Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Life On The Fast Lane (Revisited) With Merritt K

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

Our reexamination of the first season gets to the first true Marge episode, and we welcome back Merritt K from Fanbyte to help us discuss Marge's marital strife! After a terrible birthday, Marge takes out her spite at Homer's terrible gift while making a new friend at the bowling alley. But what happens when he wants to be more than friends? The Simpsons' marriage is tested for the first time in this week's episode, so grab your size 13 bowling shoes and treat your partners well on this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where you get a slice of cantaloupe at the end. I'm your host, the Caramel Corn Warehouse Assistant Manager, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Proudly wearing his street shoes on this podcast is Henry Gilbert. And who do we have on the line? I'm Merrick Kaye, and I can tell you what the little arrows on the floor mean. And today's episode is Life on the Fast Lane.

You certainly have a lot of bowling trophies. I like you so much. They're not for bowling. You're so naive. They're for lovemaking. Really? Yes. Today's episode aired on March 18th, 1990.

And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God. Oh boy, Bobby. The hunt for Red October tops the box office. Salt-N-Pepa's album, Black's Magic, is released, and that features the soon-to-be-hit Let's Talk About Sex. And in Boston, 12 paintings collectively worth almost $300 million are stolen from the Isabel Stewartart gardner museum and they have

yet to be found it is the largest art heist in world history sounds like a true caper it is yeah still not recovered never found again it was uh robbers posing as police officers so yep it uh an art thievery worthy of a film. Even with costumes. That's interesting. And Hutford October, I think, is the first time Tom Clancy entered our lives. At least, unless you were, you know, a retired dad reading his books. Yeah, it was the first film. All the submarine books.

Yeah. Starring Alec Baldwin in the role played by so many people. Now he's played by office jim yeah boy in his films about regime change which are so great he hates venezuela he makes the halpert face of venezuela torture hop but let's talk about sex what a great song was that also the album in which we were told to push it? Because I like that one too. I think it might have been later. Yeah, I think it's a later one.

Let's Talk About Sex, baby. Let's Talk About You. That's a great song. Part of the safe sex era of rap. There was a variant called Let's Talk About AIDS. Whoa. And it wasn't like a fun, silly parody. It was like, let's do a version of this about safe

sex and AIDS yeah yeah I mean you know waterfalls is partly about HIV right yeah yeah it is yeah they did a whole thing yeah well same with uh George Michael's song about like uh sex is natural sex is fun sex is best when it's one-on-one yeah which starred his girlfriend at the time as well. I prefer phony calls, which has a clip from The Simpsons in it. Oh, I forget that. It does, yeah.

Weird Al's phony calls. Don't go making them. But yeah, it was an exciting day in 1990. But I guess, welcome back, Merritt, to the show. Thank you.

I'm so happy to be here again. Previously on Burns, Baby Burns, and Natural Born Kissers. Right. The latter of which also being a Marge and Homer episode. Yeah. Now you're back for the original Marge and Homer and Merritt's Trouble episode. What's your relationship with season one? Did you watch it much in the

rerun days or were you like a number of our guests who kind of skipped over it when it would show up in reruns well okay so i think i started watching the simpsons in the early to mid 90s i think that's i think i was allowed to start watching it when i was probably around like seven or eight um maybe a little older. That seems young. I don't know. But so by that point, yeah, there was already reruns. It was already syndication. And I would occasionally catch the first season episodes and you could tell at the time that,

okay, something is very weird about this. Like it hasn't like become the thing that I know yet. And like everything from the animation to the emotional tone of the first season is very different and i mean this is the first though that the series like actually gave a shit about marge's emotion yeah and defined her more as uh the shorts marge like the uh angry wife who says don't do that uh-huh uh, when it's funny that this comes from an episode written by John Schwarzwalder, too.

That's crazy. I think they learned after this, like, I mean, this is a good episode, but I feel like it was heavily rewritten because he does not do these sorts of episodes. Women and their problems. It's not really a Schwarzwalder thing. He's better at crazy cartoons

of weird-looking, old-timey men and not so much marital stuff. I do love those. I mean, from all we know about Schwarzwalder, I don't think he's ever been married. And he's just like a longtime bachelor millionaire smoker. Collecting famous baseballs and Hitler paintings. He's a weird guy. He's an odd duck.

I don't know how much you've heard about i'm looking at his wikipedia page right now and just even the intro like since he retired he wrote a novel called the squirrel who saved practically everybody oh he's written a lot of novels his books are really funny if you like his episodes he's written 11 or more than 11 novels uh but, but yeah, it must, it must've been fun coming back to season one with like new eyes on, on this episode then, since you kind of overlooked them a bit that in the olden days. Yeah, absolutely.

I think this was one of those episodes in the, in the olden days that didn't really seem as funny to me and that I didn't really, it's funny because I don't think I enjoyed this episode of this kind of episode as much as a kid and I dislike it now for completely different reasons

I mean I didn't hate it there were some fun bits that like I think I totally missed the first time around and we'll probably get into those but just there's just i feel like the jokes are almost incidental to this episode like lisa's macaroni card uh the reveal that it's like this beautiful work of art the mr brunswick joke uh just things like that that i sort of was just

like chuckling at um but yeah like it's funny because i'm coming at it with like an adult viewpoint now and i'm like oh um yeah this i'm not sure how i feel about this i guess also i just want to point out um before we go any further and i forget that i watched this um illegally on youtube uh via a channel called simps world ah is is this is that one of the ones that cut them up and up into six parts one of 30 is yes but also it's called simps world that's so interesting you know that that channel probably started like five years ago and now they're just like huh well i i can't believe uh disney can still have those up like I just used a, it was probably the same channel, to get audio from a scene that isn't on Disney Plus a couple episodes ago. Oh, right. And the easiest thing was just to go to part six of a video.

I was like, this is not like the audio isn't pitch shifted. It's not flipped. It isn't doing any of the rules you normally see. I like when it's on a picture of a TV within the video frame. Very nice. Yes. Or in the corner with some weird wavy backgrounds. I feel like some companies are way more aggressive about that, but you'd think Disney would be.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. that but you'd think disney would be oh yeah yeah may i i guess for right now and maybe we're blowing up their uh their scam maybe there's some trick to it if it's a under four minute clip disney doesn't search for it are we narcing on simps world oh i'm sorry oh so we could talk a bit about some behind the scenes stuff this episode episode originally was called Bjorn to be Wild. It is now called Life on the Fast Lane. I want to repeat, it's Life on the Fast Lane. Everyone says Life in the Fast Lane.

The joke is it's Life on the Fast Lane. Because you're on a bowling lane. Exactly. You're not in a bowling lane. And I guess it's a reference to that song, right? Yeah, Life in the Fast Lane. Well, I mean, it's also like just a saying too. It is a saying.

But when Albert Brooks came in, he was like, I want to make it a French guy. French is funnier. And that was his executive decision, and they made it a French guy. Also important to note that season one, Simpsons Mania, kicks off with a Christmas special. This is the first huge break in new episodes. It comes back after three or four weeks. The last new one was February 25th.

This is March 18th, which is why this is the second most watched Simpsons episode ever. Wow, folks were just so thirsty for new Simpsons after that few weeks of reruns. So 33.5 million viewers of this episode. That's double the finale of Game of Thrones. I think it's like triple, right?

Oh my God. Or something like that. So this is not fair at all because over time, fewer and fewer people watch network TV. But the most recent ratings I could find were for the episode, season 31 episode, Bart the Bad Guy, which aired on March 1st. That got a 1.6.

Wow. So, yes. This is how TV has changed, but what do you think is the highest rated episode ever? It should be pretty easy. Oh, boy. An even longer break in The Simpsons Mania. Oh, well, then is it Bark It's an F?

It's Bark It's an F. It has 0.1 more viewers. Oh, wow. So 33.6 million viewers. I would have thought the Thursday move on that would have impacted the viewership. I guess it was just Event TV because we had that whole summer with no Simpsons. So yeah. I'm just thinking about how much we all love Bart and want to see Bart doing it.

It was smart of them to start with a Bart episode instead of the first in production Burns episode they did in season two. But yeah, this episode that takes advantage of the least hot in terms of popularity character ended up being the second most watched one ever for The Simpsons. It was all downhill from season two. It's funny. I've been digging up the vintage commercials whenever I can find them for this season one. And the commercial for this episode, it's like Marge has a bad birthday.

And also then Bart gets his tongue stuck in a like that's all they want kids to know in that 10 20 second uh commercial uh I think the I think the whole Bjorn thing and Bjorn to be wild can we go back to that because to imagine Albert Brooks like walks in and is like French is funnier than swedish everybody knows that like do you agree uh i you know at this point they're so early and they trust albert brooks so much and like whatever you say albert like he's yeah he already is i have by 1989 when they would have recorded this he already is a very respected comedy figure so yeah and especially he's he's friends with james l brooks they work together he's gonna trust his buddy especially since he does so much improv

yeah they're like well be comfortable in your improv character yeah i assume he he spoke none of the dialogue that was written for him and i think in the writing the intent was like let's swerve away from the expected French Lothario. Let's make him Swedish. But I like what he does with this character. He has a lot of fun with him. It's very good, yeah. Yeah, almost in a self-indulgent way.

Oh, I mean, it's very indulgent. Especially when he breaks his accent to go, four onion rings! Well, I wonder if the whole Bjorn and Swedish thing comes from that this is like in construct, the idea of the old timey at that point idea of the wife who is cheating with the tennis instructor. Tennis instructor, yeah. And so you've got Bjorn, the Swedish tennis legend or whatever, that guy who I only know through jokes about Swedes playing tennis well, that then they're like, oh, so it's a Swedish tennis instructor, but now we'll make him a bowling instructor, and that's who has sex with all the wives. There's even a joke where you see those scenes in those old movies where the tennis instructor is

behind the wife showing her how to perfect her form. He's doing that with a a bowling ball which doesn't make any sense like i don't think he would do that like stand behind the woman and show her how to bowl the ball no no which are you suggesting he has ulterior motives oh yeah he he'd be canceled in our modern day shock the way he touches marge without consent i'm not even kidding like i don't think he was viewed to be that creepy just like a guy who's trying to hit on marge but now he's like a mega creep in my eyes. I mean, he's following all the pickup artist rules of safe touching. And the limited knowledge I have of those rules, he's doing it, which is creepy. What's his flair?

I guess it's like his pompadour hair or his bowling glove, perhaps. Turtleneck sweater. Nice turtleneck. Before we fully get into the episode, I did want to shout out one thing that I think it was on this commentary, but honestly, I mainlined four commentaries in a row, so I maybe have this mixed up. But it's time to bring up this person who we don't haven't given a creative spotlight before david silverman on the commentary shouts out to a man named mike gerard who was the overseas animation supervisor they hired on who he credits to the show really getting a lot better in character design matching up he uh gerard's first credit on the show is Bart the General, and that is when it really

started to come together and stay on model. So Mike Gerard was their big hire. They sent over to the Korean studio, ACOM, and I think that really helped them a lot with persistent character design for the rest of season one, at least compared to the first four episodes of season one and mike gerrard uh still with us today he uh got his start on a lot of saturday morning cartoons as a character layout artist he's credited on uh many tunes including the droids and ewoks cartoons oh my god uh he did animation checking on simpsons until the end of season five. So he even continued from the changeover from Klasky to film Roman. He was still doing the animation checking. His last credited ep is Lisa's Rival, the final one of production season five that aired.

Okay. And he also did a similar animation checking job for Rugrats and Eek the Cat as well. Oh. Two fine shows. And his most recent Simpsons credit was he came back to do some character layout on the Simpsons movie. Excellent. Good choice. Mike Gerard, tribute to you for getting

this show on model. I have one more bit of pre-show info before we start. It's all about Jacques, by the way. They would only use him, I think, for three more jokes. So one is in the Do the Bartman video where he's dancing with Princess Kashmir. He like spins her and she turns into Carl. Not Carl, the African-American friend of Lenny, but Carl, the gay character from Simpson and Delilah.

Harvey Fierstein's character. Exactly. And he's like, ooh. Another joke, I think, is in Homer's Triple Bypass where they're going up to the hospital floors. And one of the jokes is a doctor's putting on a glove. Yes. And is like it's gonna go in his butt it's a prostate yeah and the last one is in team homer when he's part of the homewreckers yes with all the other characters that uh the marge or homer considered cheating with though princess cashmere's in there and i think that's unfair yeah yeah homer just danced with her. Yeah, she's a performer that Homer got photographed with.

She had no, she's not a home record. They needed a fourth. I guess so. But also, Jacques is in almost every episode for 20 years, because he is one of the people Bart skateboards by in the revised opening. Him, Apu, and Bleeding Gums Murphy. I keep forgetting. He's in the revised opening every episode.

