I love it. Man, the witness, it was a sexier movie than I expected to. It was never have the Amish been so sexy. Sexy. I got to check it out. I haven't seen it. There's a good new forecast. out for newish 4K out for it I love 4K what I guess your friends on blank check will be covering it this year your friends Mike we're not friends

no we're friends everyone's friends yeah we're all and then just so they didn't have only one Spielberg parody in this we have a Jaws parody too even the Shark Boy thing that is like not only is it the shot

of Marge like sitting up is the shot from Jaws but also like that prank happens in Jaws like two guys pretend to be a shark to panic to panic the beach as Homer and Bart do. I feel like they probably wanted to do the Roy Shider Dolly Zoom camera effect,

but they realize that we can't linger too long on this Jaws joke. This episode already has so much animation in it. Like, that sounds like it would be a very expensive shot for TV animation budget. And so Marge decides they're going to give them a bunch of exercise too. She makes

all these reasons for it, ones that Lisa will cite later. You do get a lot exercise at a part. You go to a theme park. You're walking 25,000 steps probably. Yeah, I've heard about Disney rash. Oh, wow. Yeah, there's a lot, yeah. I mean, it's good that you get the steps in,

but there can be problems. There can be rash problems. There can be just like, this is disgusting. I don't know why I'm saying this, but like you can get like not regular if you go on vacation just because your body's not in its normal routine. In Japan, I think it is why we have front-loaded visiting in our Japan vacations,

front-loading the theme parks first, while our body is closest to its natural rhythm, we don't have to budget in as many bathroom breaks or sleepy times. Smart. Homer says he'll be good. He packs his fishnet Speedo Jr. The fishnet aspect of it. I forgot that part.

So everybody just sees Homer's genitals. We need to bring back that lobster head. I feel like you're not seeing lobster hats anymore from people walking around. I feel like I haven't seen an invisible dog leash since the last time they started selling those Dr. Seuss hats, those kind of ravy hats. Right. you should be wearing a Dr. Seuss, the cat and the hat hat while walking your invisible dog. And so Marge leaves the pets under Abe's care.

Which one you is the mailman? Another perfect line. That almost was my intro, too. I was like, ooh, it was between that and the one I used. Then they even have a Matt Grainning normally hates this. He doesn't complain on the commentary, and he often does when he's there for it. But the animals like side-eyeing each other, it breaks the graining rule of humanistic expressions on the animals. Grandpa is just that embarrassing.

They hop on the freeway to some other state, just as, you know, your parents, again, this always brings back memories of being in a car for family road trips and, you know, seeing your family's frustration. I think now, too, part of my dad's frustration probably was that he never shared the driving. Like, it was like, I think he had a king of the road brain of just like, well, no, my wife doesn't drive me. That would be things backwards. So I feel like if he shared it, he would be in slightly better mood than driving. for like eight to 12 hours a day. Yeah, no, that gets, like, after four, I'm a little bit, like, irritable.

That's about as much as I can do. Pride cometh before the fall, Henry Sr. Now, I would certainly never have that same problem with things, no. I also love they have all these vacation outfits. They changed up their outfits like Homer. Honestly, I feel like I dress, if there were only pictures and logos on it, I feel like Homer's vacation outfit, especially with a hat, is pretty much my Disneyland attire. Yeah, that's a comfortable aesthetic, I think.

Henry does a lot of IP stacking. Yes. I think you guys pointed out, like, if it wasn't for my jeans in one photo from visiting the Spider-Man ride and getting a picture of Spider-Man, that I would have been wearing seven things, different piece of clothing with Spider-Man. I was deeply upset your pants were not branded. I don't have branded pants yet. It's true. Spider-Man jeans?

That would be it. interesting. They must be out there. I mean, do I have like, you know, pajamas, sleep bottoms that have Spider-Man on it? Multiple of them, yes. Okay. That's part. Do you mix the IPs or is it all Spider-Man on the clothing? No, I mix the IP. I'm not at that level on the spectrum yet. And I've been diagnosed on it. I can make that deableness joke. Also, I am wearing right now boxers of the Jaws Rite from Universal that I got to there as well. So, Oh, wow. They still sell those. I wrote that Jaws Rite four times because I was like,

This could be it. Like, this is the last Jaws ride. Yeah, you got it. I actually haven't. I never went to Osaka. If they give a date on the end of the Jaws ride, book your flight. Book your flight. I guess that's true.

I regret not, you know, hearing about when they closed the Back to the Future ride there, I was like, oh, I could have been. Oh, right. Same when they closed the Spider-Man right there, too, and I miss that. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe Pokemon is going in? There's dead space there. I would think Pokemon is going to be the eventual thing, yes.

Anyway, as Homer first tries, The Secret of Hawking does seem to do much. Then we have another joke about, like, God, so many great road trip jokes in this first act. Like, before they even get to awesome theme park jokes, perfect jokes about road trips. Yeah, this is a parody of the, I guess, gift shop slash eatery Stuckies,

which was a roadside attraction that mostly, I think, like, boomers when they were kids, would be taken to on their road trips. There are parodies of these and a lot of media written by people of just this generation. In the comic version of the salmon max hit the road, they just say Stuckies, but they had to make up a name for it in the video game. Yeah, I think they call it Snuckies.

Right. And famous for their Pekan logs, I believe. That is the Stuckees key item. But now I bet Gen Alpha watching this, or Gen Z, they'll think this is a parody of Buckees, the predominant, at least in the south of the United States chain of gas station superstores. I've only seen videos of Buckees and pictures, but it's like if a 7-Eleven was a Walmart, like that big of a place. I've never been, but my friend got a T-shirt with Bucky on the front because just he's such an adorable character. I was happy to see that Bucke's not yet owned by a private equity company. So that's impressive.

Not, no. You would think with its big expansion since 2018, my first thought was like, well, this has to be owned by private equity. you wanted to expand it, right? But no, it is still family-owned. Well, I'm reading about the fall of Stuckies, by the way. And at its peak, the chain had 368 stores across the country, and now they're down to 65. Ooh, ouch. Meanwhile, I totally miss this as a joke until we cover this the first time.

There is seemingly only one Flickies because once they pass it, it's 25,000 miles till the next one. Yes. Which is the circumference of the earth. That's the joke. You would have to go all the way around the earth again to get back to Flickies. When I was on a road trip, my anxiety would often pop up as a little kid of, I would ask like, oh, this exit has all you can eat KFC. Let's stop there.

We don't have that in town, something like that. But the other half of the time, if the gas tank got like to 40 percent, I would immediately stress out and be like, we got to stop for gas. We got to stop for gas. It's getting lower and lower. Like, I had real anxiety about that as a kid. So you would see it? Like, did you be in the front seat or you'd be in the back seat, but I would just be looking over and just eyes glued on the gas tank indicator, yes.

If it got under 20, I would be like, seriously, we have to stop, please. Did that carry over into your adult life or did you realize how long you can write it out on E? Oh, once I had to pay for the gas myself, I lost a lot of that. Yes, I was like, oh, that E doesn't really mean E. That would be the same of like $4 of gas. I can just get that. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I'm glad that went away, yeah. We have a quick joke about Homer smuggling fruits and vegetables as his get rich quick scheme. And Squeaky Voice Teen is apparently working for the Border Patrol here. Or I guess it's state borders, right? Then we see Homer try to listen to the radio. This back when you'd have to count on the radio station to show you, you know, reactionary conservatives as opposed to social media algorithms. Yeah. When I was driving, I still had fun listening to the AM stations, especially late at nights.

just to see what kind of cooks I could find. I mean, you definitely want to listen to the Art Bell types over the religious ones on the AMs, right? Yeah. Those are much more fun. But the last notable religious radio station I listened to probably 15 years ago at this point, probably longer, they were talking about the peak prayer hours

in which you need to know when God is not answering other prayers. That's when you get your prayers in. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. That's how it worked. There's a big switchboard, I guess, in heaven. How against Vanessa Williams, Were they? Oh, not mentioned. Not at all. But I'm sure they didn't like her in her pictures. Click, click, click, you know. You know.

The Simpsons stop at five corners, a reference to the four corners monument, a real place that's the only part of America where four states meet. Those states being Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Never visited that as well. I'd only visit it to see a thing from The Simpsons. It'd be the only reason to go to it. They did a better version of this joke in The Simpsons movie, actually. Oh, wait, which one was that? It's the joke about being in the five states that border the one that Springfield is in and it doesn't make any sense. I think that's in the movie, right? Yes, yeah, that's right. That's a good joke, yes.

Though I do like that, it does sum up what it's like to go to a tourist trap with your family of like, well, have we done the thing yet? No, not enough. We haven't looked at the one thing of this tourist trap long enough yet for it to count. That's really, I mean, if theme park wise, Disney wise, that's really the draw for stuff like that. Like, because most tourist things, it's like five minutes and it's done. We saw Mount Rushmore. Well, how long are we going to look at it? And back then, they couldn't take every photo of it.

Just a couple photos. But if you had a kid, Henry, he'd be like, the Jaws ride again? I hate the Muppets. I don't want to see the 3D movie. You'll see it and you'll like it. It is a thing where I, apparent, I would either have to force all of that stuff on them or have to just deal with like, I guess I'm not going to ride the ride. I want to ride because this kid doesn't

want to do it and I don't want to make him. I just got to live with it. I got to live with it. Previous guests on the show, Mike Lawrence, the comedian, he went to Universal Osaka like a week before. I just missed him when I went to Universal Osaka and he had picks from it with his like three, four year old son

and his wife. And I was like, well, oh man, the Donkey Kong ride must be great. He's like, I didn't ride anything. Don't go to this place with children. You don't get to ride stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's tricky. In the old days, I would go on the Guardians of the Gallic tower many times in one day

and I have not been on it more than once in three years. Then we have a cut about the dangers of driving at night and what a great murkin joke. The invisible time cut on the car crashing. Yeah, it's one of those jokes I wish I could watch again for the first time

because you do think you're watching the fiery death of the Simpsons briefly. Then Homer wants to give up on how long this is taking. He's going to take a shortcut. I think about that, you know, I do trust the silicon chips and such and know that I won't get lost now, but back then Homer couldn't count on that. They had a whole

episode's worth of an adventure off screen of driving through a homecoming event and an army base, but we'll never know what happened there because they vowed to never speak of it again. I feel like almost every scene has a line I have incorporated into life, but if I park in a giant parking lot, I will say it

at least to myself, if not to a person I'm with. Now remember, we're in the itchy lot. I think I think I've used it. Now, has this changed Disneyland attendees? Are there still the character themed lots at Disneyland in Anaheim? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's two big parking garages.

