Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Kill the Alligator and Run With Alex Navarro

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Once more we've got Giant Bomb's Alex Navarro joining us, and this time it's for perhaps the weakest episode of season 11! Homer can't sleep, which leads him to an insomnia-induced freakout that brings him to Spring Break for some reason. After hanging out with Kid Rock of all awful people, the family randomly kills an alligator, and then more crazy things happen that would make this description even longer! So get ready to build this podcast on rock and roll! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! Check out our new shirts on TeePublic! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

Good news everyone, Talking Futurama is coming back for Talking Futurama Season 2 Part 2. Fresher than a summer ham, this podcast comes every Friday and if you sign up at the $5 level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you can hear each episode as it goes live. That's right, sign up today at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for $5 to hear Talking Futurama every Friday throughout the rest of 2020 and also all the previous episodes we've done so far. So head over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons now or we're gonna clamp you! Shut up and take my money! I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, recorded in an endless stretch of stagnant water. I am one of your hosts, the harmless maniac, Bob Mackie,

and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, or you may remember me being briefly entertaining as the Quizmaster. And who is our special guest on the line? Captain Jack himself. No, I'm not an alligator. I'm Alex Tavaro from Giant Bomb. Hello, I'm back.

And today's episode is Kill the Alligator and Run. This isn't real money. It's printed by the Montana Militia. It'll be real soon enough. Today's episode aired on April 30th, 2000. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby.

The Flintstones' Viva Rock Vegas arrives in theaters. Santana's Maria Maria is topping the charts. And guess which movie star just became the WCW World Heavyweight Champion? The Rock. No, it's David Arquette. David Arquette. It's the end of WCW. I fail at every wrestling question.

Oh, but wait. I have my headline for that movie. Yabba Dabba Don't. Go to the polls. It's a flashback movie that actually follows like if you're a flintstones continuity head you know that fred and wilma eloped to rock vegas you mean wilma slag hoople that's right yes and so this is the story of their eloping but they they add the great gazoop oh but uh so i don't know if they still have this but on the universal tour

we took it a few years ago they still had the set for the grinch do they still have viva rock vegas props i think you'll find the the flintstones car around there but i don't know if it's from rock vegas or the the first parked in the decaying grinch village it should be hanging out there you'll also find stephen baldwin just around, just hoping someone will talk to him. Who would ever recast Rick Moranis as Stephen Baldwin, of all people? I mean, they just, as long as John Goodman was alive, they had to make a Flintstones movie. It was like written in the skies. So I don't know why bother making a second one.

Like, he fulfilled the prophecy. He played Fred Flintstone. And yeah, you couldn't get away from santana songs at this time of the of in the world what happened with david arquette is that he was the star of the very bad pro wrestling movie ready to rumble okay named after the thing that mike buffer says named after a boxing slogan okay i'm with you and the film was doing very poorly and it made wcw look bad and they thought what if we made david art cat the wcw champion that would get a lot of headlines and then people would go see this poorly reviewed movie two weeks later and uh that didn't pay off

and in fact uh seen as the very lowest point of WCW. I mean, WCW had, honestly, there's worse moments than that. I'd say the Viagra on a pole match is probably worse. There's tons of more racist things in there. David Arquette actually is like, he loves wrestling. He ruined his Hollywood career to do more pro wrestling these days. Ready to Rumble grossed $12 million. Oof.

Did that destroy his marriage with courtney cox i think they stayed together a little longer than that i think yeah i don't think that was the thing that that tore their marriage apart i feel very badly like you said for david arquette knowing what a super fan he was and also how much he actually did not want to be champion of wcw like they they kind of thrusted upon him like as you said, to try and gin up some popularity for the movie. And I will say there's no part of me that will ever defend the movie Ready to Rumble. But that said, there is one inspired thing, which is the idea that anyone would ever buy Oliver Platt as a champion pro wrestler.

That is a gamble that I absolutely respect a filmmaker making that is true that they make oliver platt the the lead wrestler in the film like the heroic king wrestler all the other wrestlers are played by wcw wrestlers but not the lead guy it's oliver platt whenever i see him i'm like is that jeff garland but it's not it not. He's a better actor than Jeff Garlin. I also mentioned that because that shows you the bad mood that Henry Gilbert was in the week he saw this episode. This episode put me in a bad mood now. Me too. But I guess before we get into that, welcome back to Alex Navarro.

Some giant bomb. Hello, Alex. Thank you very much for having me back uh for one of the episodes that i there is definitely a hard cut off where i just stopped watching the simpsons but i was still watching at this point and i would say this is if not the low point very close to it of the simpsons i was still watching when it was live i think in the timeline of our current recordings we are now about to exit frown town we've gotten through the rough patch of the spring of 2000 uh after this one yeah the you soup you you're you super usurper you super thank you usurper that episode's better than this yeah and behind the laughter is actually kind of funny i think it's a good episode it's really funny but it's a good gimmick episode. This is the low point. Yeah.

And really low in so many ways. I mean, yeah, so when this episode aired, I think it was the first time. I was seeing episodes that made me go, like, I don't like this as much. But this was the one where I especially had the kind of, like, getting older realization of, I hate this guest star, and i think this episode sucks oh yeah i was like a month away from graduating high school and i was like is this what my adult life is going to be the simpsons won't be good i'll be sad well like what's happening wow it's really prescient that you figured out that you hated charlie rose before everyone else did why does he hold his interviews in a black hole i don't understand it's creepy

only he can tell you the exit you got to pay him some favors i i mean yeah yeah the kid rock thing i i didn't like that the girls gone wild jokes in here i thought were too base for the simpsons even then and also it was just like i knew i didn't like that it was just a messy episode yeah too i mean you do have to credit mike scully for getting kid rock though he was very perceptive when it came to what guest stars to get for the show even though they weren't always the greatest fit and i think kid rock was much better on king of the hill uh than he was on this show i well i like on the commentary that matt selman brings up that he's like you know Mike Scully has

a bunch of old band music on so I suggested we do Kid Rock to have somebody current although NRBQ does make an appearance the national rhythm and blues quartet I believe the yeah the new the new rhythm okay yeah oh god but this yeah it was just a dark time. And this was the first time I had the reaction I have whenever I see like, I feel it for NSYNC the next season where I'm just like, oh, this feels like somebody's too new to be on The Simpsons. And maybe, maybe if I was older and saw, you know, some flash in the pan person in like 1993 appear in it, I'd be like be like oh they're not good enough for this but i don't know just kid rock it just it felt wrong at the time and it just and the jokes they made

weren't about how kid rock sucks it was about how kid rock is cool and how homer should have fun with him and that also that also brought me down and to come to come so soon after the death of which is referenced here in an insulting way and also the um the elfin jockeys like it's just uh it's bad times it's just bad times was so this is the era of the simpsons where the concept of lol nothing matters coming at the end of the episode starts becoming more frequent right yeah we've had some really uh bizarre endings lately in this patch i i think i charted it when we did the pig molian episode but like i believe this is the out of the last 10 episodes this is like the seventh that ends with a joke about how the ending's not an ending or

kind of looking at you of like huh that's it but i think this is one like the lazier ones because they don't even like at least at the end of Pygmalion, Moe even goes like, don't make no sense, and then gets cut off in a funny manner that they point out that there's a giant plot hole. They got to laugh at me. Here, it's just the ending is like, yeah, it's over. Yeah. What are you going to do? It's done.

Hey, Malcolm in the Middle's on. Yeah. That's pretty funny. Alex, how present were you in the world of MTV Spring Break around when this aired? I mean, not around when this aired. I definitely watched my share of Dan Cortez, Daisy Fuentes-hosted Spring Break episodes, like episodes of Spring Break the Grind back in like the early and mid 90s but by this point i think the uh the allure of hot vjs doing spring vaguely spring break related things uh had mostly worn off of me yeah not to get too lewd on here but uh after the internet entered

my house i had access to more ribald materials so i was just like the tv can't get me to where i need to go but internet speeds aren't there yet. Oh, we had cable internet in 1998, buddy. The world was mine. Suddenly these central casting hot 20-somethings in Lake Havasu are just not doing it for me anymore. It's true. I need a casting process. Well, and also in the year 2000, this was the height of the girls gone wild era as well like

uh which joe franklin is still uh is it joe franklin i think okay i i hope he's still in jail i should have checked on that but i mean now i look back on the girls gone wild era as a national shame for all of us joe francis joe franklin is the deceased uh talk show host i'm sorry joe okay yeah is he still in jail uh i'll find out okay uh but yeah so that's why there's all of these like show us your boob jokes in here that also just i mean they exemplify the time but they just make me feel skeezy watching a simpsons episode which i don't really like uh yeah the other thing that just kind of makes me feel skeevy about it is in the current times, watching a whole bunch of people just hanging out together.

That, right, just where we are in the moment, that just also feels very weird. It really does. Okay, so in May of 2015, as of May of 2015, he was reportedly living in Mexico with his girlfriend and their twin daughters, and extradition treaties between the U.S. and Mexico are not applicable for

civil contempt warrants. So he's safe in Mexico. Well, good for him. Man, now I'm sad again. Though, you know, Alex, people, I think, in Florida are still living this way, even in this time. Yeah, I know. I've definitely heard some stories about various spring break activities happening this year and the resulting cases that came out of it. So spring break is canceled forever.

I'm decreeing it here. Never again shall spring break menace our society. The transmission of viruses was always at an all-time high during spring break, regardless of the pandemic. And I guess if I can complain preemptively about one more thing in this, I just hate Horny Homer. And Horny Homer plus standard spring break jokes, I just don't like that. He's like Jim Belushi. Sorry, John Belushi in this episode. Well, both of them. They're kind of the same after 20 years have passed.

And it feels like sub Family Guy even. Like Family Guy did basically the same jokes a year later in their spring break episode. And you brought up a better thing from the same time that dealt with the spring break thing a year ago uh there was the king of the hill episode escape from party island where uh hank goes on a road trip with his mom and her old friends and uh they show up to this town to visit this miniature museum and then they find out spring break is happening there so it's it's the fish out of water the non-party dude in the spring break atmosphere, which is a lot more funny. There's so much more of an episode there.

There's so much more that you can do with that. This is just like, and I mean, as is evidenced by the episode itself, there's no story here. There's nothing they can tell other than the Simpsons are going to Florida. It's like 5% of it is about Homer having insomnia, which they quickly forget about.

Yeah, so on the commentary, they at the very least cop to that this is a poorly written script by tired writers and that they kind of are just going like, we know this episode's not as good. Give us a break. All right. Yeah. It's one of those episodes that when the DVDs came out like 12 years ago, it was one of those.