He's there for like 20 years, and he never appears in a speaking role again he's he i mean he's a funny looking character i like his big hair and his like swoopy arms and everything i i don't know it's uh it's an interesting look for jock so i can see why they stuck with him and he's one of the most memorable characters from season one too just i think mainly thanks mainly thanks to Albert Brooks being funny in improvising in that way. Maybe, too, that's why this episode doesn't feel like a Schwarzwalder one, because he, like, rewrote half the script with his improvisation. That's probably it, yeah. Well, so this episode begins with another shortened opening, but the most naturally done one where it's like actually an animation instead of like crude 1990 video editing where it's like and it you know it's the whole

city and then it's a zoom in on the on the house that is like done in animation not through video you got to make room for all those ad libs those abrooks ad libs i'm shocked there's a montage later in the episode because it's like yeah think of the ad libs you could have kept in here well according to the commentary there were two uh two montages there's only one now well all right that makes sense then uh but the episode begins with the kids making breakfast. Whoops. Oh, whoops. Whoops.

This is going to be the best birthday breakfast Mom ever had. Hey, Lace, you think that's enough for her? Maybe one more. I hope she likes the presents we got her. Well, I know she'll like mine. Who wouldn't like a bottle of real French perfume all the way from Gay Perry? Four bucks plus tax. Well, I think she's

going to like my handmade birthday card better. Oh, big deal. Dry macaroni spray paint and glue. Whoopee. Gibbs, first Gibbs,

I get to lick the beaters. Whoa! Ah! Ah! Ah! Wait a minute. Let's end it in the video.

Let's end it. I always love that foley on the motor turning. Yeah, you can hear the motor going as it's stuck in place. That's good foley, yeah. Yeah. I love the drawing of Bart with his tongue stuck. It's a very Silverman-y drawing.

With that great sideways mouth. Yeah. Actually, yeah, when you say sideways mouth, it reminds me of Leela's parents in Futurama, how their mouths move. We get a twister mouth and a sideways mouth in the same scene. Yeah. Bart has a twister on all the way to the apiary.

And one thing I noticed is that it's a lot to ask, especially for animation of this time, to have such a complicated piece of art as Lisa's macaroni picture, which is why they do with a video effect, they loop the shot of her blinking twice so that piece of art's on the screen for four seconds just be like can you can you actually read this on your sd tv in 1990 all of these lines i was glad they kept it on screen for so long though i edited out the silence there you may have noticed in the in the clip because it is just like four seconds of silence as we appreciate that drawing but yeah like the the line density on that it it would be cruel to the animator who drew it to be

like all right one second you get it they threw out the house made of squirrels from uh time and punishment but they kept this in and it is we're still in the era of uh odd fades on the show so it's like fading from bart's immense pain to homer and marge sleeping yeah i mean i think the the fades are something that they abandoned pretty early right yeah just like the such low energy way to transition to a scene yeah like the the simpsons editing style ends up being just like hard cuts right yeah by season two i think they figured out hard cuts are the way to go not these deflating dissolves or pain oh my god so fucking depressing like such low energy for for a show like this yeah you're supposed to just be laughing it's such a funny drawing of barton

then you're like oh i mean i will say that they kind of fit the tone of this episode because it is kind of a languid episode um it is sort of this like lower energy one and so like they do they are still awkward but like if they worked in any episode i think it would be this one yeah this is the most fun that you have uh in the beginning so they're setting up for sadness and goodbye my wife the the the kids making breakfast opening also feels like straight out of the shorts like especially yeah they mess everything up they make like 20 pancakes which you'd need like five bucks two at least two boxes of bisquick to do that i think though that does remind me as as a kid of i tried to make pancakes a couple times it's easy kid breakfast but you you end up making a mess a

bigger mess that of course you leave to your mom to clean up which i figure is what they're going to do there just like isn't it nice we made you breakfast anyway mom mess mess in the kitchen time to get to it also did lisa microwave that cake i i realize now she kind of takes the cake out of a microwave maybe it's like a little um one of those little uh ovens maybe maybe but it's i mean you can make cake in a microwave with a with a mug did you ever do that oh yeah i've seen those yeah i think a friend once made a coffee cup cupcake in such a way you can do it i mean it's fine yeah i i also now think of just the amount of like carbs of like here's a giant stack of pancakes and cake eat it right now people didn't know okay so pancakes what do you guys what's your take on pancakes like just generally as a

food well there's a giant schism in the talking simpsons world about this between me and henry i am a very pro pancake person a kid, my mom would bake pancakes like once a week and it was an important morning for me. I was like, oh boy, pancake time. So even to this day, I love to make pancakes as a special breakfast.

And I am a pro-pancake person. I am staunchly anti-pancake. I can have one and then the rest are just a cold sponge on my plate. I will say I love, I prefer to have one very good waffle, like a Gritz waffle or something, like a fancy waffle. That is my ideal breakfast, I guess, disc. Breakfast disc.

There you go. Merrick, you sound to be on the anti-pancake side of things. I'm a pancake centrist, I think. Okay. Because, yeah, like, I'll enjoy a pancake or two. But the thing is, like, if I go out to a restaurant or something, my move is always to, like, someone else get, like, an omelet or scramble. And then I get pancakes. And then we just like share like split them

because ordering pancakes is just like to me that's like yeah by the time you're done like two of them you're like okay what are we doing here guys we're just eating like dough this is uh but yeah my dad actually made them uh once a week growing up for me as well and he would always do like mickey mouse pancakes and like turtles and stuff. Oh, I love those. Yeah. I have pretty fond memories of pancakes. Yeah, those Mickey Mouse pancakes.

Yes, actually that unlocked a happy memory for me. You people with parents who made you breakfast. Toaster strudel. That's what I was up to. I would thaw the little packet of frosting on the toaster. Oh my God. Oh my God, toaster strudels, though.

Hey, do you want to just have a pastry dessert for breakfast? Yeah, I do. Well, yeah, I'm going to steal a joke from Jimmy Gaffigan, but he has a good point. He had a great joke in one of his many food jokes that if you ate a whole cake, people would think you have horrible depression. But if you eat a stack of pancakes, they're just like, that guy was hungry.

We can't go on too long about this, but look up his bit about Kudos, the granola bar Kudos. Oh, I haven't seen this one. About how it's just like you're eating a candy bar. I am pro-pancake. I do recognize that they are a giant pile of carbs if you're counting calories. The pancake is the one thing that they are a giant pile of carbs. If you're counting calories, like you,

the pancake is the one thing you eat all day. It should be a one. I will say to listeners, you know, one host of Simpsons is heavier than the others. So maybe I should be more anti pancake. I say I was recently turned on to the world of Montreal style bagels. Thanks to my Canadian partner.

They're flatter. They've got bigger holes, but they're more delicious. Yes. Never heard of these. That was our breakfast corner. Well, all right. Well, anyway, the kids make breakfast. The one day a year breakfast in bed for mom.

I guess you're supposed to do it on Mother's Day, too. I feel like I did this once ever because I saw it on TV. I wish i i feel like i did this once ever because i saw it on tv i i i wish i'd put more effort into honoring my mom on these special days but i did not uh and so the kids entered the room another just great drawing of the kids unhinged jaws as they scream happy birthday i just love it that's great great. Like crocodiles. Yeah. It's one of my favorite drawings all of season one. And Homer wakes up

and it's a new level of stupid for him. This is, the Homer scenes are the ones that feel the most Schwarzwaldery because he's so dumb in this. Including thinking that he forgot his own birthday on top of thinking he forgot Marge's.

Happy birthday! What? Here's your birthday breakfast. Isn't this nice? My birthday? No. It's my birthday? What did I get?

I love birthdays. No, Homer, it's mine. You don't even know your own wife's birthday? Well, of course I know. Sure. You really thought I forgot, didn't you? Oh, right. What'd you get her, Dad?

Yeah, what'd you get? Uh, a very thoughtful gift. But it's a surprise. You know, it's such a beautiful morning. I think I'll take a little stroll around the block. I think you forgot, Mom. I don't know what the name of that, if there is like a name for that kind of exit,

but whenever that happens in a Simpsons episode or just like basically any time, like I find it very funny, the whole like Homerer like the sound the foley of like the running out of the room going down the stairs slamming the car driving away and i think there are a few like more extended versions in uh the simpsons as well you hear an airplane taking off yeah i think there's one where his brain does it too not the one where it rises out of his head but it's like that's it i'm out of his head, but it's like, that's it. I'm out of here. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's a, it's a really funny gag that the Simpsons does so much that you're kind of inured to it at a certain point, I think. But the, yeah,

just Homer, how much control he has on his face when he's in the room with them. It was just like, definitely not. Didn't forget. Anyway, just going to take a walk, but then you hear how hurried he is the second he's out of sight.

And it betrays his confidence. That feels like a Schwarzwalder joke to me. Oh, yeah. It's so cartoony. Well, because it also implies that he could get out of his second story bedroom and into his car in like four steps. Right. The Simpsons will be right back. Homer's birthday gift strikes out. Beauty, isn't she? Well, it's hard for me to judge since I've never bowled in my life. Can the kids save the day?

First dibs I get from Mr. Beaver's. The Simpsons, Sunday at 8.30 on Fox 5. Hope you're enjoying this podcast as much as a bunch of perfume from Gay Perry. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Merrick Kay. You should definitely check out all the cool stuff she's been doing on Fanbyte and follow her on Twitter. And if you're enjoying this podcast, I suggest signing up at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Subscribers there help me and Bob do this full time thanks to their support. And for $5 and up, folks, you get to hear every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and ad free and that also goes for our sister podcast

what a cartoon where we talk about a different animated series once a week in the same talking simpson style and beyond that you get over a hundred exclusive bonus podcasts already there with more coming every month for example our, our many exclusive miniseries where we go through in Talking Simpsons style series like King of the Hill, Futurama, The Critic, and coming very soon, our complete series retrospective of Mission Hill. Plus interviews, over 20 interviews with folks who have worked on The Simpsons in some cases since season one or even earlier. You want to hear all of those and tons more stuff if you sign up at the $5 better than five dollars a month rewards or a bowling ball with your name on it then you should sign up at the ten dollar level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons there you get access to our monthly what a cartoon movie podcast where we talk about a different animated film in the same way that we cover Simpsons and other

cartoons. Sometimes for over four hours we talk about a different animated film such as Spongebob Squarepants the movie, our most recent one, Iron Giant, The Animatrix, The Great Mouse Detective, Batman Mask of the Phantasm, Kiki's Delivery Service, Akira, a goofy movie, Aladdin, Toy Story, and so, so many more. You'll learn all about those films, and we talk about them in a wonderful Talking Simpsons style over 50 hours of podcast for you at the $10 a month level at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. So please, sign up today. One thing I do like So these shows are kind of noisy But one thing I did notice is like

Homer's jeans are just full of change As he's putting them on I just love that Foley touch. It's just like, yeah, he never cleans out his pockets. And I also, I really like the gag that the, it's not subtle, but you can just see it in both their faces. Like Marge is obviously upset that Homer clearly forgot her birthday. Probably not for the first time. But it's that Lisa and Bart both have the understanding that they know he forgot too and are judging their relationship as well.

Like the way Homer goes like, it's my birthday. And then Lisa goes, no, just shuts it down. And Homer, again, so stupid. He thinks he forgot his own birthday first. He's like, it must be my birthday. There are no other birthdays to celebrate in this bedroom as you get older you do forget how old you are sometimes but never your birthday no no uh also yeah i it's hard for me to remember times my dad remembered my mom's birthday but he

also didn't feel guilty when he was reminded he forgot so that's that's the childhood i'm coming from in this angle here um but i guess it's nice that homer cares that he forgot i suppose though this is a very 1990 sitcom thing too of the the dad forgot his wife's birthday what's he gonna do but it goes into a much darker direction oh yeah than a regular sitcom would. So Homer goes to the Springfield Mall, second time we've been there, first scene in the X-Men episode. And another of these underrated gags I don't think was expressed hard enough is when Homer gets there, he's surrounded by elderly people. Yeah. They knew the culture of the time. I don't think the Christmas episode christmas episode had like sign gags

in the mall but this is very much the 1990 there's a store for everything isn't there yep and i i love it because i miss malls i i went to my dead mall back in my hometown and i loved going there and now that i go to canada pretty often malls there are thriving for some reason i don't understand it wow they are yeah no we do have a few big ones they're not as i mean i don't understand it. Wow. They are, yeah. No, we do have a few big ones. They're not as, I mean, I don't know. I just want a time machine just to use it for the most inane purpose of going back to like a 1990s mall, you know? My favorites as a kid

were like the Crystal and Sword stores. Oh my God, right? Pewter Dragons. We sell Pewter Dragons with crystals in them. That's our thing. With a never-ending waterfall as well. Brain sticks. Yeah now now it's just so dated these gags i mean a mall well now we're entering the era of humanity where we just don't

go anywhere and nobody leaves their home anymore but uh i'm risking my life just recording in the same room as henry it's uh we have some in-person guests soon i have a feeling i'm going to just tell them like cat why don't you just call in from from two from two miles away please uh we could talk about the stores homer sees yeah they're kind of funny we're getting there there's lots of jerky jokes in these early episodes there's okay so i did actually laugh at, he runs past the jerky hut and it's like too salty. It's just such a non joke. But I don't know.