The difference there would be each level has a different theme or character. And then there's a bigger parking lot that's flat, that's Toy Story parking, but there's like a Jesse section, a woody section, a buzz section. So it is the same. Yeah, it's basically the same. I've only been dropped off by adults or taken in an Uber, which I guess is kind of like being dropped off by an adult. It's true.

At Universal Hollywood, at least when we've been dropped off, I always know it's like, wow, we're getting dropped off at the Frankenstein lot. I love, oh, we're right here in Frankenstein. Jurassic parking is one of the structures. That's the greatest. I love Jurassic parking, yes. Though this thing, I guess it originated with like, you know, it's the goofy lot or the Donald lot in original Disneyland,

which none of that exists anymore because that became DCA, right? Yeah, the original lot, yeah. The park you could just park you could just park right across like in front of Disneyland and walk in the old days. Now we have to say California Adventure. We cannot say DCA. That's why I said it for a non-hardcore is listening. Yes, Disney California Adventure.

That took over what used to be the original Disneyland parking lot. And now I guess what? They just have slightly far. Well, they have those parking structures. They also have like off-site parking and a tram takes you there, right? I don't know. We have that too. Yeah, it's basically like the two parks are like looking.

They're right next to each other, essentially. And then there's a little thing in the middle. Then downtown Disney goes all the way toward the Disneyland Hotel. And pretty close to the Disneyland Hotel across the street are there's two big parking structures. So you can take a tram. You can walk it. It's not a bad walk. There's a bridge across the street.

And then the other Toy Story lot is on the other side of Harbor Boulevard. Or no, well, it is on the other side of the street, but it's kind of far down a little bit. But that's, look, it's all going to change. They're building new parking structures. Don't get me started on the future of the Disneyland resort. The most direct Jurassic Park joke comes in them flying impractically on a helicopter to the place, which it is a good Jurassic Park joke, but also it does have plot importance. It is why the family or the last people stuck there. This must be an expensive park because they can only take four people at a time across, like four adults in a helicopter.

Yeah, it seems like a mistake. It makes sense when it's a Jurassic Park. Though, I mean, how's Richard Attenborough going to make money off of that? It's a capacity issue, you would say, if you worked in the theme park business. You need more capacity. This is where the first thing that could possibly go wrong goes wrong. The arrive at the gate, they're at the gate. I now use the term, gate.

I learned so much from podcast, Arise. I use this term and get the gate. We're educated. The family gets there. Their signs up as they're getting in there of just like, you know, these things are currently closed. and it is always heartbreaking to like realize, but I now learn ahead of time. The last time it happened,

go to Disney World and Big Thunder Mountain, close for refurbishment. And I can't ride Big Thunder Mountain. Like those type of things, they hurt. They hurt. I realized upon this viewing that there is a callback to Homer buying tickets for one adult and four children. I mean, the joke is funny by itself later on in the episode,

but that's why they think Homer is Marge's older, fatter, balder son. Oh, that's great. Oh, God. I miss that. They assume she is the only adults. It's Homer being cheap. He's getting half-price ticket now.

Of course, this is in the older era of where your ticket is not just a thing on your phone and they're not photographing you every time you enter or leave a place. There's not as much of the Panopticon over you. Despite the jokes in this episode. You can go day of and buy tickets. That's not true of Disney parks, right? I don't think so, right? At least not in the U.S. parks.

You can't buy Day of tickets anymore. You can. It's just a... there have to be reservations available that day, and you have to do it on your phone. Like, it's, they closed more ticket booths. There might be one place to ask a question even, but most of like the traditional ways you'd like white in line

and get a ticket in the morning. Like that stuff's out the window. So it's hard to go last minute or like the same day, but it's possible. It's just you've got to jump through a lot of hoops if you're not going to use your phone. Well, and we're talking to a master of phone. usage at parks. I've learned many

tips and tricks from you. It's horrible that you can't, for any normal, my husband and I say it every time, we're like, how can a normal person with a family do anything at a Disney park if they don't know every tip and trick for using a phone? Yeah, it's really, you have to like be

on your phone a lot to optimize the cheaper like fast pass situation where you would skip some lines. So, but most of it I think is just intended to make it so frustrating that you just like pony up for the big, like the big pass, like the big, just like $40, like per ride, skip the line pass or whatever.

Like it's designed for like annoying you so much that you just want to do that. We paid for it when we took my mom and stepdad there because we're like, we just need optimized time. We're paying the $40 to get through the car line immediately, like even at the start of the day. It's even like they, I don't know how much it is to get a guide at Disneyland. And I'm not, I've only done it once because I was with somebody who got it complimentary. I didn't pay for it. But at that point, it might have been like $600 an hour or something, obviously pretty crazy.

But the amount of money that you end up spending, I'm like, I don't know, it's probably approaching the same amount. Because like when you have a guide, you can skip the lines. Right, right. And it's very much like it feels like prison. I haven't been to prison, but they're like, okay, I know somebody in Fantasyland. I'm going to make a phone call. They're going to be ready for us and we're going to skip the Peter Pan line by going in the exit. There's a lot of that like triangulation going on.

So, yeah, no, it's all that just like basic stuff is just like head splitting for like somebody who doesn't want to read a ton of theme park blogs or watch vlogs. Like I just hear from my mom whenever I'm like, all right, we're going to go this day to my mom. And she's like, wait, okay, can't we decide later? I go, no. I need to know now. we can maybe make one extra reservation, but you can't because you're not an annual pass. You have this type of ticket.

You only can make run reservations, la, blah, blah. And it's just like, I have an ability, let's call it an ability. I'm bragging again, to absorb a lot of annoying information. But when I'm explaining it to somebody who doesn't, it's like I can feel their, like, frustration with it. I last went to Disneyland and Anaheim like six years ago,

and what's keeping me away is the fact that I don't want to have to learn all of this. I think I got a headache. listening to your Jeannie Plus episode because I'm like, you guys can't explain it? How can anyone explain it? Yeah. We did an episode with Jess McKenna like a year ago or something about the app itself.

And I feel like that probably was a similar headache episode for anyone who doesn't know the ins and outs. Hearing her talk about how she felt bad that her mom used to know what to do there and can't anymore. Well, hey, speaking of Disney and Money, in our next clip, we have a parody of a classic bit of that. One adult and four children.

Would you like to buy some itchy and scratchy money? What's that? Well, it's money that's made just for the park. It works just like regular money, but it's fun. Do it, Dad. Well, okay, if it's fun, let's see. I'll take $1,100 worth. Yes, this is based on a real thing that was very real in 1994.

Disney Dollars. Yes, fun money with the characters on. on it that you could use at Disney stores and the Disney parks and they don't do this anymore. They stop making them but the money is still you can use it. They have to

accept it forever. Yeah. I read that my numbers are 87 to 2016 and they have to honor whatever physical Disney dollars you have on hand. Right and you can look online and eBay and like certain things are not cheap. Certain dollars are

expensive. I actually have a few recent eBay auction prices for the collectible Disney dollars. So say you want a $1989 $1 Mickey, that's not so bad, $18. You can get that for $18. Near Mint. If you wanted $2,03, $10

Donald, that went for $180 recently. And $100 for 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean Queen Anne's Revenge as well. Pirates ones are really expensive. I don't know why. I guess, look, it's scarcity.

That's what I've been told is make something valuable. But yes, it is interesting. It almost feels like a paper version of crypto or something, like the old days where you're like, why is a $1, Disney dollar, now worth $150? It's like, well, it's scarcity, you know? I'm like, I guess I know in a concept, I understand what you're saying. So Homer's unspent itching, scratchy money should actually be worth a lot more now. I'm sure it would be, yeah.

Mouse Planet, that website has a very good history of written. when it was announced it was ending in 2016. And one of their main grid points they said was Disney dollars were meant to diminish guests from using actual money just like the original A to E tickets. So they would not consciously be aware of how much things were costing. I mean, it's probably why Starbucks wants you to load money on your account as opposed to paying per transaction.

A lot of apps want you to do that. Like, here, give us $50, convert it to Starbucks, bucks, and then you will feel like better about spending it. Bob, I think this is the first joke of Homer's wallet can contain any amount of money if it needed for a joke. Regardless of the family's financial state, if a joke calls for it, he can have a little too much money just so he can waste it. The family heads in, they stop to eat first, which it's like, I mean, ride first. Like maybe you stop for a churro, but ride first is what you're doing when you get into the theme park. Coffee perhaps, coffee perhaps.

Yeah, I mean, in my young. I'm younger days. It's always ride first. But I feel like lately it's just been like I got to get a grilled cheese at Jolly Holiday. Like we're walking down Main Street to Fantasyland. I didn't eat breakfast. Like maybe I even go alone. I'm like, all right, I'll meet you with the carousel.

But dad needs to eat a sandwich and a tomato bisque. Yeah, I feel like in order to ride everything, you need to be outside of the gates at 7 a.m. opening an app. So there's no time for breakfast. You have to eat something when you get in, right? Yeah. I'm generally mobile ordering as I'm watching. walking down Main Street as well.

So it's ready for me when I get to the to-go window with the Jolly Holidayer. I think, Bob, when you and me and Nina went to Universal last, I think the longest we waited was for the Mario Land equivalent of Tavern on the Green, the mushroom cafe. Pure chaos. We waited a very long time. And that was after I had to do all of the app bullshit to even get on the reservation list for us at a specific time. That toadstool.

You're talking about the Toadstool Cafe. Yes, Toadstool Cafe, thank you. Sorry, I was like being a little like smarty pants. They're like, oh, did you mean Toad School? Toadstool campaign? I appreciate it. That's a weird. It takes you to like a third party website where you have to make like, it's like open table.