I put on the commentary and say, explain yourselves. And they're just like laughing and saying yeah we know this wasn't great we tried but you know there's only so many hours in the day there's obviously it's a writing team and while they do give primary credit to the writers that I think they did the most writing on each episode everyone touches everything but the fact that this is a John Schwarzwelder episode like genuinely shocked me I I it just doesn't feel like his kind of writing outside of a couple of like the these southern bumpkin you know sheriff jokes and things like that like there's stuff in there that feels swartz weld weldery in but it doesn't really feel like one of his for the most part it feels like the second act he did not uh was heavily rewritten based on whatever script he turned in because the

first and third acts feel kind of like his stuff especially like the the old-timey southern stuff definitely the third act feels most like his thing all the whipping stuff feels like john swartzwell yeah yeah you're right the middle i think it is the middle is like this uh this void that pulls in all the goodness from the other sections like the the first and third act are actually not bad there's some funny stuff in there well some parts are bad but there's at least some funny stuff in there but the middle act is just man i don't i i think i like one a joke in the middle act and all the rest like yeah just sucks but hey you know the writers they they retire they they ask they beg

your forgiveness like give us a break can't we have it at one bad episode let us have a bad week but before we begin i do want to do like a little director's corner on a new director in season 11 uh jen camerman or camerman i couldn't know the actual uh pronunciation i couldn't find it but it's jen camerman uh she started on the simpsons actually in 1990 as a background cleanup artist on the do the bartman video so uh in like pre-season two she started on the show yeah we talked all about that video and alex's last appearance on here oh that's right alex was last on uh the show for the simpsons sing the blues episode uh so she started working on the show in 1991 as a background cleanup artist

on season twos the way we was and then she became a character layout artist on the now banned episode stark raving dead ask your parents about it uh and she would do animation timing work as well in season eight so she directed this tennis the menace and homer the mo and her last work on the show was in the 2003 episode a star is born again um there's no work in the animation industry for her after this she seems to have left it at this point and uh this is not like a gossip or anything it's just something that she has put online herself she was dealing with mental illness issues and eating disorder at the time which uh caused her to leave the show and she wrote a autobiography about this in 2010 called the vanishing point and you can read that to find out her history with the show and her battle with anorexia so

that is jen camerman and she directed this and two other episodes i i hope she's doing well now i i couldn't find uh either any like recent stuff like it seemed like the last time a twitter account say that represented her had anything was like in 2012 so i i hope she's doing well but it seems she's pretty much done with hollywood and animation at this point which yeah i found a linkedin page for her and it looks like she's still doing some freelance work here and there but i have no idea like how recent that is okay all right yeah the i mean her those three episodes she directed are uh are important ones in the simpsons not all for

great reasons uh this one is one we say is one of the worst. So I think the animation in this is actually pretty good. Like I think especially she's tasked, her and her team were tasked with animating like an entire like adventure through Florida for two thirds of the episode. The characters having like five costume changes, all these new characters and tons of action.

Like she did, she and her team did a really good job with it. And then you've got Tennis the Menace, their second digitally animated episode. And then Homer the Moe, which I believe is the first Al Jean episode, right? Or Al Jean Return. I think that's Brawl in the Family, but it's early. It's actually, I think it's Dana Gould's first episode. Oh, that's right. It's the Dana Gould first episode.

Yes. Yeah. I think I am regrettably on record here as saying that tennis the menace was actually the episode that made me decide maybe i shouldn't be watching the simpsons every single week uh and uh you know i went back and watched that one not too long ago and i think i still feel that way not a fan of the oedipal subplot in that episode no yeah yeah what were they thinking what about when homer looks at you and says like bet you didn't see that coming at the uh yeah but i but i think she does a good job in this episode though it's also it's even more interesting that this episode full of like questionable spring

break sexiness uh is is directed by a woman as well yeah i guess why don't we get started with the episode itself? Oh, by the way, this episode named after, I believe, the Woody Allen movie, Take the Money and Run, although there are several things called Take the Money and Run. There's a Steve Miller band song, all that fun stuff. Knowing Mike Scully, I bet it's more based on a Steve Miller song than Woody Allen. Probably.

If it was David Merkin, I bet it would be based on the Woody Allen movie. But the episode begins also with them just kind of like literally probably if it was david merkin i bet it would be based on the woody allen movie but uh uh the episode begins uh also with them just kind of like literally killing time in front of your eyes but it's in a funny way i think or funny enough of uh homer gets the bail delivered to him the anti government militia joke is kind of weird now but like every show is doing a mr show did that whole episode about the the olympics of the independent nation that's right that was right after like ruby ridge happened the ruby ridge standoff so homer is gets in the mail a magazine i do like the joke that he's taking the questions

on the cover as uh as the actual test that's yeah i was wondering why there weren't any jokes on the cover but then it was the payoff for the next set of jokes where he's just answering the titles uh and i also like bart saying that homer runs on hunger and rage but he doesn't know what ratio it is that's good uh but yes as homer takes the test himself he decides he's gonna get distracted why don't you be the quiz master and ask other people the questions quiz master yes That would entertain me briefly. Okay, Flanders, your love quiz score is 61. That makes you a Frigid Frida. I took off 30 points for all that crying you did.

Well, it was a little insensitive giving me a sex test, seeing that my wife just passed away. No way! When? Six months ago. You were at the funeral. You fell into the grave. Oh, yeah. I saw a gopher.

What a day. Okay. Last question. Who is your favorite Backstreet Boy? Oh, the little rat-faced one. No, no, no. Nick. He's so good to his mother.

According to this, you're both idiots. Hey, thanks. What do we owe you? That's a good... I mother according to this you're both idiots hey thanks what do we owe you that's a good i like lenny's reaction yeah that's why they got in sync the next year they took the attack on backstreet you know they were trading up for in sync in syncs no strings attached had just been released so they have surpassed backstreet boys as band number one did the backstreet boys never actually guest on the show? No, they did not. I don't think they even got Aaron Carter on the show. I think NSYNC is the only boy band they got on. Yeah, I think so.

No 98 Degrees, none of that. No, even in the Jessica Simpson talk, she was married to a 98 Degree boy, wasn't she? I think so. At one point, I think so, yes. Nick Lachey. Yes. I recall they had a reality show, I think so, yes. Nick Lachey. Yes. I recall they had a reality show.

See? And she was very stupid. So when they said Nick here, my first thought was like, oh, yeah, the Nick who's married to Jessica Simpson. But no, they're talking about Nick Carter, who also was in a reality show about him and his wife, but not Jessica Simpson. And of course, now Nick Carter's going through a lot of sad stuff related to his very troubled brother, Aaron Carter. So we wish them the best right now.

Boy, that's sad. Dear Rat Boy. Literally everything about this episode, everything surrounding it is depressing in one way or another, isn't it? They really hammer home the tragedy of Ned by filling the background with pictures of him and his children and his wife. Yes, that's true. I think it's there to remind the viewer in case they forgot like oh yeah he had a wife uh this this is their first time after that episode they even refer back to uh Ned being a widow and you know when they did that episode it's like they they sort of justified it to themselves saying oh we'll have a lot of new opportunities for jokes to do with ned when he's a you know a widowed single father and their first joke they have like oh

what do we do with it we talk about grief we mock his grief and laugh at him for and and then they subsequently make homer more of a jerk ass in that episode by doing a joke that he by saying at that funeral off screen he fell into the grave on top of her coffin. These guys are like, groundhog? A gopher. A gopher? This is an insane man. Like, that's a very tired writer joke of Homer saying, like, oh, that'll distract me for a few minutes.

Because they know they have to kill time in this opener. They're like, why don't we kill time? Homer becomes the quiz master. It's important that you know he was even more disrespectful to Maude's corpse. The Simpsons will be right back. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. Ball with the doll, everybody. Hope you're enjoying this week's podcast. And a big thank you to our guest Alex Navarro from agiantbomb.com.

It's always fun to have Alex on. And, you know, they're doing a bunch of the brand new console stuff and end of the year stuff right now. Giant bomb. You should definitely be checking that out. And if you're an enjoyer of our talking Simpsons podcast, you should absolutely know that we are 100% listener funded. And that's how me and Bob do this as our real ass full time jobs.

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of the simpsons or a different animated series each week on what a cartoon what a cartoon movie this month covers the wallace and grumet film curse of the were-rabbit we had so much fun talking about that g-rated horror film and before that we've done films as diverse as ghost in the shell a goofy movie aladdin spider-man into the spider-verse and so so so many more you can only hear the full back catalog if you're a ten dollar and up subscriber at patreon.com slash talking simpsons it is an incredible value please sign up for it today and they even note on the commentary there's twice in the commentary where they're like oh we did a thing like this in the simpsons movie we ripped ourselves off like homer's quiz master costume is basically the same as moe's i run springfield now costume from the simpsons movie

though homer painted a question mark on his traffic cone there i guess from the simpsons movie though homer painted a question mark on his traffic cone there i guess also the simpsons are joking that if you are an adult who has a favorite backstreet boy then you're an idiot i i guess that's where they probably are we beyond the um the era of the uh even the online quiz i don't see those anymore they used to be all over uh facebook and whatnot yeah i feel like i haven't seen a buzzfeed quiz of who uh which person are you in a long time i've been a confirmed introvert eight different times and it proves that i'm better than all of you i want to say that uh that clickhole article about the which which of my garbage sons are you that effectively killed the genre because that was the peak and there's not really anything else you can do past that thank god you've hit the end with

that that uh i i thank clickhole for ending that tradition but uh you know those i i feel bad for all the unemployed buzzfeed writers who uh who used to tell me which simpsons character i am or am i the hardest core of simpsons uh i think that was the last of those quizzes i took like how hardcore a simpsons fan are you and i got 19 19 out of 20. I was so mad at myself. I missed one. Now whenever I take those quizzes or when I used to, I would see like mistakes in the questions. That's the extra test.

That's if you write back to them, then it's like last Starfighter style and you become the boss of BuzzFeed. Oh my God, 10 bucks an article. But yeah, so Homer is done with being a quiz master to his friends. He's driving Mar march crazy in a scene that is very similar to when homer drove her crazy with reading digest and he was obsessed with that uh let him forget that was nine years ago yeah again the whole episode is them

saying like give us a break all right we can repeat a scene if we want to so homer decides to finally quiz himself. How long will you live? In an average week, how many braised ribs do you eat? Marge, do you think that counts honey braised? I don't know. I'm trying to sleep. Okay, non-smoker at eight years.

So according to this, I'll live to be 42? Oh, that's horrible. I won't even live to see my children die. Now what's wrong? I've only got three more years to live. Maybe you added it wrong. Let me have it. See? And these quizzes are never wrong, Marge.