I couldn't help. I guess he needs an adjective for whatever store he runs by. So there's the international house of answering machines, the jerky hut. You mentioned the ear piercer. Oh, sorry. We mentioned the jerky hut.

There's the ear piercery, the caramel corn warehouse. I realized caramel is spelled wrong on the side. It's spelled like the city, Carmel Corn Warehouse. And then girdles and such. Fancy lingerie. Too exciting. Yeah. I liked his too exciting.

Him saying too corny, that's like an intentional groaner. It's okay. I want to, I'm sure it was just a spelling mistake, but I want to imagine that it's a heavier joke that it's corn they sell simply corn from carmel they don't sell caramel oh my god that would be very good yeah uh and then like in blood feud there'd be a joke where burns was doing the same thing like uh too cutie poo like saying things to all the gifts at the mall it was this exact same pacing as well that yeah also uh i mean the lingerie joke too that's another of those like um sitcom dad jokes of

the 90s i just remember where it's like the mom would say lingerie is a gift for you not for me and well later in the season we'll see marge wear her thing with the things as homer just calls it that did seem like a gift for homer but but marge enjoys they they show in the show marge enjoys sex including sex with homer like she she doesn't regard it as a chore like say uh peg bundy sometimes does perhaps but i i don't know it was a very i feel like these this brand of jokes you have just like the husband wants to buy lingerie and the wife hates it jokes. I think those are lost in our more sex positive times. Also, like Marge, I feel like three different times this episode they accidentally give Marge white pearls, including when she's on the phone. But yes, in this next brief clip, I really like the list of bad gifts they've gotten before.

Patty, he's out buying me something right now. No, Marge. He never gets you anything you want. He always gets something for himself. The tackle box. Remember when he got you the tackle box? And Connie Chung. And when he surprised you with the Connie Chung calendar?

I'm sure he doesn't do it deliberately. Loud knitting noises in the background. Yes, yeah. And Maggie sucking over the thing. They really learned to not do that. A lot of distracting stuff, yeah. This is not important at all. One thing I noticed in the scene,

I'm noticing all these new details for the first time. I'm watching these on a bigger TV than I was originally. I noticed that the smoke coming out of, I believe it's Pattyty's cigarette is a video effect it's not part of the animation so i'm guessing they forgot to add that to the scene when it was sent overseas or whatever but yeah it's a video effect it's moving independently of the animation that's really interesting i miss that i i i just like the that they are tag team helping destroy homer i like that zelma's off the mic and she's just like

or off the phone saying like remember tackle box like yeah remember the tackle box like i do like that it's sort of uh like patty and selma have flipped in my opinion in my estimation where the joke was like aren't they awful and i now think they rule yeah i know they're incredible yeah they tell it like it is they they are correctly pointing out that homer is a bad husband who is by thoughtless gifts like yeah like i can see how like in the 90s they're like kind of supposed to be villains in this situation and they are painted that way through like a lot of the series right oh yeah yeah no they're good they just hang out with lizards and just like yeah talk about how

homer sucks they're comfortable with who they are and that's what i like about them twins who happily live with each other like yeah and they and also they're especially in the character of selma you really get to empathize with her just like you know her loneliness or her want to have children like all that stuff i i like how you can really feel for selma over time but in in his first episodes yes they i mean especially when we got to hear from bill oakley that like patty and selma were heavily inspired by sisters-in-laws or a sister-in-law that sam simon had i figured out which sister-in-law it is he was married to jennifer tilly it's not jennifer tilly or meg tilly it's the third tilly third tilly yeah so secret tilly she's out there but but also since uh i think sam simon had at least one divorce in his life if not more so oh he was breaking up with tilly around this time yeah so i i think his uh

real life sister-in-laws who were patty and selma they were correct to think he was a bad husband and that their uh sister was better off without him uh but i guess because this is you know it's a sitcom you're supposed to root for homer but he's real this is the worst homer's been as a husband to this point in the show also connie chung uh it's just like connie chung was just a funny name to say then like in in i'm in you know a xenophobic way too yeah and i don't think she was viewed as a babe or am i mistaken i don't think like she was she's an attractive woman was not like a fox news like stepford wife uh host or whatever. Right. I don't think, yeah. I guess it's just the joke that it, it's actually a very similar joke to

Connie Chung Christmas. Oh, that's right. Oh God, that's right. And then, so I think there's some continuity because in the Telltale Head, Homer wins $50 to buy a bowling ball. We're like, he never bought the bowling ball. This is what he's spending that $50 on.

It's rare continuity between episodes. I also was thinking of Telltale Head because in Patty and Selma's home, there's a portrait, a photo of Bart on the wall. And I was just thinking back to like, boy, in Telltale Head, they were trying to murder Bart as part of a lynch mob against him. That's true. um and yeah gene algae notes on the commentary that at the time they thought it was like almost too far that homer would buy such a thoughtless gift of a bowling ball with his name on it but now it's like that is an easy thing for homer homer that's like face level jerk ass homer yeah he's he has been 800 times worse now i think he'd steal something. Yeah, he would steal. He'd steal something from Flanders' house.

After attempting to bash in Flanders' head. I mean, we've already at this point by up to season 10, we've seen Homer steal Marge's car when she said, no, I'm not driving this car, you drive it. He's like, fine. And then he steals her car so uh they they enjoy homer being a horrible husband at this point uh with also him even thinking to buy her a gift that he would present as a gift to her that's actually far nicer than current homer is him taking the effort to even go to the mall yeah right and wrap a gift

that he would present to her like the homer would never is season 11 homer never would do that i think it would be far more likely that homer would like uh thoughtlessly hurt marge physically without even thinking of it before getting her a gift like uh but uh also we get to hear the uh mention of the rusty barnacle which in production order homer's night out comes before this oh okay so that's also why like technically in air order there is a first appearance at the end of this episode but in production order it's not that co-workers first appearance there are back-to-back infidelity episodes then yeah if you think if they had aired in production order marge after witnessing the whole stuff with princess cashmere it would make even more sense

that she's like oh yeah i gotta get out of here yeah instead now in the order if you take it as continuity now in the order is marge decides to stick with homer and her reward for that is a humiliation of him dancing with a sexy lady wow uh she should have i i like to think off screen she called jock that day like hey can we get this back on but uh yeah the rusty barnacle will be seen in the next podcast we do but but now we get a uh not a great joke restaurant the singing sirloin yeah this you know there's bits in here that feel talk about heavily rewriting there's bits in here that feel very gene and reese and all these song jokes that feels really gene and reese to me yeah yeah i just it takes so long to get through the joke and you're looking at some freakish character designs too now i yeah they should have been in our uh character well there

was too many we could have had a whole night of just showing people bad character designs but yes the the ones in here not so good i i do though to compliment the art i like the design on the singing sirloin mascot and the front of the restaurant and apparently it only appears again in the fantastic episode homer versus dignity oh god i don't know why i prefer the gilded truffle when it comes to fancy restaurants i look forward to seeing the singing sirloin then. But yes, the family heads out there in this next clip. We're having dinner tonight at the singing sirloin. That sounds delightful.

Just you and me and the balladeers. And the kids. Fair enough. And my sisters. Go! How we danced on the night we were wed. Oh, my baby. What a lovely way to say how much I love you. Nearer, my God, to thee.

Nearer to thee nearer to thee Whenever I'm in a restaurant and the waiters sing anything, my blood turns to ice water. I hate it. Yeah, okay, so on second listen, that takes way too long and they basically make the same joke

later on in the episode better when Barge is driving past the couples and then the skeletons yeah yeah it's a better joke of threes yeah much speedier too and it doesn't involve like uh i would assume they i i don't know the ins and outs of it but i would assume this hits the legality of like well we just sang one line from it with no music behind it so maybe we don't have to pay for the songs but the uh the the songs in order that they that are sung they're versed off to the winchell family the uh that husband and wife the elderly couple it's the tom jones 1977 song

anniversary song i tried looking that up i i know it's a cover that a lot of people have done he did the popular one but i couldn't find out where it originated because you can't just type an anniversary song in google i i hit the same wall of research there i'm i'm sorry i uh song loving listeners out there hopefully can clarify that i i would have i would have thought it's older than just tom jones because the winchell's wanting to have sung to them a 13-year-old song at that point, that feels too new for that old couple. They should be getting a song from 1930 sung to them. Then the next song is Paul Anka's You're Having My Baby, or Having My Baby, parenthetical, You're, which is a song from 1974. And it's a cute song.

Fine. He wrote it and sang it too. And then finally, the familiar Christian hymn, Nearer My God to Thee, which I guess in popular culture is most famous as the song that the band plays as the Titanic is sinking. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Hey, I found an anniversary song. Oh, did you? that the the band plays as the titanic is sinking okay oh gotcha yeah oh hey hey i found out anniversary song oh did you oh breaking news yeah it's uh actually called waves of the danube

so if you go to wikipedia and search anniversary by ion ivanovici it's one of the most famous romanian songs in the world wow wow well i stand corrected it was given the title anniversary song by uh al jolson when he and sol chaplin did an adaptation in 1946 okay then it totally fits for their age yes yeah and they only had to pay for having my baby because that had to be in the public domain yeah absolutely i i wonder if they got around the just singing two lines of it kind of rule but uh yeah that joke just takes too long as did the explaining of it that's why i had i had clips lined up but i was like i'm not gonna play those clips.

Yeah. And coming up soon, very uncomfortable with the fact that Marge is turning 34 in this episode. I was younger than her when we first did this.

I will be 38 in a few months. So not cool. Also, turn on the critic to do some research for something else. A J is 36. Wow.

Homer is 35 in this episode. So we're just, we're older than all these characters at least henry and i yes yeah we won't speak for you merit no it's but they don't seem like they're in their early 30s no they see like when i watched if you had to ask me if you asked me like what age do you think homer and Marge are like from the beginning of the Simpsons I would say like like late 30s early 40s yeah I I would have thought the same too but I you know I reflect on like my childhood and right friends of mine who had like parents and who those parents were probably in their early 20s but in my kid brain I was like yeah they're a parent which means old yeah well i

think yeah and i think too like just people were getting married and and having kids younger um oh definitely like 30 years ago for sure so there's also also that i guess it is keeping with the early continuity where homer and marge were born in like 1956 they graduate high school in 1974 so by 1990 if you're born in 1956, you are turning 34. Yeah. Yeah. That totally fits. I do like though on the math on that, that it means that like Homer and Marge, okay,

they got together in their senior year. Uh-huh. Bart is 10 and Bart is 10 years old when march turns 34 so that means for four to five years they were an unmarried couple like child is list so they they dated a long time there are good episodes you can mind from that that i wish they would have like four whole years young they did do the that 90s adventures of young margin homer yeah like young margin homer in the late 70s early 80s having fun it has to be a period show yeah that time them going to see star wars or uh i was gonna say annie hall but i think let's leave that alone well there is there is that uh that shot of them seeing uh empire right yeah

exactly yeah is that when march is pregnant yes she yes she has just gotten pregnant it's when she's as beautiful as princess leia and as wise as Yoda. Yeah. Yeah, actually, yeah, they see Empire Strikes Back, and then that same night, Homer proposes to her. Yes. Way to go, Mr. Ruin the Picture for Me. I love that guy. I actually think you, in the backgrounds at the mall, you will see Thanks for Ruining the Picture for Me guy.

I know that, like, oh, it's that weird mustache guy who I remember as, thanks for ruining the picture for me guy i i know that like oh it's that weird mustache guy who i remember as thanks for the picture for me uh so as the family is eating the the sisters are talking very loudly about wishing homer's death which i guess that's a little mean but homer does look disgusting like hunched over his plate shoving meat in his mouth there's a very disturbing shot of him uh looking up from his food but he's drawn with fingernails on accident and it's just it's uh it's ghastly jesus i'm glad i missed it i would haunt my dreams i think uh so then the kids present their gifts to marge and uh i really like in this scene the the tightrope the mom has to walk of accepting gifts from a child i think she likes my present better does

not does too does not does too not then how come she's not putting on any of your perfume. Yeah. Hey, Mom. How come you're not putting on any of my perfume? I'm saving it for a special occasion. What the hell are you talking about? There's gallons of it. But this occasion is already so special. If we made it any more special,

we might end up making it less special. Gotcha. Told you she liked mine better. Oh, brother. I mean, yeah, the Marge will never wear that cologne. The joke is that a perfume that big could not possibly be good at that price point. You'd never sell it in that big a thing. Bart probably bought that at a CVS or whatever.