You have to make a reservation at the Toadstool cafe. And you're like, what? What? And then I guess it's because like Universal hasn't ever done that for a restaurant before in park. So they like just had a third party site and they like no one built it into their app. And the weights to eat. was, or to order was long enough. And then the weight to sit down was much longer.

And I feel like they made about three minutes worth of video of Toad to watch in the background. That thing looped over and over. And then the thing attacks, the ship attacks, and the lights go down and you go, ooh, okay. We waited forever. The website was a hassle to navigate. But here comes the show that's going to make it all worthwhile. And it gets dark. The ships come in.

The Toads get scared. And then the ship goes away and the lights turn back on it. We were like, what the hell? False alarm. Didn't there it be like a battle or something? No, nothing. As long as that wait was, we didn't almost get crushed by a falling butcher's knife. That's true.

Good point. They head in there. We then get a statement about cartoon violence, which is the ongoing theme of this episode. Oh, such a violent. Yeah, but it's just pretend violence, which is actually beneficial for children. Ow! There's no need to murmur, ma'am. Here at Itchy and Scratchy Land, we're just as concerned about violence as you are.

That's why we're always careful to show the consequences of deadly mayhem so that we may educate, as well as horrify. When do you show the consequences? On TV, that mouse pulled out that cat's lungs and played them like a bagpipe. But in the next scene, the cat was breathing comfortably. Just like in real life. Hey, look over there! Yes, Hank is doing William Daniels impression, and at the time, we knew him best as Mr. Feeney.

I think Boy Meets Whirl was in its second season at 1994. Still with us as well? Yeah. I played, he was in a TV movie called Rehearsal for Murder, and I was in a high school production of Rehearsal for Murder playing the same character he was. Whoa. How about that?

Shared roles. It's like Jared Leto and Jack Nicholson, some thing. He's one of those Dick Van Dyke figures. though where every new story is still alive and in this case his original wife still alive too. I think they've been married for like 75 years or something. Bonnie? Yeah, by Bonnie. Yeah. Amazing. I always

love when they say a stage direction aloud like there's no need to murmur man. Because they would have said Marge's line would be parenthetical murmur and that's the sound she made. Bob, I love when you quote he was breathing comfortably. Yes, Marge's being a bit

of a cinemason scold here. I also love it. The look on Homer's face When he's looking at Marge complain Is such a funny drawing of Homer And I wish We haven't really talked too many Simpsons toys yet

But I wish there were more Simpson toys With some of what you're talking about Those like single frame Homer faces that are so funny Or like when his eyes are kind of looking Like one's going the one way Like there's just these fun cartoon faces That are like so great

I wish they had toys of those specific expressions. They're getting close to it by making figures or merch out of specific moments in the show, like the backing through the hedges. But I do want to see figures of the things that are memed. They do that with SpongeBob SquarePants. They take all of the images that are meme the most and turn those into statuettes or action figures or what have you. That's, yes, that's more of that. Just even like Homer's face, like, blank stare or whatever it looks like with the Hello Mr. Thompson scene.

You only move twice. Like, just stuff like that. I'm like, those, what you're talking about, these frames are just so funny. So the family sits down to order and they learn about all the crazy things that are on there. And Marge tries to join in the fun, and of course she has to be punished.

Now, when we cover the Krusty Burger on Doe Boys, Nina, who did the art as a promoted, and she went above and beyond with drawing it. She drew all the things that are just said aloud, eyeball stew, like that. was she drew us eating those things. It made me wish the actual menu items were as imaginative as what we see in this episode because we see a few references, but then you get to things like,

oh, this is Marge's Caesar salad. Right. He's apple juice. Everything needs a fun title because I feel like they are battling with the idea of people not understanding what the actual item is. But I feel like you can read the description or you can look at a photo or something. I don't know. Yeah. Another eternal struggle between theme parks.

and like the general public is like creativity when you're presenting food and like what kinds of food you're allowed to serve. And then yes, ultimately like they start ambitious and then it comes like, okay, it's a marges Caesar salad. And it's like that's easier. We sell more that way and like no dad gets upset. No dad is confused by that. Yeah, at the least effort they will at least attach a character's name to the food item.

Yeah, like Fat Tony's. meatballs, I think it was or something at the Louigi's. I just remember also feeling like they have, like, I think of the Krusty Burger, they do sell a thing called the Rib Witch, but it's not like a McRib. It's just as a pulled pork sandwich, right? Yeah, I think that's right. Yes, stuff like that, or at the end of the day, they cannot take these big swings. In places stuff has lasted if it's like really memorable. Like, I guess the Ronto wraps in Galaxy's Edge are an example of, I mean, it's obviously a hot dog or Brought

worst type thing. But it is a little more exotic for dad. You know, it's got some different stuff on it. It's on a pita. It's a different type of bread. Well, and thanks to a one-off line by Robert Downey Jr. in a 2012 movie, they serve swam all over the place. Yes. And that's because, yes, you're right. That is another like just lucky break. And they have kept that up. And I've had that. And that is pretty good. There are examples of them getting to do something a little bit outside of just chicken sandwich or a hamburger. And me and Bob could go for at least 10 minutes on the flaming Mo they serve there. Pathetic and the disappointment. That's a, yeah, that's, it's such a bummer. Especially at Universal, there's so much money on the table for fun drinks and toys and stuff that they haven't done or just don't have the infrastructure or, I don't know, the will. Because like, there's got to be a better flaming Mo.

Something that's like people go and want to drink it, regardless of just the reference. So I don't know, they've never fixed it. They've never tried to fix it. Yeah, my thoughts are, I've said these before, but if they redo Simpsonsland or if Disney builds their own, they need to make a Star Wars canteena style experience where you have to go to Mo's. It's an adult's only thing. You have limited time there. You have to order a certain amount of drinks.

But all the stuff is there. The bartender is kind of cosplaying as Mo. More fun can be had than in a space where children are like running in and out. Broad daylight is blasting through the open door. I mean, even though, even having kids in, like in the canteena bar and Galaxy's Edge, kids are in there and it's still a better experience. Obviously, it's not based on something specific, but... I remember when we had that Flaming Moe, I also was annoyed of, like, behind us,

when we were, like, taking photos of ourselves drinking it, behind us is a perfect recreation of the Mount Lushmore joke. So I'm like, but you guys, somebody cared enough to have this. They did Mount Lushmore like it looks in the cartoon. Why can't this fucking Flaming Moe be purple? Actually, I didn't know that the canteen I allowed kids in because the one time I went, it was literally the last slot of the night. Hmm.

I think it, now that I'm saying that, am I wrong? Can kids not be in there? I think they can, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't recall kids, but I'm not saying they can be. Those kids better be drinking. I'm going to double check. Can kids come into ogas? Ohas Cantina, of course, yes, the official name.

Totally fine, yes, it is fine. Okay. So, yeah, you can still, yeah, it doesn't have to be some sort of den of debauchery. At least include the dank if you're going to build those. Of course. It should be underground so no light can penetrate its windows. Yeah. Yeah.

It should be like that fake outer space restaurant in Disney World that's in Tomorrowland. There should just be, I don't know why they don't do more. places that just have like it's the can because that canteen is very small in star warsland i don't know why there's not seven rooms like that for more people and then like mo's like you can make a couple route i know moz is only one room but like i don't know make the stone cutters in the back or so like fudge it a little bit put some other drinking simpson's locations around so margin bears is herself by accidentally ordering the veal and this is then they drop off maggie for most of the episode into the ball pit.

Now, by not having Maggie with them, they avoid one of the main things that I've noticed is stroller management. That's really what babies or at Disney World and the like are for. Yeah. Oh, stroll, yeah. It's a nightmare. Well, yeah. Now, I mean, do you have any tips and tricks for stroller management now having to deal with it?

I wish I had some sort of. strategy for it, but it is such a panic. Every time I'm putting a stroll or somebody, it almost feels like a panic. Like, all right, you take her, you take, mom, you go with her, throw this over here. I'll go take it. And I'm like rushing. I'll meet you in line. And hopefully like it's not pirates.

It's not moving too fast. And then I'm going to have to cut the line. Like it's always a panic situation. And it's just chaos. And like we barely remember where we put it when we come out. I wish I had some cool like I know. Talk to me. later, I'll tell you the tips, but unfortunately I don't have anything.

They're looking at the map. Looking at maps, always fun at a theme park. Though now it is, it's the app. Though I think we usually, even when we go, it's like, we'll never look at this. I want to come home with a map. We do try to pick up a physical map. I hate to go back here, but we did amiss the baby guts. Oh, yes.

It's okay. I mean, we can't cover every joke, but it is a favorite of mine. Not knowing about the ethical problems with VIL as a kid, this joke always confused me. I love how Marge is even uncomfortable. way. It's like, oh, yeah. Like, we just sit with it. Yeah, she just, there's a moment of embarrassment.

We sit with Marge. It's just, it's so cute. I love how Marge handles it. She's a stick in the mud, but she's doing her best. And she's trying to roll with the punches here. And she chooses what she thinks is the cutest item on the menu, but it has the most, like, horrific implications. It's always a great joke when Marge tries to play along and have fun and the world just makes

it like, no, Marge, you don't get to have fun. But her reading the mat, I just love all of these line readings of her disapproving reading these insane land titles. Yes, actually, I got a clip of that. Torture land? Explosion land. Searing gas pain land. Unnecessary surgery land.

Oh, look. It's the 12 noon robot parade. Hurry up, but we'll have to wait for the 1205 parade. Yeah, it's like, that's one of those Simpsons things where they're doing, like how it's a list of jokes. and searing gas pain land is funny enough to be the final joke. It's so funny. It makes me laugh just now as if I heard it the first time. But then unnecessary surgery land.

Just even better. It feels like she's most disapproving of searing gas pain. Yes, she really puts a lot on searing gas pain land, but then there's like an extra bonus joke that's just as funny. Just looking at the map, and it's designed like the classic Disneyland wheel, though that's most theme parks. But the itchy and scratchy land also looks like the wheel design. You know, I made chilly last night and my wife and I joked about being trapped in searing gas pain lands.

