Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - King of the Hill With Andrew Jupin

Episode Date: June 26, 2019

Grab a Powersauce and get climbing, as this week's podcast welcomes Andrew Jupin from the podcast We Hate Movies! Together, we explore Homer's disappointment at his health, the importance of six kinds of apples, the brilliance of Brad & Neil, Abe Simpson eating a man, and so much more as we climb the Murderhorn! Listen now for the podcast with applesaucity!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!  

attention talking simpsons listeners we have a special mini-series just for you we're going through the entire first season of king of the hill and you can only hear it if you're a five dollar and up patron at patreon.com slash talking simpsons we're giving the talking simpsons treatment to all 13 episodes of king of the hills first season and if you want a free sample you'll find the first episode available for free in the talking simpsons feed patreon.com slash talking simpsons it's the only place you'll find the first episode available for free in the Talking Simpsons feed. Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. It's the only place you'll find the first season of Talk King of the Hill. Made you go click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It's real easy, man. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, now nearly rectum-free.

I'm your host, the loaded-with-applesauce-icity Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, proudly sponsored by Butter Baby Flapjacks. And who do we have on the line? This is Andrew Jupin from We Hate Movies Season 9 fan still. Excellent, excellent. And today's episode is King of the Hill.

That's what I call breakneck speed. Mom, a man just died. Today's episode aired on May 3rd, 1998. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby. Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman got married. Spike Lee's He Got Game tops the box office. And Craig Kilbourne is eyed as a possible man to replace Tom Snyder on the late show.

So Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman still together, right? No. Oh. No. No. If you, clearly you haven't seen before Sunset or after Sunset, well, one of those two, it's pretty much Ethan Hawke just talking about his real divorce, but in character as that guy.

But Tom Snyder is dead. Yes. Craig Kilbourne, whereabouts unknown? He appears every now and then on an ESPN thing. I think he just wants to not be famous now. I guess so. It's funny that he was the first Daily Show guy, but I guess he was known as the sportsman?

Yeah. He was once a sportsman. Yeah, he came off a sports center, which that's kind of what they originally envisioned the Daily Show as. So just wanted like a jokey guy who you know he could make just the easy blowjob jokes with monica lewinsky and there you go and well i mean it was created by liz winstead and i believe those two had some uh clashes uh behind the scenes that eventually led to his exit but nobody remembers honestly pre-9-11 daily show doesn't exist in many people's minds that is

true it was just goofing on what like local interest stories basically they'd find like weirdos yeah just be like oh so you replaced your teeth with rocks from your driveway i kind of want to go back to that i kind of want to go back to that but uh yeah i was gonna chime in and just say i don't know if i'm showing my age here but i very vividly remember the craig kilbourne daily show era unfortunately to my own detriment i think henry and i both started there i mean it was a new company central show we weren't not gonna watch it yeah we were losers like smithers watching comics it was that and then a part of my zinger right afterwards well on his late show like he stayed on for like three or four years and then just straight up left. That whole era, it was him and then Craig Ferguson?

Craig Ferguson aggressively replaced him. From what I heard, he just cleared the board of most writers. He's like, we're starting over here. Craig Ferguson, he got a pretty good deal. He had a deal kind of like Conan's. If he didn't replace David Letterman, then he got a shitload of money. So he got the best of both worlds. He didn't have to do more work and got paid millions and millions of dollars.

Craig Kilburn, I just remember his last episode he had on like most of his old school buddies. Because I think that's what he's most famous for now maybe. Oh, the movie Old School. He's like the jerk in Old School. I forgot about that. Weird. But today's guest is Andrew Jupin of the podcast We Hate Movies. We are both huge fans and he is the third We Hate Movies member of the crew we've had on our show so far.

Hello, Andrew. Hey, fellas. How you doing? So, Andrew, we need to know about your relationship with The Simpsons first off. Oh, my relationship with The Simpsons? Sure. So, possibly like most folks my age, it was the cartoon in the late 80s, early 90s that was like sort of, I wasn't banned from watching it, but my parents weren't entirely hip to it.

And so it was initially the thing that you snuck watching, when like my older cousin was babysitting. That was the thing. And then my love affair with the first, I will generously say 10 seasons of that show sort of blossomed from there. And now it's a thing that, you know, when we internally, you know, when we're in the studio here on We people do. This isn't any sort of original explanation of my relationship with the show, but that's just sort of where it's at now.

It's a part of me will probably accompany me to my grave. Yeah, outside of all of you guys being very funny, one of the reasons I wanted you on the show is because you all speak Simpsons like we do, so I know they'd be perfect for the show. It's the language of a lot

of podcasters. Absolutely. I think that comes with the territory. I think if you're not well-versed in the Simpsons, then your podcast might not last too long. You might not be cut out for this industry. So Andrew, because I've been listening to your show for, I guess, eight or nine years, I know too much about all of you. And I believe your dad was or is a cop. Is that true? Yeah, my dad has retired, been retired for a while now, but he for his career was a special investigator with the New York State Police Department. Well, was he not a fan of the Wiggum jokes? Is that why it was banned from your household? No, you know, I have, it's so funny you say that. My dad, I have a very vivid memory of my dad. He's totally still with us,

by the way. It sounds like I'm talking in past tense here, but there's an episode. I don't remember what episode it is, but the gag is Wiggum removes his belt and his gut just explodes out of his pants. And it's one of like the hardest times I've ever seen my father laughing, just like in tears, fucking laughing at this cartoon. And as me and my two younger siblings got older, it eventually became totally fine. And my parents would often, you know, walk through the room and it was on and it would be fine. But no, I don't think my dad ever took offense to any Wiggum jokes. Good to hear. So you weren't taping it every day then, I guess, because you can't like with that kind of embargo on the Simpsons in your house.

No, you know, we lived in a split level ranch, so it was easy enough to sneak the television on downstairs before dinnertime or something like that and catch some Simpsons. So we didn't have to like hunker down in the middle of the night with it on barely, you know, above mute or something like that. Also, we're really, I'm doing a plug for you up front here. We're really lucky to get you on now because you guys are so busy with a ton of touring this, this summer, you guys are doing it up. Yeah, totally. Um, we just, we had a big sort of like spring tour, uh, In a few days, we leave for Chicago to do a show. And I guess I'll just say it here on Talking Simpsons. We haven't announced it yet.

But this fall, we're going to be doing a bigger West Coast thing also. Nice. Yay. I will be there. Yeah, yeah, totally. Including, actually, you guys in the Bay Area. So look out for that. Info TBA. I'm looking forward to that.

That's awesome. And yeah, this episode with King of the Hill, it was a hard one for me to tell you about. So we're going to do King of the Hill. It's the power sauce one. When you finally did say power sauce, though, I did recall I had a memory of this episode being called like Homer the Mountain. And I don't know if that's some like fucking Game of Thrones seeping into my brain or something.

Yeah, when I look at an episode guide, I'm like, what is this one? And then I remember it's the power sauce one. So, yeah, it's a John Schwarzwalder episode. So it's a mix of old timey stuff and then topical references. Right. episode so it's a mix of old timey stuff and then topical references right yeah this is conceptually a very weird episode and also like in pacing too this i think has the longest third act in simpsons history it's it's 10 minutes it's a full 10 minutes it's like a mini movie yeah the way it's structured which is very strange like it's more often a very long first act that gets up to nine minutes.

But instead, the first two commercial breaks come like five minutes in. It is an oddly paced one, though. Really, I actually like where they cut for commercials in both cases are really good jokes to go out on. And that's a difficult art of finding the right time to leave on a joke and uh yeah this episode i i it really captures late 90s commercialism too of like it shows how the show is like growing in its pop culture commentary because power sauce they wouldn't have made a joke about it in like 91 but by 98 these type of fake health bars really existed yeah it feels like they've always been with us, but I guess they were a slightly newer product back then.

I guess marketed in a different way. I very specifically remember my first introduction to them was pretty much exactly around this time. I have an uncle who at the time was a big cyclist, so he was so into the whole power bar cra craze thing and it was like it was actually he was almost like homer to the extent that there was a period of time where it seemed like that was all he was eating fifty dollars a day that's a lot homer gets up to there in the episode this period of time i also remember there uh it was semi-popular these kind of like um calorie goos

oh yeah like a packet full of goo you would squirt into your mouth because who has time for chewing i guess now that is sort of like what soylent is oh except you're not running anywhere you're sitting on a computer and eating is not productive uh this one episode had been on my mind a little lately because i am uh back on my diet and it's no fun it's uh and i think this comes from the writers they always talk about how much weight you gain that's why they uh writing on the show because you're just sitting all day and the only fun you have is eating yeah before iphones we we would hear bill oakley say before iphones they would just graze on candy all day because they had nothing else to do to kill time but god

that sounds like heaven uh well but then uh but then vacation comes and you're living in LA, so you probably feel even fatter than you normally would. Just constantly a thin layer of sweat on you. I mean, as somebody who recently lost a little bit of weight, the very depressing and frustrating thing is that, of course, everyone has different metabolisms and lifestyles and stuff, but it is as simple as having discipline and saying, I've taken this many calories. I need to burn more. It's annoying that it's that simple.

I hate that. Yeah, it's like there's no trick to it. There's no magic apple bar you have to eat or anything like that. In fact, you shouldn't eat apple bars. No. Apples are a useless fruit. I'm back on my Chobani kick. It tells my brain I'm eating something,

but it's just like 100 calories. That's my whole thing is like, if you can just get over the oral fixation, which I definitely have, both the eating and smoking. So it's like, before we got on the air here, I just kind of pounded some cauliflower pretzels. So it's like, all right, that's a thing. You just ate a thing. That's fine. It's actually nothing, but you know. My thing is just constantly drinking iced coffee all day.

But that's zero calories though, right? The way you drink it. You don't have any cream in it or whatever. And all the vibrating I'm doing will burn even more calories. Yeah, that's like a whole other set of problems. Yeah, well, also this plot though comes from them wanting to find uh mike scully talks about on the commentary they had done so many homer loses weight or homer struggles with weight episodes they were trying to find a new

into it and i think they did find a pretty novel one yeah and uh this episode is fairly relevant today because there was a recent news story about the cleaning of Mount Everest because all of these idiots tried to climb it and die. And they cleaned up 24,000 pounds of garbage and they found four dead bodies. Wow. And I guess at the time the most recent story is like a yuppie couple died climbing it or something like that. Now, I don't want to sound cruel, but don't feel too bad for super rich people who decide to climb Mount Everest and don't make it. No, not at all. I don't either.

I feel bad for their loved ones, I guess. They're very sad they lost. But I mean, Everest, it's stupid tourism. Go on a sex tour. Why are you doing this Everest bullshit? I mean, one of my greatest fears is dying in a stupid way because that's all anyone will ever remember yeah yeah i mean just to have your corpse found by so i just don't want my corpse found in a sad way like yeah there was a there was a story on npr recently too just speaking of everest it was around the time when they

uncovered all that trash and the bodies and this guy was talking about how one of the towns where the you know it's like the the base or where you have to go to first before you can start your crazy ascent and the permits that are issued they're fighting over like how many permits they issue annually and whether or not they should scale that back but like just to get the permit to climb that mountain is like fifteen thousand dollars wow yeah it's wild so when you think about that it's like yeah all right if this mountain is just eating the rich i'm totally fine with that wow i never thought of it like that uh it's our version of sacrifice except it's voluntary on their part uh well let's get in the episode itself here. We start with our first McBain film in forever in the show.

