Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy With Rebecca Sugar

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

"Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act. That they can never be anything more than vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband, and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and have a rich husband!" - Lisa Simpson Malibu Stacy speaks for the first time, and her sexist sound bites inspire Lisa to track down the doll's creator and develop a feminist alternative. Meanwhile, a run-in with TV's Matlock causes Abe to enter the competitive world of fast food if only to avoid ending up a tired, old freak like Andy Griffith. Our guest: Rebecca Sugar, creator of Cartoon Network series Steven Universe Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking Futurama, talk king of the hill, the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I hardly endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody and welcome to Talking Simpsons, recorded at Sergeant Thug's Mountain Top Command Post. I'm one of your hosts, Bob Mackie, the Jerky Host for Jerks, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today as always. Anybody call for a web slinger? It's Henry Gilbert.

And who is our special guest on the line? Hey, it's Rebecca Sugar. I'm so excited to be here. And this week's episode is Lisa versus Malibu Stacy. Is the remarkably sexist drivel spouted by Malibu Stacy intentional, or is it just a horrible mistake? This episode originally aired on February 17th, 1994, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby! Stephen Seagal's On Deadly Ground tops the box office, the final new episode of Bonkers airs, and Celine Dion's The Power of Love is number one on the Billboard charts. First of all, the most pop culturally relevant topic here, Bonkers. I'm glad that there's, my only sense of time is when it's Bonkers related, so that context is really critical. The only time that matters to me is between the fall of 1993 and today, February 17th, 1994, when they got rid of the final episode of what, 65 bonkers?

Yeah, this would be them burning off the Miranda Wright ones that were like the first 20 before then they redid them as the Lucky Pickle episode that then aired in reverse order thanks to the complicated production that Bob did a great history on years ago on our podcast. Yes, I think over five years ago now, it's when we put together our bonkers episode of What a Cartoon after making jokes about it for years. So check that out. If you want the whole history of bonkers,

we're the only ones who've done it. Bonkers was basically, in a certain way, it was practice for the TV show Gargoyles, because Miranda Wright is pretty much Aliza the TV show Gargoyles because Miranda Wright is pretty much Aliza Mazza from Gargoyles and it was the show runner and creator of Gargoyles, Greg Weisman worked a lot on Bonkers V1 before the Lucky Pickill restart. So people that worked on Bonkers got to do other things. Yes.

He's doing fine. And the Steven Seagal on deadly ground, it's no under siege, but it is him battling oil tycoon Michael Caine who he's mad that he's destroying the environment of Alaska So it's an environmental justice stupid action movie. So Michael Caine would not do the Simpsons, but he would do a Steven Seagal movie Well, this is when the Steven Seagal movie meant a different thing than it does now, which is mainly like a tax dodge, I think. Yeah, well this is the last possible time a Steven Seagal movie had any degree of prestige, right? This is kind of the end around this time? I think so, I think so, yes.

And yes, Celine Dion's The Power of Love, she's already climbing the charts. This is years before Titanic. In the US, she's already doing great. This is the one of, you know, causeCause I'm your lady and you are my man." But don't rock it. This is the song that Marty McFly skateboards to in Back to the Future, right? It's The Power of Love.

Oh, yes. All right, that's the one I know better. If only it was a cover of the Huey Lewis song. Celine Dion's success in the US is only gonna grow from here. I was all about all coming back to me. Is that later? Oh, man, I don't

know. I feel like it's after this. By 94 maybe I have been hearing it a lot. 96 it's all coming back to me now. So that's when that happened and then my heart will go on like the next year. Oh wow okay. Yes that's everything that was happening the week this episode aired of The Simpsons. And joining us once again is Rebecca Sugar who last joined us to talk about season four's Selma's Choice. Welcome back to the show, Rebecca. Thank you so much. It's awesome having you back again.

I was just thinking of one of our other episodes we did. We did the What a Cartoon About Future Boy Conan, because that's getting like a streaming release for the first time ever. Oh, that's so exciting. Yeah, talk about environmental justice. Yeah. That's worth a re-watch. Oh, man. Can exciting. Yeah, talk about environmental justice. That's worth

a rewatch. Oh man, can Steven Seagal remake future boy Conan? Then I'd have to play his grandfather in the opening scene. All right. Oh no. Rebecca, you've been up to a lot of cool stuff lately. I was just telling off Mike. You did a charity concert, live stream of the Trevor Project at the time of this recording of a couple of weeks ago. Yes, I'm hoping to do a series this year instead of just one big one, but I would still like to do one big one and I'm going to do that at some point in June.