Yeah, I was wondering where he got it. Yeah, it's like a hooch jug. It's like a jug band. Jugs of wine. Carlo Rossi. Of perfume. That also takes me back to a couple gifts I remember my dad got that were clearly from the convenience store on the way home. The candy cane full of pantyhose.

The pantyhose rose now that are the the underwear rose i guess yeah uh have anyone has anyone given their parents like a macaroni gift i like we made them in school and for some reason i had access to a cigar box and it was a cigar box covered in macaroni and then spray painted gold and all i remember is when we had to spray paint the boxes we went to this weird like underground corridor of the school to do it oh wow that's the what i remember about it but i recall my mom using it for something but it was just like a stinky cigar box covered in macaroni and spray painted wow i i made an ashtray like thing it wouldn't be used as an ashtray because

my parents didn't smoke uh but i it didn't get used much it was just like oh spare change goes here kind of thing and i made it was my hand in clay like i put my hand on clay as a little kid cut around it and then we put it in the kiln that had uh that was sat next to the kitchen phone all my childhood and i think now i look back and i think my mom really liked that because she was like oh my little baby's hand like that's that's how she thought what makes me feel incredibly old is i remember making an ashtray in kindergarten or first grade it's like we're gonna make ashtrays today because smoking rules everyone smokes yes your parents must smoke to deal with you all day so uh here's something to stick their cigarettes in. I know I do.

No, and I mean, I gave, I can't recall any specific gifts I gave that didn't go over well with a parent, but I'm sure I did sometimes she doesn't and i just kind of accepted like you know i thought she'd really want the first four seasons of gilmore girls on dvd and then i then i see them all in plastic still on the show on her bookshelf like four years on and i i realized okay not not my best that's why uh cheese and meat baskets for me yeah you know what i have uh not going to give them a specific plug but chocolate covered strawberries are a nice easy gift for for moms that i think they uh mine appreciates at least the parental gifts any any uh horror stories there merit uh i'm sure they're i'm sure there were i'm sure there were, I'm sure there were just like, you know, macaroni cards. Um, I, the one, uh,

good gift I did give as a child to my mother was, um, in shop class we made like what they called like banana hooks, but I think are much better for holding keys. They're like, it's like just like a little base with like a little thing coming off it and then a hook. And like, none of them were heavy enough to to like if you put hung bananas on it, they'd fall over. Yeah. But I think my mom still uses that. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah. That's nice. Well, meanwhile, Homer's on the end of the thing we've all experienced of, you know, shopping for gifts for a partner and, you know, wanting it to be good and you hope it goes over well. I think I've done well with my husband and gifts for him. He's here today, so if he's listening in, I always love you. He's pounding on the wall right now. But I think I've gotten good gifts. Definitely a risk of getting too good a gift is that you have to equal that from then on. And you're just like, boy i go from here with direct competition with each other uh but uh i i definitely have never gotten i guess i have bought gifts that i would also enjoy that are like oh we'll both go

to this movie together or we'll both go on this trip to disneyland together but i i don't see those as selfish i guess i suppose it is sort of a gift for myself, though, when I bought us the anniversary trip to Disneyland I just got us, for example. But a bowling ball with his name on it, I mean, that's pretty extreme. And it's even funnier that Homer presents it like he puts so much work into the presentation of this gift. That's what's so weird to me like he he talked to the waiters beforehand and we're like you're gonna sing happy birthday

bring the present with you and it's help us present it i think just marge is so neglected to the point where he thinks his ruse will work it's like well of course she understands i'm just gonna buy a gift for myself for her birthday since what we normally do that's true maybe it is just uh thinking she's so stupid that she also wouldn't know it's a gift for him which is kind of an insult to her as well there's so much wrapped up in the cruelty of this gift but yes uh let's hear marge's uh excitement at her new bowling ball. Hold on, hold on now. Your mother hasn't opened my present yet. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.

Happy 31st birthday, Mrs. Homer Simpson. Happy birthday to you. God. Don't worry. you. Hi. Don't worry. This frosting will come right off. Beauty, isn't she? Well, it's hard for me to judge, since I've never bowled in my life.

Well, if you don't want it, I know someone who does. I keep that music sting, because I think it's a bit much. Yeah, it's a little Gibby Yeah we're making fun of Richard Gibby This first season composer But also just compare this Marge To the Marge from like No Disgrace

Like Home Like just such a different character Oh man or in Homer's Odyssey Where she's just like why would you try to kill yourself Your family's great Anyway She's not like, why would you try to kill yourself? Your family's great. Anyway. She's not looking out for herself or interested in her needs until now, really, I think. This is the first time she's been so insulted, which, had they gone in production order,

Some Enchanted Evening is about Marge's feelings and does delve more into her, you know, psyche, but this does it in such a better way. The foley on the bowling ball cake drop is like, I don't know what, I mean, maybe they just dropped a bowling ball into a cake, but it's really disgusting. It's just horrible to hear. It sounds like they got some like Hanna-Barbera effects library or something,

because it's not like, it's just like a real cartoony splat noise. I also love the extra gag that homer just ruined her birthday cake like she can't eat it now like her right like uh that alone uh your partner ruining your birthday cake like oh don't worry the ball's fine yeah that that's cruel whatever the gift was ruining the birthday cake and not apologizing that's pretty bad i like how the next scene starts and it's inferred that she was giving him the silent treatment until this point oh yeah i do like that because he's like he's been trying to talk to her the entire time and the scene picks

up where she actually responds to him uh also they paid the big bucks for happy birthday like this happy birthday is now public domain has been for four years they're close to four years but back then they had to pay for the real ass song so they had to pay the birthday sisters those those birthday sisters they're not getting that cash any longer thank goodness take it with you but yeah i think you know this is cartoonishly selfish but i think it was taken at the time that like most husbands are that awful and unobservant. And it was just treated as like, you know, Lockhorn style humor of like, well, husbands can't be better. What are you going to do?

Which I think we're in a better spot now. I would hope so. I think so. I also like don't watch enough modern tv to be able to say i well i mean now i compare this to the the just launched simpsons companion show duncanville the animated series that's on after simpsons for uh at current and the dad in there he is the total opposite of homer he cares too much he wants to be too friendly he wants to be the friendly cool dad and i think of like ty burrell in modern family where it's like they're more just like bumbling losers but who uh don't hate their

wives i think that's true i will say i have been exposed to couples where i i think to myself like are you modeling your relationship off of old sitcoms because it's like we don't like each other we have nothing in common we despise each other's interests and all we want to do is get away from each other and we have fun little little fake fights in public it's just like, we don't like each other. We have nothing in common. We despise each other's interests. And all we want to do is get away from each other. And we have fun little fake fights in public. It's just like, ooh, this is unsettling. I don't like this. They need to get more witty bon mots at each other if they want to be a sitcom. We need the We Land the Married with Children audience.

Without the quips, it's really just sad. If there's not a funny way to say you spend too much money on my credit card, then it's just depressing. On Fortnite skins. Oh, we just, we've talked about that in our last episode. That's what couples fight about in 2020,

I assume. We, oh man, the, you destroyed both of us with that groom's cake revelation last time. The fort, the woman dragging the man away from the video games wedding topper. Yep.

Oh my gosh. Dark times but uh yes uh homer though is uh he i also at the start of this clip homer is kind of emotionally manipulative too of just like well you say we need to talk so let's talk now yeah he's despicable it's uh there's there's there's there's no defense for this. Like she me. She earned the right to fuck around on him at least once. She is. She's awarded one hall pass or whatever for this. Hold on.

You always say we should talk. I'm talking right now as a matter of fact, but I'm going to stop in a second. So please say something back, Marge, please. I'm going to stop in a second, so please say something back, Marge, please. I'm going to stop talking now. You bought that bowling ball for you, not for me. What? No. The holes were drilled for your fingers. Well, I wanted to surprise you. I couldn't very well chop your hand off and bring it to the store, could I? You never intended for me to use that ball. Well, if that's how you feel, I'll take it back. You can't take it back. You had your name engraved on it so you'd know it's from me homer i'm keeping the ball for myself what but you don't know how to ball whoops i'm keeping it and i'm going to use it

thank you for the present homer well you're welcome um i also feel real bad for Marge just re-listening to that, that she has to ask him four questions in a row for him to finally admit, like, yes, obviously I bought it for me. He's lying to her for so long. Like, it's just, it's awful behavior. It's not, I'm not laughing. It's just sad. It sucks to see and that marge finally has to to finally catch him in a lie like clearance like a da has to or whatever to finally prove it like it's just sad she has to put in all that effort all as he's trying to just like trick her over and over like

uh i mean i couldn't cut off your hand did you want me to cut off your hand it's like you can get finger measurements you know jesus yeah it's uh it's all quite cruel uh so then we head over to barney's bowlerama referenced in the show before but this is the first time correction henry it's barney's new bowlerama oh i missed the new on the side they put a new in so the only reason homer can bowl again is because the place his dream job was at burned down yes and this is a new bowling alley we we found out you're right we found out it burned down on moaning lisa so the new there is because they rebuilt it yes you are correct it was only mentioned never seen until now yes yeah which uh as they as they say on the commentary it was imagined that that's where barney gumbel's

job was like he owned the bowling alley. Right. Yeah. But very soon they realized that there was no way Barney could believably own a bowling alley. Yeah. And it's his uncle who owns it, right? Eventually by season six, they're like, his uncle Al owns it. And in fact, fires him from it.

I love how he says Shino Bolo. So also the exterior of the Bolo-rama,id silverman on the commentary shouts out eric stefani as the designer is really cool that like eric stefani who was at the time the lead singer of a band called no doubt uh he's he was filling in his time with his day job at klaski chupo drawing simpson scenes so there that the and the shot of the bolognese is really cool i do like i do love the uh the tacky 60s design i did a lot of uh bowling in my youth at the similar run i love rundown bowling alleys from this era so much oh yeah same vibe as malls uh yeah yeah i i would think bowling alleys are a little healthier now than the malls are, perhaps.

But the bowling, you know, my stepdad, he was super into bowling. I don't know if they have a local bowling alley right now where they're still playing, but he was really into it. One of my favorite places was, it was called, it might still be there in Boardman, Ohio, Camelot Lanes. And guess what it was shaped like? Oh, a castle. A castle. Oh my God, yes. The road,man, Ohio, Camelot Lanes. And guess what it was shaped like? Oh, a castle. A castle. Oh, my God, yes. Oh, sorry.

Go ahead. Wait. Actually, I think I remember hearing something about this place. How long ago were you there? Oh, the last time I was there was probably like 20 years ago. Okay. So I think it looks like it maybe still exists. But I remember hearing something because there's a bowling alley and mini mini golf place in Brooklyn. Uh,

that's indoor and, like indoor mini golf and stuff. And I think that they scooped up a lot of like the old, you know, like, uh, pieces and like furniture from places like that. Wow.

Yeah. Oh, Camelot lane still exists. And, um, it was built on this road that was once just like nothing, uh, stretch of road so you'd be driving down this nothing road and see a castle and be like we're going there now it was super

built up with like strip malls and malls and stores so now there's just like a castle amid all of these normally uh regular stores track housing i would guess too the yeah hey uh the bowling you know i i enjoyed bowling as a kid i think we probably went a few times a year to the local bowling alley as either a family trip or uh you know friends are staying over let's go to the bowling alley type thing and also though in middle no high school in high school i was lucky enough that my high school was right across the street from a bowling alley, so you could actually, in gym, for a gym credit, take a bowling class. Wow. Once a week, you'd go across the street to the bowling alley and just bowl.

That's incredible. It was pretty lucky. That counts for a gym credit? I would have been so on that. It was really great. Honestly, it was my favorite gym class I ever took. Just getting to leave school. You're surrounded by the other kids who don't want to take gym class so you're in like hat you you've got your friends all around you it's great uh but yes the uh marge arrives at

barney's bullorama and then we get this joke what's the deal with jokes about cartoon moms having large feet like i I don't understand. I think probably the easiest explanation is that the writers are just like feet guys. Oh, they definitely are in King of the Hill. That became a part of Peggy's character, her having shame

over her big feet. Yes, and she accidentally stars in a foot fetish website. Peggy's magic sex feet. But this, I think, is the only joke they did about Marge's surprisingly big feet. I think her feet are treated as standard size of feet or the more average size of feet. She does have webbed toes, though. That never comes back either.