They're put together by the finest scientists in the magazine business. Honey, don't panic. If you just made a few lifestyle changes. No! So this officially ages Homer up to 39 yeah nine yep man yeah the i think the edison episode made him 38 but that's true yeah and before that like the homer the vigilante he was 36 and in the arcade game bio which i assume just pulled from like the story bible of the show he was 35 so and i believe it says here in season 18 they say he's 40 but the official entry on him in his age is still 39 so holding strong at 39

do any of the other characters age up during any of these or is he the only one that is moving through time uh marge has aged up from 34 to 36 and ned from like i don't know it's his 40s to 60 i guess yes yeah well well bart and lisa and maggie have all remained 1 8 and 10 it's just the writers being insecure about like no we cannot be older than homer but at a certain point they just never leave the show and the showrunner is now 60 homer is 20 years younger than the showrunner at this point god like the young show the younger junior showrunner matt selman is like mid 40s now i think he's 50 50 wow geez man but yeah no i mean i don't like that homer is a year and a half older than me and i and eventually i will surpass homer's age i don't like that but i also feel

like homer should never pass 40 i don't want once homer is officially 40 i don't like that i he should be a dad in his late 30s that's that's how i imagine him i am officially three months away from reaching homer age and uh that is filling me with a similar level of existential dread as homer goes through at the beginning of this episode i remember when we started doing this we were doing the first season in march turned 34 i'm like still 33 i'm not as old as a simpson adult yes that was five or five years ago now uh well though alex you don't have uh bedside ribs do you not generally i find ribs to be uh largely too messy to bother with food but uh certainly not in in in the bedside i'm i one day maybe one day when i'm feeling like my most debased i will just be like yep bed ribs let's do this and in a bucket too not even in like a plat like a styrofoam container just

bucket of ribs surely somewhere must sell ribs in bucket form around here i gotta find out when i'm in the mood for barbecue i don't want ribs because they are a lot of work like just get some off the bone brisket that's uh same enjoyment you're not you're not a bone boy i am not no i mean i'm i am also look i love chicken mcnuggets too much to want to have bone in chicken wings so i much prefer the not actually chicken wings uh boneless i call that hypocrisy uh look think of all the marrow you could be tasting marrow's okay but it's just so much work you got that gristle you gotta bite around that makes it more rewarding it's like the dark souls of eating chicken i'm bringing it back i'm bringing back the dark souls comparisons everybody

it's 2020 i don't care anymore uh but this fear of mortality it also does just repeat the edison story too so it's true you see he just i was gonna say there's at least a few episodes before this where like homer's existential dread is the driving force for whatever zany adventures come after right yeah he's stuck at like the permanent midlife crisis uh portion of his life i i and he can't start a podcast because they don't exist in the year 2000 i i guess this episode's different from the edison one because homer, oh, I'm going to die when I'm 80. And in this one, he's like, I'm going to die in three years. So I guess that's a little different.

But that Edison episode was just 18 months ago. It's just so recent. And I do love Marge being as nice a spouse as possible, going like, you know, just a few little lifestyle changes. No! Run screaming out of the room. Yeah. Just one less bucket of ribs. He might buy him another year of life.

But I can laugh at these now more than I could pre-pandemic because I have used this pandemic to get in better shape. I'm not at my goal yet, but I've definitely cut out the bedside ribs of my own i think the obsession was that with death is something we're all experiencing right now oh sure yes yeah but uh but it hasn't i haven't gotten insomnia from it thankfully that's nice uh but all right let's speaking of death it's time to play the always respectful talking simpsons death and you going to hear it again in this episode.

Death stalks you at every turn. There it is, death. So Robert Evans died October in 2019 of the age of 89. Is he dead? You bet your ass. Did he want to die? You better believe no. Maybe.

Famous Hollywood producer. Of course, we know him as the star of kid notorious on comedy central eight glorious episodes right after south park for about four months god is okay i was a pat oswalt fan back when he was doing stand-up regularly i certainly remember the robert evans bit from from pat and oswalt material is robert evans resurgence around this time his fault does the timing line up there because i feel like all of a sudden robert evans resurgence around this time his fault does the timing line up there because i feel like all of a sudden robert evans between the kids days in the picture documentary kid notorious him making other weird guest things i feel like he just kind of cropped back up out of

nowhere yeah the kids days in the picture i believe was like a mid-90s book uh 1994 and then around the mid to late 90s every comedy writer listened to the book on tape, which is why there's a Mr. Show sketch about it, and Patton Oswalt has a bit about it, and everyone just fell in love with his voice. And I think it eventually led to him getting a cartoon. But the documentary that could say he's in the picture was 2002. Yeah, yeah.

That's why this confused the shit out of me in 2000, because I don't think I'd even seen the charlie rose show on on tv at that time let alone knew who robert evans was i mean i think i'd seen the godfather but i hadn't seen these other uh films that he mentions here uh but then i think two to three years later was when i finally saw the documentary the kid stays in the picture on tv uh and so that unlocks every reference in this scene with robert evans and in that cartoon they drew him like he was in 1978 well because he's the executive producer of the cartoon yeah i love in that show that one of the episodes the only one i remember now i remember two of them but my favorite joke

and it was that him and francis for coppola actually get in a fight about making spaghetti in a kitchen and yell at each other about it like just to be as inside as possible in in a hollywood parody i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that show was probably not very successful overall no no it went it went too far well the the story of robert evans life is success that he then takes too far like he over and over and over again he stays too long at the table and yet he's an incredibly like the the story of robert evans life if you watch his version of it anyway is that he's like a very handsome, charismatic guy who talks himself into positions he honestly probably is unqualified for.

But he has his name attached to some very successful films and is friends with a lot of other very famous people from the 70s. And he just kind of got to stick around. And I mean, too, I think Bob Odenkirk with his Mr. Show sketch, which was two years before this episode. Was it the God's Book on tape? Yes. thought so you better believe yes yeah that one and the

pat noswalt stuff i think the little bit of that is like oedipal stuff for that generation of comedy nerds so i go this is these are guys who were my dad's age in the 70s and now he wrote a funny book and isn't he a crazy weird guy he is and i will say for all of that though if you have never actually just listened to the robert evans like the the thing the kid stays in the picture is based on the documentary the book on tape he reads after hearing the pat noswald bit and seeing the mr show bit i did go out and get a copy of it and it is every bit as deranged as they make you believe it is it is one of the most fascinating books on tape i have ever listened to yeah i gotta get that

on audible just like a six hour robert evans podcast i gotta hear totally yeah you're right i gotta hear the full thing because the the documentary cuts it together and it's just they turn it into it's it's the same of just robert evans talks over pictures thing uh it's probably just adapted from the book but i bet it cuts out the craziest stuff or just the the weirder minutiae which uh yeah i also definitely i i also since watching this episode read the book easy riders raging bulls which has other stuff about robert evans in there uh his weird stuff with Bobby Towne. Yeah, there was some story about just multiple stories

of three ways that they were having together, Robert Evans and Bobby Towne. Just coke and sex, just all hanging around there. All at Charlie Bluedorn's house. Charlie Bluedorn. I love his... Evans. His impersonation of Charlie Bluedorn is one of my favorite things in that whole

book but or in the movie version that I saw he mentions the two Jakes in this interview I've seen that movie that film's ridiculous it sucks I kind of wish they let him act in it before Chinatown oh my god wow I think it's like the only

movie Jack Nicholson directed and like Robert Evans was gonna be in it but I think it's like the only movie jack nicholson directed and uh like robert evans was gonna be in it but i think his plastic surgery he got from the movie was just such a mistake they're like we can't put you on screen also he's not a very good actor no no i i mean how indulgent is that that jack nicholson's like i'm gonna i'm gonna direct a movie and my best friend's gonna be this co-star we'll both be jake uh so but in a sequel to chinatown like just it's all it's all wrong he had just been the joker in the world was his oyster that's true yeah but you can see robert evans at least like as far as you know coked up hollywood executives go he probably is the most entertaining there ever was

oh definitely and as far as i know like on the problematic scale of all those people who were doing all the cocaine and having all the sex he doesn't actually rank that highly like it's yeah he got into a lot of dumb shit but at the same time i'm as far as i know he didn't do anything like super illegal or horrible to people at least not that has been been said at this time yes yeah yeah unlike um the still living charlie rose which fuck yes yeah uh in case you don't know who he is he hosted a pbs talk show just called charlie rose on uh pbs from 1991 to 2017 when he was ousted for lots of sexual harassment claims and i was reading his response to them and it was like

oh i guess you know it wasn't mutual although some of these claims are very exaggerated but uh remember that story a few months like maybe a year ago now where it was like him trying to plan a comeback of interviews with metooed men it's like him him and matt lauer together producing Andrew V show. Like, oh, that didn't get very far though. Did it? I, I thankfully know, I think they,

they could just put it on Twitch. Like Twitch won't take them off TV. Like they, they get away with it, but I think they're too old to understand. They could just stream it. But thankfully, I mean,

fuck that. I like Charlie Rose. Fuck you. Look at the time. Charlie Rose is exactly who you would get for this kind of segment because he is like the the ultimate example of the extremely boring but extremely omnipresent interviewer of the time and certainly someone who would be interviewing a guy like robert evans but yeah like i i could probably just do without anything charlie rose related

going forward in my life now the stuff they wrote for uh i'll play the clip now uh now but i i think the stuff they wrote for charlie rose is accurate to how he interviewed people which is just like very very insidery questions that if you uh like if this is your first robert evans interview it doesn't seem to care if you know what he's talking it's more about proving how smart he is than offering anything to the viewer very much so yeah we're back with legendary producer robert evans now before you did the godfather there was love story tell us about that ah love story the little picture that could was paramount chopping at the bit to make it you better believe they weren't but once that tear jerky hit john q popcorn it was bafo boohoo box office all the way and the critics loved it too i remember vincent canby said i'm

gonna kill you homer you are so dead now chinatown was a classic but you had problems with the sequel the two jakes oh boy disappointed i had the blues like chasen's at chili i said to myself evans you forgot hollywood rule number one kill Homer Simpson What's all the screaming some of us have grammar school in the morning, you know, maybe you should see a doctor homie a head doctor I'm not crazy. It's a TV. That's crazy Aren't you TV the crisis Charlie blue Dawn's birthday the solution a snappy banner out comes the phone in flies Bobby town and six drafts later i had myself a party you see gibberish all gibberish man charlie rose sounds like he is

just calling in on the phone i never noticed that on the show but hearing it in this just now yeah you could just hear like in the background when he's talking i wonder what happened alex's audio sounds 10 times better than charlie rose on here well you know i'm just better than charlie rose in general it strikes me listening to this just how very james lipton his delivery is actually in a lot of those questions like it has that inside the actor studio kind of thing but just more boring and less ridiculous yeah you know what this would have been better with james lixton you know most things would be i think so but he's already been on the show right boy yes wait now man i'm funny was on at some point i think he was on at some point i can't remember it was before this or after this we've slightly after this he was in the sweetest of poo we've oh okay which is not we have not done that one yet okay yeah all right that's

uh we're recording like nine episodes in advance so it's hard to remember it's a confusing it's we're living in like seven different months at the same time right now yeah you know that would have been better with lipton but i guess the it was a big deal at the time to get a charlie rose thing like this is such a star studded episode needlessly so uh but yeah the at least you know robert evans they wrote they could have even gone farther with funny things to have him say but you better believe they weren't that was that's at least he said the line yeah uh i also like bart coming into the room going like what's all this screaming because somer has screamed like eight times out loud uh freaked out at all of this uh and uh i also like i do like the funny acting on marge going like a head doctor that's funny then we cut to honestly a rather stock

scene for burns where i think he's kind of out of character like burns being yeah too nice obsequious to this uh state employee this government employee yeah it's also like i feel like it should be parodying more the oh no my boss is coming over to dinner kind of feel of this yeah it's it doesn't really commit to that sort of like yes it's so generic because the guy's like i hope uh well i've seen nothing out of the ordinary and it's like setting up homer walking into the scene i do like homer's cowboy sleeping bag and trying to breastfeed that's at least kind of funny it's a it's a it's a crazy visual like on the commentary they're like you've never seen this before on tv have you i do i do like uh burns's line about homer is the the maniac they hire to

remind everyone of the gift of sanity a harmless maniac and and you know as much as this is out of character for burns i always like it when burns is reacting to something increasingly ridiculous and it's like oh god what's he doing now like it's just it's a good delivery yeah yeah and uh and so homer gets sent to the uh the nuclear power plants uh on call therapist i guess they hired him after they got homer committed well marvin monroe's dead yeah to replace marvin monroe after he got committed for a pink shirt in that episode that no longer exists. But yes, Homer sees a therapist. You hate your father, don't you?