In that clip, I let it play just a little bit so people could really appreciate Al Clawson's ability to copy or satirize or be inspired by the electric light parade music. I liked seeing the electric light parade, but that is because in the 90s, it was usually promoted as, it's about to go away. you gotta see it. Talk about holding it hostage in ads. Like that's usually how it was promoted. Well, the last time they did it, it was glowing away forever. Oh. And I think my co-cove Scott and I, wives, we did like a dinner package to ensure we got a good spot to see it. See, this is, I like watching a parade as much as the next guy at the theme parks. It is the picking a seat and having to sit still for an hour and a half or two hours. like it drives me, I really do hate it. It's an attention span thing perhaps, but my husband was one time he's like,

okay, let's get a good spot here. I was like, but there's no lied. Did pirates, let's just write pirates and we'll come back. We come back. Every spot is taking and my husband gives me a look of like, and I was like, I can't, I had to admit it. I had to hand it to him. I was wrong.

I was wrong. The dinner packages are, sometimes you can get one that's not so expensive. I think that was blue by you, so it was kind of expensive. But like, if you don't want to wait, That is a good tip, I feel like. Have money. Also, be very rich.

That's also a good tip. You can fire money at all your problems at Disneyland. Yeah. Money does solve everything at Disneyland. This joke about too many parades or that there's a parade every five minutes. At least in the current Disneyland schedule, you can see the Celebrate Happy 75th Anniversary Cavalcade, 70th Anniversary Cavalcade at 1.30 and 2.45. Those are the only two times for it.

Yeah, it's not, there's not as much live entertainment these days. Still some, but there's not as much. I feel like is in the 90s. And then we get the crux of the episode, the robots appear, our Westworld style robots appear, as part of the parade. Now, Disney will have you believe that they just actually did this with an Olaf figure who could just autonomously walk around and meet guests.

Yeah, and they have little droids in Galaxy. his edge kind of do that here and there. Isn't there a Spider-Man who flips around? A Spider-Man robot? Yes, he's just not. He really only does, like, so they have a human performer jump around the roof. Then he gets in position to do a big jump, and then a robot that's like on a wire swings and flips off the wire, which is supposed to be his web, and does like a flip and lands,

which is awesome. I really, that's my favorite. One of my favorite parts about that Marvel Land, which is underwhelming in a lot of other ways. But that's awesome. But he can't walk around and do stuff. Then a human comes back after it and goes, whoa, that was crazy. All right, let's take pictures with all the people. When I saw that Spider-Man robot get flung through the air, I did say this is so much like my dreams.

It's scary. We were just talking about the demise of Super 7, the toy company, before the recording. And yes, they did make the robot itchy and the robot scratchy. and I believe the robot Scratchy comes with the little baby axe. And Mike is holding it right now in front of the camera. There's, yeah, the baby. I don't know. The baby axe is still on the shelf up there.

But yes, there's a baby axe with legs. It's so, because it comes with a regular size axe too, right? Baby axe and regular size. Yes. And mallets. And Itchy comes with the drum with a mallet to beat the drum for the parade. Then, yeah, Scratchy's face comes off. And itchy's head comes off.

Oh, just like in the episode. That Super 7. They really did make great toys. It took him a very long time. We're seeing the itchy head circuitry right now. The itchy head and then, yeah, Scratchy's other head. You take the face off. Look at that.

It was really, and Super 7 is still around. They're making less stuff in their stores closed. So they're around. They did lose the Disney license overall. So they're not making any Disney stuff at the moment, at least. Anything's possible. Anything can come back. But it is such a bummer because people,

who were critical were like, why didn't they just make the base family first? And I understand that. They decided to do something, though, that would appeal to sickos like me, which is make D-Space Homer first, make poochy first, make the itchy and scratchy robots first. But it might not have been the best business move overall. Now, Mike, you don't have it in front of you, but the baby acts. Can you confirm that it is dirty but not dangerous? Yes, that's my memory of it, at least. But yes. The baby. Babyax is very cute. And the accessories for these things are great.

And Super 7 made, I don't know. I like all the other Simpsons toys have been made, but it really felt like, man, they could make a thousand of these and never run out of stuff I would buy. So many specifics. Seems like they had production issues, too. It always felt like it took like two years to get a pre-order of their stuff. Now, did a pandemic happen during some of that?

Maybe. But that's no excuse for a delay in my Simpsons toys. I agree, yes. I was very upset. I was like, I want people to work during this pandemic and get me my toys on time, please. But yes, they all eventually came, but anyway, what could have been, really?

Yeah. Well, in all this animatronic talk, it also, like, defunct land just released a perfect, like, for our second part of the history of animatronics and talks about, like, how Disney Imagineers are trying to work towards the joke in this episode of having the robots that only, shoot each other and just operate automatically.

Yeah, I mean, some of it is getting pretty scary. But yeah, we haven't yet. Disney hasn't tried to fool people like Elon Musk has, like with those Tesla events where they have robots and like the robots bartending. And they're like, oh, yeah, you know, these are

autonomous robots. And you're like, actually, I think it's a guy with a headset somewhere. I don't think it's quite there yet. But that's what they're shooting for, I guess. is like robots and probably well that Olaf that's walking around they're saying that is like

nobody's controlling it it just it's a life-sized Olaf meaning it's like up to your knee or whatever is how big it is yeah yeah no it's it's gonna get everything's gonna get weird everything's gonna get so much weirder and maybe

some will be good weird and some will be bad weird but yes we're headed for we're headed for I think robots marching down on Main Street. I even saw there was a patent and maybe I'm misremembering but I think it was a Disney patent

for drones that could maybe go down Main Street and work things like a giant marionette. Oh. Which sounds awesome. That sounds awesome. You could have like a nine foot tall

Jack with Skellington or something with drones on the strings which would be controlling the arms and the legs. But I don't think you can do, at least in Anaheim, You can't fly drones that close to human beings. I don't know if that's what's the way.

Well, the defuncland, though, talked about, they show you like, oh, R2D2 is going to be around every day, and you never see him. Like, they promise big thing. He was around the early days, because I remember we did interact with him in the early days. But there's always like a guy with a, like, a iPad following behind. That's like making him move and stuff.

It wasn't like he had a mind of its own. But how do these robots work? What are that cute little baby ass? It's cute, but I'm sure it's very sharp and probably dirty. Dirty, maybe. Dangerous hardly. These are the latest state-of-the-art animatronic robots. They have senses that ensure they only attack each other, never the guests. That stuff in their horror?

That's why your robot never worked. This is where more of the Westworld stuff comes in, because we get the POV of the robots, much like the Yule Brenner robot in Westworld. We get the rules of the robots. Although in Westworld, a big point is made to let you know that the weapons the humans had do not work on other humans. You can try to fire a gun at a human attendee, but it won't work. So that's one way of knowing that someone is not a robot,

is by trying to fire your gun at them. But an important thing about Westworld, you learn very early is that most people are coming to Westworld to have sex with the robots. That's something I was not expecting when I first watched the movie. Like, oh, that's really the reason all this is here, right? Yeah, the U.S. Brenner robot you're going to have a fist fight with hardly as important as the can-can dancers

you're going to hang out with later. And another odd thing in Westworld, the Western world is called Western World. It's not called West World. Yeah, man. Well, now, Bob, you're reminding me the Simpsons did a Westworld one again in that treehouse of Simpson's World where it was the very funny, pointed joke about hardcore fans who constantly repeat classic lines to each other. Yes.

The point of that segment is... You see how you scum. Yes. And I agree. So this is where the first deleted scene was. Now, that's why your robot never worked. Perfect line would never cut it. The original bit, though, was Marge is reacting to the robot and then turns to Homer as he is eating a child's popsicle.

Well, they do have nice manners, don't they, Homer? That's my popsicle. I'm aware of that. Homer, you're embarrassing me, just like you did in that restaurant. That's not fair, Mom. You embarrassed yourself in the restaurant. The fact is, I was embarrassed. Let us never speak of it again.

And yeah, I guess that would have been the second of three Let Us Never Speak of it again if it had stayed in the episode. It's sad that cutting it lost the runner, but that's why your robot never worked. Funny a joke. Yeah. They worked hard on so many sign gags in this, but not for the log ride.

That one, not the funniest thing. Just log ride, yeah. And the outside looks like the design of the Matterhorn. And as a kid, I thought, oh, this is a Splash Mountain thing. But the banjo music being played as they start writing, it's Pirates. It's Pirates of the Caribbean is a reference here. Yeah, Log Flume Rides as a kid terrified me. Splash Mountain scared me so much, but I did ride it.

Now, I just enjoy them. I was the only person who wanted to ride Jurassic Park in Osaka out of my group of guys. I was like, come on, guys. It's more Jurassic Park. It's still Jurassic Park. It's not Jurassic World. I want to know how Mike feels because I thought I was tall until I met Mike

and that really opened my eyes and I feel like I am too tall for those log rides my knees just slam into everything it sucks I can't deal with it well universal especially it's like you're getting crammed into everything and especially in Epic Universe there's a couple where you're just jammed

your knees are just jamming Donkey Kong is like that for me and werewolf roller coaster in the monster's area is like that So it is more of a universal problem. Jurassic Park or Jurassic World is okay. I don't notice it's so bad, but it's probably,

maybe it just literally compared to everything else it feels great. So I'm not noticing it as badly. But being tall, in Japan, there's a coaster right next to the Indiana Jones ride in Disney Sea. And one time when we were there, employees ran up to me and were like, how tall are you? Yeah. And I was like, uh, and I like went back and we met, I'm like 6.3 and like they measured me to make sure I wasn't lying. And then they're like, okay, that's as tall as you can be to go on this ride. So you can go on it.