In the deleted scene, we find out she has night blindness. What? Yeah, and she's driving Lisa home from Nelson's, remember? That's right. And it's like a deleted scene they didn't put in the episode. I forgot that Marge has a lot of secret maladies. I forgot about that. But yeah, in this next clip, Marge getting her shoes,

they talk about how she has shockingly large feet. Excuse me. Where do I throw this? Over there. Thank you. Wait a minute. You're going to need a lane. No, thanks Where do I throw this? Over there. Thank you. Wait a minute. You're going to need a lane. No thanks.

I'm just here out of spite. Can't bowl without a lane. Well, all right. Okay, here you go. You keep score on this. What size shoes you wear? Never you'll mind. Can't wear street shoes on the lanes.

You got to wear bowling shoes. What size, please? 13 AA. 13 AA? It's the closest I've got a 9 and a 15 thank you great marge is uncomfortable this whole time in the bowling alley i uh i also like the the team that should be the squeaky voice team but it's before they invented him but i i like that both things he tells her he has a sign to point at that says that exact thing yeah yeah it's it's a great joke but yeah marge is uh never you mind i also love her like i'm here out of spite like that that feels like

a james l brooks kind of uh statement like this this gives marge a lot more presence of mind of her situation i do love that line i'm just here out of spite she knows she's there for spite she's only going one night to be like fuck you homer i'm using this bowling ball that that's her only plan and that she can recognize that fully that's that gives a lot more credit to marge than the show had been to that point yeah and so yes we get our first appearance of jock he uh he's such an interesting looking character and his second voice appearance of albert brooks on the series playing the less uh funny bob yeah cowboy bob uh which you know i you know no it's not i guess to be safe i should play the anti-death jingle he's not that old he's in his 70s

he's tweeting folks he's tweeting up a storm about politics he's a busy tweeter albert brooks i i still like him he's pretty great hasn't uh no cancellation yet on him which i feel like you gotta watch for of any person who was famous for in the 70s i think that is true or i guess uh famous at any point before two years ago really it's uh you're running that risk one thing i like about jock though it's easy to get lost in the uh the higher the more heightened jokes but i love the subtle running line that he is a kind of a loser of limited means and the way he wants to romance marge they're very cheap like 1750 or like getting four onion rings and he's also not good at bowling the

first thing we see is his score was 120 he's like 120 pins later i am the better man i okay yeah i missed that joke because yeah i thought i was like wait is that the number of pins that there are well because if you were to bowl a 300 game then you would knock down 120 pins because you'd have 10 frames of 10 pins and then you can get the turkey on the last 10 frame to get 20 more so in dialogue that i think that could have been albert brooks, I bowled a perfect game and won this game. But if the scorecard says 120, then that's what his score was, which is not a bad score. We don't see the scorecard, but I took it to mean his score wasn't even that high. He's not even a great bowler.

Because everything else about him is such low stakes. He lives in a crappy studio apartment. He treats March to bowling bar food. about him is such such like low stakes like he lives in like a crappy studio apartment he like treats march to like bowling bar uh bowling bar food yeah and like everything is just such low stakes i thought like maybe he's not even a good bowler but i could have misread that i i think it goes either way i mean i like that he's a big fish in a very small pond of the local bowling alley like even the the ladies who are excited to see him win they're not drawn to be like particularly attractive in simpson style either they're a bit like intentionally frumpy i get i get that feeling

yeah yeah like if you think about it yeah jack's whole thing is like hanging out the bowling alley seducing like housewives like on the one hand okay sure that is lit. But on the other hand, it's like, this is really sad. Like, this guy is, like, we're supposed to see him as this, like, big, cool Lothario, but, like, he's just a very sad man. And also, like, how big is the pool of housewives he's got to work with anyway? Right. Like, five, like, why are they at the bowling alley? Like, what is this guy's life? Single or married, there's probably not a lot of ladies who go to at the bowling alley like what is what is this guy's life single or married there's probably not a lot of ladies who go to the local bowling alley in springfield by themselves

anyway that's why he's got to steal all the wives uh but he's definitely the second he sees marge he's he's got his eyes set on her i uh yeah it it seems like he's at least kind of good at bowling like he's i would you know would have been cool to see him versus homer in a bowling matchup like but i it's also weird like when you think about if homer wanted to be sweet he'd say okay then you have your own bowling ball i have my old one let's go bowling together It'll be a couple's thing. But Homer can't even think of that. Because thou shalt not horn in on thy husband's racket. Yes. Homer is disrespecting that part of the Bible.

But yes, let's hear the first scene with a little shock. I'm awfully sorry. Entirely my fault. It is nice to meet you. Homer. Oh,ly my fault. It is nice to meet you. Homer. Oh, no, no. Homer is my ball's name. I'm Marge.

Your fingers are so slender, so feminine. The fort you tapered for the ball you're using, you need something lighter, more delicate. Here, use my ball. No, no, thank you, Mr. Brunswick. Call me Jacques. Jacques. Marge.

I'll just use my ball. As you wish. Many people have senseless attachments to heavy, clumsy things such as this Homer of yours. May I ask you a bold question? Sure. You've never bowled before?

Never. No. No. Then I will teach you. Oh, I don't want to trouble you. Not at all. I am a professional. It's a real long scene.

I kind of cut around in there. A lot of improv. But it is funny that this is the first time we see like i really think it's the first time we see marge as her naivete that's uh both cute and sad like she's not fully aware she is being you know hit on really it's like oh this man uh wants to help me out don't trouble yourself by the the most forward lethario you could meet yeah i well though i think there is a bit of knowledge in Marge in how she knowingly chooses to not say she's married though. I mean, unless she took

off her wedding ring before going there, they don't draw the detail on it, but you should assume Marge is wearing her wedding ring, but yeah. I mean, yeah. The whole like, oh, that's my ball like she immediately starts lying. Yeah. Yeah. She she she doesn't want to talk about like later she will say to him right yeah she does tell him so i think i think at this point in the scene though my my own interpretation is like she doesn't want to say uh this is the bowling ball my husband got me for my birthday yeah i'm in a bad marriage she doesn't want to confess that to a stranger i yeah that's more likely yeah and uh yeah jock making such a creep move on her though uh of touching her fingers though i do like the at least comedy of using the bowling alley particulars of the little camera that's on your uh scorecard though at the bowling alleys I went to, none of them had that as a kid. They were at least computerized enough

so that they would show that you would just input numbers on the screen. Wait, wait, wait. Sorry, because I didn't even understand what that was supposed to be. I liked the shot. So is it that you put the piece of paper that you're writing the score on, and then it shows it blown up on a screen. So people don't have to keep going down to check. Yeah. That's it.

Yeah. I think it's like some sort of projection that was like, yeah, no, I definitely, all the, the bowling lanes I ever went to were, were like little old sad computers,

like Atari 2600 graphics, like a turkey dancing around. Oh man. I love the, if the local place could have a funny video to play when you got like a 710 split or whatever those would be so great i love those but this this place is so low tech that they just have the little cameras that are it also seems to be black and white and not with much definition on it you just see the the outlines of their hands i think it's more

of like a like a rear not rear projection but overhead projection oh yeah yeah do you remember those things in your school the overhead projectors yeah that's why homer's kicked out of the av club uh yeah uh also as a as a kid i didn't know that brunswick was a brand of bowling ball and so that's a funny that's a cute joke it's cute but uh i think you know brooks it's funny to see brooks as an improviser here i do love his line like many people have uh useless attachments to heavy clumsy things that's such a funny line and also the cleverness it's more clever than it seems where he's like may i ask you a bold question have you ever bowled before oh oh my god i think it's intentional wordplay it really is and it's one of those like oh right that was a joke

a little too subtle but i appreciate it there's a lot of that in season one they just they write clever jokes but aren't fully sure how to play it just yet but but yeah albert brooks has fully figured out this character from the first second like he knows who this character is and where to take him and uh i mean him and julie are fun scene partners too like very different him and dan like dan kind of feeds him stuff like he's a little more trained in improv julie as as march she's just like oh oh really oh like she or she just legitimately laughs like yeah i saw that because the the laugh that march does is just uh julie kaufner's laugh after albert brooks had made some like joke that isn't even in the episode yeah i love that that just became marge's laugh and it's such a great laugh yeah i uh i also like how he transfers marge over to his lane. Like, just easily picks her up and puts her down.

And, I mean, she did get a strike. So, I don't see how good of... I don't see that as very good teaching to say, like, throw, damn you. But, clearly it works. She got a strike. She's using her anger. Actually, in this next clip, Jacques describes all the things he can teach Marge. You're a very good teacher. Yes, I am a very good teacher and I can

teach you everything. I can tell you what the little arrows on the wood floor mean. Which frame is the beer frame? I bet you don't know how to make a 5-7-10 split, do you, Marge? No. Well, first of all, you yelled, the ape in is a cop. Let it out, Marge. Laugh loud. Laugh out loud. You'll lose weight.

Oh, that's very funny. Feels good. Oh, dear. I didn't realize there was so much to this game. What do you charge for lessons? $25. $25? It's a $40 value.

Oh, all right. When do we start? We have already begun. Is that the first instance of the musical sting? Oh, yeah. I think it is. Oh, okay. I cut it out there.

He has accurately appraised the value of his own services. He's like, it's a $40 value. I forgot in all of this,ques is not only making the moves on a married lady and he's he's going to benefit in that way but he also is getting paid by marge once a day every time he sees her so uh he's he's doing pretty good he's uh he's not a pickup artist he's like some kind of sex worker uh yeah he's well he's he's kind of hustling really is what he's doing yeah um he's like well you know i uh obviously the end of this rainbow is i'm gonna have sex with her but in the meantime i may as well make like 150 dollars hey that's 1990 money

that's true that goes far that's super nintendo. So I did look up what those two things are that he talked about. Oh, okay. The arrows on the floor and the beer frame. I'm just going to quote Wikipedia here. So arrow zone targets. The arrow zone is a section on the lane with arrows to aid bowlers in rolling the ball over a specific spot on the lane. They are approximately 15 feet from the foul line. It is called the arrow zone because they are staggered on the lane they are approximately 15 feet from the foul line it is called the arrow zone

because they are staggered on the lane so that's that's what those arrows are for and the beer frame the frame in which the only bowler on the team to not strike in the frame or the bowler with the lowest score in the in a predetermined frame buys beer for the rest of his teammates so that is what a beer frame is interesting okay yeah it's it's more like uh team bowling humor there of the beer frame instead of just like any old game of bowling so there you go that's that's the facts of uh of uh bowling can we talk about the pizza like the dead air pizza scene oh yes uh because there's a joke in there where it's just like my brain i have to think about it for a while to realize it's a joke it's the passing of the pizza box oh my god that's my favorite bit in the entire episode for me like it's so slow the pacing

is so slow that my brain i'm like oh yeah homer just walked over to get the pizza box like the joke in my brain is not like he warped there or whatever i i i just see it as like i love the continuous pan and just like the the switch in for me the timing is is just perfect and it's just one of those absurd like impossible shots that i love when they just like sneak in i like that they went for it just feels like out of place in this episode yeah no it is it is weird it kind of stands on its own in its own little perfect world i i love the homer going back to his bachelorhood it feels like he's like make food for kids uh order pizza that's how i do if i wouldn't go grocery shopping i mean i don't think men of today are expected to know how to cook but especially back then like whenever my stepdad

was a dinnertime champion it was like arby's we're getting arby's your mom can't cook tonight arby's we live right by it's so much you're in arby's town yeah sorry yeah uh arby's area my stepdad's motto was let arby's worry about it i uh yeah i got i got many a pizza but like man i can't remember my dad even picking up pizza like this is uh i i don't want this to just be like henry complains about his dad hour but yeah this uh these were even rare i'd have to say well i i will say homer has a recognizable quality to me in here for my dad which is fear of your wife doing anything without you because it is the pathway to leaving you and uh and in that case my dad was right to do that but that feels like

my dad was actually correct to fear those things as history would prove but i think when uh dads can recognize those things it's it's this halfway admission of like oh i am a bad partner but the way to fix things is to limit her ability to leave me as opposed to improving the relationship i can see that because homer is worried about marge uh going out to bull before he even realizes there's some sort of emotional affair happening yeah yeah it's like being halfway there as a husband of realizing like, oh, she might think to leave me if I don't spend every second watching her. But they never, Homer barely ever so slightly makes the next step of like, I should improve as a husband so that doesn't happen. Homer puts more effort than some dads did into feeding their family, I will say here. I do like, though, right before the pizza passing, I do like the silence of this scene.

Now this is living, eh, kids? Hot pizza, the food of kings. Don't be scared, Dad. It's not so hard taking care of us. Lisa, I'm not scared. I think it's a great chance to spend some time with you kids. Your mother always gets

to be alone with you and now it's my turn. Does the time always drag like this? God, the mouse fully. Yeah. Maggie, they gotta calm her down.