Sometimes, but the guy I really hated is your father. I shouldn't have brought that up. I was just venting. Anywho, I think your fear of death is causing your insomnia, which is provoking your erratic behavior. Why isn't my baby gaining weight? Because it's made of plastic. I see. What you need is a good long rest.

I suggest Florida. Florida? But that's America's wing. They prefer the Sunshine State. for the sunshine state uh boy so yeah i like that just before we started this scene the therapist like went off on his dad and homer's like man your dad sucks i hate him this i think uh we got the phrase america's wang from this episode yeah i think so henry you're from america's wang or you moved to america's wang uh yeah i mean i'll i'll identify as a floridian i i was born in arkansas so i guess if you want to be strict about that i'm in arkansas uh but from ages 10 to 24 i lived in

florida so all my uh simpsons years a lot of them were spent in florida and so you would think that i would have been more excited by an episode the simpsons go to florida but maybe that also for me rubbed more salt in the wound that like my least favorite episode is when they go to my state but now where where in florida were you raised because there is the distinctive like regions of florida that is very true alex yes it's a big wang uh so well i guess if we're talking about uh the it in wang terms i'm at the base of the penis of florida which the more northern area of florida jacksonville which is ironically the more southern uh culturally like oh yeah not to say like jacksonville has beaches and you'll have some spring break fun there, but it's certainly not like Miami or Orlando or the Gulf of Florida. Like there's so many different types of areas

in Florida and Jacksonville is much more like other parts of the South. Like it's not a big, I'll say moving there from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, not a huge change other than having the Atlantic Ocean nearby, pretty much. Gotcha. Yeah, I actually was in Florida for the very first time this year. Somehow this year I was in Florida for the first time. My band played a few shows down in the Orlando area

and it was the first time I'd ever been. And it was a good time, except for the... Well, I mean, it was a good time and then we got back and then three days later is when the first TSA employee at the Orlando airport got tested positive for COVID, and then everything kind of went from there. So timing couldn't have been better or also more alarming, given how all that went. I mean, I was eventually planning on going for the first time just to go to Disney.

I've been to Disneyland a ton of times, number two, the whole world series of parks, but i don't know if that'll happen before i'm 50 yeah i mean uh i'm i'm sad that my uh younger brother he still lives there he's he's not like me i left jacksonville uh 13 14 years ago now uh my younger brother's still there uh he's also like jacksonville is one of the flor Florida at the time of this recording in August. Florida has, I think, some of the worst response to COVID in the United States. It's a real pee pee so tech hole, as they would say. And my brother's staying as safe as he can. But but it is also the wrestling capital of America right now, Florida, because that's where they're being allowed to do pro wrestling uh and in spite of other states uh laws perhaps flying in the face

of safety and reason and god pro wrestling continues to exist uh you can't stop the most carny of businesses like the and the guys who run the nfl they're just like man how does how does wrestling do it like they they get away with everything you know if i lived in jacksonville now the only thing i'd be happy about is that it's the home of a pro wrestling company that i enjoy that's the one and yet i still wouldn't be going to their shows right now because i would uh fear for my life you're right too oh you have you have a self-preservation instinct is what you're saying uh some people prefer wrestling to uh self-preservation not not me at this moment uh but anyway yeah so i i also think it's weird this guy just out of nowhere sends homer to florida i feel like there's a missing

joke that should be him going like oh i get paid selling vacations that's how that's my real job yeah that's the delivery is very much this like well i suggest this to everyone kind of thing and it just doesn't have that so it does feel exactly as tossed off as the rest of this episode's premises yeah i think you should start to go into like a timeshare kind of breakdown as homer like leaves the office yeah he's got the brochure right there too so the simpsons are going to florida there's another joke about how aggressively uncreative they're being because the way bart and lisa are arguing is about nothing like the joke is that it's there just saying lisa's sitting bart sitting next to me lisa is growing lisa's growing yeah

homer homer's my pockets hurt was uh funny and it's his mental penance yeah i you know in his collection of penance i forgot the mental one that's good we need to make a list of all the homer penance i think we're we're coming up to the end of pennant season obviously xfl pennants coming in a couple years i think that's the final pennant wow that's what a one to go out on it's when he finds out in 2002 that the xfl isn't coming back which uh it's coming on again and might just be coming back another time this time run by the rock and his ex-wife slash business partner and also some other rich guy some other billionaire or man multi-millionaire i forget the

other it's a some hedge fund dude anyway what are the odds that vince mcmahon is still actually going to be shadow controlling this thing through the rock what do you think is that a conspiracy is that something you want to believe in i I would bet the first time The Rock needs more money, Vince will buy back into the XFL. Is Vince going to become like the deep state of the WWE? Just his brain in a jar. I mean, he's never going to stop, that's for sure. If there was anyone in pro wrestling that would have themselves frozen to try and make sure that they could come back someday and continue running that organization vince mcmahon is that person uh yeah you know i predict well these things get me on these podcasts but i predict that vince will outlive sumner redstone i think he'll last even longer than him as being in charge of it uh didn't sumner redstone

die oh i mean he'll live longer than sumner redstone okay got it yes Okay. Now I'm on board. But anyway, the Simpsons arrive in Florida. Spring break! Spring break! Spring break! Oh no! We came during spring break! Take him off the glass! Take him off the glass! This looks like a terrible place to relax. We're going to get you to him, huh? Party! so marge obviously a fan of sir mix a lot yeah and his uh unsuccessful follow-up to baby got back put him on the glass yes yeah the way she says it it has to be a reference to that right yeah and it's not even like a recent reference that was like that song was six years earlier wow that's how old the put him on the glasses i i i did not i missed when that was new i've only heard it as a recent reference on stuff

i and the and the level of detail they put into the putting of breasts upon a glass is also like yeah we the horny animators are at it again i mean maybe it's just the the fact that it's that's being performed the act but pressing breasts against glass i mean maybe it's just the the fact that it's that's being performed the act but pressing breasts against glass is never flattering it's ever flattering to the breasts that's all i'll say no i i'm trying to think if i've ever actually been in any way eroticized by breasts being smushed against glass and no it is always a comical reaction it is always a look at that it's never uh it's like oh a sexy mammogram is happening in front of me uh and and here is maybe my least favorite homer that's ever been on the show oh he just

is like the like the the uh john belushi slash jim belushi party dude who just forgets he has a family who try his first action is to jump out of the car and flip it over potentially injuring his entire family while screaming spring break which it's like i don't know so look up to this point homer is a guy who likes to drink a lot and he'll have fun at a at a you know carnival or whatever but i just never saw him as a guy that if you send him the spring break his second the moment he's there he's like oh look at boobs and drink yay spring break like that just doesn't feel like him to me yeah i mean if you look at the the plot doesn't really track because he's just like she's shattered at this point from lack of sleep and

fear of death it'd be a funnier episode if he was like terrorized by spring break fun and couldn't couldn't take part in it because of his condition but instead he just immediately becomes party dude they forget about whatever his problem is and it also just feels like such a straight down the middle way to go with a joke of like well what do we do with homer oh he becomes a spring break party monster like that's and it's just it's easier jokes it just doesn't feel as as effortful i guess either so not to jump ahead here because i i imagine we'll talk about this later but like i i was reading about this episode and apparently it ran like four minutes over in the original cut and they had to cut some stuff from the middle of the episode which might have made parts of it make more sense if the setup for this episode means so little why why are we keeping that stuff

and not just keeping the stuff that actually ties into the plot is the thing that i find the most confusing because they just completely discard everything that was setting up why they were going to Florida the second they get there. I guess there's just like maybe five seconds of Homer saying, I got a good night's sleep for the first time in a while, but that's the only time they ever referenced like what his problem was. Yeah. You know, they're in the deleted scenes. There's several that would have made a lot of more stuff clear in the second two acts that you know the not that the quiz the quiz master stuff is kind of is funnier than other parts in this episode but that could just be extricated like it could just be homer taking the quiz uh

and then him in bed taking the quiz with marge but i guess his quiz master costume maybe wouldn't make sense but yeah that uh this this giant turn on homer is just ridiculous it's too it's too much and also i mean i am a little inert by like what was seen as acceptable debauch spring break activity that we see in the pan that starts the next sequence it's just now makes me go like this this is sexual harassment. This is not spring break party fun. Yeah, yeah. That it felt like in the year 2000. We didn't think about consent a lot in the year 2000, I guess. Sadly, sadly, no.

No, we did not. But also, it's shocking to see there's not extra jokes to that party pan either because it's just like some topless women running around. It's just its animal house. It's all these type of frat boy movies of the 80s there's not extra jokes on top of it there's not like an invert a fun inversion of spring break fun it's just like no they're just having fun i guess the giant 40 is uh is a joke but you could probably see something like that at mtv spring break like we're gonna pour a giant beer on the sidewalk it's also impossible

to satirize yes because it's so ridiculous to begin with on mtv spring break yeah i mean again the only jokes i feel like this entire section has are unfortunately related to the kid rock section and that sort of negates some of my ability to enjoy them yes yeah i i guess turning royal fart into royal frat in is sort of a joke yeah like the the in sign was already a joke before it it was mangled to be like a non-joke. It is just kind of confusing though. And yes, even though we heard them so much like seven episodes ago, the new rhythm and blues quartet is back. Playing It's a Wild Weekend, their 1989 hit. Mike Scully paying off his favorite musicians again.

And also like the, not to get ahead again, but one of the guest stars on this show became friends with Mike Scully and Julie Thacker at an NRBQ concert. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Homer is just this uncontrollable party monster. They also have a joke that Marge won't. I just don't like that Simpsons had a show us your boobs joke it's just that marge implying that she will do it later yeah not now she's not against it entirely but uh which also feels like just uh that's the family guy episode did that more with

like lois and meg go to spring break and they're and lois is a crazy party monster at it which at least goes against expectations like i think that's better written than just Homer becomes Jim Belushi. Not that that's a good episode, but I'm just saying. And so Homer wants to party. Marge won't let him. This is terrible. The whole point of coming down here was for you to get some rest. Show us your boobs.

Not now. Well, enjoy your sightseeing. I promise I won't leave this bed. I trust you, honey. Nya! Sweet dreams! Nya! Uh, could you just shut off the...