And I was like, I don't need to go on it. If I'm too tall, I don't have to. No, no, it's fine or whatever. So then I'm like ducking down because I guess, yeah, you couldn't be over. Maybe it was 6.5. I don't know. But like, you couldn't be over 6.5 to go on it. So like, I'm like, I didn't even consider this too tall to.

go on a ride. So that's the only time that's happened there, but there's always a few problems being tall. Yeah, I think like all of those old Disneyland rides were designed by people who lived through the Depression, so they just assumed that no man could grow taller than five foot nine. That was their working theory. Eating that food kept everyone under six foot. In Universal Japan, they made me sit in a few of the seats, in the tester seats, and I passed the test, but it still was like, yes, I get it. You think I'm too big for it. I'm not, and I'll prove it, but It's a little embarrassing, even if they have like a wall up to hide your shame of being in the fat guy seat. But, yeah.

Though when I did a zip line in Japan, they literally made me stand on a scale. Jesus Christ. They were just like, yes, to prove I was under the way. And I was, but they were. And the lady even gave me like, ooh, like she was getting impressed or a disbelieving face to me when I pass a test. But if I wasn't on vacation brain, if that happened in America, I would have been much more insulted, I think. to have a literal scale put in front of me to prove it. Yeah, when you're overseas, you're like,

you let a lot of stuff slide, I feel like. And so the family nearly dies on the log ride, and the kids want to get on it right again, which I did that once on Splash Mountain. It was early morning Splash Mountain, and when the ride ended, there was no one else in line because nobody else wanted to get wet that early in the day.

And I did ride it. They're like, you know what, want to go around again? Yeah. There's nothing more fun to me than doing that. for rides you like. Can we go on again? Yes. I think I've only had that. I think that's the only time I can think of that happening. I rode Guardians five times in a row.

Wow. In like 2017 or something. And we got five out of the six songs. And the only reason we didn't do six is because we got one repeat. So I guess maybe we got four of the six songs. I was thrilled. This is where Marge decides that part of spending time together as a family is spending time apart as individuals. Like she's done with this one ride in.

Marge is done. And she cuts Barton and Lisa loose. I love when Homer's like, Parents Island? Yeah. Yeah. Great reaction. And they go there.

It's a reference to Pleasure Island for Pinocchio and also a reference to Walt Disney World's Pleasure Island. And this is open from May of 89 to September of 2008. And I was like, did Podcast the Rye do an episode about this? I don't remember. Yes, episode 30 with Paul Shear a very long time ago. And in my opinion, not enough Pleasure Island content. In my opinion, you can revisit topics. Absolutely.

Hey, tell it to my co-hosts, right? Because I'm all in favor of it. I would have been on the Pleasure Island episode 10 by now. This joke when I was a kid of like, oh, Homer and March, they want to go back to like the 70s. Now, anytime like Disney or other places I have like, this is the 80s or 90s thing. I'm like, yay! Hooray! I love it.

Yeah, real quick, the Pleasure Island, Michael Eisner wanted to, like, there was a place called Church Street Station in Orlando. which was like the party street area where they had some like TGI Mc Scratchy's like type restaurants where people used to party. And basically they were like, all right, what if we just take that vibe and move it to Disney? And then we get all the money. So that's sort of. And that kind of that place still exists like Church Street Station, but it's not what it was. And I do feel like it kind of effectively put it out of business as slow.

dying a slow death. Meanwhile, Universal Hollywood in Springfield, Disco Sto's Disco exists, but it's just a facade. You can't go in. Yes, right, right. Yeah, there's a lot of facades that you're like, oh, please. Then comes a mean joke about someone's career that is instantly dated. It is the 70s, right down to the smallest detail. Hey, the bartender even looks like John Travolta.

Yeah, looks like. And yes, this. This joke had 12 days to live because Pulp Fiction had its wide release on October 14th. So that's it for this joke. And his last movie was, Look Who's Talking Now. He was on the decline. Quentin Tarantino rescued him. Oh, yeah.

But I feel like every 8 to 12 years, there is a period where this joke works. And I think we might be in one of those now because I just recently over the holiday season, I was seeing a lot of John Travolta in these Capital One ads where he is Santa. But he's like, ho, ho, ho, ho, grease lightning. And then that's all the ad is. It's just him saying a reference to something he did 50 years ago while looking like he is being held at gunpoint. Yes.

There's a lot of interesting Travolta stuff. We've threatened to do like a grab bag episode of Travolta oddities on podcast to write on our theme park podcast. No, I mean, that commercial, and it's like the second year he's been Santa too, I feel like. He did like a Saturday night fever one first and now it's, it was Greece. What drove me crazy about having to see it At least three different times

Overseeing movies this holiday season Was they cut the dirty line from Greece lightning Which I'm just like well why even doing this? You can't even make at least parody the line Make up a fake line for it if you're not going to have the dirty line about the chicks So nobody's going to cream over the APR I just think you know The best recent Travolta work is his appearance in Pitbull's

Three to Tango music video Oh I haven't seen this You got to check it out. I mean, I guess Scientology just takes a lot of money from him, right? Like, it's not even that he needs this money. Like, he's not divorced. His wife is just no longer with us. So it's like, well, where's the money?

What other than Scientology? What's taking the money? I don't even have a theory. I mean, he has a house with like a runway for a commercial plane for like a community. So like there's some cost there, but still. I honestly don't even have a theory. I just, he pops up in interesting ways. And I'm just, always.

fascinated. And then comes one of the other greatest jokes in the show's history. Look at all this great stuff, Lise. Cool. Personalized plates. Barclay, Barry, Bert. Bort. Oh, come on. Bort? Mommy, Moby! Bobby! Buy me a license plate! No, come along, Bort. Are you talking to me? No. My son is also named Bort.

Who are all these characters? Well, you're probably too young to remember the short-lived itching scratching friends hour. They had to come up with some friends. There's disgruntled goat, Uncle Aunt, Clu Clux Clam. Oh, yeah.

They weren't very funny. I don't know. Descrownal Goat had his moments. Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Ha! Yes, we have to zero in on the board joke. And I did buy the board license plate at Universal Studios when I went for the first time. Oh, yes. This is, so right here, it's actually broken off my keychain.

I need to get a new one, but I have the board keychain right here. I have the license plate pin. They don't actually sell license plates. It's a license plate in the form of a pin. Oh, and also I have the shot glass that has board. Nice. I didn't know there were other branded borts. I don't know.

The last time I had gotten it. And not only that, after the board stuff, which is great that they sell it there, and they can run out of them. When I went to Universal Orlando last, I didn't want to get any personal. slice things. My husband was like, no, you need to get your equivalent of board. He bought for me Marvel Spider-Man at Universal, personalized with Henry. Oh, I thought it was going to be like Hornry. Wow. It does. So it is officially Universal Studios Spider-Man, not just that is a mug, right? Correct. Yes, it's a child's mug, honestly. It's a plastic cheats mug. But, yes. Yeah, the board joke, I feel like it's like a Beatles song or The Grapes of Wrath. You can't really say much

more about it, but it is one of the best jokes ever put on television. There are so many layers no one else would have put this joke on TV except for The Simpsons. I have not seen anything this brilliant ever in my life afterwards. Yes. Yep. It's just my son is also named Bort just

a great response. Well, and then right after that is also, this is something that's just fun about being a nerd at Disneyland is dispensing trivia to loved ones who go like, wait, I've never heard of this character, or why is this right this

and then you take a deep breath and you explain all of the uncle's. Why is this popcorn bucket $200? What's a figment? This is every day of my life. I explained all the Duffy Disney Bear characters yesterday to somebody and I just get such juice from it.

I can feel it. I can feel my adrenaline surge when I get to explain a list of characters. I don't know why. And just seeing a Disneyland like they made a toy out of an obscure character. They stopped like, whoa, they finally made a new thing for the country bears or whatever,

like that kind of feeling that you have seen Clue Clux Clam. Like it's the equivalent of that. Who is Disney's Clu Clux Clam? Is that one of the Splash Mountain guys? The way, yeah, Song of the Southwaters. Breer Fox, it's Breer Fox. Yeah, technically, yeah. I would say Breer Fox is the most hateful of them.

He's the one who has the most out to get Bear Rabbit. Yeah, that's probably right. I mean, he builds the Tar Baby, so it's, honestly him who does the most problematic thing. That's true. Even it touches us, too, of like, you know, whenever a piece of bonkers merch rarely appears in Disneyland, Bob is the first to hear about it.

I've gotten the one pin, the end. There has been no more bonkers merch. As far as I know. And in the deleted scenes, Bart says a different thing to Scratchy, or itchy here. I don't know. Does Crono Goat at his moments? Well, well, well. Mr. Mouse, you've got your job?

and I've got mine. Ha! Not bad. And this general mistreatment of character mascots, I feel like this is kind of done. I feel like everybody's nice now, right? People know how to treat them. Yeah, I mean, I think little kids once in a while,

but it does feel like it's a different era. It does feel like, you know, the kids were raised with respect for these characters now. We're not tackling them. I was just watching a whole movie where my sister's birthday like 35 years ago at Chuckie cheese and the kids were being just ruthless to Chuckie hanging on him

but then also he was in the ball pit which is weird that is weird but then they were dangerous for Chuckie right seemed like just dangerous yeah I don't know it seems like you could like drown in ball like the balls could come in head and like you could die I don't know it's a lot of problems I had with it

but yeah they were being like we're attacking him now anything that happens to a mascot just becomes a video on line usually. Yeah. Like I feel like I am constantly served ones of like service dog meets Pluto ones. I get that one a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or also, Chip and Dale are real pranksters. I get a lot of videos of that too. We go to TGI Mc Scratchy's Good Time Food Drinkery, which is a little close to Tipsy McStaggart's Good Time Drinking and Eating Emporia. There's a place I'm obsessed with that used to be at CityWalk. You probably heard me talk about it before. C.L. Wamp. It's Wampoppers, like wagon wheelery.

It's not wagon wheelery, but that's the vibe of it. And it was on the hill. It's City Walk right outside Universal. And I'm just like, it was about like, they made up a character like named C.L. Wampopper that was like a crooked wagon guy from the old days. And I'm just like, where did this come from and why do I like it? And is it because of the Simpsons making fun of this type of thing? Because that's probably a lot.

of what I like is like the Simpsons made fun of it when I was a certain age. Speaking of food eateries in theme parks, I was impressed eating at the Margaritaville how much Bob knew. Bob do a lot about the... Yes, my parents are parrot heads. Maybe they were. I don't know if they're in recovery right now from that lifestyle, but they were a big Jimmy Buffet fans when I was growing up, which is why I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert for my first concert and did not know anything. Wow.