They learn, again, after season one, they learned. They learned to not have maggie uh have her pacifier sound over every scene yeah uh but i i like to the level of effort uh so homer doesn't even have to clean up like he didn't even give them plates like it's just like slides out of the box and you eat it over the sink it's such just a cute scene of the family eating together and i like that lisa comforts him by like she knows he's scared he's he's never had to spend time around his children

without marge there apparently and so he's he's just kind of lost i like how he they comfort him uh and then uh i have another quick clip here of Jacques talking Marge through the peculiar things of the bowling lane. First, you must get to know your lane. Feel the slickness. Feel the certainly finish. Caress it. Experience it.

Quite smooth, isn't it, Marge? Very smooth. Smooth? Yes, very smooth. Yes? Yes. Smooth. Smooth? Yes. Yes smooth. Yes? Yes. Smooth. Smooth?

Yes. Yes. You could eat off of it. You hungry? Yes. Four onion rings! That's the bad, like, and the shot of Marge, like, slipping because it scares her and the foley of the thump.

And I don't think we're supposed to read it as Jacques does not have a french accent he's just breaking character just like it's just so funny to hear him scream yes yeah it's incredible again that's like the delicacies treating march to four onion rings only four yes that's it's funny i mean i guess they're big i don't know how many onion rings you usually get i've seen i've seen some big onion rings in my life i mean oh yeah if it was a four pack of like giant onion rings then i'd understand that but i i imagine of ordering onion rings at a bowling alley you get like i don't know like 10 or 12 like it's it's a plate of yeah my bowling snack uh preferred bowling snack was fried cheese balls. Ah, yes. Delicious. You know, if you say, here's a free onion ring, I'd munch on it because it's a fried thing,

but they're low on my list of finger foods. I'm never going to order onion rings, but if they're there, I will eat one. They're hard to prepare properly because often you'll bite into one and just pull the slimy onion out of it. Yep. Yeah.

I hate that. You need good breading integrity on your onion ring. It rarely ever happens. Well, also, you have to come in with the intent of, like, I'm going to bite sharply and make sure that I cut this onion. Yeah. Just so much work. We won't even get into the Bloomin' Onion stuff,

because that's just a nightmare, an abomination. We are against the Bloomin' Onion. Though I prefer it to just the onion loaf like the tony roma's onion loaf like i excuse me it really is just like like a bread loaf of just mushed together fried onion parts and you just pick away at it pretty much it's it has it takes away it is probably the same amount of fried onion as a blooming onion but it takes away any presentation from it and you just like hack at it that's the only thing that makes a blooming onion okay too it's like oh it's fun if you're just eating a

loaf of onion that's depressing oh boy is it yeah but you gotta you gotta chew on something while you're waiting for your giant pile of ribs you can't talk to your family no oh god uh but yeah him i also love uh julie's just back and forth and like yes yes yes yes like that it's cute yeah smooth very smooth yeah then yeah we get the pizza box scene and they sing maggie to sleep little too cutesy-poo for me No joke Just Homer can actually function as a father Which he would not do now I guess the joke is that Homer gets sleepy Singing the lullaby himself That he's so simple-minded That a lullaby puts him to sleep

Instead of the baby I was thinking of the joke from I think it's Homer Alone Where he forgets the lyrics of this song And he almost does fall asleep I think it's Homer alone where he forgets the lyrics of this song and like he almost does fall asleep. I think like he ends it with like, may your Christmas dreams be bright or something like that. May your Christmas dreams be light. Yeah, that's right.

I imagine he's looking at his watch too as he's doing it. Yes. That's an improved version of this sequence, I think. i think but uh yeah then when marge comes home late and homer like again very dismissive like it's a sport yeah not a not a hobby all right not a game call her a silly thing yeah you silly thing like maybe that's when marge decides like oh then i'm going again like fuck you like you're being so well she's going again because she is interested in jock like that's that's how i read it yeah when she then decides she's gonna go again homer just goes like oh okay sure and is that the act break well they say in the commentary that was originally meant to be

the act break but they they move it down to once she decides to do brunch and homer just in it's another bedroom scene that's what i thought that's that what the act break is but it is paced like an act break when they come back or after that scene i really do love how marge the delivery of the line where marge is like you've got it in my size and it has my name on it that's how i know it's for me like she's she it is the reverse of the bowling ball yeah yeah it shows just how but also like for jacques what an easy get you've got of like i just have to be better than a horrible husband to be a good a good partner here i like the tackiness of him telling her how much it costs too yes yeah i at first i almost read it as him saying like well that'll

be 1750 yeah that's kind of what i thought at first too but either way it's like yeah i'm uh you should know i spent 1750 on this i also like in the in the montage you can kind of see that march has a sense of pride of like doing well at bowling like i i like that she's finding kind of an identity beyond mother by being you know improving as a bowler it's it's kind of nice though the music's so overbearing in this montage oh my god so so much i wanted to mention one thing in the montage that i just sort of got where it's just like they're they're bonding they're touching each other more and it starts off with ways that ja could conceivably implausibly touch marge like during certain actions like you know helping her like showing her how to throw the ball and things like that

but then it escalates to what i think are the jokes of the montage it's like him helping her write on the scorecard and him helping her dip the onion ring it's just like yeah unnecessary touching in those things it's just like a little too far so i think those are the jokes in the montage i think they're jokes i think you're right yeah like how is someone going to help you write with your pencil or something like this is how you dip the uh onion ring into something yeah like putting the shoe on her foot or you know holding the ball with her those just holding hands over the little air thing that's supposed to dry your hands oh i love that thing oh that thing feels great but uh i think the the shots that make me laugh the most in the montage is the almost like empty-headed shot of marge just her

smiling face as it zooms in on her like i can't read an emotion on her other than just like yay like just average happiness it's really weird i i don't think the character is expressing maybe the emotion it's supposed to there but so then when it's like a turning zoom in on that drawing it just makes it funnier to me once the montage is over then uh jacques drives marge home and really makes his move in this fun, long scene. I did want to mention on the commentary, David Silverman, the director of the episode, credits the bowling ball moon scene to all laid out by Istvan Mayors, the longtime worker on the show. I think as a kid watching this, that's what I took away most from this episode. Like, the bowling ball's a bowling balls of moon so distracting but uh but ishvan worked he's credited for layout on 169 episodes of the simpsons his most recent one was last year's

doe canada episode the uh the one that made the uh unfortunate newfoundland joke that people didn't like so much so 30 years later still doing layout that's awesome yeah so that's uh ishvan and i mean the whole scene if you look at the posing on it it is really fun like the the acting by albert brooks is really funny but just his he's posing like the way he kind of you don't see his hips on screen but the way he poses you know he kind of, you don't see his hips on screen, but the way he poses, you know, he kind of thrusted his hips when he said, my hips cry proceed.

But, but actually as when I played a clip, we can hear, we can learn a bit about brunch and also hear Jacques pitch to Marge. Here we are. You didn't have to drop me off. But I wanted to. Marge, do you know how beautiful you look in the moonlight?

Jacques, I'm a married woman. I know, I know. My mind says stop, but my heart and my hips cry proceed. Marge, darling, I want to see you tomorrow. Not at Barney's Bordorama, away from the thunderous folly of clattering pins Meet me tomorrow for brunch What's brunch?

You'd love it It's not quite breakfast It's not quite lunch But it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end You don't get completely what you would at breakfast But you get a good meal I don't think so Come on, darling

There are ten pins in my heart You've knocked over eight. Won't you please pick up that spell? All right. Wow. Yeah. So there you have your sitcom mom on the show agreeing to a date with another man. Yeah.

Pretty far. You wouldn't see Huxtable do it you know yeah how about the severs yeah boy i gotta learn another reference other than the cosby show uh danny tanner what his wife's debt never mind you want him to agree to a date it'd be like danny tanner never has a date in the whole no there I remember like a season one Full House It's about him jealous that a woman He's interested in is interested in Uncle Jesse

But other than that I feel like he Never has a woman Interest in a woman in the rest of the series He was pretty sexless Well they made him clean all the time too At a certain point I think even Saget thought like Are you making gay jokes with me what are you doing here yeah but marge is um so sheltered she doesn't know what brunch is but also an angle of that

that i like is like again it's jock so these jock with these very low stakes luxuries that he's aware of in the outside world like i'll tell you what brunch is that's true he's i mean you know did a did a middle-class housewife know what brunch was in 1990 like it was it wasn't the cultural institution that it is now oh god brunch is everywhere now you can't get away from people just need to admit their day drinking and it's fine like just say you want to get drunk at 11 a.m and it's great i mean when i it was a long time into adulthood that i knew what a mimosa was like in here they specifically shouted out like i i think brunch you know in 1990 very hollywood thing that people making the show heard about but it was not as heavily popularized as it

would be in the in the 2000s i feel like i feel like by 09 everybody knew what brunch was i think sex in the city was what popularized it i think you're right i think at least for the margins of the world perhaps yeah i i like though that he says it's like it's not quite as good but you get a good meal yeah i love that uh yeah the the bowling ball moon was so distracting to me as a kid. But I guess, too, as a seven-year-old, I couldn't really about this episode because i know i enjoyed it i know i wasn't bored i was watching a cartoon at 8 p.m but i was like what did i like did i understand any of this dynamic here yeah right i'm very confused now thinking about it but i i like marge is now fully committed to cheating and i don't blame her homer's bad uh but she the way she comes back into the room and homer's just like nothing like that's just a real play like that would be in like a dramatic play

on stage of just the the husband knowing that she's lusted in her heart but just giving up even with like they turn the lights off and the curtain would close yeah that's the end of act two on the stage play too uh but yes they that's when the commercial break finally happens and when they come back we also have kind of the dark joke of like lisa knows something is off she doesn't exactly know marge is cheating but she knows a thing has changed in the home i like how mar lisa even asked Marge, like, are you going bowling again tonight? As a matter of fact, yes, I am.

As a matter of fact, here's some more treats. And she just drops more treats in their bag. That pony sticking out of the bag really bothers me, as does the apocryphe in comics. Okay, wait, there's a box of comics. There's like, is it bread or like a potato or like a yam you know it's a me and cartoon prop design they do read to me as the type of baguette that is in yeah you know it's really inconvenient when you're walking around holding a giant cartoon bag of greens and baguettes

and then a dog comes down and like pulls your underwear down and uh you're in when you're in one of those pictures by that guy who is and then someone paints it yeah yes yeah you hate to see that do people know what we're talking about i hope so like it's a fetish guy fetish it's a guy who like famously just just did paintings about that one specific scenario yeah but uh yeah back to this those bags and then like the big pony i was like wait is that like a candy pony or just like a a toy i guess it's a my little pony i guess yes or a toy i love i love when things are drawn at such low detail in early simpsons episodes that they just kind of suggest a shape of it's a real challenge to give the kids

bags of treats and then show what's in them at the same time yeah because it's a real challenge to give the kids bags of treats and then show what's in them at the same time yeah because it's a giant brown paper bag so it just has to stick out of the top of it yeah it's uh it's very confusing what it is and i don't even see why bart at least bart really loves getting a giant baguette as a treat as well uh but uh once they leave like lisa just like shuts down she knows something's wrong and uh marge calls bart my special little guy the second time it's been said in the show she said it in the funeral dream sequence in bart the general though i guess this is the first time actual marge not dream a marge has called bart my special little guy okay uh and dream dream marge it's like twin peaks or something speaking of dream marge one of my things i don't love when

i go to the uh one of the simpsons wikis out there is that if you get to the section that is like uh barely continuity or like argued upon continuity the image every time to demark it is argued upon continuity is a picture from a dream sequence homer had where marge is making out with lindsey nagel and so i have to see this uh official porn parody image of marge making out with lindsey nagel almost every wiki page I go to. It should be the one where Homer's making out with himself. Yeah, that's funnier. But no. But also, the show has

their first I stand corrected in this next clip. Goodbye, Lisa. My darling little Lisa. Goodbye, Bart. My special little Lisa. Goodbye, Bart, my special little guy. Mmm, great lunches, eh, Lise? Oh, Bart, don't you see? This is what psychologists call overcompensation.

Mom is wracked with guilt because her marriage is failing. Hey, don't rock the boat, ma'am. Whatever it is, we're making out like bandits. Bart, I read about what happens to kids whose parents no longer love and cherish each other. They go through eight separate stages. Right now, I'm in stage three, fear. You're in stage two, denial. No, I'm not.

Yes, you are. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I stand corrected. That feels like a graining kind of gag to me, but I love that Bart's strong denial of being in denial is very funny. It's cute. I do like it.