Ha ha ha! Party! Party! Party! Party! Party! Party? so you're strapped to a bed and i guess eventually released from the bed and then the bed is put on top of a party van as well i i guess this is the most john swartz weldery bit of the middle section i think he was able to write on the back of the bed. Yes, and open the door and hop everywhere and that no one removed him from the bed even when they put him

on top of his car. I did like that. This is a weird, a strange quibble for me, I will say, but it is odd that everyone gets like spring break clothes

and new outfits, but Homer is just in his regular like collared work shirt and work pants. It just makes him stand out. Maybe that was the point. It makes him stand out. I guess. Shouldn't he have board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt

though? Let's just go in a puka shell necklace. Let's just go. Or at least like a t-shirt that just says college. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricirelandie or something oh yeah go just get get super obvious with it just may have it say college uh he also doesn't binge drink on camera that well oh wait actually there's a lot of it yeah at one point yeah uh all right now it's time for the mtv spring break jokes which uh yeah the it was like five years into mtv spring break of uh you know the softcore porn on television the springer springer break were all the dirtiest moments of it

as i as i found in my research and that was the the jerry springer uh he would do like fun stunts like double sexy double dare it was more of a stunt show than his regular like pretend talk show yeah like it was i mean the one i remember the most was five i believe it was five men and five women they said they wanted to do the whipped cream bikini from varsity blues and somehow they unblurred on television got to appear with like barely any whipped cream covering their genitals and i was like the shock of it is still with me to this day yeah no this all just came flooding back to me as you were describing this and uh i think i'm gonna need some therapy after this one just like homer

yeah but we get fun references to famous la streets again the thing i didn't get is when this was new yeah but now that i've been there several times, like, oh yeah, Sepulveda. I've been driven down that street. I kind of like that they have a Logan's Run reference in there too. I do like that, that at 25, you're too old to be an MTV VJ, which VJs don't exist anymore, though there were the VMAs

the night before this podcast recording. I would love to know what the portion of the audience watching The Simpsons at this point had ever actually seen logan's run yeah you know to fit to fit in jokes for the youngsters with a reference to a 70s film it's it's going both ways i guess with the audience they're speaking to there and also some very horny animators oh yeah these vjs as well uh and uh so yeah here we are kid rock is here let's talk about i think you mean president rock not yet uh 2024 president rock and uh vp let's say don trump jr i think dwayne the rock i think dwayne the rock johnson will be it before

kid do it like no no a rock rock ticket oh i see a double rock ticket yeah well then what is chief of staff don jr then i guess he's got to be in there with his strange beard kid rock is no good i didn't like this then i i guess let's all talk about our personal experiences kid rock in the day so for me in 1999 i was friends thankfully i was friends with people who had better taste of music than me that really upgraded my taste of music because i probably would have had a time of listening to kid rock in 1999 into 2000 but fortunately one of my friends who i respected his taste of music when i am the bull god came on like tv he was like this song sucks and he just

tore it apart i was like okay the older boy tells me that this song is bad uh fortunately and instead i got turned on to refused which i'm very happy that i i listened to that oh that's considerably better yes yeah uh i was like all my friends in the late 90s were getting into way harder stuff like new metal uh this like dirtbag rock kid rock kind of stuff i don't know what genre this is Metallica which is good I just am not into it and I was going the opposite direction I was getting into like things like new wave and like pixies and like early 90s late 80s alternative and stuff like that just like way way different so I feel like I dodged a bullet by not getting into this or corn or anything

in that melange of like angry for no reason 90s 2000s rock where their bigger problems were on the horizon but for some reason white men were very angry about things they wanted to break stuff it was one of the song titles yeah I'm not gonna stand here and tell you that I did not have deeply questionable musical taste in a lot of different ways around the turn of the millennium like there was any number of new metal bands and, and rap rock things that I was way more tolerant of back then than I certainly would be now. You know, there was definitely a period of my life, uh, a few years prior to when Kid Rock made it big that I will not, I would not have called myself a juggalo, but I certainly did listen to some Insane Clown Posse. Uh, so I believe me when

I say that I am not trying to front like i was too cool to like bad music when i say right now that even then i thought kid rock absolutely sucked shit the second i heard pretty much anything that came out like bawah taba was definitely the first thing of his i ever heard i thought that might make okay wrestling entrance music and then never wanted to hear anything of his ever again and then you find out he's a complete fraud the child of a multi-millionaire his dad owns a dealership by the way yeah and uh dealerships yeah and he's just like the biggest fraud uh stealing uh stealing dirtbag valor i will say he's like i'm the new leonard skinner and i'm i was rich before i started recording anything like yeah and and of course that's why he's like now a conservative big wig.

Like one of the most famous conservative dudes. Oh god. He sucks. And yet this was. I think. So that was in 1999. When Ball with Da Ba became a big hit. And also Cowboy.

And so this was a year. By the time this aired it was a year later. And this is a month ahead of the release of the history of rock album which includes the song american badass which is i think his most popular song maybe ball with the boss is bigger but i when he was on this show it is his high watermark is about to be reached like he's hotter than ever and i think that's also what really bugged me seeing him on the show that it reminded me like uh kid rock's such a big deal he's on the simpsons now this sucks and they don't really like lampoon him in any way or like

have fun with him it just like this just could be his act yeah but what about sweet josey and like the stuff in there that feels like is jokey just feels like corny. Like the part where he's like, hey, we're going to do this bit where we, you know, we pour one out for all the fallen homies and they like wheel a street corner in there. And like you said, that feels like the exact kind of corny bullshit he would probably do in his own live set with completely unexamined irony whatsoever. And it just isn't really funny so much as it just like, boy, they're just giving him a lot of screen time, aren't they? And yeah, you know, the level of respect they treat him with is equal to like Paul McCartney.

They treated him with the same level of respect, and that I think is also infuriating too. Homer's upsetting this talented performer. Oh, God. I mean, seeing Homer sing along to ball with the ball like horrible we must talk about the fallen angel josie yes let's play the jingle i guess yeah i got last time this episode so yeah josie died uh shortly after this episode aired in november of 2000 at the age of 26 complications from

dwarfism which gave him a lot of medical issues I was reading about him at one point he was taking like 65 pills a day to just combat all of the health issues that come with his form of dwarfism whatever that was and I guess he was a Kid Rock super fan that became like an on stage performer

because Kid Rock thought he was a child fan at first. Yeah, he kind of became the mascot for the band. And I mean, he lived his heart. I think from the sound of it, he was partying as hard as any of the other people in the Kid Rock posse. But his body wasn't built for that. And it's tragic now to think of Joe. We were all entertained by Josie.

These jokes in here is like, yeah, Josie, it's a little person with Kid Rock. We all laugh at the silliness of it. And hearing that information just brings me down. It was the age of the, let's say, dwarf throwing contest jokes and things like that. Wee Man was a superstar at Jackass at the same time. Wee Man, holy. And Vern Troyer, the trinity of little people stars at the time uh hank the angry drunken dwarf didn't make it in that trilogy yeah he's henry shuddered at the

mere mention of hank well it's uh i he brought down hanks all over it's true it's true he had a he had i will say that the only bit of this entire section the kid rock section of this episode that i thought was mildly funny was when they throw the world war one kaiser helmet on josie and are about to launch him at homer i thought okay yeah i mean that's i wouldn't have expected that i wouldn't have thought of that so that's at least something a little bit inventive but yeah everything else about this bit is just not good not good this is related by the way i've never seen the movie osmosis jones but apparently uh that is joe c's last film role and he is in the band uh get this kidney rock oh boy this is very funny i'm more of an ozzy and tricks man myself uh there's and there's one more bit in in kid rock history i wanted to mention here too is that uh talking about how this is the high point for kid rock so he's on this in the end

of april by the end of may may 28th 2000 where kid rock will make his first and hardly his last appearance on wwe television where him and joe c will appear on raw to do live the undertaker's new theme american badass and donald trump is in the front row yep yeah might as well be uh that's how i mean i i have been sadly party to hearing kid rock play live because for a pro wrestling video game event i uh this is me complaining about a free trip i got to go to and these nachos were cold uh but no i got to go to wrestlemania 25 which was pretty awesome except for having to hear kid rock play like a medley of songs that uh i can't i can't recall if you were there alex uh which year was this oh wait oh wait oh wait i was not

there i think that was when i was working at harmonix so i thankfully missed the window for that one yeah god i thankfully in my life managed to avoid ever being in a physical space where kid rock is performing and i'd like to keep that streak going as long as possible uh he never worked with you guys on a on a scrapped kid rock rock band kid rock band you know he never made it into rock band or really guitar hero for the most part. I don't know why that is. Maybe the people who made those games, despite putting tons of terrible bands in those games over the years, maybe that just was a bridge too far. But yeah, so Kid Rock is about to be like the, I believe I've heard it said before that

like WWE, no, I think it's Limp Bizkit is WWE's favorite band, but Kid Rock's right behind him i think actually i think it was that when he first came out the undertaker as the american badass he'd come out to american badass which would then transition into roland so yeah what a great time 2000 was man you know maybe maybe this is me just being too old and not necessarily this maybe wouldn't have made actual sense. But like, I feel like there are totally Florida acts that would have totally made sense in the context of like a spring break performance that would have served everyone better than getting Kid Rock. Like, for God's sakes, Two Life Crew, Insular Indians, totally the kind of band you would have at a a spring break you know get together uh now maybe at that point the members of two life crew were not speaking to

each other i don't know but i just i feel like there's there's other people you could have gone to for this that would have been as effective if not more so and also homer uh likes dinosaur rock like why is he getting into kid rock uh well know, he's just waiting for the rapping granny. That's true. He doesn't truly. I mean, I would bet Scully's first pitch was like, who can we get from Skinner? Like, let's do that.

And so it was Selman takes credit for suggesting a younger artist there. I'm really glad rapping granny was not on this episode because there'd be a third death jingle. A real act, by the way uh i do like that homer i do like when homer sees josie on stage homer's like don't worry i'm gonna tackle this child like that's an all right joke i i at least like that but yeah i think actually one of the my most reviled moments on the show is homer singing along to ball with the ball i think that is i just hate that so much i appreciate that he doesn't know the lyrics at all but nonetheless i guess that it does reflect how out of date homers tastes are because he tries to lead the audience in singing we built this city

that's true that keeps coming back yeah doing the vj thing for the most out ofof-control spring break ever. And since it's my birthday, we'll party extra hard. Ah, no, not yet. I'm only 25. What up, chew toys? Sienica here tightening the hose clamps for you bad girls. We got Kid Rock coming up for all you mosh monkeys. Woo!

I like music! Yo, yo! Straight out of Detroit, y'all. It's the J-O-E to the C. Let's rock the party with Kid Rock. Oh, no, it's a lost child. Don't worry, folks. I'll tackle him.

Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Yo, Rock! Tell Spring Break what your name is! My name is Kid Rock! I wish you four banana, banana, hookah, jack-o'-luck

I wish you four conga, bucket, nana, manna, honka, panoga Please come out to me There's a very funny story in the commentary where Mike Scully is there and Kid Rock is coming in to record, and they have to wait for Josie to call in from Detroit. So it's just this showrunner of a cartoon in his late 40s sitting there with Kid Rock having to make small talk for 20 minutes.