Do you have any affection for it? Not really. I just can recognize. when a song is a Jimmy Buffett song. Okay. And it seems like many people our age can't do that. No, they're not so well known necessarily. Bob was explaining to us the shark dance as it was playing on the TV

when we were eating our food. You mean the left, and to the right? Yeah. Vince to the left? Yeah, yeah. I've done it. I've seen him three times,

including at the opening of the City Walk Margaritaville. Wow. That was an exclusive. I had to beg to get in there. You know, it's funny, we're recording this right after New Year's, and so they're celebrating New Year's where it's always New Year's Eve. The suicidal waiter, you know, this is basically, I'm going to say hell for him, because this is the same man who shot Scoey dead in McBain in Saturdays of Thunder. It is a very murkony touch. The joke here being that this much celebration would make you suicidal.

Yes. And just to say, like, please kill me. And then later, there's another jumper at TGI. I make scratchy. Like multiple suicides happen a day there at teaching him to scratchies. We cut back to the kids. Martin Leeser having fun being blasted around by mines in a Laramie cigarette-sponsored minefield.

Just last year, you can't smoke anymore at any California or Florida Disney theme park. They got rid of even the smoking areas. Then we see Maggie and the babies are buried under more balls. Kids love balls. And then, boy, oh boy, do we get another perfect scene here. as Bart and Lisa are watching a little documentary. Roger Myers-Signor, the gentle genius behind Itchy and Scratchy, loved and cared about almost all the peoples of the world.

And he, in return, was beloved by the world, except in 1938 when he was criticized for his controversial cartoon, Nazi Superman are our superiors. Among his proudest achievements was the full-length musical Scratch Tasia. Great sound alike for When You Wish Upon a Star Not really a sound alike, but evoking the same mood From Alth Claussen. They reserve a solid minute of dialogue-free entertainment

For this Fantasia parody. It's crazy. It's gorgeous. It's animated differently than a regular itchy and scratchy Like it's supposed to evoke like filmic animation. I mean, Nazi Superman are our superiors. A perfect joke. A wonderful way to like everybody makes jokes about like

I think Walt Disney hated Jewish people. but this way to frame it as almost all the people of the world. And they loved him back, except for 1930. Like also to make a pro-Nazi film in 1938 when it's like he's betting on America siding with Germany apparently and he's made a film about it. There's so much about it. This joke still on Disney Plus for now. And this is where they had to make up Roger Myers-Signor.

Like in previous episodes, Roger Myers is just the guy. He wasn't Roger Myers-Jr. This is where they make up a Walt D.S. a dead Walt Disney figure to have created them. And they're watching this in the, basically the main streets cinema in Disneyland, right? Because you don't sit down, you're behind, you're just watching things standing up

and there's this guardrail in front of you, right? Yes. And they couldn't have predicted that someday there would be an animatronic Walt Disney to take this worshipfulness of Walt Disney to even farther. But it is funny because like this is just the tone. This was the tone back then about Walt.

This is the tone now, this will be the tone forever. Oh, the godlike reverence is crazy. Like, they actually are pretty all right. There's the behind the ride. There's recent series of Behind the Rides, Disney Park stuff on Disney Plus, and I did like them.

But even in ones that were made after Walt Disney was dead, it was like they had a rule of like, no, there have to be five minutes about how this is about, you know what, Star Tours was made because Walt Disney would have loved Star Tours. And it's actually really, and Walt was a dreamer, wasn't he, folks? They have to have that every time.

They're doing it with those houses they're building out in the desert. They're building a little town called like Story Living by Disney. And they have to be like, Walt Disney loved a place called Smoke Tree Ranch in Palm Springs. And you're like, he doesn't know about these houses. You don't have to include him. You're a company. Some person came into the room and was like, you know, if we start building more homes, we could make more money. Fine.

Fine. But don't, why does he have to be? Why does Walt Disney have to be? Walt Disney loved four walls. Walt Disney loved Jared Lotto. Walt Disney's biographers out there have said, at best, they said like, well, he was no more anti-Semitic than the average guy of his age back then, which is anti-Semitic and hated Jewish people. But no more than the average one. He didn't like the most that I saw that could stick to him was like he teamed up with everything he did with the anti-communist.

and Huac and all that. Yeah, yeah. Very, that also, most of the people they were trying to blacklist were also Jewish. And so, yeah, now. They hired a Nazi or two. Sure, sure. Who didn't after World War II? It was the cool thing to do in the old days, right.

Okay, sure. Did Nazis help build Disneyland a couple? A few. Learn more about that because we did a whole podcast on the Donald Duck cartoon, D'Ur's face back in our archives, which is the opposite of Nazi Superman or our superior. The World War II propaganda stuff kept Disney afloat. Oh yeah, Disney liked government handouts then.

The boy of that cartoon, Donald Duck, not strong enough to be a Nazi. We can't let the Nazis win. They'll make us work too hard. Okay, but enough about Nazis. Actually, no, I guess there's more Nazi references later on the episode. The decrepitness, the instant aging of attacking the cells also great. I love that animation. It's so great.

You know what? This being the start of a production. season six, they learned from Bart Getsonel in season five. This Cletus guy's got legs. And so this is the first return of Cleetus in the show. I think this is the time we see Ma, the person he would often call out to in his initial

appearances. He doesn't do that anymore. But a lot of his early appearances were him saying, hey, ma, and then a funny joke. Later, they'll decide that Brandein is also his mother. So kind of a combo the joke there. The crazy creator. So great. We also see that the robots go crazy when the flash hits him, setting up later.

We also, I love the delivery of Dan Kesslenos, ouchy, like his Italian ouchi as Pinitio stabs him in the eye. This is implying that there were a lot of movies before the Itchy and Scratchy movie, and in that episode, it was said to be the first movie for that franchise. So they're rewriting history, and that's fine, because I love the Disney equals Itchy and Scratchy thing

they've got going on here. Yes. We see that Bart brought his little master traveling kit with him, David Merkin loves a little bastard. It appears only in his seasons or episodes. All he wanted was to entertain is what Scratchy screaming. And this is where Bart is arrested by an SS officer, basically. Their armbands are the itchy and scratchy logo that also evoke a swastika.

It's a great design. It is a great design. They're brought into an imperial control room. That also, I guess, is the Westworld control room, too, right? Yeah, a bit, yeah. Because they are going, like, deep underground. We hear that they're running out of board license plates, as actually happens at Universal.

And this is where they take off the face, just as Mike did with his toy earlier, except yours did not scream. Super 7 couldn't get that in there at the price point. I believe Yule Brenner takes off his own face as the evil cowboy robot. Oh, so good. This is where Bart and Homer are put together, arrested,

and poor Marge has to find out that your older, balder, fatter son has been arrested. After saying, I want all the T-shirts to say, best vacation ever. Which is what my sister t-shirt says. I can't prove that they have that say that on the t-shirt

and other merch because that's the line in the episode. I believe it. I want to. It's really two gut punches to Marge because she hears the announcement and then a woman says if I were that mother, I'd be deeply embarrassed. That's a great idea. When Homer and Bart are together, there's a different line

in the deleted scene in their cell. I kick one of those stupid Itchy characters in the butt. Yeah, there's just no way to resist it, is there? No. The way they caper around with their happy smiles and positive attitudes. I hear you. That's good.

I like how it's cut off in the final version. Yeah, the yeah, you just can't help it. But Homer hating the positive attitudes is a good joke. So Homer, Marge has to give up on the best vacation ever there. Then she's so embarrassed she wants to crawl to a hole and die, which they have. They're ready to throw them into it, throw Marge into it and leave her to die as they seemingly have with many people. Edichy and Scratchelland. The idea of all of the secrets like, oh man, there's a secret tunnel here in Disneyland.

Like, that's part of what this is influenced or referencing to. On the commentary, they mentioned like the Disney jail essentially where they take you if you commit a crime or break the policy or whatever. Yeah, Disney World is all built on top of a bunch of underground tunnels. Oh, yeah. they really like this isn't even a parody I guess really like this is just what is underneath Disney world isn't it like yeah I don't think there's anything like as high tech is this under there but I could be wrong and this is where they let him go and then we frank briefly appears to explain chaos theory and this is pretty much what he does in the simpsons ride pre-show video too yeah that's

true it's what's frank's job is to say like actually something's about to go wrong folks this is where Homer has to explain that he was a political prisoner and Marge doesn't understand. He kicked a giant mouse to the butt. Does he have to draw you? One little detail I noticed, they come out to the park at night and they're emerging from what is an old west jail facade essentially. So behind that, underground is the evil prison where they can throw you into a hole and execute you.

I guess it's meant to evoke frontier land. And I'm also guessing that the park has been evacuated and they evacuated all the babies in the ball pit but Maggie. They knew who she was. Good on them. They actually kept track of which baby was whose. Yeah. Also behind them, you can see the fire department behind them,

and just like the one on Main Street and Disneyland as well. Yes, right, by Walt's apartment. Which I've only gone in there as part of Scavenger Hunts in an app is when I've done it. Yeah, I've only been in there once, too, and that's, there's not a ton of do in there, but you would think you'd just end up in there once in a while, but you don't really. Well, actually, you know what? I had another, like, point at the thing and explain Uncle Aunt moment there.

When I was with my mom and stepdad, we stopped by the little house for the little man in Disneyland, I think it's called. Yeah. And I pointed at it. And my mom was like, well, I never heard of it. But a woman was sitting next to it. And she just starts staring at it too. Like, wait, what? Like, she had no clue.

Like, I felt really smart and really proud of myself. That is a good one to point out because, like, there's a book and it's old. but then thank you John Lassiter he brought it back and we say that all the time we say it every morning Homer acts like he's in a cartoon when he thinks that the robot wants to be

he thinks it's trying to have sex with him like in Westworld I guess right that's true maybe the hanky saying you-hoo that's good you-hoo is the robot Homer spends the entire break of the commercial flirting with the robot itchy

until it finally starts swinging and acts at him and even cutting off Homer's hair, which does stay short for a few scenes. It's not just back to normal hair in the very next shot. I wasn't tracking that. I forgot to keep an eye on that, but it does, he has

like two little nubs for a few scenes, right? Yes. He becomes a freak once it's cut off the top of his hair. This is where the robots descend on the family. Too big. A chopper, we're saved.