But it's a parody of the five stages of grief there. But Lisa puts this at eight stages for children realizing their parents' marriage has failed. And yeah, Lisa is just like broken for the rest of the episode while Bart is just like troubled the whole time. You know, when they make all this room for Jacques, it kind of takes away any resolution to Bart and Lisa's upset issue. There should be some closure of them realizing their family is together

again and they're happy about it we need time for that officer and gentleman parody too don't forget about that we'll get to that that noise of disgust yeah i don't love it uh he though it's funny mary you know that we the last one we had you on uh in that one, Bart and Lisa were disgusted to see their parents were happy together. Like they were grossed out. Oh, yeah. They seeing Homer and Marge like put their hands in each other's pockets and go on dates like they were disgusted. Less so here. But the characters go through quite a lot of changes across those 10 seasons.

But so the next scene comes at brunch where Marge is enjoying her brunch. We get the first appearance of a major character in the series. Well, I mean, she's up there. Yeah. Mimosa? I'm a married woman. Please don't call me that. No, no, no, no, no.

Mimosa is the name of the drink. It's orange juice and champagne. You're so wonderful that you thought it was something offensive. Oh, well, thank you. Marge? Marge Simpson. You remember me, don't you? I'm Helen Lovejoy, the gossipy wife of the minister. Oh, yes. Hello, Helen.

Well, I had just finished eating and was about to leave when I looked over this way and said to myself, why, isn't that Marge Simpson over there? Oh, yes. Hello, Helen. This is, uh, they avoided a bad joke here because, and on commentary, so this place is called Shorty's. And season one is full of a lot of two cleverly named characters, often, uh, like Mr. Dandy from Candy Most Dandy, Howard from Howard's Flowers. We've been over this. There's going to be a little chef's hat bobbing up and down in the background. So Shorty was the guy who worked there. And he was, as you understand, very short.

Yeah, boy, I'm glad they cut that. So there's no real joke to Shorty's Diner now. Now I understand why the sign design is like a chef's hat shape kind of too i think i'm really glad they i mean they never go back to shorty's diner either i i think the uh i much prefer the diner that shaped like a mushroom cloud from homer's phobia that's great that's a much more fun diner but yeah the that that was the first appearance of helen lovejoy played by maggie roswell who also does montude Flanders but uh Helen appears before that I like that Helen is self-identified as gossipy she's like oh I'm gossipy that's it that's a major character thing of me the audience needs to know yes yeah exactly

I uh she's no Aaron Sinner's a cowscree though oh yeah they're the biggest gossips in town uh the maggie roswell does a great job in this character this is her first like named character she does appear in two previous episodes to this it's like one-offs but and um they don't animate her as bird-like in the future she's just very like uh silverman says she he made her bird-like i see the way she's sort of like pecking around i mean mean, that's, you know, the old stereotype of the hen-pecked husband, like the chicken-style wife who leaves people.

Chicken-style wife. Chicken-style wife. I'm just saying words here. So Lovejoy is a chicken-style wife guy. Yeah. Okay. But from a young age,

I've always adored chicken-style wives. I love how Helen is just all rubbing it in on marge just like loving to watch her suffer just like oh well see you on church and on sunday and just uh letting her know how obvious it is that she is on a date and cheating and everyone who knows marge is going to know this now i guess uh she doesn't tattle because uh homer only finds out about this in that awful clip show oh yes yeah that's true you know maybe maybe well homer also probably didn't hear about it because he's so unaware of

anything so he was listening to rock music on his personal stereo at church he does not interact with people at church no i i also like how jacques uh i believe in this next clip he he describes he tries to trick helen lovejoy oh don't squirm on my account i am giving her a bowling lesson thank you now marsh uh the pins on the 3 7 10 split would be here. We'll make this little piece of food a bowl. A bowl's bigger, you know that. But for food, this is a good bowl. Well, bye-bye.

See you in church on Sunday, Marge. Goodbye, Helen. Goodbye, Helen. You have a lovely friend there. Let's hope something runs over her. Your laughter is like music to me. but if you laugh at what I say next, I will die, for I am about to say something very serious.

Perhaps shocking. Mars, my darling, I want you to meet with me again. That doesn't shock me. Away from prying eyes, away from the Hellens of the world. At my apartment, the Fiesta terrace it's uh it finally hits my that makes her seem quite innocent that it finally hits marjorie like

oh he wants to have sex with me this is the he finally has come out and said let's have an affair and uh that that sends her falling to the floor into a dream sequence that uh i i saw the side by side video of it i think it is specifically the 1934 rogers and his stair film the gay divorcee and there's a lengthy dream sequence in that or dance sequence that looks like this when gay men happy and to shake your booty meant to wiggle your butt yeah allow me to demonstrate uh a divorcee who's gay now means a different thing i think uh i mean when they made up that uh that title they couldn't imagine a marriage equality future in america no way uh but uh it's funny on the commentary silverman notes that like this could have more choreography and and uh dance sequences to it but he's like there was just no time or money they they did it as best they could yeah they

said they were limited to the amount of cells they could use back in this time based on the budget so they had to be very uh efficient that's true i will say the bowling apartment is like very very cool. Yeah, Marge is... All of the little touches everywhere, like the fireplace and everything. Marge's imagination of his bowling apartment is really funny. The pin setter that brings out champagne on a tray. Oh my God, incredible. That's my favorite.

There's a lot of great touches. And if you go to the DVD, there's a bunch of outtakes that weren't used from Albert Brooks. Oh, yes. And the thing about the trophies that are for lovemaking, the joke they don't use is like, that's not the bowling pin, Marge. So they couldn't draw a bunch of dicks

in the scene. So I can see why they cut that out. Also, when Marge arrives at the door and he opens it, like, I'm glad you're here. That felt very like The the continental to me. Oh, yeah. The Christopher Walken sketch slash the real thing that inspired the continental sketches.

And I think I like, too, in Marge's dream, like, let's assume, I think it's safe to assume that Marge has only had sex with Homer in her life to this point. And so for her, the thrill of being with someone who's like good at probably it's pretty great over proudly announces how bad he is at sex at the end of the episode that's the final line no i though i do know that julie in improv with marge before she likes the idea that they are they have great sexual chemistry and they actually are really good in bed together though uh jokes do not support that in the writing of the show to this point like in our natural born kissers episode yeah their extreme lack of chemistry on their uh anniversary night sex but yeah you mentioned the the deleted uh audio takes it's it's worth getting the season one dvd for stuff like that the uh the funny he

tells a story about how he's on the run from the law because he ran over a horse in hershey pennsylvania he he talks about how like in the dream sequence his she compliments his tux and he's like oh it's it's not it's supposed to be white i sat in grape juice no and he has some very funny bits and he is preparing uh with his cologne sequence at the end of the episode joke about putting on lipstick yes yeah taking the character some interesting directions i guess yeah and and you also get to hear james l brooks laughing with his wonderful high-pitched laugh at all the jokes that he's hearing uh but yeah the marge awakens and bully decides like yeah i'm going to go to your apartment and have sex with you like that

again feels you look back on it as a 1990 sitcom feels pretty risque feels pretty risque i think even in like i don't know in a 1999 raunchy sitcom about a family it seems like a choice they would make of like yes the the mother very realistically decides she is going to sleep with another man so she makes her decision after the dream sequence and uh homer meanwhile uh he discovers the bowling uh glove with her name on it and it confirms all the suspicions he had and uh it completely destroys him again in a very realistic way like i feel like season three homer in the same situation would just be sobbing uncontrollably you know and and as far as homer knows unless marge tell if we're to take the clip show as real and in canon that marge never tells him as far as

homer knows she is cheating on this man like it's it's not that she's about to make the decision she's already cheating on him uh but yes homer is just uh shut down in this next sequence hey dad what do you say we toss the old apple around, huh? Sound like fun? Son, I don't know if I could lift my head, let alone a ball. Oh, come on, Dad. Get the lead out. Simpson checks the runner on first. He's cool. He's fine. Here's the windup, and here's the pitch. Come on. Dad, you didn't even say ouch.

Oh, sorry. Ouch. Lisa, Lisa, I think you're right about Dad. Something's very, very wrong here. Brayton Bart, welcome to stage three, fear. Well, come on. We gotta do something, man. Sorry, Bart. I'd love to help you, but I'm mired in stage five. Self-pity. Look, Dad, I don't know what's going on, but once you gave me some advice, it might help. I gave you advice? Get out of here. Yeah, you did. You told me when something's bothering you

and you're too damn stupid to know what to do, just keep your full mouth shut. At least that way you won't make things worse. Good advice. That sounds like Abe advice to me. He's passing down the advice from Abe Simpson. Saying damn fool mouth that

sounds like an abeism yeah and uh i mean homer is just trying to help uh bart is just trying to help homer and i love just homer's empty gaze at the sky as he's like crumpled on the ground uh and the mood of the scene is very weird it's very just like unsettling like twilight anesthesia like this dark sky homer just like laying on the ground lisa just like sitting it looks like the beginning of a creepypasta or something to me yeah could be i mean playing catch at night feels creepy and it's unwholesome there's something unwholesome about playing catch at night feels creepy in a certain way. It's unwholesome. There's something unwholesome about playing catch at night. Hello, mother dear. But I think they're doing it at night because at night Marge is out of town.

But I think it's also because Silverman admits on the commentary, they just reused the layout they did for the catch sequence in Bart the Genius. Yeah, that's why I was expecting him to get hit in the head in that episode like what's gonna happen Bart's pitch is the same I think just the same shot I think so much but yeah the way Homer the way Homer just falls after and the sound of the ball hitting his head is pretty silly it's a it's cartoony but I like it and uh your partner Bob Nina she did such a funny tweet to me as a as a fan of jojo's bizarre adventure oh you can pause homer with his knees bent and his arms straight down in that shot and he looks like a very specific drawing from a jojo's bizarre adventure comic that's great i forgot about that oh my god that uh so yeah homer homer just giving up like it yeah when you take out the

comedy your knowledge of this being a sitcom from the scene you have a father too sad to move or even feel pain a daughter who brought out a lawn chair outside to just sit on it and stare at the ground and a son who's just like, I got to do something. The whole family's falling apart. No, no, no. It's dark. This is the last time we see them in this episode. So no follow-up.

As far as they know, their parents, it's just a countdown to divorce at this point. But Bart's advice that he heard from Homer tells him to not speak, which is fortunately Homer does not follow that suggestion. He actually does speak his mind to Marge in, um, uh,

this is the best pitch he has for their marriage to continue here. Marge, may I speak to you? Sure. You know, I've been thinking everyone makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but usually the jelly drips out over the sides and the guy's hands get all sticky. But your jelly stays right in the middle where it's supposed to. I don't know how you do it.

You just got a gift, I guess. I've always thought so. I just never mentioned it, but it's time you knew how I feel. I don't believe in keeping feelings bottled up goodbye my wife bye homer yeah i i think it's uh i think it's weird how homer has like an old-timey lunch pail like he's a construction worker and then then on top of that, peanut butter and jelly just feels so simple. Yeah. For an adult man to eat every day at work. I don't know.

I guess I'm just used to like when I worked in an office, you would never pack your lunch. Your one chance at fun a day is to go eat somewhere. I did when I was being severely underpaid. Oh, sure. And they kept throwing out my lunch. Oh, that's even worse that's uh were you a pb and j guy or what no i brought like a bunch of salad stuff and yeah yeah pb and j seems like an odd choice for like a 35 year old man yeah i uh especially like it makes more sense in

the next time marge is an upset housewife in the Rancho Relaxo episode. She makes double bologna, the bologna sandwiches for Homer. Pops out on the pimentos. For Bart, yeah. Oh, yeah. Double bologna, double bologna. So I guess maybe she upgraded from PB&J to spend just a little money on some bologna for a bologna. I think Homer's just also very childish, so he gets peanut butter and jelly that's true that's true i i like how he even just so sadly stares at his peanut

butter and jelly sandwich later in the episode uh and but that's all all he can notice about marge that he can compliment her on is the sandwich like her ability to make a very simple sandwich this is before march could just slip him a few uncrustables those are the frozen peter butter and jelly pouches you can that's right um so what episode i think it's another early one is the one where when he's trying to explain uh what what he offers marge he's saying that uh total and complete reliance oh dependence yeah that's secrets of a successful marriage season five finale yeah that's uh the i guess this is a more humble version of that same speech just not as dark as the david murkin uh take on it i'm just

saying like i will die if you don't take care of me yeah so which uh that also is emotionally manipulated yeah uh but but marge is like goodbye homer again that's just played very dramatic and just like is this her saying goodbye to their marriage right there you know uh but yes homer heads off and uh then we get our last scene with jock scene with Jacques as he's preparing for his date and they remark on the commentary to first they show his butt crack which still felt very novel

to the most beautiful moment in life better than the deed better than the memory the moment of anticipation oh Jacques you handsome devil look at you the moment of anticipation. Oh, Jacques, you handsome devil. Look at you. You're really going to strike out tonight. And he does strike out in that he doesn't have sex.