And Kid Rock is just like, oh, he's always late. I'm not surprised Josie had some trouble getting out of bed that morning. All right. uh that's uh i'm not surprised jesse had some trouble getting out of bed that morning all right well so it cuts from that to uh the rest of the family having some florida fun on a fan boat it's uh you know have you ridden in a fan i haven't i kind of wish i had it's uh but it just seems like so loud and awful like i think i have been on one of those uh what they call like the duck boats where it's like a drivable tune well it's like a it's a van that can then go in the water and then come back out i have been on that those are the duck boats yeah yeah but uh but not a fan boat well also all this mix of mtv and fan boats it reminds me of the like i believe it was the louisiana real world where there was a racist fan boat guy in it a racist fan book yes yeah impossible uh but but here this fan book guy is nothing but nice

pointing out uh the local gator everybody loves now uh gators in florida i have definitely uh dealt with as well like i've i went at least once my family maybe even twice to the saint augustine alligator farm which is just like a whole bunch of alligators just everywhere and i tell you they are fat and lazy and let like moss grow on them they move so little but it's it's interesting to look at them alligators are cute in some ways. Though he didn't have anything as cute as Captain Jack, the most famous gator there was Gomek because he was the biggest alligator in the

world at one point. People had to tell us no, no, that's not a stuffed Gomek. He's still alive. He was alive when I visited him. Hold a mirror under his nose. We'll see. I think that's another thing that brought me down watching this that captain jack is so cute that then when they like

seemingly kill him you feel much worse than he's friendly yeah he's just a knife he rolls on his back and waves now does he just eat homeless people yes like the state is throwing them in there yeah that's that's not on him uh he's know, you can't blame an animal for doing what he does. So, yeah, that scene of establishing Captain Jack ends. And I do like their Florida outfits for the rest of the family. They are well-designed. Bart's a very, like, trashy shark tooth or whatever he's got on. I love that, yeah.

That's great. Took me back to many a days looking for shark teeth, fossilized shark teeth on the Florida beachesida beaches my mom was addicted to it like she has seriously like a a 20 gallon jar oh my god with shark teeth that she just picked up over 20 years it's it's crazy that's your inheritance uh but uh yes we then return to more kid rock and this was another thing i hated about this watching it the first time i still don't like it which is the second kid rock says there's going to be a giant 40 you know exactly what's happening like and that it goes to the exact place it is which like yeah homer's gonna drink a giant bottle of liquor and then he does it like

it just feels empty to me it's it's too obvious and then we get a joke about like white white comedy writers obsessed with like the fun variant on bitch and also uh like two years later just be like you could put the word is a laughter things that's pretty funny barf uh b yeah i i'm shocked to hear them get away with biatch on television i mean the only thing i laughed at was all for homer that's that's at least a funny statement the the glee in his voice as he is consuming the malt liquor is is a smile worthy moment but yeah like just between that and like right before that kid rock being like it's yo it's the pimp of the nation kid rock which is apparently a line that he wanted inserted himself just i didn't vote for him and you never will but uh but yes homer and

kid rock they're almost having a fight yo let's waste that biatch. A biatch? Moi? Son of a bitch! We built this city on rock and roll. We'll give that punk a Joe C. section. Let's do this thing. All right now, boys, that's enough. Kid Rock. That's not this thing. All right now, boys, that's enough. Kid Rock, that's not like you. And Josie, would your mama want you stretching out that sweatshirt like that?

No, sir. Please don't tell mama. They called you a pig, Sheriff. Well, I don't care what they call me, as long as they play Fists of Rage. That's a good song. That's apparently a deep cut from devil without a pause album yeah i had to look that up uh but yeah that's dietrich bader i think best known at this point from the drew carey show that show he was on that show for nine years and every episode of it

too do you think he's better known from that show or from office space i think way more people saw drew carey at the time office space became a bigger hit like uh post vhs and dvd right and for the kids 10 years younger than us or 20 years younger than us he's he's most famous as like batman he's been yeah he's voiced batman more than anybody who isn't kevin conroy he's he's voiced batman that much oh shit i forgot he was jethro in the bever Beverly Hillbillies movie. That's right. He was a great Jethro. That movie, I think it holds up.

It's better than you think it would be. Jim Varney in a non-earnest role, I'm into it. Let's do more of that. We can't do that anymore, but we should have. It's funny. The last time they did white trash comedy with a guest star, it was with Jim Varney as Cooter. That's right right now we've

got him i i mean diedrich bader uh he if you look into his background i was shocked to find out what his his father is a high-level politician who also was high-ranking member in the world bank and the ford foundation so i mean if you're're a conspiracy minded person and look into the Ford Foundation plus CIA on Google, you might be shocked at what you find out. Don't anger the beater. Sorry. Oh yeah, baiters. Sorry. This is a whole episode full of guest stars with shocking backgrounds, isn't it? Though Diedrich just seems like a cool dude. Yeah, I mean, I read a random rolls on him from AV Club. Some of my favorite like celeb interviews they did. Diedrich has his middle name.

His first name is Carl. Oh, okay. Carl Bader. But like the thing they mentioned when they asked him about Beverly Hillbillies, he's like, I love working with Jim Varney because we're both classically trained actors who came to this. And he's like, Jim Varney was way better than me. He remembered all of his Shakespeare lines. I didn't remember any of mine. And yeah, he was just getting into his second career as a voice actor at this time.

Before this, he'd been on the Buzz Lightyear show and recurring roles and other stuff. And now he's just, I mean, he's more a voice actor. A sad thing on the commentary is they're and recurring roles and other stuff and and now he's just i mean he's more a voice actor a sad thing on the commentary is they're like what do you want to promote he's like oh it's uh meet the spartans it's the parody of 300 like oh no no i forgot about that oh well he got a paycheck yeah he knew he knew he knew i think i feel like meet the spartans was the nadir even for that whole section, that time frame of bad parody movies. I feel like that was actually the worst of them. It was at the point where they weren't even doing genre parodies or whatever.

It was named after a specific movie, but that wasn't even the entirety of what they were parodying. Wasn't that the one where it had the Britney Spears head shaving thing in the trailer? Yeah. The Britney shaves her head and is then kicked into the hole. This is Sparta. A guy says this Spartan kicks in the hole. Kevin Sorbo's there. This is the only one of those movies I hate watched in a dark time in my life. So I sadly have a lot of Meet the Spartans remembered.

I believe Diedrich Bader has to act with a bunch of cat cat shit on his face at one point so that's good for him so yeah that was made by jason friedberg and aaron seltzer who were basically the duo that were supposed to be like the new you know abrams and zuckerberg like parody people like they did they were the ones that made spy hard they made the original scary movie and then they went on to make date movie epic movie meet the spartans disaster movie and so on and so no one ever talks about their 2010s uh movies like vampires suck oh oh god that's probably worse than meet the spartans because it doesn't even have good actor a couple good actors the starving games well also bob would you guess that in meet the spartans that they have some jokes about how they might be gay?

Oh, that's humor that's never been done before. Yeah. And I also recall that Carmen Electra turns into the symbiote suit Spider-Man and the voiceover guy goes, and then she got covered in black goo just like Spider-Man in that movie. I was like, wow. They had no trust for their audience at all these movies are such uh just time tunnels because i was just looking to see like okay what happened in disaster movie the movie ends with a parody of i'm fucking matt damon by sarah silverman a parody of a comedy song

what yes oh my you had to be like alive and watching like a one week of jimmy kimmel or something to understand what that even is well and also they had like uh the the heavyset guy who ran around naked with borat like he has a major role in the film god this is just such a just a dark time for parody films because like you go back i mean look i'm not going to stand here and tell you every part of the hot shots movies hold up but i can watch those movies and still laugh at things that are happening that are not just pop culture references. Every one of these, every single thing these guys made is just a different flavor of hot trash. Well,

it's funny is when you look at the casts of each one, you can chart how they couldn't even get, they got worse and worse casts that like by the fifth one, I think they couldn't even get mad TV people like mad TV. People were like, nope, not doing it. Like even Kevin Sorbo was like, I think not couldn't even get mad TV people like mad TV. People were like, nope, not doing it. Like even Kevin Sorbo was like, I think not. I'll be in God's not dead for us to do.

I, I, we're talking too much about these guys, but I did. I heard Ike Barinholtz on a podcast even go like, these guys were assholes. I regret ever doing one of their movies. Diedrich Bader just, he does. He seems like an agreeable guy who will just do stuff and he's uh but he's he seems like a nice guy too even uh you know someday i hope to interview him about this and his father's connections to the cia three of the ford foundation i don't know about but but he's really good here playing an andy griffith type who then reveals himself to not

be andy griffith that it was all an act at this point he's being paid off by the beer companies so he's also like he's not only a hard-ass cop who uh brutalizes people but he also is easily bought off by a company as well and uh and boys will be boys with sadly what was going on back then as uh homer gets dropped off uh to a terrified marge they kind of just don't even touch on how marge is like worried her husband might be dead because she came home and he's not there uh and i guess we find out that the cure to insomnia is blackout drinking that's that fixes insomnia so homer is still ready to keep the spring break going but spring break is over my insomnia it's gone. Check it out, March. I'm sane again.

And I owe it all to Spring Break! Woo! Woo! I'm an animal! Duh. Hey, where is everybody? Spring Break is over. It's time to get back to our studies.

The world looks to us the college students for leadership fine be nerds i'll find some people who know the true meaning of the words We built this city. This kicked ass city. What kind of music built this city? Rock and roll. Dad, look out! Look out for what? The giant gator. The giant... I do like how the gator is briefly happy to see them.

Yes, yes. He's like, oh, my friend's on a fan boat and then smashed and killed. I just feel so bad for that poor gator. It didn't deserve this. But, you know, continuity nerd here, I will point out, this is actually good continuity. As established in Homerpalooza, Homer is a big fan of Jefferson Starship, so it fits that he'd be singing one of their songs.

He hates Starland Vocal Band. Yes, yes. They suck. Starship he's all about. And I do like, I wonder how intentional it was, but having Louie Louie playing that Homer does not sing along to, and he instead is singing Built This City over Louie Louie is funny. All the music they had to license for these is crazy. On top of all these guest stars, they probably lost a ton of money just on ball with the ball and i like i do like yardley's acting of uh quietly singing rock and roll that's good that's

the only acceptable way to sing along to that song because god it is just one of the worst pop songs of the last several decades it's's terrible. It's a terrible song. That's why it's a karaoke favorite of mine, because it's just so bad. It's about rocking and rolling, and it is the least rocking song ever. And by people that ostensibly should have known better. Well, it was their late 70s, early 80s. It was a tough time for that generation of rocker. Yeah.

And so Captain Jack seemingly dead. The cop shows up. Homer tries to run away, jumps in the water, comes out covered in snapping turtles. That's kind of funny. It's at least a funny visual. But yes, the Simpsons are under arrest. You killed Captain Jack. You in a heap of trouble, son.