Yeah, I believe they lost the rights to the name McBain because there was a real McBain movie. And actually, maybe five years ago, Riff Trax did a riff of the McBain. I think Christopher Walken is in it. Is this the Gary Busey movie mcbain i think i think yeah it could be gary bucey uh it's it's somebody of that caliber but it was maybe 92 or something where there was a mcbain and they couldn't use the word mcbain anymore well it was the way they would tell it on the commentaries it was like fear of a lawsuit even though right they probably win because they had mcbain in their show before

the McBain movie came out. But I think they were just discouraged from it. It wasn't like they lost a suit. But I mean, a cease and desist is scary enough. Yeah. I also think that Schwarzenegger was starting to do comedies after that initial run of McBain parodies. And now at this point in history, he's going back into action around that's what this time that's what this really reminded me of of eraser era arnold of like i'm back in these movies i'm shooting people again especially the comment part makes that saying how ripped he is because i thought people were really saying in the late 90s like you know arnold's getting older but still a big man he still got it yeah Oh, just to clarify, by the way, I should say, the movie I was thinking of,

so you guys were right, McBain is a Chris Walken movie. Yeah, I think Ed Asner too or something. Ernest Borgman, maybe. In 1988, Busey came out with a movie called Bulletproof in where he plays a dude named Frank McBain. The movie is notable

for one reason, and it's one of the funniest Gary Busey lines of all time. Like he breaks into a warehouse or something. And there's something about like a super tank involved in this movie. And someone says something like, who's there or something like that. And Gary Busey responds very quickly,

you're worse, not Mayor Butthorn. And he calls a man Butthorn, which is like the most absurd insult but i just remember in the in the early days of we hate movies we sort of had this on the docket as something we might want to check out but it's like so totally obscure but yeah frank mcbain his insult is calling a man butthorn god i i swear to god i have seen the butthorn clip somewhere. That is a real Buseyism. I like it. I mean, it feels like a proto-Deadpool insult of just like putting words together kind of thing. So the last McBane movie they did was in A Star Is Burns,

but it wasn't really, it was him doing the stand up against the brick wall. Right, right. Which is personally one of my all-time favorite uh mcbain gags i uh i always remember the on top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies you stick mcbain but but i think yeah it had been like since season four maybe or three of the last time they did a straight on mcbain is an action film parody like wow that's that's actually a surprising statistic that they went that long with it they would always refer

back to it like when rainier would be at uh say the kennedy or the quimby compound yeah and they'd and they'd make fun of last action hero basically ticket my ass mcbain so he was still starring in those films but they this is the first time they've just done a direct mcbain action movie parody scene in uh in like six years so let's enjoy it in this first clip mcbain to base under attack by commie Nazis. They won't stop me from delivering these unicef pennies. Go, pennies! Help the puny children who need you.

Wow, McBain is really buffed up. You could grate cheese on those abs. Yeah, but can he do this? I mean, Homer is naturally drawn to be pretty big, but when they want him to be even bigger, they find fun things to do with him. Yeah. That's just like monstrously big and upsetting, though. That's a very upsetting visual.

Stomach is a gelatinous material that he can just control at a whim. It's so crazy the way it crunches and his pride at it while Bart is just disgusted. But this joke comes not too long after the popcorn on the stomach joke thing, too. That's right. I got to think eating off of your stomach was the hot thing in the Simpsons writers room in season nine. They were just all appreciating each other like, you're eating off your stomach. Okay. They did both jokes, the choking joke and the can crushing joke i guess homer's better at drinking off of his stomach than eating off of his yeah which i mean that's a good uh that's pretty impressive balance actually bart should be impressed instead of uh shuddering and yes the commie nazis i really love them it

feels like a great commentary on how in movies then especially the terrorist you face would always be very vague and ahistorical like to not libel one country or one enemy but always with a british accent yeah yeah well yeah that was the uh actually that was the villains in the new godzilla movie it was some skinny british guy from game of thrones he's an eco-terrorist in it it gets away from any political motivations but he's just he's a he's a snarky British guy. He's like, I have all the monsters now. And the UNICEF part of it too also feels very Schwarzenegger

in that he'd have that kind of like international partnership kind of thing. I had never even really heard of UNICEF too much, except for a Spider-Man comic that was only published by giving money to UNICEF. So I bought that one. They weren't really doing this when I was a kid. I think this was more from the writer's childhoods

where they would have things like Trick or Treat for UNICEF where instead of collecting candy, a little box, which I never received. I know like March of Dimes, back when coins have value. These were important things. Yeah, those pennies are useless to wherever he's

dropping them on to it too but it's just such a i mean i so have always appreciated this joke because i just love the notion of you know when you're in the mcdonald's or the bodega or whatever and they have the you know donate a penny to unicef just the the notion that all they're doing is taking the pennies and giving them to a country in need and that's that's how the aid is being delivered is just so fucking funny yeah you're right just one to one penny delivery and they just do what you will with these pennies but you know the important thing is we got them to you it's just such a smart joke and now every action star has to be as buff as mcbain slash schwarzenegger like not that action

stars of like the 80s weren't supposed to be like in good shape but like they didn't all have the shot that's in every marvel movie of like here's the guy shirtless he got in really great shape for this well that's what we were talking about i don't remember if we're talking about it on the air on on we hate movies or just something we were kvetching about off the air. But just that notion that Chris Pratt's character in the Guardians movies needs to be ripped. If anything, he should kind of be a schlubby dude. He should be Chris Pratt

in those early seasons of Parks and Rec. It seems sort of antithetical to the character that he's this super cut guy. Let him just be schlubby. That character would not have a personal trainer trainer he wouldn't be doing sit-ups on his ship ever like he'd right yeah but that but you have to have the money shot of your movie yeah even paul rudd had to be transformed in that way it just has to be done to all of them the changing ideas of what in shape

is it's fun to watch the movies over the times because if you look at the 50s and 60s and before men were so girdled up because all they would do is eat steaks and drink whiskey and the one scene of them shirtless they were clearly sucking in their gut the entire time it's it's just really fun to watch that's why i like you now like baldwin's the shadow is that he does have a girdle on the whole time when he he does shirtless scenes but like he looks like he's in a 50s movie with his belly button covered up in it or any kind of like later period john wayne where like that shirt's hanging on by a thread oh yeah and most of his like words are just grunts or he's he's propped up i i also love the hyperbole of jumping out of a plane while on fire to break that guy's neck. And that he surrenders.

He's like, I surrender. Not so fast. Stamps his neck. Yeah. And Marge's little riff is funny. Yeah. But they have to shit on her. I know.

We're all in dumping over Marge in this season. Season nine is about crap. I mean, it feels like a very childhood boy thing of just like, my mom's not funny. You weren't funny. We also get to that Marge announces that it's picnic, the church picnic day. She reflects on that Homer is such a glutton. He eats a bucket of chicken in church, which he didn't say. He reflects on that gluttony would be a sin if God didn't want that, which that looks very ADR. There's a couple really ADR

lines in this one. I have to wonder what the original joke was. I just remember always being in church in school, going to Catholic school and just being hungry and just focusing on getting that little tiny piece of bread. I feel like that's intentional. That's I'm fucking with your brain. I don't care whose body it is. That's so funny you say that because I feel that was true for a lot of us growing up. As churchgoers that thing of like all right just let me make it to the wafer like let me just get to that way like we didn't even have it wasn't a piece of bread we had like the little like mass-produced wafer things and that was all you had uh we had like we would do the mass and then we had to go to uh the sunday

school afterwards which was always awful and then it was like you had to get through another hour before uh you know the possibility of going to the diner would would rear its head and i remember there was always the the worst sundays were the ones where you got the wafer and then you sat through sunday school and the the second your parents came to pick you up they had already been to the diner oh we decided to have a parent's breakfast at the diner and like you fucking guys you know where we were just sitting in for an hour it was Sunday school you know how abhorrent that is yeah I mean a home I mean they're not even Catholic so they're not getting any kind of uh Jesus snack yeah no nothing at all uh although as as an adult now, I don't begrudge parents for wanting to have a meal

without children for once. But yeah, when they arrive at the picnic, we get to see a cute little scene of the mafia and the cops having a picnic as well, which the mafia is just proudly like, this is the mafia picnic. And the designs on them in like their shorts or him in like the white outfit it

really reminded me of uh you know godfather kind of design on fat tony there oh it's the clothes are great it's definitely like yeah when in godfather 2 when they go to cuba or something yeah the the mafia play wear is so great i love that their picnic is mostly just them sitting at that table with uh martinis which is great and that that Wiggum's not that mad. He got shot at multiple times by the mafia. They ruined their mustard. The joke's on them. It's a great animation on that mustard explosion too. I like that shot. And then they arrive at the picnic. Homer parks on the baseball field, which is a little similar to the joke in the last season where Homer parked at the arrival at the pier

in My Brother's Sitter. Oh, you know, I thought you were going to say, they do that joke again in the episode where, I believe it's where it's when Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger are on it at the beginning. Yeah, he parks over at the beach. Yeah, that's right. There are only so many

parking jokes you can do and they're doing all of them i mean that well by a third it becomes a runner so now i'm not uh i'm not negative on the repetition homer is in full-on food monster here just like stuffing his face not even recognizing the reverend we get to see burns enjoying the picnic which is just looking at tv screens of picnic things while sitting in his uh limousine and ralph and burns together again they uh the all right he's the devil at the park by by burn would not be the first time burns ran down a boy with his car yes yeah go back seven years i do like his stance of like you're not it that was funny i like it's such a it's a nice little animation gag here too if i'm recalling

it right because they have the little um his air conditioning vent in the car has the little strings so you can see that he's got the ac on oh yeah ralph ralph like pokes his head through the sunroof so it's like a great burns like just wasting resources joke of like the ac on with the windows open and and one of his tvs is just of ants crawling over a chicken leg so it's like he's just getting all the picnic experiences on his television that's another sliver reference for you kids not really but that's what his original uh wall of monitors was he's still getting turned on by sliver i think yeah You're not. The Simpsons will be right back.

When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? We're pushing past the max on this week's episode of Talking Simpsons. And a big special thank you to our guest, Andrew Jupin, for coming on. We are big fans of We Hate Movies here, and we're so happy to have our third WHM host on this show. Thanks again to AtJupin on Twitter for showing up on this week's podcast.

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beginning if you're a subscriber to our patreon you'll get to hear all of our exclusive patreon only mini series where me and bob give the talking simpsons treatment to a different animated series that's related in some way to the simpsons we did the entire series of the critic we did the entire first season of futurama and we just wrapped up our exclusive mini series on king of the hills first season you can only hear those podcasts if you're a patreon subscriber so you're going to want to sign up right now at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you'll get access to all of our exclusive interviews with folks who have worked on the series almost since the tracy olman days on the simpsons in some cases so please check all of that out one more time patreon.com slash talking simpsons.