I think by the time this comes out, I'll have said exactly when, but it was really fun last year to have a bunch of special guests. So I wanna see who will come and sing with me for the big one. So it's always, hey, you don't have to wait for Rebecca's concerts to donate to the Trevor Project.

That's a great, great charity. Rebecca, do you recall this episode? Like this is, I guess, I thought you'd be great one for this, I guess for this one, because this is like a lot about gender in the toy aisle. And you've talked a lot about that in your career. Yeah, this one, I wasn't a Barbie kid, but I was a Simpsons kid. gender in the toy aisle and you talked a lot about that in your career. Yeah this one I wasn't a Barbie kid but I was a Simpsons kid so I feel like I knew more

about this than that necessarily. I was generally not really a pink aisle kid but I had friends who were I feel like I was vaguely aware of the sort of math is hard Barbie controversy but I think I was pretty young at the time, maybe six or seven. I'm sure I will find out and place it in time when y'all give all the context. I really remember this episode and Lisa Lionheart have definitely thought about that a lot and love Kathleen Turner. So that's also why this is a favorite of mine. I think I'm gonna be the only one on this podcast who's actually played with Barbies before.

Thank you. Henry? I did that thing. I had some friends who had them, it's like total 90s rite of passage. My friends who had Barbies, once they crested into middle school, you cut off their hair and drew all over them with markers.

And you had to do it. I definitely participated in that. They called them funky fools, which was like what their mutilated Barbies were. Anyways. Yeah. I think about funky fools when I think about Barbies. I have a sister who's three years older than me. So her toys would kind of enter my rotation, but I was still always

fascinated with the Barbies because they were so much bigger than my toys and I've always in a very Bobby Hill style way I've always loved doll houses and like little miniatures to this day it's why I like playing the sims so much I just like designing the houses the life aspect I could take or leave but I love the little spaces and recreating those on a smaller scale but yeah a lot of I don't know if a lot of my time was spent playing with Barbies but I have a lot of Barbie experience. I like the clothes, the accessories, all the things you want in a toy, except they're just very tall women. I had very rare experience with Barbies as a little kid. I mean, I was very well aware of them.

But yeah, certainly I was scared of the pink aisle is just like, oh, boys don't go down there. That kind of thinking too. The only experience with Barbies I recall was like the the rare, like, I had some female cousins, they owned some Barbies, and so like, visiting them on like, family trips, they'd be like, oh, check out my Barbies. That would be really it, and yes though, Bob, the scale thing, obviously, scale was very important to me with toys,

it just like, well, this toy is taller or shorter than Spider-Man, and thus, can't play with him. Like, they need to be, scale is incredibly important to me. The Barbies are too powerful. The Barbies were like near the size of a Voltron, and it's like, I guess they could fight a Voltron, but Voltron is very hard to move around once you've finally put them together. And Rebecca, I mean, now you've been on the other side of it,

like there have been a number of toys out of characters you've created as well, and lots of merchandise from Steven Universe. Yeah, I tried to be as involved in that as I possibly could, and there were definitely some things that I aggressively vetoed, especially early on. I remember at the very beginning, well, this wasn't toy. Soft Lines was like apparel. Anyway, there was a shirt early on that had the three gems and Steven, and it had written on it, ladies love a hero. And I was just like, oh no, no, no,

that's not what's going on in the show. I mean, it hadn't come out yet. People hadn't seen it. They just were like looking at the designs and pulling together merchandise. And I was like, oh, they're like his relatives, his aunts. So sometimes stuff would slip through. I feel like a lot of my anecdotes are going to be about clothes, but I remember once there was a shirt that got all the way through I didn't catch it

in time where it was like holiday themed and Stephen is hanging the gems of like just their gems as Christmas ornaments on a Christmas tree. And just every aspect of that is so disturbing if you know anything about this. Like this is like why is it a Christmas tree? Also like if they're in their gem form it means they've like been killed. So yeah I couldn't always catch everything. But we were really when they did those early Funko Pops we did red lines, we hit a bunch of Easter eggs in, the back of Steven's hair is in three dimensions, makes a rose shape.