You'll have to catch me first. Boom, boom, boom. Okay, I'll go quietly. Did you really have to handcuff the children? No, ma'am, I did not. You seem so understanding before. What happened to boys will be boys. Did you really have to handcuff the children? No, ma'am, I did not. You seemed so understanding before. What happened to boys will be boys?

You see, during spring break, the beer companies pay me to look the other way. The rest of the year, I'm a real hard ass. Okay, sweet pea, you're next. Whoa, looks like we got a teeny Houdini here well don't you worry darling i got some baby cuffs in the station i mean these are these are jokes but i have seen now videos of children being handcuffed yeah yeah they told me the florida police department actually had baby cuffs on hand i would believe that well you know that's why you invest in zip ties those will fit over any size oh yeah you know oh oh the pigs they're great uh that

yeah i mean this this joke of uh of a hard-ass criminal treating uh children horribly is too a little too real now but also i do like that the whole family laughs at teeny houdini and he's like anyway i'm gonna get my the cuffs for the baby size cuffs uh and then the whole the i the rest of the family's going like yeah send homer to jail but we didn't do anything but i feel like these jokes about you know the crookedness of florida laws like this feels like early florida man comedy to me which i just want to i just want to point out like i think these jokes are like they make florida look like 50 percent worse than every other state in america i think they're 10 percent worse on crime if that yeah just because of what the sunshine laws which

means uh like those crimes can be reported nationally right yeah or something like that it lets people know about it much more our our friends on citations needed podcast uh they did a whole episode about the florida man thing now it's uh awful all about shaming poor people yep yeah totally and look the reality is there's people on meth everywhere in this country florida is not unique that way yeah i guess it's more you know the backdrop of florida is more exciting to viewers than just like an alabama meth no one cares about ohio man yeah mendocino county man is just not nearly that sexy uh but yeah so the the family's under arrest he walks away and there's a couple good jokes about undercutting expectations like how homer goes oh we're free and he breaks

his cuffs on the on the nail yeah the keys are hanging from i i do love homer uh lisa is like you can't drive that you don't have your license he turns the key in the car and it starts he's like it works yes yeah so i was gonna say these are just jokes where it's like it feels like there was supposed to be a joke there but no one could come up with one so like what's the thing that homer could do that is not expected like it and there isn't necessarily like a punch line there it's just like we needed something funny to happen there so hom Homer does the thing that no one would do. And I don't know, like, I just, I feel like this episode has way too much of that. I at least like that Homer actually thought not having a license means you'd lose your

ability to drive. I do like that. Lisa is being just too much of a nerd of going like, but it'd be illegal to drive without a license. I guess too, she's just saying like, well, you'll never be free like they have your license they know you can't you'll be a fugitive for the rest of your life if you run away from this homer they drive away and uh there's also a cute joke of i do really like the animation of him tossing his hat down and then a cartoonish boying back onto his head and no one's around to see it uh and then comes a high-speed car chase

with guns being shot at each other feels uh feels a little different now these jokes they just make me sad and it seemed funny of just like in 2000 like ah what a funny joke about like action films or whatever uh and then comes a pretty good joke of the family getting like hit by a train like dodging one train and hit by another train yeah i mean even if uh so matt selman points out that even if you don't like this episode no other act break in any other show would have a family uh go to sleep after being hit by a train yes yeah and in the car that's the train is still pushing yes so i think act three begins with them waking up yes it's a good visual bit like just the the whole you know we we beat the train and then another one comes around like i just i it's maybe the only actual like belly laugh this episode got out of me and and i liked uh homer when

martin said like you'll kill us all he's like or die trying uh but yeah the you i selman is right to point that out like you know what we at least did a cool act break and return from the commercial break there they're stuck on the front of the train homer also steals some food off screen and uh i like the animation of the uh like the pole being worked to lodge them free that's a funny little visual and seemingly they should all be dead how long that car falls especially homer he's not even wearing a seatbelt. But Homer is lit on fire, at least there. And then comes another just very random couple of minutes. But the funniest minutes in this episode, I think. Yeah, the diner stuff and them living as bumpkins does feel very Schwarzwalder-y.

Especially the, I don't know, hardscrabble waitress manager who just sees the good qualities in everybody. But it's like very arbitrary. Like, you're blank. I like that. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new net zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and and much more making your usage clearer your trips greener your home cozier and your world brighter find our net zero hub at electric

island.ie and also just the fact that the diner is in the middle of the everglades with like seemingly no roads or anything else around it yes yeah, yeah, it's a magical diner. And it's one of those like old-timey movie throwbacks that they like to put in there. I mean, how many mystery science theater movies did we have? Like off the top of my head, I accuse my parents and Red Zone Cuba both have scenes of going to a diner

that with a very nice owner, things end in different ways for both of the owners there. But you can always get a job and a place to live. French fried potatoes on the side. Yeah, a nice hamburger sandwich. But yes, this lady at the diner, quite nice. You took the signs out of the window? That's pretty presumptuous.

How do you know I'm going to hire you? Sorry, I just want to be a broom boy so bad. I like your attitude. You're hired. How about you, missy? You want to be a mop girl? Not really, no. I like your honesty.

You're hired. And you two haven't said a word. I like that. You're hired. Hey, keep it down. Y'all can stay in this trailer. Now it ain't buckingham palace three chillings and a baby here

it's so cozy you're insincere i like that all that i like that stuff is really funny she's a good good one-off character and that's that you're right that is very swartz weldery yeah the uh though i guess not swartz weldery and that he'd write a woman to do anything but uh right but but yeah the and interest does a great job with this lady too and and i also uh an underrated joke i just really caught this time the fact that she makes the distinction between youngins chillins and a baby like those are should all be interchangeable but when she says and a baby it makes you like well then wait then what are youngins and chillins to you if not a child they're all different age ranges yeah them

all adapting instantly to it like uh when they're working the countertop i love that homer is just as like kind of suggestively friendly to that guy like how about some more hash brown sugar and then at homer at peak jerk ashley he's ready to beat her head in and perhaps escape in this uh in this next clip let's just end authorities in six tow county are on the lookout for a family of fugitives. They're charged with gatorside and defrauding an Amtrak snack bar. Trouble with the law, huh? Well, I'm not one to judge. The way I see it, we're all sinners.

Y'all just lie low here. You'll be safe with old Velma. Stop that. But I was just going to try to go on now just quit over doesn't even have an excuse he just say like i was gonna try to knock you out and the funny animation of him pretending to use it as a mirror yeah yeah uh but this goes this also like this third act is packed with like three ideas this is it could be them working at the diner it could be them on trial or it could be them working at the diner it could be

them on trial or it could be them in jail but it's all three of those things in like four minutes there's no time for any of it these are like three different episode ideas uh but the simpsons become hillbillies so they also have to have another change of clothes in this episode they homer doesn't have a florida outfit but he he does have a different outfit when he goes crazy in this episode so really is four different sets of clothes for the entire family have to be designed which this is just a lot to put on your animation team i think it's uh it's ambitious as unambitious as the script was it's a very ambitious uh animation i think so visually and uh yeah so homer as they're reflecting on it, he's like, killing that gator was the best decision I ever made. And also Homer is now very comfortable with incest.

He's just imagining that Bart and Lisa are going to marry each other. I was going to say, we were due for an incest joke somewhere along the way in this episode, and we finally got there. This episode's not about undercutting expectations for humor. It's about going where you expect them to where's my incest joke you get a whittling joke you gotta have incest right after that well then another bit that is just like missing here is like shouldn't they just wake up and their trailer is stolen and they have been arrested so there's not a moment that shows you

how they got caught or like the there's not even a line of somebody saying like we got tipped off by that guy you offered hash browns to there's nothing it feels like there's just no time for that little bit of plot you can't think about how scenes in this third act connect because they don't uh but yes the family is arrested once more hey wake up. We're moving. You just relax. I'll have you in jail by supper time. You'd better. Hey, you're stealing my trailer. I like that. Well, first up is the state of Florida versus the Simpson family.

Your Honor, I'd like to represent myself. Drunken Hicks of the jury. You know, honestly, they didn't need to spend more time in the courtroom you should know they've lost already yeah homer says he's representing himself there's no lionel hutz or guild help them out and uh there's a cut scene before this in which we see uh the body of uh captain jack is on display at the capitol building in uh where are they uh six-toe county florida yeah and people are like there's a procession visiting him and kid rock is part of it he gets more lines and that explains why he crawls out of it at the end of the episode it is an incredibly key scene to your ending and that they cut it uh scully says they cut it because

it was too long and there are minor animation mistakes in it it's on the dvd i didn't see any animation issues with it yeah i i guess there's a procession of characters and none of them are moving as it goes over like they're not blinking or anything but if i didn't know he thought there were animation mistakes it would never register to me as mistakes in animation like that uh and and also to cut a line from kid rock your big guest star like that seems weird a big choice to me too another biatch was said yeah yeah and especially just in the wake of what they kept because again like whole chunks of this episode granted it moves very fast so it's hard to stick on any one thing but like whole chunks of this episode just get

tossed away you know just to make sure the next thing can happen. And it just, I don't know, like anything that would have made the whole captain Jack plot actually make like a little bit more sense. I feel like would have been welcome. Yeah. Though, even though that doesn't make,

okay. If that seems in there, then you just have to assume at the end of the episode, when he shows up again, you're like, so wait, everyone assumed he was dead, but didn't check that he

was unconscious for two weeks like at best two weeks like honestly it feels like four months pass in between them killing the gator and the gator coming back to life so well like how long how long was lennon's body on display before they buried him uh and as the simpson showed he came back to life as well. Exactly. When needed. There you go. They set a precedent for that. We can't complain.

But yeah, if that scene was in there, it still wouldn't make the ending work entirely, but at least it would be less of an ass pull as it works in broadcast. Just him coming out of a random building. But I do like the design of the jury. They pulled some characters out of the uh character pack but there's a few new ones in there of the the drunken hicks on the jury i i like them the only character

pack one i immediately my eyes went to was the old man in the military uniform who i remember from one at least one mr burns episode where he is introduced to someone and then just has like a kind of response to something that is correct that is admiral car stairs all right there it is i had to look that one up i didn't know it off the top of my head was that from burns baby burns it is yes he's yeah he's the guy that rodney dangerfields or larry burns says hey i hope i look that good when i'm 200 what'd you serve on the merrimack hey he's he's at the party too at the end of the episode yes yeah he's uh which they're right on the commentary that is like it's wrong that the jury should be at this big

party like they're they're an they're clearly a tainted jury there uh but yeah so in this incredibly overstuffed episode of concepts which began with a quiz master they briefly do a cool hand luke parody which i at least like the comedy that the entire family is kept together in the same jail and the same chain gang like even the children yeah and that feels like john swartzwelder and i also can't believe they got away with like marge being whipped like the violence is usually done to homer but she gets whipped in this episode she was whipped oh wait no that was a hom. That was whipped by the aliens in Citizen Kang. I guess she's whipped there, too.