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been. So please, you want to sign up to the $10 and up level to hear all of those 24 hours already of podcasting greatness of me and Bob talking about animated feature films. Sign up today at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. So as all that's going on, it's time to play capture the flag with the kids run ladies pick first okay i choose todd oh oh oh over here over here um I'll take... Pick me! Nelson. Saving the best for last, huh, Bart? Yeah, that must be it. I picked my dad. Do you want to play capture the flag, Daddy? Sports on a Sunday.

Hmm, I better check with Reverend... Oh, just play the damn game, Ned. Yeah, well, you get a grown-up and so do we. I picked my dad. Him? Oh, you'd be surprised surprised he's pretty competitive when he's drinking Come on dad. We're playing capture the flag. Sorry son daddy's down for the day Why don't you go capture me some more potato salad, but rod picked his dad. It's a matter of family honor Flanders is playing. Why didn't you say so?

It appears I will have to find a new fortress of solitude. Zebra girl, of all things. That's such a weird comic. I think, I mean, so we are all of the same age range. We're all coddled millennials who were handed trophies just for showing up i never experienced any of this sort of uh team picking before i think they were trying to phase it out so we wouldn't feel bad because i i mean we're podcasters we're all we're all of the last pick variety i think uh i you know i recall in my neighborhood growing up i grew up in total suburb situation and we actually did play capture the flag quite a bit we had some like wooded area i lived at the uh you know on a cul-de-sac you know and uh there were several uh instances of

picking teams and stuff like that and uh yeah so some uh some days were harder than others as to when you were selected in line but uh it's it's it's weird seeing i hadn't watched this episode in a while and seeing uh someone just mentioning capture the flag sort of brought back all sorts of nice, uh, little youth memories. You know, I,

I definitely went through the getting picked last situation maybe a couple times in gym, but not, uh, not, I didn't do it a lot, but that's also probably because I didn't want to compete in those things very much.

So leave my, once your pick last a couple of times, you're like, I don't think I want to do this anymore. In gym classes it was just like we'll let the numbers decide count off by four that is the more like um respectful way to treat children but i love the very realistic homer struggling to get up leaning against something that's a very real fat guy animation there for sure it's also just, there's a lot of really great visual gags here and I just love

the idea that they're at this church picnic and not only is he passed out from drinking and eating too much but they just, they draw him without his shirt on Yeah, I like that touch. Which is just so it just makes that joke so much better like you're that fucked up at a church function but also your shirt

is off, like that's how fucked up you are church function but also your shirt is off like that's how fucked up you are i just love it he's drunk he's hot he's probably got the meat sweats at this point so uncomfortable in this shirt while being so meat sweaty and he's he's just resting against a porta potty which is disgusting too yeah there's trees everywhere yeah i hadn't even considered that and yeah poor uh comic book guy has to be the butt of the joke. Though I think in the real world, comic book guy never leaves his house. He wouldn't go to a picnic. Well, I think also comic book guy, regardless of going outside, which I think you're right,

he probably would avoid a picnic situation. He's definitely a dude that is only dropping trow at his home base. Yeah, yeah. There's a certain protocol that he has, probably. Exactly. You're making me think too much about it. Wiping procedures, I want to say. Yes, yeah.

It's another selling out love joy kind of joke of him saying, damn, just play the damn game. He's always frustrated with Flanders. Yeah, yeah. I also do like that Milhouse takes no offense and can't tell that Bart is being sarcastic when he says, yeah, I must be. If Milhouse was smarter, he'd be insulted. So I guess in that way, he's lucky.

But yes, Capture the Flag has begun. I have never played this game. I knew the rules of it because there was a very long episode of Salute Your Shorts that was all a capture the flag game of Donkey Lips beating the team. That episode had a condom joke in it. That's right! There's a condom joke in Salute Your Shorts? Yes, I believe

Donkey Lips says there's a balloon dispenser in the bathroom at whatever rest stop he stops at when he's doing the... That's awesome. Yeah, it said that to me as a kid. I know what that is. I just remember, the only line from it I remember is Donkey Lip saying to Bud Nick,

he said, I wouldn't do that if I were you. And then Bud Nick replies, if I was you, my clothes wouldn't fit. And then walked away. Wow. Well, Bud Nick does know the Terminator. I would not get in his way.

Well, you know, that show was... I liked that show as a kid but when i think back of like making fat jokes towards a actual overweight kid uh even though even if they're a paid actor that just doesn't seem fair like i think i don't feel like the kid really understands what they're agreeing to and they're making jokes at that their expense but if they didn't make fat jokes about donkey, then it would be that he's like a disgusting slob and just smells really bad.

He got a lot of work being that size. Yeah. I mean, he's still alive. He's still with us, I think. I remember him as like a MySpace rapper or something. Oh, yeah. He was 100% a MySpace rapper. Wow.

We were just talking about this recently. We're always talking about Donkey Lips and Budnick and the rest of the clan on Salute Your Shirts, but we were doing an episode on Dude, Where's My Car? and Donkey Lips is definitely in that movie. That's right. He does a nude scene in it.

Not obscuring his genitals, but he gets naked in the movie. Yeah, he's totally in some tighty-whities or something like that. Which is very brave of Michael Bauer. Yeah, I know his name. Okay, I'm glad you said it. I was feeling bad still calling him just Donkey.

I knew his name, but it was a shame to admit it. Okay, I didn't remember it. I believe Budnick was Danny Cooksey. Oh, that's right. Yeah, also played Montana Max. This is now a Salute Your Shorts podcast. There's only 20 episodes of that. Danny Cooksey is like

a huge voice actor now. Wow, still he's at it. I didn't know that. Yeah, I think because it's... Listen, if you can fall into that world, you're fucking set. You know what I mean? I think he's transcended. It's like animation and video games. So yeah,

he's, he's doing just fine. Well, anyway, back to the Simpsons. It's capture. The flag is being played and Bart has a plan. Okay,

dad, they've got a flag guarded. Pretty good. I agree. Let's surrender. No, wait, I have a plan, but I'll need your under surrender. No, wait. I have a plan.

But I'll need your underpants. All right, but don't lose them. They're my only pair. I got it! I got the flag! Yeah! Stupid kids. This isn't the flag It looks more like

Eww Suckers Go dad I like that they made the underwear gray They're gray tighty whitey I feel like there's something going on there Well if it's his only pair Then they would definitely

Have at least seen a lot of sweat So just turn gray for that I do the opposite Well, if it's his only pair, then they would definitely have at least seen a lot of sweat. Yeah. So just turned gray from that. I do the opposite of just, I own too many underwear because I bought, instead of doing laundry a few times, I was like, I could just buy more underwear. Oh, yeah. I've kind of done that myself a couple of times. It's a dirtbag move.

I know. And Homer is right. Those kids are stupid. Turn around to see that the flag is still there. It's right behind them. How could Bart have taken it from them? They're so dumb. This gag reminds me of have you guys ever seen the

Carl Reiner directed John Candy movie, Summer Rental. A million years ago. It's a totally underrated Candy movie. And it's your classic slobs versus snobs situation where Candy and his clan win a regatta by hoisting his underpants up the mast of the ship

to get more wind power. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's such a great joke. Is that the Dan Aykroyd movie? No, it's Candy, and I want to say Riptorn is in it. Yeah. Okay, yeah.

We were just talking about The Great Outdoors recently because it was on HBO four times a day in 1989 for about eight months. Well, King of the Hill had a big steak joke. That's true. Okay. That's where it came up. I believe the bad guy in the movie, though, is Richard Crenna of First Blood fame.

Oh, wow. That's a good casting. Well, so Homer at a church picnic stripped nude from the waist down briefly to take his underwear off. Consider that in this situation. I guess he's obscured from the children because that's part of the hiding, but that's really weird.

I do appreciate all of the merciless tagging they're doing. He's trying to turn over. I feel a little too relatable with Homer's exhaustion at running when he wasn't ready for it. But they make a good point on the commentary, too,

that Bart's distraction buys Homer several seconds. Like that. Not too much more than that. Homer is having some trouble. Oh. I don't think he can get up. Let's egg him. He's trying to turn over.

I love his helpless whimpering. I love the pronouncement of trying to turn over. Yeah. He is like a turtle. Yeah. It's very sad. It just is like desperate, like, time out, time out. But that's also a very real bully thing of a little kid bully realizing, like, oh, even this adult is helpless?

There's no risk for this adult? Okay, fuck them. Let's light them up. This is truly upsetting for me because what a waste of deviled eggs. The kids are pelting them with all these deviled eggs, which also, like, my God, the amount of deviled eggs at this church picnic. Somebody made 70 of them. Those are delicacies.

It's a nice extra layer to it, like, that he's getting egged with deviled eggs instead of just raw eggs. Yep, exactly. And just the way it gets in Homer, the way the first one hits Homer, like, right between the eyes. It's so sad the way he just struggles. It's one of his darkest moments, though. Next season, I believe, is the panda love, so not his darkest moment. We got another year or so, I think, of our podcast.

Yes. That was the first commercial break, like that quick in it. When they come back from the break, Homer is reflecting on his weight loss, and Marge is uh they i feel like this is almost every season nine episode if they have to have at least one thing of recognizing how long the show has been on and in this case it's marge going like yeah i know you always try to lose weight nothing ever happens yeah and also just the

the sound of homer pushing his fat down to see the clock like that's really good yeah i mean she did mention she says you're the one who puts butter in your coffee The sound of Homer pushing his fat down to see the clock, like that's really good foley. Yeah, I mean, she did mention, she says you're the one who puts butter in your coffee, and that is a new sort of way to drink coffee. Turbo coffee, man, I got to tell you, it's not too shabby. I mean, what is butter if not just more cream, more condensed cream? I drink my coffee black, but it sounds like it could be good.

Maybe not every day, butter in your coffee, but hey, as a treat. Butter makes most things taste better. Yeah. So I get that. It's just a big lump of dairy fat. Man, I have not heard. I am a no coffee guy, so I have not heard about this butter thing becoming true. It's another.

Did the Simpsons predict it? I mean, every weird food joke becomes reality. If there's a joke about a food being too excessive it will become real yeah on the simpsons that's actually in this episode in like two minutes so that's true yeah but yeah so homer decides he wants to exercise at night because he'd feel too much shame otherwise which that is how i feel about weight loss too it's something like the last time i lost a bunch of weights, the hardest thing for me to overcome and still is of like exercising in front

of other people. Like it's just, it's embarrassing. You don't need to be overweight to feel embarrassed about exercising in front of other people, but it helps. But it's, but it really is like no fun.

It's hard to not feel judged in that case. So like you but homer i guess for two months doesn't sleep or he sleeps like three hours a night they don't explain that but i will say that i also feel uh body shame and if you want to work out at the gym without that uh especially if you work from home like us you can find the peak hours to go where only the elderly are there and they are so out of it some of them it. Some of them can't even find their way out of the building. I've talked about this. They're just standing by the turnstile like,

I've seen this before. Which is great because then you're definitely showing up everyone at that gym at that time. Yeah, it's like, I got 50 more years left, pops. Well, this episode also came out pre Planet Fitness, right?