Hey, you're the guys who didn't like our capering. When you get to hell, Tell him it she sent you. Just like the board joke, that seed bell joke with Hans Mullman, just too perfect. There's nothing to say about it.

It just is an immaculate joke, perfectly constructed, and nothing else has been like it before or since. No, that's too big. Like, Moleman's like, you know what? Nah, that's too big. It'll distract the birds too much. And just using it as a line,

like in a meme online or something, give me the shittiest take you have. No, that's too shitty. Like, it works in so many situations. I also just love that it makes that if they had done what Marge wanted to do, instead of being in a Westworld parody, they would have been trapped in a bird's parody. Right.

They couldn't have escaped a film parody. That would be wherever they went. That's what happened. You know, when they go to the helicopter out and get kicked in the gut and pay for their crimes of taunting their capering, I noticed this time like, oh, they're walking by a partner statue pair of the, yeah, I looked it up. It's like it debuted in 1993, so a pretty new reference in Disneyland history. So what, which statue is that?

Walt and Mickey holding hands at Disney. That's what I thought it was, but I wasn't sure that was the name of it. Yeah, partner statue. And they've, there's other ones. There's like Roy and Minnie in Disney World, Roy Disney. And then they've added Walt sitting down, which looks like he's on the Twitter. toilet at Epcot Center. Yes.

A younger Walt is he's arriving in Hollywood with Mickey. They've got that in California Adventure. Yes, right, right, right. Outside or close by the Carthay Circle, yeah. You know, Bob, when you had your wedding reception in a similar bird sanctuary, I was worried about this happening at all times. No, at best the birds will just like gently wake up and go back to sleep. It was actually a great venue for your wedding.

Don't let Hitchcock fool you. Now, Mike, I don't know. You probably haven't been to that one in Vancouver, but I bet you've seen it if you watched any of the, Aeroverse television shows. I have not watched a minute of Aeroverse. Wow. No, wait.

I did watch Crisis for like 30 minutes. Okay. Maybe not a full episode, but I watched 30 minutes to see Burt Ward. Now I'm remembering this now. Ah, yes. That's like in the very start. Did you at least watch the Marv Wolfman cameo at the end of this crisis? I may have seen a clip of that, but I don't know that I watch.

it in the episode. And I'm not against these, by the way. I'm not saying this like I would never watch these. I just didn't get into them. Yeah. Vancouver has two what I guess are called geodesic domes. Science world is basically our Epcot Center. It is used in the filming of like everything that comes out here. And then I guess Blood El Conservatory is used if you're like depicting a science lab or whatever. It's been Lex Luthor's Science Lab. It's been Brainiacs. It's been Rachel ghouls. All of them. After the Simpsons are left behind, That's when there is our final deleted scene off the DVD. Lisa tries her hand at stopping the robots.

Oh, we're doomed. No, there's a way. Lisa? Don't worry, Mom. I'm going to confuse its whole logic system so it crashes. Robot? Listen to me carefully. Everything I am about to tell you is a lie.

Now I... It's smarter than I thought. Oh, if everything you say is a lie, then you're telling the truth. telling the truth and you must be lying but if everything you say is a lie then you must be telling the truth but if you're telling the truth you must be lying lying lying what you couldn't see there in hearing it like the scratchy just shrugs

and this is a Star Trek TOS reference right I feel like Kirk or Spock pulled this on the computer at some point or some kind of evil space god yes do you do it on nomad you do it on that yeah it doesn't it's one of those jokes where you like

if you get the reference you're like oh yes but like it doesn't it's funny because so of these references still the joke is funny and delivered funny enough that an eight year old like when I'm watching it is eight I'm like that's funny even though I don't get the reference I don't know that this would have played it quite as funny as all the other stuff that's I'm just looking online casually it seems like this happens in at least four Star Trek's is that funny where it's like oh well this has to be a reference to a Star Trek right and you find out that like just in TOS alone it was four different plots right on Futurama

they'll do much better jokes about logic puzzles versus a robot's brain. I can think of like two already. They try basically this trick on the robot Santa Claus. And he says that he has, what was it, logic? Oh, is it? Paradox absorbing crumple zones? That was a thank you, Bob. Yes.

Yeah. This is where Homer defends that nobody's going to ruin this vacation, but him and maybe the boy. And he finally freaks out and throws everything at him. This is great writing because he could do it on his second thing. and it would then be, oh, he accidentally discovers what stops them. But instead, he throws like eight things, including a banana out of nowhere and rips his underwear out of his pants,

and then finally throws the camera. And then that's followed by another great meta joke here. What are you, the narrator? Just keep taking pictures. Smashy, smashy. I don't approve of that. Say cheese Did I cool like that?

I could be an action hero. Love March's disapproval in the middle of this action scene. Like, well, that's too much. Yes. Also, her statement, I didn't clip it out there, but when she said like,

oh, wow, it looks like we're doomed. Such a funny line for March to say. It almost like March becomes standards and practices there of like, well, that's a very imitatable act that Bart's doing there. To teach kids, you can smash a window and steal stuff. Also, just smashy smash.

It makes it cuter than he doesn't. Again, I guess dated in a way of like disposable cameras are not a thing anymore. Well, I guess, technically, they can be bought. They do sort of exist almost for nostalgia purposes. If you're killing people, you want to use those. Can't be traced. Would your flash on your phone work the same? They go to the cloud.

You're found out instantly. This is where they're killing all the robots. It's a great action sequence on top of all this other stuff. And then we get Bart's little line, isn't that funny to be a good Simpson's job? And you might be wondering like, oh, why would he say a dry, like, you know, that's okay. But it's all to set up an even better use of it in our next clip. Bad robots dies. With a dry, cool, wit like that.

Who would have thought that our visit Angie and Scratchelaine would turn out to be our best vacation ever? Yeah, best ever. Are you two bonkers? We almost got killed. Not to mention all the embarrassment I suffered. But, Mom, it's exactly what you wanted in a vacation. It brought us together as a family. We got a lot of good exercise outdoors, and we have so many memories.

You know, you're right. This truly was the best vacation ever. Now let us never speak of it again. Yeah, it's a very murky joke where he's playing with the sitcom format because you've never seen a sitcom quip get interrupted by another character and completely forgotten, pushed to the side. Bart's like, wait, you're saying my joke again. I have to talk over it.

And Homer becomes an actor in that scene of realizing, like, Bart stepped on my line and ruined it. Like he kind of shuts down, like his face turns down as Bart interrupts him. It's also just funny, like, Bart and Homer are, they drift apart. They're not the same type of person. So it is funny when they kind of go back to being like, because I feel like initially they were a little more, like you'd make sense that Bart is Homer's son. And then Bart just turned into like a different kind of character in a way in my mind. Well, and sometimes Homer just becomes Bart's younger brother. Right, that's true, yeah.

This is a little more like you can see. I like this episode because they was like, yes, they're both getting into trouble and they're both saying the same stuff. They wrap up that they'll never speak of it again, which would have been a runner had they kept that one to lead the scene. But it still worked as a good throwback to the act one time, Homer said it. And so everything has been wrapped up. They saved the day. And this is where they get a gift. and then we get a mean joke

and then they wrap up the plot all in one final clip. As Roger Myers Jr., the owner of the park, I'd like to thank you for stopping the killer robots and to show my appreciation, here are two free passes. But there are five of us. Here are two free passes.

That's better. Man, this is happening here. I hate to think what's happening in Euro-Itchy and Scratchy land. Hello? Itchy and Scratchyland open for business. I'll last paycheck bounced. My children need wine. I don't want to go.

To chugon, I hope you realize now that violence on TV may be funny, but it's not so funny when that violence is happening to you. But it would be funny to someone who is watching us. No, Mom, he's right. Observe. Oh. Oh, my. Lisa, go to your room.

To start with the handing out two free people, passes. Disney doesn't do that for any actors now. I don't think they probably give free passes to even people who like appear in their rides. Yes, that's a very good point. There was the Dave Foley of it all where he had to like beg, he was like, hey, I'm on one of the rides. Can I get in for free? And they were like, at first they were like, no. And I think again, it might have been a thank you, John Lasseter. I think he took care of it. Yeah, I'm so hung up on the amount of tickets. I forget that the award is, or the, I guess, consolation is you're getting invited back to this place that almost killed you. And only two.

And Bob, you've used that one great too in real life. In terms of people failing to negotiate, yes. Also, my wife and I were just in Montreal. I think we were saying, my children need wine a lot. I think I heard Paul Rubens, I saw a clip of him telling his story about how, like,

when Star Tours was new, he had like a pass to get in like forever, he was told, and then eventually he got rescinded and it really bugged him. I want to think they re-honored it once they let him back in with Rex when Rex returned to the park. But I'm not sure on that. I think it all depends.

We interviewed Tony Baxter, who was an imaginary, well, still is, I guess, for decades. And then he was like, when you go to, like, Tokyo Disney, you just like make a call and they get you in. And he goes, no. As in, he still has to just pay. That was the implication. I mean, that was the implication because he said something like, it's Disney. man that's rough i feel like even joe roadie like he would walk in there be like but that's me i'm this character sure you are yeah on the tar tar get the net

so euro itchy and scratchy lab this is a joke that became instantly dated too well that is a parody of euro disneyland which i guess is just Disneyland Paris because this opened in 92 the expected attendance was 60,000 I believe they barely hit 30,000 although it turned a profit in 1990 making it another very dated joke. But as David Burkin points out on the commentary, our awful pop culture won eventually, and we converted them.

Yes. We eventually turned them to our will at Disney. It took a generation. I think Tony Baxter talked about it because Tony Baxter is a big part of Paris Disney stuff. And he was like initially, the adults were just like, what is this shit? And then the kids grew up.