And we did have to change the body, you know, the body shapes of a lot of the characters because they were just broader and they weren't reading as themselves on just a default body. I think after we had been so involved in the first round with the main characters, they specifically avoided us because we slowed down their

process. But yeah, it was important to me that the characters, even when they were in a different toy style, still looked like themselves in the ways that mattered. And the crew was really, we were the people who knew what that was, especially early on. The Smithers is out there for Steven Universe, appreciated that, I think. Oh my gosh, I hope so, yeah. While this thing we did was we actually hid some Easter egg spoilers in the Monopoly,

the Steven Monopoly game. It's the first appearance of the beta kindergarten. You can see the beta kindergarten in the Monopoly game as one of the stops, Probably a year, I think, before it even appeared in the show. That was the kind of stuff I love to do and some references to like attacks the gems would do that they wouldn't do for a little while later. But yeah, that stuff was really fun. We did have that problem of, you know, people didn't know where our toys were going to fit. And that came up a lot. And it came up with the clothes too. Like the fact that Steven's shirt was pink was just a giant back and forth.

And they refused to make a pink shirt. Yeah. I had heard that it's like, I think maybe I saw it, you didn't say this or you online, but like that one of the times like his shirt would keep getting redder and to the point that it would look like the Vietnamese flag almost. Yes. Yes. They said it had to be red and we said it's not, you know, his shirt is pink.

Yeah. They told us they would not sell. This was, I think through Hot Topic, like they would not sell a pink shirt. So for years, that was something. And then they were like, what if it's like Heather red? And we're like, that's Heather red. That's not, that's not a pink shirt. Like that's not what his shirt looks like.

But yeah. This episode though, as you brought up Rebecca, this is based on a very real thing. Written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, one of the best, I think. There's a ton of history out there thanks to it. And I just want to credit the writers at Cracked Brian Van Hooker,

as well as at Vanity Fair, Anthony Bresnishen. They both in July of 2023, like coincidentally, at the same time, did oral histories on this episode, partially to, it was timed for the release of the Greta Gerwig Barbie film, which totally makes sense. And Yardley Smith is interviewed for it too. Unfortunately, not Jeff Lynch, which he, this episode is like just full

of fantastic action scenes that are Jeff Lynch Hallmark. And Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were inspired by Duffless, which investigated an element of the Simpsons world. They were looking at what has not been investigated yet. They landed on Malibu Stacy and they found a contemporary topic to weave throughout their funny narrative. This was ripped from the headlines in Simpson's production style. This was less than two years in between

the events that inspired it. Yeah, and there's some funny stories about how it was promoted that seemed to completely miss it. You can find the picture out there, but this was promoted with Bart looking up the dress of the Malibu Stacey toy and saying, the Springfield's got a sexy new doll. Charming. Yeah.

So, you know, Rebecca, you talk about people, advertisers, maybe not speaking with the people who are making the show. Yeah. Well, also, Daily Simpsons, I want to credit them, on Twitter, they found just an eight-second clip of promoting this episode. It aired as an hour block. It's like an hour of Simpsons. And because this is like during spring break, I guess, was when it aired, it's like an hour of Simpsons. And because this is like during spring break,

I guess was when it aired, it's like an hour of Simpsons on spring break week on Fox. And so it's like bikini babes. And then it's like, oh, Kathleen Turner is on the episode. The ads were not reflective of an episode all about such a feminist episode as this one. You weren't going to find a lot of feminist episodes of television on Fox.

And I know 11 about to turn 12 when this came out and it did connect with me. I'm sure I just, I'd watched episodes of like Golden Girls that had feminist messages, but because it was being delivered via The Simpsons, I did understand it. And I think it was really meaningful to me as a little boy growing up in the early nineties and hearing what everyone

was telling little boys. This aired with Camp Crusty, though also I think they were in trouble that night ratings wise. I'll get to why in a sec. And also credit to the Internet Archive because they have an original table draft of the script on there dated July 30th, 1993. Just an idea of how long the production took on the animation side. I'll note a few big changes, but also this is an episode with no deleted scenes

on the DVD, which they must have just not been able to find them because they call out one is like, oh, this was animated, wasn't it? They say it on the commentary and they think like, oh, we'll find the deleted scene. Clearly they couldn't, don't know why. The episode begins with the second use of the Monty Python couch gag of the Terry Gilliam foot.