The Judgment Free Zone. Yeah, and Curves is one of those too. Curves is the one for ladies. Oh, yeah, Curves. Yeah, so Curves. Or like a Lucille Roberts or something like that. Homer does have a great joke right here when he's suiting up and he's telling Santa's little helper not to tell anybody.

And the cat runs out of a bush and he just says the line, oh great, now the cat knows. Oh God, it's so good. There are a lot of really good little lines like that in this. I did write that one down. Yeah, oh great, now the cat knows. And that Santa's little helper

actually gets some gags. He's almost never written into the show. They really forget about his existence most times. So I like that they realized they could give him somebody for Homer to talk to instead of just saying it out loud. And also the gag of just being dragged around by SLH is so funny that he's not helping at all. And the poor, but that Sands little helper knows he's like, no, drag me back outside now. And he dutifully does it. I hate that. That's the great joke though. It's like no drag me back outside now and he dutifully does it i hate that that's the great joke though it's like he drags him in because homer collapses

but then it's like no no no take me back out he can't stand on his own but he'll he'll get back to exercising i i hate when we play uh joke doctors on this show but the joke with the paper setting homer he needed one more thing he It needed one more escalation, like a pallet of newspapers crushing him or something. It felt weird when there's not a third joke in a string of jokes, it's just two. I feel like, ah, something is missing here. Yeah. Well, and also that guy wouldn't be delivering giant bushels one house after the other. I hope somebody got fired for that blunder there. But also, I do like Homer talking to the picture and then him saying, like, no, the picture looked good where it was. He considers just moving it.

But yes, Homer is doing, he finally gets the gumption to do some more night exercising. And this is where he discovers the power of sauce. So what will it be, Mr. Simpson? Your usual bucket of ice cream covered with miniature pies? power of sauce. Hey, these power sauce bars look pretty healthy. Oh, yes, that is a new item. No bar contains more applesauce. Hmm. A bushel of apples packed in each bar, plus the secret ingredient that unleashes the awesome power of apples. Wow. They picked the perfect fruit for the power sauce bars.

Yeah. Power sauce is such a great concept because apple sauce it's it's like the hyper masculine version of apple sauce which is seen as like a baby food like apple sauce is for children that's true yeah and so they hyper masculine nice something like that is so funny six kinds of apples and and also that the secret ingredient is the Chinese newspaper, I'm guessing. I also just love, I mean, apples have so much sugar in them. So the notion that it's a bar crammed with so much apple, but it's still supposed to be healthy for you is very funny. Yeah, one of the shocking things you learn as an adult

is that things like juice is not good for you. It's like healthy juice. It's like like wait a minute what are you doing soda was bad but if i can't turn to juice what do i do water that's when you infuse that water sir you meo it yeah you just dangle a strawberry near it and then it's healthy and what also the i love that it's not just ice cream, but a bucket of ice cream. Like seven Ben & Jerry's things in one bucket. I couldn't find ice cream with mini pies.

I know there is pie-flavored ice cream or ice cream with pie crust bits in it and things like that. Ben & Jerry's has actually, on the Ben & Jerry's website, you can read the list. It goes 15 times pies were put in Ben & Jerry's. Wow. But that includes a lot of limited edition flavors. But their biggest ones are apple pie, Boston cream pie. But they are just like chunks. They're not mini pies.

Yeah. No, but it did make me also, the visual gag when Apu holds it up. Also, speaking of Ben & Jerry's, just reminded me of the Vermonster, which I feel like someday I will try to tackle. Wait, what is the Vermonster?

I need to ask about this. Oh, really? Oh my god, you guys. So, do you have a brick and mortar Ben and Jerry's near you? We have a couple, but I've never seen specialty things there, no. Oh, wow. So so at least on the east coast if you go into a ben and jerry's uh they have a thing called the vermonster which is

literally a bucket that they put ice cream in and you know if you sit there and finish it i think it's like a free t-shirt and a polaroid on a wall or something but it's literally that bucket that apu is holding up of ice cream and they yeah they call it the vermonster it melts halfway through at least and you just then you're just drinking that vermonster oh god that's what those monster size sundaes always disgust me because i just think of them melting like yep if you look at those lists of the most unhealthy things at any fast food place it's always the uh the macchiato or whatever the the moulate, just a 2,000-calorie milkshake that makes you think you're just having a coffee.

Oh, my morning coffee. That is the secret of Starbucks. It always has been, of tricking people that their morning coffee is a milkshake. I'm constantly in line behind people getting milkshakes. Or the thing that sucks even worse is the soy milk that they use at Starbucks. It's very super

sugary and vanilla-y. So it just makes everything taste like candy, but you're sitting there like, well, at least it's soy milk. I'm doing something. And it's actually way worse than if you just got skim. I'm not chewing. This must be healthy. I like Apu's determinations of low salt candy bars,

which, like most candy bars, don't have a lot of salt. It does not make them healthy. And mostly rectum-free jerky. Beef jerky is a favorite of mine on the weight loss kick because you just chew it for so long, it takes forever. Yeah, your mouth gets tired and you eat less. Yeah, you have like 200 calories, but you feel like you've eaten like 800 calories just from wasting time eating this turkey leather, basically.

Homer, now inspired by the power sauce, heads to a certain establishment that definitely confuses him. Gime? What's a gime? Oh, a gime. What's a game? Oh A game My it's gonna be sore in the morning Excuse me, you're doing this station or backwards. Let me show you how to do it like a man Rainier wolf castle. Oh, I love your movies and your power sauce bars in your taught rip Hey, hey, hey, that's enough. I'll step over to the abdominator and I will shout slogans at you Push harder Go faster Max Reach over the top

Master your ass Master your ass Master your ass That's a good one Homer is literally in love with Wolfgang Yeah He is really turned on by him I mean who wouldn't be

But No actually I'm not Like all those muscles It's just scary I am attracted to men But all those muscles I'm terrified by it. Yeah, he's a bit too big. But for a second in my first viewing of this as a kid,

I thought this episode's plot was Homer gets a famous friend. Like, yeah. Yeah, that would check out. And honestly, can you imagine Rainier Wolfcastle, like, at the Simpsons' house? Yeah, he would presumably have to move in for some reason, which was always a time-honoredle at the Simpsons' house? He would presumably have to move in for some reason, which was always a time-honored tradition on the Simpsons. I would love to see that. Yeah, him being in this episode is just a sort of very, very minor thing,

despite being the action star that started off this episode. Yeah, and he's the catalyst for Power Sauce. He's the catalyst for him joining Power Sauce, but because half the episode is the third act where he never appears, you kind of forget what a key part of it McBain was to this episode. He's like doing free personal training for Homer for two months. Two months he's doing it. I mean, he also just becomes the, I'm going to pump you up.

Yeah. He just becomes it so easily. So that, what's a Geim? That might be my line of the episode. Mine is coming up. Okay. Mine is coming up. I will say that I just, with Geim, that was one of the,

one of my earlier memories of like something seeping into uh uh just everyday use you know if you drove by one or if you were mentioning one you know you would use the alternate uh the homer pronunciation yeah it just enters your friend's lexicon of just like oh a guy oh you're going to a guy that's so and just the way homer so satisfyingly goes like, oh, a guy. Well, I was just reflecting on this joke recently because on the Conan podcast he had on Bill Hader, and they were just talking about how they enjoy The Simpsons. And Conan says how he's watching it with his son now, who's like in his early teens. And Conan saw this episode for the first time recently really he was reflecting on what a funny joke guy was and it was just so so rare to hear like

you know once you leave a show i don't think writers on conan's level who are that busy ever keep watching the show after you leave it yeah Yeah. So it was funny for it to hear him compliment the show like that, but 20 years after the joke was made. Well, it's interesting that both, you know, cause the other show you just brought to my mind saying that, you know,

here writers talking about still keeping up with it. I think it's funny that both the Simpsons and another long running comedy show SNL, you have that thing where like these waves of writers who have come and gone, you know, can go back and analyze like what's going on with the show now and talking SNL, you have that thing where these waves of writers who have come and gone can go back and analyze what's going on with the show now and talking about the

writing, which is kind of interesting. I'm in the camp of it's a bummer that The Simpsons is still on, but it's kind of cool to think that Conan or one of these like Max Tone Graham or one of these guys could be watching it today and sort of breaking down jokes

and thinking about story structure from a thing that they helped totally build up. Yeah, I mean, well, now the children of Simpsons writers are writing episodes. They really are. Oh, is that true? Yeah, I think Jeff Martin's daughter. Jeff Martin's daughter, who is a professional comedy writer,

but she's... It's not a favor to a Simpsons writer's child. But she is co-writing it with jeff martin yeah wow oh that's cool uh you know i think simpsons and they both become an institution but also as an institution for at least some of their previous writers not all of them they are welcoming them back and like they're like hey you want to sit in on a rewrite you want it like on on snl people come back all the time like the my favorite episodes of recent snl are the ones where john mulaney hosts because i think he just

writes like a third of the show or with his friends like getting getting on sketches he couldn't get on when he was a lowly writer who wasn't famous you mentioned it before it's come up before that with old simpsons writers they will have children and interviewers will say, oh, your kids must think you're so cool. And they'll always say, I've heard it like three or four times, no, they watch Bob's Burgers. They don't like The Simpsons. Oh, that's too bad. Well, so then they do a very just like hard cut to two months later and Homer's in better shape. He's in realistically better shape. Yeah. Yeah. Well this, okay. This is a key frustration to me in my life of losing weight too. That like the thinnest I've been in the last 10 years, I still felt like I wasn't thin and it just, it hurt my, uh, ability to really appreciate. I was like, I lost 80 pounds, but I don't feel thin yet. Like though I definitely

felt better for sure. And I want to get back to that, that weight, but, uh, that's kind of where Homer is into the, like, yeah, you work out for two months starting where Homer's at. You're not skinny. Like you don't get there, but you do, you get results. Like you do get results. And everybody hits that. Like Homer appears to have hit that plateau where like uh you know you lose a bunch of weight really quickly uh so you're thinking you know it's like oh wow results and then it kind of like you plateau and you have to sort of work past that which was always my thing of like but wait a second like that five pounds came off super fast what are we doing you know which is why i'm just inevitably back to not uh exercising in any capacity whatsoever not counting calories is fun because

you just eat what you want and uh never and you try not to think about uh your 50s at that point right i know the muscle homer design is so weird like he has like popeye elbows like the little points on his elbows you know it's very weird that's great popeye you're right yeah that's always weirded me out so when it cuts back to two months later it feels like it's missing a joke like homer says i didn't even know what a dumbbell was and then thanks for the help rainier and then rainier goes and that's it like it's really underplayed i don't know what's what's happening there yeah it feels something definitely feels missing but yes homer is showing

off his new muscles handsome nice muscles care for a rub down well i'm flattered but spoken for oh what the heck give me your number dad what have you done to your stomach and your chest and your shirt i have been working out secretly at night and look at me now oh my goodness gracious go ahead try and grab some flab go on no not there not there either over here i've got some. No, here. Try my foot. No, not that foot. Just feel my biceps. What do you think, you old man? No, son.