Indeed strikes out. That's a funny gag that he says strike out thinking he means it in a bowling way, not in a baseball way. Which as we all know american men they use baseball euphemisms for uh sex not bowling euphemisms no bowling is uh not typical but he does several times in this episode with the pick up the spare yeah the the bowling is not doing it for you well the pick up the spare thing like it just it feels like we've gotten this far and you're not gonna correct me i could see that yeah that's true

that's true i get that picking up the spare the the strike would have been i guess home base i suppose sexual congress yes uh the uh maybe that's what he was at he was like all right can we just get a handy in the car then if you're gonna if you can just walk off uh sorry this is getting too too ribald here yeah wow this is really uh but really wild so we we get a quick little scene of homer reflecting on his lunch and this is in air order the first appearance of lenny yeah in production order though his second appearance uh but yeah lenny first appears they when they were for homer's night out creating other employees uh distinct employees for the power plant but clearly they like lenny so much like we gotta bring this guy

back he needs to be the guy saying this don't i love lenny so much he's perfect please don't tell anyone like this and the sadder lenny gets the better and though uh over time when he goes from a guy who seemingly is uh married to a woman to a guy who shaves a woman's legs uh at command to a man who lives in a hovel to i believe now he's just fully in a relationship with carl and him and carl are are a couple i think uh at least as far as jokes go full name is lenny leonard that's right yeah not lenny that's my season 11 favorite joke i love it yeah the portrait of lenny oh my god incredible but lenny is so clearly a season one character because he has the beard line that would be off limits after season one he was grandfathered in

the beard with the beard line he's just too everybody loves lenny too much and uh also at the table is charlie except he doesn't sound like charlie like he's the guy's like domestic situation yeah charlie's more of like a nasally dan caslanetta yeah i think caslanetta says it's him doing a lenny impression oh you're right it is yeah uh yeah the so homer is just broken and they're reflecting on how broken he is. And then we get a series of visual gags as Marge is driving off. She passes by a couple getting married and leaving the church, by a couple with a baby, by an elderly couple, by a pair of graves, which the three are enough. Once you see the elderly couple, the joke is there. That's why it's even funnier, like graves and then a costume

shop with two skeletons. Yeah, the skeleton husband and wife are great. But also, there's one visual gag in there that you didn't mention that's just confusing. It's like a bunch of people at a bench and it's not clear who they are or what they represent. Is it like a bunch of couples? But they just look like

a random group of people. I guess it's supposed to be a family on a picnic, I suppose. That's what I assumed it was, but it's just not distinct enough for you to know. That should have been cut out of this group of jokes. You don't need six examples, I don't think. I think that is another moment that at least feels a little Schwarzwelder-y,

that it goes beyond the end point of the the elderly couple it has to imply that like no this is so till death you will be two skeletons together for all time that's how till death this is and she's got a little a literal crossroads between the power plant and fiesta terrace fiesta terrace is an okay name i prefer where kirk moves into later casva, a transitional place for singles. That's a better sad single life joke. That's very good. I wonder if Jerry from the sewing store lives there. I think for a time, Apu as a swinging bachelor lived in Fiesta Terrace as well.

I think that's the name of where he lives when he is spotted canoodling with Princess Kashmir. But it's not where he lives when Manjula moves in with Apu. But yeah, this line of visual gags is funny. And in the previously mentioned bad clip show from season six, one of the best jokes is Mar commenting on the all those visual kegs and also that at the end of her explaining this storyline and choosing to get with homer i love that homer takes the story to mean that she is still cheating on him with jacques and he says you have to end this with jacques now let him down easy but uh i say that you gotta stop it soon so i guess summer thinks he deserves to be cheated on he's cool with her having an affair to this point but he's like now that i

know you gotta end it it's i i'll forgive it but you gotta stop it now that's that's a great gag of what homer homer completely misunderstanding this story as well so i guess we can talk now about the officer and the gentleman parody have any of us seen this film nope not no i watched the c i okay so i watched this episode again today and i was like yeah that was weird what was that like because as a kid i was like what is this um and then i just learned that it was a parody of that today and then i looked up the scene and it's just bizarre i cannot imagine the movie that it's in uh well i believe it's about how the military uh joining the military straightens up richard gear's character and turns him into a gentleman worthy of the woman he is attracted to

yeah i didn't know the context for the scene but but this one plays out. I guess the joke is that it's gender swapped, where in the movie, he's looking for this woman who's working at this factory. There's a lot of movie that comes before that.

That's the end. He finds her, he surprises her, he picks her up, and he carries her away. At the end, she takes his hat off and puts it on her head

as they walk out, freeze frame credits. Officer and a gentleman, and then Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong is playing in the background. That happens here, but it's homer coming sorry it's march coming to homer's job to find him it would have been funnier if she picked him up yeah i say yeah take the joke take the joke to the fullest extent but in order for this joke to work they have to sort of give homer

his old job temporarily so march can find him and also so he can have a hard hat on or whatever you call that safety right this is not him being a safety inspector it's doing his old picking up glowing rocks job so in order for the joke to work he needs to be wearing that safety hat so she can take it off and put it on her head at the end giant hair yeah and the ending of officer and gentleman is just on youtube and in the scene there is somebody saying way to go paula way to go which is what let YouTube. And in the scene, there is somebody saying, way to go, Paula, way to go, which is what Lenny says. So that thing that Lenny is saying is just directly, it's the only dialogue in that scene

in that Officer and Gentleman movie. Okay, man, just shot. Yeah. So that makes me think this was a rewrite and a Gene and Reese thing because Gene and Reese, they would go on to create the critic they loved doing a movie scene fully just happens like unchanged just a complete parody of it like especially as an easy way to end an episode and in in 1990 they could count on like everybody remembers the 1982 film officer and a gentleman it won oscars and i watched the original scene i i actually everyone should go out and watch it it's like a minute

long it gave me anxiety because he's like looking for this woman in this busy factory and he finds her and she's working at a machine and he comes up behind her starts kissing her neck and i'm like she's gonna get hurt you're gonna cause an injury she'll kill someone she like she like spins around afraid like what's happening but yeah it's on youtube but this is what this is from and they and they paid for an instrumental version of up where we belong they they paid for the real song so not not the original that would cost more but they did pay for the instrumental of it which was a song written for the movie too it was original for the film i i yeah officer and gentleman i think now if you were to know anything about it it would be the reference like i got nowhere else

to go oh that's from that movie yeah okay i believe the big standout of the film was lou gossett jr he won the oscar for it as the the gruff drill instructor who's going to turn him into an officer and a gentleman take him from some dirt going to turn him into an officer and a gentleman, take him from some dirt bag and turn him into an officer and a gentleman. So when he arrives at the end of the movie in his full outfit, that is him. I'm like, I am now an officer and a gentleman worthy of sex.

Let's, let's go are worthy of love. Presumably they go, they go beyond his car to have sex, though. I think so, yes. But, I mean, let's just hear the music and the lines here. Huh? Huh?

Mark! What a lovely surprise! You're here to see me, right? Of course! Hey, there you go, Homer! Way to go! Hey, what a life of a boss! Now I'm going to the backseat of my car with a woman I love, and I won't be back for ten minutes!

Yeah! with a woman I love and I won't be back for 10 minutes. That was it. Yeah, I like that Homer thinks it's very special the last 10 minutes. I just, I love that draw, that kind of off drawing of Lenny with like the beasting muzzle. Oh yeah. As is like clapping hands and going back and forth. Way to go!

Like no one knows the context for why Marge is showing up, but they're just like on board with this. It's like, oh, we're part of a movie parody. This is great. Act like the people in the movie. Well,

I guess they did know that Homer was sad about his marriage earlier. So seeing Marge appear makes them happy, I guess they did know that Homer was sad about his marriage earlier. So seeing Marge appear makes them happy, I guess. That's the best I got. I mean, yes. It really is that they know they're in a movie parody and they need to act accordingly. And it's a wacky end to this episode. But I think you need to end it with no conversation because the more they talk about the situation like is marge do you imagine that marge after they have

sex in the back of the car then says i'm so sorry i almost cheated on you but i i'm not and i'll never go bowling again and it's like i don't know that homer owes her a better gift than at least like this feels like he gets to win without doing anything oh yeah i know i mean the ending of this episode is like total like garbo i think um just from like a narrative perspective it just like marge just makes a sudden decision to be like like she was totally going to and then the reminder is isn't like seeing even like a picture of him or something or something that reminds her of him. I guess there's like the skeletons and stuff. But then like it's just the road.

Like, oh, the nuclear power plant happens to be just. And it's kind of funny. But it's just like, yeah, they don't know what to do with Marge. And it's a sitcom. So they have to wrap it up in like 30 minutes and it'd be nice to actually hear marge's reasoning for why she ultimately chose the the visual gags as funny as they are it seems more just like god reminding her of like you committed to your marriage you will go to hell these are all really good points and i'm thinking now that like what marge's inspiration is is like i don't want to die alone and that's basically it and we forget about the darkness of that which i

don't think is intentional i think they want this to be a sweet scene but they're borrowing so much of the sweetness of an existing uh media thing that we're just like oh yeah there's a fun movie parody and they love each other again you don't think of like well what was marge thinking like what were her reasons like the movie parody sort of just like just pushes you to the end and then you forget what i do like that they put in that last scene with jock to make it clear that like just in case i i think it was obvious earlier anyway but just in case you thought jock was interested in a serious relationship with marge his preparing for her arrival makes it very clear it's like she's just a notch on the bedpost like he's he it's just a conquest for him and once it's done and he's destroyed their

marriage uh then it's over for him he's he's not he's got his 150 bucks yeah so time for that super nintendo may so yeah maybe it just hit marge and she's like oh this is this is just a dalliance and i should stay committed to my husband but then homer gets to like yeah again when he gets to have an orgasm and get his wife back yeah all all because he gave like i mean homer in a way deserved to feel bad he took her his wife for granted and he all he did to win her back was just like lightly compliment her when he knew it was too late this is what happens when you're uh one of your head writers doesn't want to hire women really just like no matter we see this a lot in the simpsons though it's like no matter how

bad homer is i think a lot of the things they fall back on are like well he felt bad so he should get he should get rewarded for feeling bad. I mean, I think the majority of the season one writers, if they were married in season one, are not married to the person they were married to in season one now. So I'd like to think they've all learned lessons about marriages and are better people and better spouses and partners. But yeah, no, you're correct. This is quite unearned for Homer and kind of a garbage ending that just leans on the familiarity of a reference. But I guess any other final thoughts, guys? I feel like we pretty much...

Yeah, I think that was it. I mean, it's, again, second most watched episode of The Simpsons. So it's very important in that respect. And it is important because it also gives Marge something more to do than be like the scolding shorts mom. That's true.

But it does kind of, you know, face plant on the ending a bit. I do have one little point that I found while researching this episode, which is that there was a Dear Abby column in 2004 where one of the letters was just the plot of this episode which is that there was a dear abby column in 2004 where one of the letters was just the plot of this episode oh wow and uh and they ended up pulling uh the column because

they realized that it was fake oh that's so funny uh they trolled they trolled dear abby with a 14 year old episode now i want to troll like r slash relationships or whatever on reddit please bob i want to believe all of those are real and true it's more fun it's all just fun microfiction yes yeah uh but yes merit please let us know where we can find you online how we can support you and where you work yeah so i'm the features and trending editor at a website called fanbite.com, which is a games website. We cover film, we cover TV, and we have a lot of podcasts out now.

So you can look up fan with is the flagship fan by podcast. We were doing a new Pope podcast. And that's done because the show is done our pre our uh guest from a couple weeks ago virgil texas he was on one of those oh yeah he actually yeah yeah yeah um and we have a bunch of sports podcasts now we're doing a one called fan fight which is uh about um one of the hosts danielle riendo is really into into MMA and the other one, I'll be hunk tears is into professional wrestling and they sort of do a cultural exchange.

Will they get along? Yeah, right. The original odd couple. And yeah, we're on Twitter at fan bite media. I'm on Twitter at merit K, but yeah,

no, please, please check out our shows. I think you'll really like them that one has been on my back burner I've been needing to listen to Fan Fight 1 because I'm more on the wrestling side of things but at a

time I was really into MMA before it got fully brocialized in 2004 but yeah no I gotta and Danielle and Hunk Tears are two of my favorite tweeters on the internet.

They're great. It's a great show. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Merit. Thank you. Thanks for having me back for my third time on the show. The next marriage trouble episode. We'll be sure to... Excellent.

That's most of the episodes. Call me up whenever it comes up. So thanks again to Merit for being on the show. Please support all of her stuff. But if you want to support our stuff and get all of our episodes one week in advance and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. And if you sign up for five bucks a month, you'll get just that, but also access to everything behind the five dollar paywall that includes over 100 bonus episodes that we've done in the past

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and we will see you then. Bye-bye and good night. Go to bed and sleep tight. Close your eyes Start to yawn Pleasant dreams until the dawn