It's fun that they, them using it just gets the, derails the commentary entirely or they just all talk about Monty Python memories for like four minutes. Yes. We learned no insights on the actual half of the first act really. Yeah. Older Gen X and Baby Boomer comedy nerds going on like, it's like The Simpsons, but them it's Monty Python is one of those things. They'll talk forever about it, which that's, hey, I wonder how much kids or even people under 30 know Monty Python these days, I wonder.

Or Matlock. I mean, actually, Matlock I think is now more popular than Monty Python because of the new Kathy Bates series. Oh, that's true. Just got renewed. It did get renewed. Didn't she say, like, I don't want to say threatened, but she said, like, that this is her last show, so if it's not renewed, like't she say like, I don't want to say threatened, but she said

like this is her last show, so if it's not renewed, like she'll retire or something. I think, yeah, she said this is going to be my last role and then I'm done. So we have to keep Matlock going. If you want to see more Kathy Bates, that's the agreement. It can only be Matlock. Yes, it's Matlock is out here. We, as Bill mentioned it in our big live show about Pucci, but it was Matlock was the Simpsons' nemesis at this time. That's why they always made fun of Matlock. Oh, that's why this is so cruel and unusual.

It's just like literally killing him on screen. Notably also very vicious towards old people because they weren't watching the show. So they felt they had creative license to just savage them at every turn. And this is weren't watching the show, so they felt they had creative license to just savage them at every turn. And this is particularly mean to the elderly, this episode. Yes, oh wow.

They were mad that Matlock would beat them in the ratings sometimes. They were up against, like, to put it in time, on this very night against this episode was the season eight episode of Matlock Brennan, which is not interesting in any way. It has no guest star in it that I can be like, oh, and this guy's in it. Like, it is just a boring episode of Matlock.

People age differently today, and it's interesting to know that Matlock was 67 then. The current Matlock, Kathy Bates, is 76 years old. So, I don't, maybe it's because I'm 42, about to become 43, I'm like, 67 is nothing. I can do that standing on my head. But he's walking up to the podium on two canes. Oh man, I mean, it's so, the way they draw Andy Griffith,

which you never hear a bad word about Andy Griffith. Nobody wants to be like me. He's a very respected television actor. Everybody loved him. So it's also just so mean directly to a beloved TV icon as well To the point is as you said Rebecca that they kill him like he died Yeah, I mean I guess you could say oh, it's you know

It's Abe's fault like it's about how Abe is a bad person But they're having a cake and eating it too with that one I think I guess seconds after we hear Abe calling him a tired old freak. Oh, you see the ambulance driving by Which that's me, it's like, but you're Matt Locke's biggest fan, Abe, why are you so? Though yes, this aired against Matt Locke, but both of them got slaughtered in the ratings that night because they were up against the Nancy Kerrigan,

Tonya Harding Winter Olympics. It's also right now, yes. Wow. They stopped programming new stuff against the Olympics soon after this. I think they, you know, that the Winter Olympics didn't perform as well usually ratings wise, but obviously in the U.S. at least, the story of Kerrigan versus Harding was like front page news for months. No wonder it was a huge ratings win. Yeah. Also another fun reference here, all the seniors who are about to

tear him apart, they're singing a reference to Bye Bye Birdie. That's right. I don't know what the song is called, but in Bye Bye Birdie they're singing We Love You Conrad. Oh yeah, it's the song We Love You Conrad, which the Bye Bye Birdie, the Conrad character, he's basically Elvis, and it's about when Elvis got drafted and all the girls are, all the teen girls are sad that Conrad's leaving and they're like,

oh we love you Conrad, oh yes we do. And then there's a response song from all the teen boys who hate Conrad because all their girlfriends are in love with him. So it's a call and response song. They all attack him. I also do like that Hibbert expresses that all young people need to be in prison.

That's fun. That's fun. Putting them where they belong, behind bars. Don't forget that Hibbert saw him the same Republican party in Springfield as Dracula and Mr. Burns. Murder, She Wrote and Matlock were popular shows because they were showing their old audience that older people could be capable and in fact a lot of Murder, She Wrote is people thinking that Jessica Fletcher has gone a bit daffy, but then it turns out the senior moment is actually her discovering something or figuring something out about the murder.