Damn right. He's sort of like retired football player fit. Yeah, yeah. That's what I think. Sorry, I was bummed rewatching this this morning. Cause I, you know, I always appreciate how, uh,

open the show usually is to margin homers, like continued attraction for one another and talking about their, their sex lives and stuff. And I, I really thought this would have been a nice moment for Marge to have a kind of, uh, like,

wow, kind of, you know, looking at Homer and it just sort of doesn't happen I don't know if that's because they're in front of the kids or what but nowhere in this episode before he starts his journey you know do you get any kind of like their sex life is improved

because of his working out situation yeah I wanted to see that too I guess they don't really want to give Marge anything in season well they're about to have the sexy sex episode in a couple weeks they know what's coming yeah but sorry but yes no i miss that when march has a sex drive too like it kind of yeah yeah when they take that away from her it definitely feels like they're they're writing their mom and they can't think of her as a full person. That's true. As a sexual being.

Though then again, they probably aren't having sex just because she would have noticed the increase in muscle mass in Homer in the last two months. I can understand the kids not noticing, sure. Yeah. But with a spouse, how would they not see you naked at some point and notice this stuff right yeah i guess maybe the joke there is like they just so they don't pay attention to homer in that way nobody's really that concerned with what he's doing or looking like unless he is acknowledging at first and i

love homer's talking to himself in the mirror because he's... He's going to cheat on himself? Yeah. Or cheat on Marge with himself? It's very gay as well because it feels like he's playing a man in both situations. And then he agrees to cheating. He's like, you know what? Yeah, give me your number. I love that. And his pronouncement of like, no, not that foot. He has fat feet.

One skinny part of his body. And yeah, Homer, I wonder how intentional it is that he's threatening Bart by holding him up by the back. that foot like he has fat feet one skinny part of his body and yeah homer i wonder if he how intentional it is that he's threatening bart by holding him up by the bed it's like oh you thought i was fat and sad now huh and so they come back to dinner and now homer is just like two fisting power sauce bars and they are they are just eating piles of gray filth. Yes, yeah. Classic Simpsons move. Yeah, they're back to the glop. Well, and another classic Simpsons move that director Stephen Dean Moore brings up on the commentary is

Homer daintily eats. Yeah. He has his fingers sticking out hearty style. Like he eats on Boy Scouts in the Hood. Yeah. Like, it's lights. Though David Silverman had left the show by this point, but they were keeping the traditional line.

And he kind of finger acting, is all him. I love his finger twiddles they're just so fun but then homer homer like insults them to their face like he's like this is sloppy you're all fat and ugly so mean and then he says that like you'll get more actually he's telling march he's not having sex with her because she's not in good enough shape. That's right. Which is pretty awful. One of my favorite lines in this episode is the beat between the spaghetti bar and hospital, please. Yes. Just somehow packing all the spaghetti into one bar and eating it

causes him to need to go to the hospital. Five pounds of spaghetti dumped into your stomach probably is... It's not moving too fast in there. Well, and that's another of my favorite lines in this episode like when you concentrate food you unleash its awesome power i'm told his little look back with his eyes and like i'm told uh and then he spent all that money on like a bar making machine to just shove things into bar form i don't think i've ever tried that

if i saw them make food on the simpsons sometimes i'd try it but i never tried to shove spaghetti into a bar well we live in the bay area where you can make any dumb tech thing and have people invest in it like the juicero yes yeah we could make what is that the juicero is a thing that would squeeze bags of juice that you would order separately. So it was a machine built to squeeze proprietary bags of juice you would order. Oh, wow. Because the juice activates when squoze in. Yeah.

And so if you just bought plain juice, it wouldn't have all the mega nutrients and everything. But it would turn out that you could push it together with your hands and it would do the same. Like you didn't need to buy an $800 machine. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care.

Care. Care. Did I mention that we care? Yeah, I bet. You know what? We got to take, well, we got to get a good look first. Yeah. Because it's all about fooling them in the meeting.

But then we could sell them the bar machine that turns any food into the bar to unleash awesome power. Oh, actually, you know what? I have the full clip of the unleash awesome power. I got to hear that quote. Look at you people. Bart's a tub. Lisa's weak as a little girl. And Maggie doesn't seem to be growing at all.

Now that's just not. You too, Marge. If you you toned up a little you'd probably get a lot more action Homer stop insulting us and eat your filth food. I mean food. Sorry I only eat food in bar form when you concentrate food you unleash its awesome power. I'm told That's why I'm compressing five pounds of spaghetti into one handy mouth-sized bar. Hospital, please. Hospital, please. That is a good long pause there.

And some dialing. Nice dialing. He's just reacting to feeling it in hising. Yeah. Nice dialing. Landy's like, hmm. He's just reacting to feeling it in his stomach. But yes, we return to the game, and that's when we get our big guest stars of this episode, Brendan Fraser and Steve Weber. The Steven Weber. Of Wings? Of Wings, yeah.

In the Shining TV movie? He had just been in that a year before this came out, this episode. You know, they shat on Wings so much. He was a big man to come to The Simpsons. I agree. I think he knew. On the commentary, they're just glowing about Brendan Fraser. Did they say anything about Steven Weber? I forgot he was in this.

I don't think they do. I don't think they say. Brendan Fraser, I think when this episode came out, he was more famous than Steven Weber, but they were close-ish. And then the next year, episode came out, he was more famous than Stephen Webber, but they were close-ish. And then the next year, Mummy comes out and he just leaves Webber in the dust.

I mean, Brendan Fraser seems like a pretty cool guy. I think he was like in Brain Candy and Simpsons. He has the comedy bona fides, at least. Yeah, no, I've always thought is a is a funny guy it's just funny because this is a a classic case of two simpsons guest actors where they i mean their voices are just so nothing that i didn't realize who uh was voicing this the brad and neil characters until i looked on imdb like hours after I had rewatched. I didn't sit through the credits, and it was like,

oh, yeah, all right, yeah, Brendan Fraser and Steven Weber, sure, I buy that. Sometimes you get a really nice guest move and you can pinpoint that voice, and these two, it's just like vanilla town. It is true, yeah. I'm glad they weren't playing themselves, but also they don't really have distinct voices.

Exactly, yeah. And I do love that I think it's uh brendan fraser's character is drawn uh to have a ridiculous pony too yeah yeah i andy has like a crystal necklace i like that yes totally no he seems to be more of the belief like he of brad and neil i think brad uh invented it and ne Neil is the one who sells it. Like, that's the vibe I get from those two. And yeah, they said that Brendan was a big fan of The Simpsons 2 and wanted to be on it, and then Webber just, you know, he took it. He was available. Yeah.

So I looked into, like, what Steven Webber has been up to, and I mean, after his giant failure sitcom sitcom cursed if you don't do anybody remembers that cursed cursed i don't think so it was a must-see tv show that came in 2000 right when it was like almost too late to do a new one of those and the first episode is him being cursed by a gypsy or a you know romani i should say uh but he gets cursed and uh it's sort of a metaphysical show where he just has bad luck in episodes but then by the fourth episode the show is renamed to the steven weber show and they completely drop that premise like he has a line where he's he visits the romani woman again and she's like i didn't put a curse on you it's not real forget it like

it's just so oh my god that's that's horrible oh i'm looking it up right now chris elliott wendell pierce wow i i wanted to i checked it out at the time because i wanted to see chris elliott's new thing it's not good it's not good the curse show has been put on his retooling actually he was the star of the little known and little seen larry david movie sour grapes oh yeah that's right what he did after seinfeld what's he gonna do next it's this movie called sour grapes and stephen weber is the star and well now he's just been in supporting roles a lot like on ncis he has some recurring guy this is actually when his voice acting career began around this wasn't his first voice acting role he was actually on Extreme Ghostbusters around the same time as this show.

But he has a lot of voice acting credit since then. Like he's, I think his biggest role that I saw recently was that on the Ultimate Spider-Man show, he voiced Norman Osborn slash the Green Goblin. And he was on, before this, he was on Duckman. Yeah, that's on Duckman. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

I remember, though, we thought we were on the cusp of a Stephen Webber assance in the mid-aughts when that Aaron Sorkin Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip show. Yes. Oh, my God. That's right. And we were like, here is's Steven Weber's return to television Here it comes and there it goes I think that was the last time

they tried to make Steven Weber a thing as a lead actor like he No, I totally remember that show him being part of that terrible, terrible show That was a show that it was a it was a stark night and day difference

between the pilot and the second episode. I think if you isolated the pilot of that and you were like, hey, here's this 50-minute Aaron Sorkin short film or something, it would play. Because I remember they did that thing where they aired the pilot months before the show actually started. And I just remember thinking, wow, okay, cool,

this behind-the-scenes of SNL, blah, blah, blah, or an SNL-type show, and then the fall-off in the very next episode. And it was funny because at the time, if you remember, that and 30 Rock came out at virtually the same time. That's right. And it was like because at the time, if you remember, that and 30 Rock came out at virtually

the same time. That's right. And it was like, when the ads for 30 Rock, because it was sort of like the second one to go, it's like, oh yeah, okay. This half hour comedy that's trying to be Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Okay. What are they thinking? The thing I remember most from

Studio 60, other than their like um modern major general parody song yeah is uh that the aaron sorkin guy in the show the writer who's clearly him he has a scene in it where he basically brags about all of the women he slept with which i i think is aaron sorkin really saying i slept with these women? Or you're supposed to assume that. He names real celebrities, too. Oh, yeah, and also that Brandon Fraser, his biggest comeback right now is that he was on the DC Universe original series, Doom Patrol.

He's Robot Man in that. I've heard good things. I didn't watch it. There's honestly too many things right now. There are people that I've seen say that that's a good things. I didn't watch it. There's honestly too many things right now. There are people that I've seen say that that's a good movie. Yeah. Or good television show, rather. I just, yeah, you're right. There's too much.

I just kind of can't do it. Brendan Fraser was also on that FX show that was also sort of the basis for, was it the Ridley Scott movie? Oh, yeah. Where Kevin Spacey was replaced by Christopher Plummer. All the money in the world. Yeah. Yeah.

Boy, it's sort of the it's him. He's wearing like a cowboy hat on the show. That's the only thing that people would tell you is good. But, you know, who's watching? I don't know. I kind of also have a thing with Brendan Fraser. You got to feel like the slightest bit of sympathy because he's one of those like,

what happened to Brendan Fraser kind of guys. And I guess like, and I only read this recently, maybe he did an interview recently or something where he was talking about how with those three mummy movies, like he fucked up his back so horribly. Yes. He couldn't do things for a really long time.