Oh, yeah, that's right. They're both whipped. I think everyone is. I did like the line, no listening, you hear me? No, just don't learn, do you? Yeah, but there's no time for this here, but at least we get some good whipping sound effects. We'd be much better rock breakers if we weren't all chained together no talking you know you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar

beginning to dislike the man with the whip afternoon folks got a new assignment for you the judge is having a little soiree and he needs some help no listening you hear me no you just don't learn do you uh nothing funnier than a confusing sadist yes yeah that's not even a very swartzwatery uh line though i like that the logic of that no listening you hear me uh prison labor so funny now funnier than ever is this it was in 2000 uh yeah but yeah so yeah the the uh the family gets sent to uh wait at a party while still in their full you know orange and also being whipped off screen the entire time is there as they're serving people. Didn't Hillary Clinton do something similar?

Not at a party, but she had prison labor do her landscaping or something. There was some big scandal about that. Look, Bob, that was just their tradition at the Arkansas governor's mansion to have your own prison laborers who are not technically slaves. And you're being a little judgmental at the time. It was the early 80s bob slave is such an ugly word yeah yeah i'm pretty sure they weren't whipping them during the soirees yeah exactly and you know what hillary was just doing what was the tradition there bob

you want her to break from tradition i said i think it was heritage not hate yeah exactly no that was very dark one of the one of those many things you're like, I guess that was just normal, and we're supposed to just accept it and whatever. Anyway, I do like the ice sculpture electric chair, too. That is great, yeah. And also another very good Schwarzwelder-y joke is that Homer is whipped until he's good at playing piano. Big laugh at me uh when he starts

playing better uh and so the simpsons plan a prison break but it doesn't go so well simpson we got a problem the jazz pianist didn't show up well what am i supposed to do Ow! Ow! Okay, Bart. I'll sweet-talk the sheriff while you grab his keys. What should I do? Restock the possum bar. We're almost out of claws. Oh. My goodness, what a lovely suit, Sheriff.

Is that seersucker? Nah, not on a civil servant's salary. It's nearsucker. Well, the fabric really brings out the red in your neck. Yep, it's coming along, huh? You should see the red in your neck yep it's coming along huh you should see it in august after the horsefly has been getting at it whoo man dang i wish i could but in august our chain gang has to dig for tar well now i might could switch you to dead animal pickup hey it almost feels like he's hitting on her there.

I think so. Marge is sweet-talking him. That's true. She's trying to trick him into seduction to distract him. While Lisa restocks the possum bar. I like that Marge is still being a good caterer. She's like, well, we still got to restock these possums. Also, you know, call me a country bumpkin,

but I like the look of Seersucker. I'm a pro Seersucker. I could see you in one of those like a straw hat. It's a powerful look, and it takes a powerful confidence to pull it off, but I feel like you could do it. Boy, you know, yeah, it does. It takes a lot.

I got to work up more to be ready for Seersucker. Maybe I should start with Nearsucker, actually. On a podcast or celery. I also like that this is when it taught me, oh, redneck means these things. I knew it as terminology for sure. We all got schooled in the nature of the redneck by the wonderful poet Jeff Foxworthy.

That's true. Now game show host. He wrote the popular quiz you might be a redneck i i like that he you know his other guys they went a little more reactionary in his blue collar comedy tour group i like that he is still the centrist of the redneck comedy guys like yeah he's uh he's the guy you can at least less shamedly buy a gift at Walmart of him as a gift to a family member who likes that. I will say all the way up there in Ohio where I live, we had our own Southerners. They were called West Virginians.

We made fun of them mercilessly. Well, as someone who's a good chunk of my family is from West Virginia, I get it. We were no better than you. Yeah, no, but at the same time, I get it. So the family tries to escape but they get cornered uh the whip guy not only uses his whip to close the gate but also to surround them encircle them in fire and they just applaud like wow that was pretty cool yeah like you know what that deserves applause we're uh and then well then we come to perhaps the laziest ending the show

ever did i guess we just haven't been whipping you enough. Sakes alive! Our beloved Captain Jack isn't dead after all! Well, don't that beat all. I guess you folks just stunned him. That's what we've been trying to tell you! Well, looks like you folks are free to go but don't you set foot in state of Florida again fine

there are plenty of other states that are happy to have us well we're still welcome in North Dakota and Arizona Arizona smells funny North Dakota here we come I've always wanted to see Mount Rushmore That's South Dakota I mean the ending is a big like shrug But I do love how the final joke is Bart's Disappointment over the Dakotas Yes yeah

Good spirit to go out on for this episode Oh God I do think North dakota of all the states in america is the least happening anything states like i think it is the i i can't think of one thing about it other than it's like it's not south dakota south dakota is more interesting yeah it's near places you might want to go but on its own i i'm trying to think of a single attraction in North Dakota, and I can't conjure one. If you're in North Dakota, let us know. We'll help you.

Yeah. We'll help you plan an escape from there. North Dakota is the Peace Garden State and also the Rough Rider State. Okay. Those two things shouldn't go together. Nope. Wait a minute yeah is it uh it must be those two uh philosophies constantly fighting each other on the streets of north dakota uh but yeah this

this ending pissed me off as a kid because it is just the gator shows up and then they just say oh i guess he's not dead you can go and it's just they don't even make a joke other episodes make a joke about how they had a lazy ending this didn't make a joke about it and this homer's crisis over i guess i think it was over at act one oh yeah it was no i i guess you should take it as when he wakes up in the middle of act two and says hey cured my insomnia that's done and he's homer's still gonna die at 42 in fact i would guess he's gonna die at 40 after all the stuff he did during spring break i think so all the braised ribs we didn't see him eat

he still ate them and i guess the final reason this became a very hated episode for me what i would legit just fast forward through on my vhs uh rewatches of this is because it you have to hear kid rock one last time they just have to remind you one more time yes this is a kid rock episode here's his music taking you out and it's just it's not even like he recorded new music for the thing it's just you gotta hear kid rock one more time like i i fast forwarded hard over this episode in my tape back in the day. They paid that licensing fee. They are going to get their money's worth.

Man, I bet this episode of Simpsons has probably made Kid Rock about a million dollars. I bet you. It's going to cater his campaign in 2024. God. When he accepted his Hall of Fame speech, he basically said like, oh oh, yeah, I'm going to go to Washington, D.C. next. And, of course, the most Floridian of WWE superstars, AJ Styles, was like, hell yeah. I will say, like, other polarizing episodes in this season, I've liked them more. This one, I don't.

I think it really is the Kid Rock stink in the middle. You can't escape it. There are funny jokes. America's Wang comes from this episode. I like the bumpkin-y stuff, but yeah, it's very messy. But like I said, we are out of the clear. It's going to be smooth sailing until we hit Behind the Laughter. Yes, yeah, which is two.

Three episodes. Three episodes, yeah. Not too many more. But this was the rough patch I was fearing. I didn't think I was going to end the podcast, but it was just like a lot to get through a lot of discussions to have but i think we made the most of it and i think um we've pulled something out of this that's worth salvaging but ultimately it deserves the reputation this is the most negative i felt on re-exploration of

any episode because when we even did the mod episode i was just more like i wish i hadn't done this like it's like a tragedy but i'm still thinking like hey it could have been worse or whatever i'm not as insulted by it and same with like the uh missionary impossible which just ended with betty white going like oh that oh yeah yeah like at least that made some comedy out of not having an ending this one is just all over the place admittedly lazily written and then thanks to an edit has an ending that makes no sense and doesn't care about it and then i have to see kid rock like yeah yep i mean even in the majority of bad episodes i've watched the simpsons like

there's at least something joyful in there there's some goof some gag something i can latch on to and just be like okay well at least there was that. This one is just a slog. Like there are, there are occasional bits in there that I think are kind of funny, but like they could be so much better in any other episode that was written better than this one is. It just, it just feels joyless. Like I had no fun watching it. And I just like, I, I, I, every episode I've, I've, I've watched along for this podcast, every episode from the, the, the seasons prior to this, like there's stuff in there I don't like, but I can always latch onto it.

This is the first one I genuinely feel like is the first episode of The Simpsons I actively hated at the time. Well, Alex, we are very sorry for punishing you. Yes, yeah. No, it's okay. It's good to get this out. Like it was good to be able to sort of purge this

from the back corner of my psyche and just get it out there and remind everyone in the world. I mean, not that everyone doesn't already know, but just remind everyone at home, Kid Rock is just the dirt worst. Really is. But Alex, please let all of our listeners know where they can find you online and what you're up to lately. Again, this will be going live in mid to late November, I'm guessing. We're three months behind that. We're in August right now. Bold statement to think that we're going to be doing anything in November, but I appreciate that.

At this point, we at GiantBomb.com are still continuing to cover video games. We are still doing our weekly podcast. We are still doing videos, all from home, as everyone is. And I'm Alex underscore Navarro over on Twitter, where I try not to be too sad these days. I guess theoretically, you'll have some new consoles to talk about at this time. Are there release dates for those? Not right now.

There aren't. No, but there's a target release month, but that's about it. Yeah. So which you'd figure in August, we'd know what the date is. But I wish you luck with that console launch that I'm assuming is happening at the time people are listening. Thank you. Me too.

Yeah, I will need that theoretical luck to get to theoretical November. So thanks again to Alex Navarro for being on the show. Please check out his stuff and Giant Bomb. But as for us, if you want to check out more of our stuff and get all these episodes one week ahead of time and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. You sign up there for five bucks a month, you'll get just that, but also access to everything behind the $5 paywall.

That includes all of our limited miniseries. There's been so many of those to date, but our most recent one we're doing right now is Talking Futurama Season 2 Part 2. We're covering all the second half of Futurama's second season using the Talking Simpsons treatment and all the previous episodes of Talking Futurama and our other mini series are behind the paywall for five bucks a month at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons over 100 bonus podcasts so many to go through and if when you sign up you have access to all of them immediately and if you sign up at the $10 level you get all the $5 stuff plus one mega long podcast once a month just for patrons of that level or higher.

And what is that, Henry? Bob, you're talking about the What a Cartoon movie podcast. Now, everybody knows about our sister podcast, What a Cartoon, where we cover animated series in the Talking Simpsons style. Well, once a month, we cover a movie in the same way. What a Cartoon movie. You can hear a free version of it on the what a cartoon feed each month but if you want to hear the extended often over four hours discussion of films like ghost in the shell aladdin's return of jafar space jam and whatever we're doing in november

you can only hear those over a hundred hours of exclusive podcasts. If you are a $10 subscriber at patreon.com slash talking simpsons, or you up your subscription from five to 10 bucks to unlock all that extra stuff, please consider signing up patreon.com slash talking simpsons. So I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And my other podcast, by the way, is Retro Knots. That is a classic gaming podcast about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts. Sign up there for two exclusive episodes every month. Again, that

is patreon.com slash retronauts. Henry, how about you? Why you should follow me, Henry Gilbert, on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Who knows how I'm handling the middle of November? I guess you'll know better than me. But follow that. And if you'd like to stay in the loop about this podcast and any time new stuff goes up on the free feeds or on the Patreon, follow at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter. At TalkSimpsonsPod keeps you up to date on any new events in our lives. You should definitely be following it by now

if you're a fan of this podcast at TalkSimpsons pod thanks so much for joining us folks we will see you next time for last tap dance in springfield and we'll see you then You're insincere. I like that.