So now, yep, it's just there. The indoctrination worked. It all paid up. It's a long game of Disney. Yeah, Euro Disney, it was a tainted brand. Like, it got announced as Euro Disney. It was open as Euro Disney for two years. The day before this episode aired, it was renamed to Disneyland parents.

Wow, I didn't realize. That's crazy. So it was already a dated joke. I think I heard, too, another reason was that, like, they thought they would get British tourists there. but the British tourists are pretty used to flying to Orlando and just doing the Orlando stuff. That was what I really noticed the last time I went to the Orlando Parks a couple years ago. A last note a couple of years ago, 2024, was how many British people were there.

I was like, oh, I guess it is like a short-ish flight for them to across the Atlantic to see all of the Harry Potter bullshit that they can't see in England. Yes, I remember, I don't remember, I was like in my teens or something even better. And I was just like, does everyone have an English accent in line? Maybe it was like a holiday. It was like, oh, some sort of British holiday weekend or something. But I was just like, wow, everyone's British. Yeah. And then Universal.

Universal UK just got approved. Oh, it did. Hey, talk about more of the American culture steamrolling some more. That's right. We're winning. We stay winning, as they say. Though, Bob, your wife speaks French. You know some.

Is this just gibberish here? I think it's Hank just being in love with Peter Sellers and just kind of doing his Clousseau kind of deal like he did with Mr. Lacoste in The Boy Who New Too Much? Right, yes. Of course, Upu is also based on a Peter Sellers impression he loved so much. Right. But okay, thank you. I assumed it was jibbers, but you know, when I tried to look it up online, there was no definitive answer. And the subtitle or the closed caption is just yelling in French. believe is what the closed captions say.

So, all right. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. That could have just ended the episode of like Euro Itchy and Scratcheland is unpopular. But you know what? I like that they take a moment for the moral of the story with the mom and her kids. Just like moms and kids were watching this episode together to say like, see, violence isn't so funny if it happens to you. And that is the moral, I guess. But it is funny if you watch it happen to somebody else.

I forgot to say like the one sincere thing I've ever heard David Burk can say, like the one emotional thing about his past. is that he is attracted to TV violence because at an early age, his father died. And TV violence showed him a world in which someone could get hit in the head with a hammer or get shot, but then be completely fine in the next scene. So he used TV violence as a way to process the trauma

of his father dying when he was very young. So it all goes back to that for David Merkin. And again, that is like the one non-snarky thing I think he's ever said on the record. He is one of the most like, he's always on on the commentaries. And in a funny way, he's a funny commentary listen, but he never gives a compliment that isn't at least a little snarky on the commentaries too. But yes, that resolves the episode.

And when I think back on this episode, I think it is full of things that, like, you can't make this anymore. It's easy to say about old comedy and people say it in reactionary bullshit ways. But literally, they could never make this because it makes fun of Disney, Walt Disney and Disney parks in so many specific ways that Disney, they would never get away with it now. They simply couldn't do those jokes alone. And if the family went to a Disney park now, they'd just be looking at their phones the entire time. Yes. And how much fun they're having, too. Like, they can't.

The last time they could do a real Disneyland joke or Disney Parks joke before they were bought was in the man who would be dinner, the would-be the sequel to the Simpsons movie. It starts out with them just going to Disneyland and it's jokes about how they just bought Star Wars and Star Wars stuff is in there. When they do the jokes, it's just not just the Disney. Disney Plus ads, but when they do jokes about like going to see Marvel movies, like Kevin Feige, like are the Russo brothers play themselves in it, you know, like they're in on the joke. They were just, and also just back in the day, and I shouldn't say this because I don't watch so many of the new episodes, but back in the day, all the jokes felt a little meaner. Every joke to me felt meaner, and I liked that about it, even with the making fun of stuff I really like or love. and then in a certain point there was like a switch to a little more of like

the jokes were less mean and I guess I like the meaner jokes that like anger like they were obviously couched in an incredible wit and incredible delivery but it definitely felt like there was a switch at some point where like there was less disdain

for the stuff they were making fun of yeah I guess it all depends on who is in charge and I feel like probably when Al Jean took over the show in the early aughts. He was more diplomatic. He wanted to make more friends, have more famous people on the show.

So things got a little less vicious. David Merkin wanted to burn every bridge in front of him. And that's why these are just the funniest, meanest, punchiest seasons. And that's what I like about him. He made two movies after this, but then he did not make anything else. He just came back to the show as a writer.

So it's clear that, like, maybe he did burn a ton of bridges by doing this kind of humor. Maybe, yeah. Then he sacrificed all those bridges for our entertainment. He didn't care how many times he kicked John Travolta when he was down. And it led to a perfect episode of The Simpsons.

Yeah, I think quietly, this is maybe in the top five or top three for me. It's one I would immediately go to like, I need to watch a Simpsons. It's got to be funny. It's got to have great animation. It's got to have fun parodies. And this has like everything. So this is getting production season six off to a great start. And it is the best.

It is the best one. That's my definitive statement. The best season. Hmm. I got to look up. all of them again. Now that you say that it makes me want to really figure out what I think the answer is, but you probably, I could see that being correct. It feels right. I respect all opinions unless you say season like 17 or something and then I'll think, well, clearly you've been

injured at some point and we need some sort of medical intervention. I would love to be like one of the main contrarian guys saying like 24 is the season. It's better than all the, like I would love to be that guy. That's when they really figured it out, 2009. Well, and look at those production codes. Watch, make your judgment based on the production season, not the air season. That's important, too. Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us again. Please let us know more about Podcast the Ride and where we can find you online.

Sure. Podcast The Ride is mostly about theme parks, but also is just now so much of other, like interests and other fascinations like John Travolta, being in a Pitbull music video, enters into conversations. It's not like the most tightly focused podcast in the world, but mostly it's about theme parks and themed entertainment and stuff and you can find it. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all the places, and we're on social media, podcast, The Ride. And yeah, we do a new episode generally every week and then a Patreon episode. So there are bonus episodes there where we even get more weird and obscure and non-theme parky. We did an episode of Paul Lynn's Halloween special because the audience voted us.

to do that. Not that I'm complaining. I'm just saying that's the type of fun we're having. Oh, yeah, I love the theme park stuff. And I also love all of this episode to do about McGruff the Crime Dogs musical career. We just did the fourth McGruff episode

because a bunch of B-Sides came out. From the original Smart Kids, which is our favorite McGruff album, a bunch of new tracks had been unearthed and we went over those. Yeah, if you haven't heard McGruff's, Don't even worry about podcast. Right.

Listen to McGruff's album, Smart Kids. It's like a lo-fi indie rock pop masterpiece. Also, if people follow Mike on Instagram, you'll learn about, you're doing a lot of improv shows lately. I am. I'm spamming everyone with these improv shows,

but I am. I'm doing like a monthly improv show in Glendale at a place called the Glendale Room. I don't know. When is this coming out? So I'm not sure when. It's usually the first Friday of every month. But you could check out my Instagram.

R. Carlson. Yeah, this one is late January. I wait. 21st on Patreon 28th on the free feed. So there'll be a first Friday of February if you're interested. And we have, you know, guests, a podcast or I do the show. It's a rotating cast of characters. No, I would, I hope the next time I'm in L.A.

I can time it with one of your one of those shows so I can see it too. Yeah, that would be great. But thank you so much, Mike. This was as wonderful episode to chat with you. Yes, thank you for having me. Thanks again to Mike Carlson for being on the show. Check out Podcast The Ride. We love it.

But if you want to support our show and get these podcasts ad-free and a week ahead of time and also access a huge back catalog of exclusive podcasts, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Sign up for five bucks a month. You get that. You get the ad-free podcast. They arrive a week ahead of time and you can access the vast eight-plus year catalog of exclusive episodes. We've covered things like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critic. That's over 200 bonus episodes.

And of course, if you are on that level, the $5 level on the Patreon, you get a new episode of both Talking Futurama and Talking in the Hill. Every month, it's a great deal for $5 a month. You help support the show, and you get a lot in exchange. Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. There is a $10 level as well. You sign up for that, you get all the $5 stuff naturally, but also one mega-huge podcast once a month.

For patrons of that level, what is that mega-huge podcast, Henry? Bob's talking about our What a Cartoon Movie Podcasts that we've been doing for years. It's basically like three extra podcasts you get in a month because they're five or even six hours long. Last month, we did a double shot of them for the holiday season. We did a Peewee's Playhouse Christmas. And then we also did the Studio Ghibli Classic, My Neighbor Totero. And if you liked all of this old Disney talk that we did in this episode, you're going to love the one we're doing for our $10 and up subscribers this month.

It's Sleeping Beauty, the Walt Disney Classic, that even influenced the design of Disney. with its castle and we'll have tons of fun info on that one and we have done so many movies tons of tons of movies if you sign up today you get the entire back catalog hundreds of hours of extra podcasts in addition to all the stuff you get early and ad free at the five dollar level when you go to the premium $10 a month level so please check it all out at patreon dot com slash talking simpsons and i've been one of your host bob macky you can find me on blue sky and letterboxed at many the other places as Bob Servo and my other podcast is Retronauts. That is a classic gaming podcast, all about old video games.

You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of bonus episodes on top of the bonus ones that we're going to give you if you sign up. And Henry, where can we find you? I'm on Blue Sky and Instagram as Talking Henry. Follow me there to stay in the loop about me. I'm also on Letterbox as H-A-N-R-E-Y-G. And if you're following me and Bob on social media, you've got to find out. follow the official accounts of this podcast at Talk Simpsonspod.

At Talk Simpsons pod on Blue Sky and Instagram. Those keep you in the loop whenever new episodes come out, whenever new stuff happens on the Patreon or other fun things are going on in our lives. You stay in the loop with At Talk Simpsons pod. And if you want an easy list of all the free podcasts we have done for Talking Simpsons and our sister podcast, what a cartoon, it's all available for you at Talking Simpsons.com. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast.

Talk to the audience, and we will see you then. And remember, every morning, give one bowl of kibble to Santa's little helper. Do you want me to write any of this down? No, why ain't senile dad, blast it? Okay, bye-bye. Bye, grandpa. Grandpa's little helper.