And I had no idea. And I felt so fucking bad for that guy long time and i had no idea and i felt so fucking bad for that guy no he had a lot of health problems because that which is really too bad like yeah and well because you also don't think of him as a guy who like when you imagine guys who do their own stunts you don't think of him either so it's almost like thankless pain he went through because nobody thinks of him as like a jackie chan style guy who does all his own stunts yeah yeah there's a yeah the interview that uh was recently with him he experienced some me too stuff he wasn't a me too perpetrator no no target of me oh that's right

oh i forgot about that yes he alleged that the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Agency had sexually assaulted him. And that led to a blacklisting of him as well. That's right. In the late 2000s. You guys just did G.I. Joe, actually. And he has such a distracting cameo in that movie. That is right, yeah. But it's totally distracting because he's Brendan Fraser, for God's sake. You see him

in a role like that and you're like, alright, well that's sticking around for the whole movie. Brendan Fraser's here, cool. It's a Stephen Sommers movie. They're mummy buddies. It made total sense. And it's literally like, it's less than 10 seconds. It's really unfortunate. It just leaves you guessing the whole time.

That was back when we didn't know we liked Channing Tatum and we were just like, uh, Channing Tatum. Right. Uh, but yes,

why, why don't we give a listen to Brad and Neil? Yo, yo, Rainier, my man, how you doing? I thought you'd be here pumping those guns.

We've come up with a killer promotion for power sauce bars. Picture this. You, I love it. Climb the highest mountain in Springfield. The Murderhorn. Are you crazy? That's suicide. Oh, sure, for experienced mountain climbers.

But you're a movie star, and you'll have the power of Sausage. Not for all the applesauce and glockenschlabel. My dad could do it. He eats $50 worth of power sauce bars a day. Overshoot the extreme, max the envelope, and so on. Wow, he's really been paying attention to our slogans. Brad, a word? New angle.

Joe Schlub eats power sauce bar, becomes world's mightiest man. It's believable. That's what I like about it. Congratulations, sir. You're going to be the first man to climb the murder horn. I am. No, that's it over there. Yeah, that's it.

Just to the right of the one you're looking at. Really good act break. I love that. Such a good joke. I forgot that there was a third mountain, and then I got excited when there was a third mountain watching it this morning. That is one of the most ridiculous jokes in the series' entire history, that a four-mile-high, more than four-mile-high mountain

is right outside of Springfield, and it always has been there. I have to imagine one of those mountains is Forbidding Widow's Peak for Mr. Plow. I bet you're right. Oh my God, that mountain. He's like, yeah, that's the one. Just to the right of the one you're looking at. And I just realized upon hearing these clips again that Homer never agrees to this. Bart signs him up, and they're like, you you're doing this and he's just like okay well i like that it stays in touch with the core story

is that homer wants bart to be proud of him and now that pride has become too powerful and is endangering homer's life i it keeps an emotional core in this episode around all the very silly uh health and mountain climbing jokes and it's kind of funny because it um my wife was pointing this out this morning when i had this on that here we are in season nine you can sort of start to see some you know plot ideas kind of informing these newer episodes like this is you know he's trying to impress bard or whatever so this is him kind of jumping the gorge again uh like you guys have mentioned this is another him losing weight situation and also this is like the the power sauce guys their angle is oh or the new angle

when when reindeer wolf castle uh turns them down their new angle is oh wow it's like an average joe guy doing this which is the exact motivation of uh nasa when he when he goes to space oh yeah you're right yeah it's uh it's this is when malaise can kind of set in for a show even when it's still funny like this episode's really funny but you can see repeated situations because there's there's only so many dramatic situations to put sitcom characters into. And especially when you have the same comedy writers, they're funny people, but the same things are funny to them all the time.

It is funny that 20 years ago, the characters were asking themselves, haven't we done this? Yeah, though once, I think that's the danger that we'll see as we go on with these seasons, that if you ask that too much, you're making the audience ask that, and they're going to start losing faith in you guys.

Absolutely. My in-canon explanation of that multiple mountain is that they did, just last episode, move Springfield five miles down the road after the trash thing. So maybe this is a new mountain compound behind i buy it i buy it but yes we come back from break to the longest third act in the show's history half of the show and um it wouldn't be a classic swartz welder thing if there was an old timey gags with abe and this whole story of abe's is so funny it contains my line of the show okay well i just love that he he instead of being spot he's sponsored by the power sauce of his time canned flapjacks i love

that in oil and in oil specifically in oil but let's give the line of the show jingle here before we play it to uh this abe's story That's the joke. Okay, mountain climbing supplies. Rope, ice axe, heart medicine. John, don't go up that mountain. You'll die up there, just like I did. You did?

Sure. It was the winter of 28. The Butter Baby Flapjack Company sponsored me and a fella named McAllister. We were almost to the top when we ran low on supplies. Heroically, I gave him the last short stack. Then that glory hog took all the supplies and headed for the top alone. Ah!

I fell 8,000 feet onto a pile of jagged rocks. Of course, folks were tougher in those days. I was jitterbugging that very night. But that skunk McAllister was never seen again. My line of the show is the cut from Grandpa falling in the past him saying i fell 8 000 feet onto a pile of jacket rocks just that made me laugh so hard i 8 000 feet i also love homer's reaction like you did and uh just about it i'm just up front saying i died on that mountain yes god damn it that's very funny the whole the whole sequence and yeah though this

is uh when you first hear this gag you never think it's going to come back as something because you just think like well this is a crazy ape lie yeah like right parts of this story were true which is shocking in any way that it was at all true but god damn his story is so great i and one of my like favorite running gags on this show is just like the whatever the exact age of abe simpson is you know the years in which he's doing things as a full-grown adult uh i just love how they're they just flip-flop that all over time basically if this happened in 1928 he has to be a hundred in 1998 yeah yeah exactly uh but uh well his his age is question mark as we've previously stabbed god only knows god only knows that's right yeah uh but but homer is i also love the gag i only

caught it this time homer saying heart heart medicine. If someone needs heart medicine, they should not be climbing a mountain. That's such a great little gag. But Homer isn't afraid. And he has a hat with ear flaps, so he knows he's going to be okay. He's had several heart attacks, triple bypass surgery. Or quadruple bypass? No, triple. Homer's triple bypass.

Yes. Though Marge classified it as a quadruple by the time she he went on the roller coaster and he did have that uh massive heart attack uh at the end of little lisa slurry as well yeah he's i mean homer's a death store at all times honestly the amount of exercise he did should be impossible for his heart in the condition it's in. Right, exactly. He should not be able to scale this. He would have died the second night of doing it.

Not a fun story. But yes, Homer is about to climb the mountain and Power Sauce Bar is there. And when he reaches the top, Mr. Simpson here will plant this Power Sauce flag as an eternal symbol of man's contempt for nature. Wait, is contempt the word I want here?

Homer, you're the world's greatest hero. Do you owe it all to power sauce? That's right, Brad and Neil. I only eat power sauce. The bar with applesauce-icity. Has anyone mentioned that Homer doesn't know anything about mountain climbing and that this is all crazy Well, yes a number of people but don't worry. We're sending two Sherpas along as guides Yeah, don't come on get him ship to me don't song took my sip. Oh

Goodbye, everyone. Don't touch my stuff. Dad. Wait, you're not risking your life just to impress me, are you? Well, yeah. Oh, cool. Now get going. Chop, chop. Remember our agreement. He can't fail. So the Sherpas are speaking an actual language, correct?

Yes. Phonetically. Yeah. I mean, they're being played by, I think, Harry and Dan. They are. Or Hank, I think, maybe. Oh, yeah. Harry, Hank.

But yeah, they went to the trouble of finding whatever language that is there, speaking and getting a translation. They tell a funny story that they called producers on a movie that featured Sherpas. And they were like, oh, we just made it up. We got to call somebody else. That's funny, actually, because I was wondering that today. Is there an actual thing here what are we saying they you know these these sherpas are quite a stereotype but yeah i do appreciate that they went to the trouble of getting the real language like that that i do

like all right seemingly the real language I cannot confirm that to be true. Sharper listeners, let us know. I also like that Homer refers to them collectively as Brad and Neil. He doesn't say, that's right, Brad. He says, that's right, Brad and Neil. I love Brad and Neil, actually. By the end of this, I was like, they should have been the next Troy McClure. These guys should have appeared in more stuff.

But I mean, you know, Brendan Fraser, especially, not very available after 1998, I don't think. And Steven Weber, about to star in Sour Grapes. It is funny, though, because they are sort of that nice, like, inoffensive kind of character. Like, they're just kind of sleazy enough, but it's not terrible.

And you could see them sort of coming back and there's another scam or there's another shitty product that they're hawking or something. So that's a good point. It could have been a nicer recurring gag. They're not trying to kill Homer. In fact, the deal is he doesn't die.

But their pitchman lines are so funny and that works for... Simpsons love to make fun of products that don't need to exist and they're aggressive pitch people. So Brad and Neil would really fit in. works for the Simpsons love to make fun of products that don't need to exist in their aggressive pitch people. So, uh, Brad and Neil would really fit in, but yeah, they just, uh, neither of the guys were that available. I forgot to mention, did you guys watch the shining that he was in? I did not. Oh, I absolutely did. That was a hardcore, uh, taped off TV situation. I've

seen that movie multiple times. wow i as i recall stephen king put pushed it as this is the better adaptation because it's truer to the book yeah and what's kind of funny is you see uh why it's totally fine that kubrick strayed from the source material uh when you're watching these fucking garbage. I don't remember if it was CGI. I think it was these animatronic hedge animals sort of chasing down Rebecca De Mornay and stuff like that.

It's not great, but I think it's totally fine. I was a big king head in the 90s, so I was sort of easily pleased, but it's an okay Stephen King movie. I remember the big source for me was Twofold, because like I said, it was a big King head,

a big horror head. But also, man, Rebecca De Mornay, look out below. This was the era, though, of all those very, very long ABC Stephen King miniseries like the stand and it and the tommy knockers and the langoliers oh the langoliers that's another one that i had taped off tv mainly because uh two reasons well i guess three aforementioned kinghead two uh bronson pinchow that's right as the villain wow craig toomey uh and then I can't remember the actress's name, but she is the wife in the

City Slickers movies, who I also had a huge crush on at the time. The only one of those I watched was The Stand, and it actually terrified me too much that I didn't want to watch the others, because the apocalypse really scared me. Before 2000,

I was like, the apocalypse comes in 2000, this is a preview of what's really going to happen. If they can make The Hobbit into, what, four movies? Three. They can make The Stand into, let's say, five movies. Oh, yeah. Is Gary Sinise in that movie? He is, yeah.

Yeah, okay. I think for The Stand, they left behind, ate their lunch. They got to the theaters first, I think for The Stand, they left behind Ate Their Lunch. They can't... It got to the theaters first, even though they made... He wrote The Stand way before that, Left Behind Garbage. Right.

That's been a movie twice, the Kirk Cameron movies, in quotes, and then Nicolas Cage starred in a real movie of it. Oh, right. God, I never saw that, though. Never buy a castle, listeners no don't buy a castle it seems cool but then you're left behind the remake doing this uh but i i also love that that brad says show man's contempt for nature that he makes sure like i his contempt the right

word just nods yep yep it's supposed to be and i i like too that they double undercut their own story here of marge saying it is insane that homer would be doing this he should not be doing this like people are saying that yes and and then then bart has what would be the normal sitcom ending of you don't have to do this to impress me dad but instead he insists he must do this to impress him i love that so then there's the little gag of homer getting only about 10 feet high and using all the oxygen that's a great gag but that feels like the more natural commercial break gag right yeah they could have like messed around with the pacing of this episode in terms of editing though i'd hate to go away from that mountain joke.

The three mountains joke is really good to end a commercial on. I like that one act is all mountain stuff. It's also just such a great gag with the tanks, too, because where are they keeping that many tanks? It's so funny. And Homer then

calls into Bart later. He finds out that he only has four vertical miles left to go, an insane height. So Mount Everest is the highest point in the world, but it's not the tallest mountain. Is that K2? Yes, yeah, and that one is over six vertical miles high. Wow.

Yeah, but it's just lower at sea level, so that's why Mount Everest takes you to the top of the world. But if you're all about climbing high, you get more at K2. I will tell you that the brief period where I actually used Tinder, everybody's photo was of them

on top of a mountain with their hands in the air. So if you climb a mountain, there will be a single person up there, ready to date. They might be Polly. They usually are. They're on Tinder in the Bay Area. No judgment, no judgment. No, sorry.

But yes, the Sherpas then are just dragging Homer around as he sleeps. That's the secret of it, which there's some great visual gags there. Somehow Homer's sleeping through being dragged on cold mountain rocks. Homer is dragged at least three times in this episode, either by a creature, by human, or just by inertia and gravity. That's probably why he can sleep through it. He's so used to being dragged around. I love the gag of they have him sort of dangling as they're sort of taking him around like a difficult, narrow ledge or whatever. And the mountain lion is like pawing at him.

That's so good. Yeah. And how hard these Sherpas are working. And that when he wakes up, he's like, boy, I got so high with that. I don't even know how. And then he's kicking them awake. And I just love it. He's like, does he need to kick us? God lazy sherpas his toes will freeze off he doesn't learn their names either

the the show doesn't want to know their names either so so then we get the power sauce update which is also my line of the show like every word of this is so great it's it's almost uh in the second one it verges on orwellian how much it's espousing power sauce propaganda. Wow, look how far I climbed, and I'm not even tired. Wake up, you lazy Sherpas. We've got a mountain to climb. This Power Sauce News Break is brought to you by Power Sauce. Get sauced with Power Sauce. Neil?

Our top story. Homer Simpson has just power sauced his way past the halfway point of the murder horn. Brad, could Homer have made it this far without the engineered nutrition of six kinds of apples? No way, Neil. Oh, this just in. Power sauce is amazing. Oh, God.

This just in. He power sauced his way up the mountain. Power sauce is a verb. It's so good. So funny. And that they just have this TV time. I mean, it reminds me of the commercials that were pretending to be like updates on a sports show or like the halftime show. God damn it.

It's so funny. I mean, just power sauce. And Brad and Neil, they work hard. They're making the business decisions and they're hosting the show. They are brand ambassadors. They were influencers before their time that's true and yeah power sauce is amazing and the power sauce logo that it's a wimpy guy holding an apple that is then struck by lightning and turns to a buff arm holding a

power sauce bar so good six kinds of apples fuck it's so funny i a power sauce should have made more appearances in the show, too. Absolutely. Should have been their next Buzz Cola or whatever. Krusty Bars. I guess it's maybe a thing where this whole stunt and paying for all that airtime,

maybe it just sort of busted Power Sauce Inc. and they had to fold. You know what? When Homer dumps Power Sauce, it's probably like, that was our last of our budget. We spent all this money on his march up that mountain. God damn it. So Homer then wakes up to see that he has been dragged

around and he's not been climbing this whole time and he comes to a fateful decision. Hey, you guys are dragging me up the mountain. Brad and Neil were quite insistent you not die. Frankly, we don't care.

Nobody believes I can do this, huh? Well, my son does, and I'm not going to let him down. I'm going to climb this entire mountain on my own. Then technically, shouldn't you go back down and start all over? Shut up! You are so fired. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Homer Simpson here.

I've sent the Sherpas home, and I'm heading for the top. Solo! Are you crazy? You'll never make it. The hell I won't. You're forgetting I've got my power sauce bars. Wake up, Homer. Those bars are just junk. They're made of apple cores and Chinese newspapers.

Hey, Deng Xiaoping died. Homer, listen to me. Turn back now. Forget it. I'll be at the top by noon. Over and out. I know I didn't know who Deng Xiaoping was in 1997. No way.

Or 98. He died in February 97. So those are old newspapers. Yeah, but just a year old. Not even fresh newspapers for power sauce bars. I think, I mean, I don't know if I'm picking one here, but I feel like that's my joke of the episode. Just because that.

When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? It so reminds me of what I always appreciated about quote unquote golden era of the show was when they would make those jokes that those jokes aren't for anybody.

You know what I mean? Those jokes are jokes for the writers. Just making those references to the obscure former leader of China that nobody remembered that guy's name. I just love that. It's one of the reasons that attracted me to this show. Those

such absurd references that, yeah, they didn't care. Go and look it up later if you want to. You know, oh my god, just, oh, Deng Xiaoping died. And the joke on top of that, that like Homer knows that, and he's kind of like upset by it a little bit. It's just

all so perfect. The news is finally hitting him. And the implication seems to be, if these are Chinese newspapers, I mean, are they in English? I don't think so so is homer reading this uh in mandarin yes exactly i like him having just a small happy moment of learning something yeah you know while he's in this perilous situation like oh okay cool it didn't know that it harkens back to the homer who knows every supreme court justice yeah like

that the specific in intelligence of Homer. I love that gag. And that is, what is the gag where he has the line? Like, Oh, not suitor. Uh,

yeah. It's just like, yeah. Like he knew justice suited. Like I just, Oh God. Yeah. Those things are what made me fall in love with the show.

110%. And, and also the line too, that like it, it shows that not only is it secretly Chinese newspaper, but how can it be a secret when you can pull out a headline from your power sauce bar? It's also such a great construction of that joke. Those are prizes. the easy gag is to just say, I, uh, it's made out of Chinese newspaper. Like as a filling, that's just a funny thing to say,

but to live in that reality of what that means, that is the extra work. They're so poorly made that you can actually just pull pieces out and read that. I also do love the line of like Brad and Neil were quite insistent that you not to die like that. It's such a funny line to give the Sherpas. And also the ease with which they cartwheel down the mountain in celebration.

Yeah, vertically. And their great point to Homer of like, well, you didn't really climb it by yourself. We dragged you. Shut up. I would seemingly think Homer got dragged 90% of the way up the mountain. That's my assumption. And yeah, now Homer loses all faith in Power Sauce. He only has faith in himself now. That's why he never eats Power Sauce again after this episode.

Right. But then we get our, again, very Orwellian message on Power Sauce updates. Homer Simpson, defying all medical advice, has switched to Power Sauce's arch rival, the VitaPe Peach Health Log. Doctors say he may not have the mega-nutrients needed to stave off death. Oh, Dad's gonna die

and it's all my fault. I really need a good talk or two. Don't worry, kids. Your father will be okay as long as he's with those Sherpas. Uh, Mom? And the Sherpas are hitchhiking back to Nepal. And Lisa gets her one line.

She said she reflected on his arms or his legs. She said that too. That's all that she... Well, as Mike Reese, a former executive producer of the show, told us and mentioned in his book, John Schwarzwalder is one of their favorite writers, but an odd duck in who one of his odd things is that

he would rarely write jokes for Marge and Lisa. They'd have to add those into his scripts. I don't think he's much for the lady. But this cover-up, the Power Sauce Company is performing right now. We've always been at war with Eurasia. Our enemy said Vita Peach. I love the Vita Peach. They're killing this man.

The Vita Peach health log. Health log is good. Health Log is so great. And actually, I was thinking, just listening to that clip, it reminds me of like, it's sort of like this,

both Power Sauce and the Vita Peach Health Log are like proto fruit leather, which we love eating now. Yeah. Which I think is, it's a very disgusting snack. But when I think of,

especially the Vita Peach Health Log that's just gross fruit leather I feel like you have to carve a piece off of it before you eat it exactly you know my equivalent of the power sauce bars these days are those Fiber One bars which look I should just be eating more fibrous foods

or taking fiber supplements but what if instead it was a bunch of sugar and chocolate that had 10 grams of fiber in it? Isn't that better? Minor protein bars with a very similar power sauce logo. Yes, yeah. You know, Clif bars are a little nicer.

Like, they're lower impact. Like, they're not as in-your-face as power sauce. And there's a guy climbing a damn mountain on them. That's what I'm going to do when I eat these Clif bars. It's also just kind of like a nice illustration. I always like looking at that guy like, that guy's got a good life. What's his story, you ask yourself? You don't do that with Fiber One.

Exactly, yeah. As I root through all of the Clif Bars looking for the peanut butter chocolate one. His story is he's getting ready to take a dating site selfie on top of the mountain. The other weird ADR line in this episode is, Barts, I really need a good talking to. Yeah, what is that joke? That doesn't play at all, right? That's so weird. And there's a strange beat

after it. Of just silence with Barts. Yeah, well, and his mouth movements are so off, so it makes me think it's a replacement line, which like, I don't know. I have to think there were previous line was funnier than that. Cause that was just, I guess it's a kind of statement on like, I should be punished or whatever. I, I don't understand. And it also kind of just loses Bart's emotionality instantly is like, oh no, I've doomed dad to death. Oh, well. And he never talks about it again.

Yes, Homer is climbing all on his own and he's feeling a little lightheaded. Oh, air's getting thin, but I'm going to make it. Oh, getting lightheaded. Good. No heavy head to carry. Wait, I'll just take that escalator It's a return to the land of chocolate, really It's very land of chocolate

It's the land of lack of oxygen But it's funny Even if it's similar to land of chocolate We get a nice King Kong shot of the Yeti, too When he picks up Homer I love He's drawn like a bumble from the yeah yeah yes he definitely is and then when he wakes up he's again being just dragged down the mountain yes yeah homer is dragged three times

in this episode i love it the little trickles of blood on him are like they're they're the most disturbing part of it and it's a nice gag that kind of reminds me of and it's a similar thing where the joke is coming out of a dream sequence i don't remember what the episode is but he falls asleep at the wheel and he has that great uh dream about like riding on the bed and whatever and then it's like him on a bed on the road and we come back to reality and it's like the car and he's dragging part of a fence behind. That's Lisa's pony. Yeah. That's a great dream sequence. Oh my God. Oh,

yeah. Cause he's working nights to afford the horse. Yeah. Oh my God. It's such a great visual gag. Uh, he's clearly. So,

I mean, that comes from the writers, not sleeping any and being tired. He's wearing a tuxedo in this, right? Yeah. Yeah. Top hat.

I like, uh, as all the ways he's being moved up the mountain are very clever. I mean, the bumble hugging him and like, like that's very funny. Dancing with him. Yes, yeah.

And yeah, he ends in a bubble singing the song to himself and then waking up. And that's also when he loses his walkie-talkie at that point too, which I guess technically that's sort of a plot point. But whether he has a walkie talkie or not, the last scene doesn't really know. He ever says we've lost contact. Yeah.

Oh, right. Yeah. You're totally right. I already assume he's dead. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

but so Homer gets to the top seemingly, but he sees that it keeps going into the sky and he just, it's, it's too far. He has to give up by that. The, the, the peak is unclimbable that there's no easy

vantage point to it you know that makes sense i and then he has a very funny bit of reflecting on at least he's not going to freeze to death and then seeing a frozen corpse that had frozen homer learned something from this here corpse last entry i have mountaineered to the utmost but the peak is unclimbable we're still that treacherous skunk abe simpson stole my oxygen and tried to eat my left arm you're dead tell my beloved wife my last thoughts were of her blinding and torturing abe simpson cheerio my dad's a disgrace just like parts dad blinding and torturing Abe Simpson. Cheerio. My dad's a disgrace.

Just like Bart's dad. Me. It's another one of those weird linguistic jokes I like where you did, and this one too. I had just a fun curveball. Just like Bart's dad. Me. And also my last thoughts are for blinding and torturing abe simpson like not even like he could have said killing abe simpson but yeah the

specificity of like not just torturing but blinding him yeah that's horrifying so now we get to find out that abe pretty much killed a guy like through i mean through stranding him it's not like he strangled him to death but left a man to die he stranded him yeah and also resorted to cannibalism before that man died yes took a bite out of him and stole all his stuff so he would definitely freeze to death i mean that's manslaughter i think that is a perfectly cartoonish bite out of his uh he's like a piece of cake or something yeah i do i i forgot to mention to the mccallister is uh that is the name of captain mccallister the sea captain so maybe that's his like grandfather

oh right father mccallister's pretty old but uh they they remark on the commentary too how funny it is that homer goes like ah dead dead body. Let's read that diary. He goes straight to it. Hey, we got like two minutes left. And so Homer is about to give up. He then plants his flag, which knocks off the top of the mountain, which they say that Brian Scully came up with that very late in the game. And they were just so happy. They're like, oh, oh thank god an ending like

we've left homer at the top of this mountain what the fuck do we do and so the idea that he basically trimmed the mountaintop and made it shorter to then be at the top that that's very clever i like that a lot so in season eight they ride a rocket house down a mountain this is very rocket house season nine oh wow totally it's a non-rocket corpse. Yeah, but their reactions are pretty much the same. And the setting, too, of the snow.

It's got no brakes. But yes, the Homer is seemingly doomed. Hey, wait a minute. I'm on the top. I actually did it. I climbed the unclimbable mountain. Bow down before me, everyone, for I am your king.

Family to dad. Family to dad. Come in, dad. I'm pretty sure he's dead, little girl. Here, have a power sauce bar. It's on the house. Hey, something's coming down the mountain, fast! Oh no! He fell!

I can't look! They do a great job of hiding that corpse. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and that's when Lisa gets one more line. forgot she's he's gonna uh but but before that i marge's reaction is almost a little too real of like i can't he's falling i can't look like that is what a wife would say to seeing the death of her husband seemingly falling to his death yeah down a mountain and you can almost feel the like um

julie cavner in the recording covers her eyes with her hands you can hear it yeah yeah it's really it's really good it's really really good uh you know that extra acting from julie there on march but uh yeah that the final line from brad is just to assure a child that her father is dead like he's dead but he's at least giving with the free power sauce bars that's such a great joke too on the house as if there would be another scenario in where he's charging her for that power sauce bar but because your dad's dead it's free oh my god it's so funny uh but yes homer homer has survived and we get to see a a grizzly corpse sled revealed oh hom, homie, you're alive.

Oh, Marge, I never thought you'd see me again. Where in the world did you find a sled on top of the... We're too late. He's dead. It looks like someone tried to eat him. What are you looking at me for? You're all crazy. Crazy as a... Okay, here's what I think happened.

Bronzoid. Did you make it to the top, Dad? Huh, did you? Why don't you tell me, son? See any interesting flags up there? All I see is a pole. Maybe the flag fell off. Ah, damn it!

Forget about it, Homer. You made it to the top. You're the coolest dad ever. Thanks, Bart. That makes it all worthwhile. Is that your wallet? Don't! Good line to go out on.

I do like the symbolism, too, that you completely forget about the capture of the flag by the time he pulls it back out. But the flag that had humiliated him so much before is now the source of pride. You know what? I did not connect that until you said it. That's how far away. That's what happens when this third act is so long, you forget the first act. Like, oh yeah, capture the flag led us here yeah well also just one of those nice uh moments where it's like homer had the foresight to bring something that reminded him of bart you know it's a it's those nice like uh fatherly gestures they give him once in a blue moon but i also like the reality of it is that homer did not tie it on well and the wild winds knocked it off already though how can march see his wallet that's uh

that's very small i i don't believe that good binoculars it's such a great gag that a abe's teeth fall perfectly into the bites to reveal that it was him oh that's great though why do these people even know his relationship to this guy everybody looks at him like they didn't did everybody in springfield he'll hear the story that he climbed the mountain he was being very suspicious i guess so yeah but and and he just runs away and has no punishment for seemingly the reveal of the uh helping murder this man the running away also is another just favorite simpsons gag of mine like how do we get out of this situation we'll just have him run either.

The best of that is whenever it's a you hear a door slam and a car peel out. This is also just as great. Not saying anything and just turning tail and running. It made me think running away solved more of your problems because it does on the show. In a way, you don't have to write

a joke, but it's also very funny for the character to do that. But yeah, that was a really funny episode that is a little uneven maybe and also like really uh really long third act in pacing wise but pretty much just ton of funny like very swartz weldery jokes and with two really good guest stars who honestly could have just been hank and harry in the same roles but still they did a good job yeah we're reaching the end of season nine a very long season and they normally run out of energy towards the end of the season this is a very fun episode they're very punchy i love all of the uh the fun gags in it and also just the fun wordplay they get out of these characters but power sauce would not make a

return i did check not even like one cameo so it just limited to this episode brad and neil would expire forever and no power sauce so yes we've seen the first and last of power sauce i want a power sauce jacket those are cool jackets they're very nice they honestly look like simpsons crew jackets gonna say the exact same thing yeah like the simpsons jackets uh andrew any final thoughts on this episode you know it's funny when we were trying final thoughts on this episode? You know, it's funny. When we were trying to pinpoint what episode I would come on for, I was sort of bumming, like, oh, man, we're in the back half of season nine now. And I know that my We Hate Movies cohort, Steve Sadek,

got to be on one of my all-time faves, Homer Simpson vs. the City of New York. So I was like, all right, whatever you guys got left like let's just do one and this was just an episode you know when i do my rewatches i i have the first 10 seasons on dvd and i'll either revisit there or sometimes like mix and match on hulu it's kind of easier to make a simpsons episode mixtape on hulu if I'm watching it that way. But I was actually, I just have to say, pleasantly surprised. I totally forgot the really solid jokes that are in this. I remembered the episode. I remembered Power Sauce

and him climbing the mountain and everything, but I didn't remember the specific jokes. It had been a while since I watched it. And I was just pleased to see that, you know, season nine, episode 23, we're still chugging along with some really solid writing here. So it was a nice revisit

on an episode that honestly I would kind of probably skim over when I'm making my Simpsons mixtapes like I do every so often. Yeah, looking forward to Disney Plus opening up all the Simpsons to everyone so they can see it's worth going beyond Season 8. Yeah, I think so too.

Andrew, you're our special guest today. We'll do our plugs once we're off the air with you. Can you tell our listeners about We Hate Movies although they should know about it by now. Come on people. But in case they don't, what is We Hate Movies and where can they find it and support your Patreon? Cool. Yeah, so totally. We Hate Movies

is a show I host new episodes every Tuesday. We're a comedy podcast where we take a movie, you know, usually generally a quote unquote bad movie, but we've done some favorites of ours over the years as well. And we use that movie as a jumping off point for just an improvised conversation. We kind of take you through the movie, sort of like we did here today with this episode. Go off on personal tangents, make some really bad celebrity impressions, come up with characters of our own and so on. I do the show with three other guys, Steven Sadek, Christopher Cabin, and Eric Siska. And we also have a Patreon, patreon.com slash wehatemovies. And on there, we sort of offer additional bonus shows. We have a show called The Nexus,

where it's us going through Star Trek, the original series, and Star Trek, the next generation. We do an episode a piece each episode of that show. We cover one of each show. Animation Damnation is a show where we sort of lampoon bad 80s and 90s cartoons. We also offer syncable commentaries on there. We have one coming out fairly soon. At the end of June, we're going to release a commentary on Independence Day. We also offer, um, sinkable commentaries on there. We have one coming out fairly soon. Uh, the end of June,

we're going to, we're going to release a commentary on independence day, which was a lot of fun to, to lay down. So yeah, uh, WHM podcast.com for the show. We're on iTunes and all those places and patrion.com slash.

We hate movies for the Hardy paywall content that's on there. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Andrew, for coming on and doing the show. Yeah, thank you guys. This was really awesome.

Any chance I can get to talk about one of my all-time favorite shows, I would definitely jump at the chance. So happy to be here. So thanks again to Andrew Jupin. Please check out We Hate Movies. It's great. We love it.

I've been listening since almost the very beginning. It's a fantastic bad movie podcast. But as for us, if you want to support our show and get all kinds of bonus podcasts please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons for the low price of five bucks a month you'll get all of our podcasts including what a cartoon and talking simpsons one week ahead of time and ad free and you will also have access to almost two years worth of paywalled content at the five dollar level. All of our exclusive miniseries and bonus episodes, including our most recent one, Talking of the Hill,

our entire first season, 13 episode exploration of King of the Hill. We also have a new-ish $10 tier. Henry, what's going on in that tier for the big spenders out there who want extra, extra long podcasts? If you head up to the $10 level, you'll get to hear once a month are what a cartoon movie podcast where me and bob break down a different animated feature film in the same granular and fun talking simpson style it can go up to four hours long and this month you will get to hear tiny tunes how i spent my summer vacation

the classic direct-to-video movie that we all loved as kids and is the best Tiny Toons stuff, at least animation-wise. And now it's direct-to-Hulu, so it's available to all. You can still see it, so please check that out. And we'll be putting up a free preview of it very soon. But if you want to hear the whole thing, $10 a month at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons with all the previous ones available to you as well once you sign up again that is patreon.com slash talking simpsons as for me i've been one of your hosts bob mackie find me on twitter as bob servo and check out my other podcast retronauts that's a classic gaming podcast every monday occasionally on friday you have to go to

retronauts.com or look for retronauts in your podcast device and subscribe to it. If you like video games, you'll like Retronauts. Henry, how about you? You can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Whenever new podcasts go live on the Patreon, you'll learn about them first there, as well as many other things that are cool in my life. H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next week with Lost, folks. We'll see you next week with Lost R. Lisa.

We'll see you then. The joke's on you. We borrowed that jar from your table. So you just shot your own mustard. Ah, nuts.