Well, it's a good thing we have The Simpsons to take the elderly down a peg. As the writers all are entering their 60s now, I think they wouldn't be this mean to Matlock. I mean, too, also thinking of how time works, just reading in the articles, looking back on it. Bill Oakley was talking about how his oldest daughter is now in her late 20s now. So she was born just right after this episode was written, which was also inspired by that girl's mother

and also A. Simpson's writer, Rachel Polito, Bill Oakley's wife wife and her Barbie collecting. So we see that Abe, after watching Andy Griffith die, Abe realizes his own mortality. This is like pure Bill and Josh. Is this the most crazy Abe talk they've done with him? I mean, Abe talks crazy a lot, but he, I think he gets like three minutes of fully three minutes of a cantankerous chat. We're recording a lot in advance and we just recorded the episode Homer and Apu and there's a lot of Abe just being old and confused and grumpy in that episode as well. Well, now Rebecca, you, you have a lot of, uh, in, in Steven universe,

there's a lot of respectful seniors. I was trying to think of the, the kookiest old guys guys you've written and I would guess my first thought was the ice king I think would be the closest to Abe. Oh gosh, right. That's so supernatural. Yeah Very very fun to write. Yeah, we definitely you know respect our elders over on Steven Universe I feel like Nana Fua was sort of holding that spot as the competent older person in the town. But I mean, I loved writing for Ice King, but we all wrote him very differently, like from episode to episode. Because I thought of him

as a really tragic figure, but I know, like I remember I was chatting with Jesse once and he saw him as more of a rumpled stilt skin that would sort of leap and dance and be like haha yeah I never really and then I was storyboard partners with with Cole Sanchez for a while who treated him very differently so that was fun but he'd kind of be he had all that range so he could be all those things. Abe is sort of like that too. I feel like Abe can see the arc of the Simpsons staff being kinder to Abe over time. Like early on he's just a deeply despicable, cheating, rotten monster.

And then, you know, I think lately there's more Abe pathos in the show, but they'd have to tell me why. Yeah, when all the writers are under 40, the knives are out for Abe. But now they're like, oh, well, aren't old men great? Oh my gosh. The thing we haven't gotten there yet, but the thing he said about it is like, oh, everyone

on your street is ugly. It's like, oh, like, it's just little, it was the little barbs stuck out to me more on the rewatch. It's like, but yeah, I guess it's all in service of him. Being an old crank that needs to change, which is critical to the story. This episode does have empathy for him though. And you know, Jeff Lynch, he would direct one of the best and one of those rehabilitating grandpa episode, the Hellfish episode. Oh man, such a good one. Basically just become Sergeant Rock from old DC

comics. This brush with death leads Abe to start bequeathing while he's still with us in our first clip here with a lot of crazy grandpasisms. And to my son Homer, and his entire family, I leave these. A box of mint condition 1918 Liberty Head silver dollars. You see, back in those days, rich men would ride around in sepulins dropping coins on people. And one day, I seen JD Rockefeller flying by. So I run out of the house with a big wash tub and,

Nick, where you going? Dad, we'd love to stay here and listen to your amusing antidotes, but we have to take these coins to the mall and spend them. Anyway, about my wash tub. I just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a walking bird. We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings cranberries

Ingenious and yam stuff with gunpowder Then we'd all watch football which in those days was called baseball The the crazy grandpa stuff is great, but I also love the really understated lines He's giving Lisa her gift and he tells her Lisa. I know you like reading and so forth He has nothing else to add His constant harassment of Boris Karloff is a nice little touch to the lore of Abe Simpson He did it so long ago that it had to be sent via telegram too So this is like he was harassing Boris Karloff in like

1937. Yeah, that that also that he he passed off Lisa's like you like reading so there dismissive of his granddaughter to I love walking bird. I think that's just transcendent. That's up there with the onion belt. That's up there with the onion belt. Yeah. I think they're like expanding on like, oh, the onion on my belt speech was so funny. Let's get some more out of it. Like though it is like more crazier things. We, Bobby mentioned Homer and Apu in that one.

The sad grandpa speech is more just about like depressing specifics of like three medium brown. Yes. Describing his day to everybody. This gets crazier in the imagining of like J. The rich need to just get in zeppelins more and just toss coins out. Do that. But not doge coins. They have to be real. Right. These need to be real coins that are worth something. An understated joke they're just leaving there for you to figure out is that Homer is going to spend these $60 as $60, not as their collectible value.

He's not going to resell them to a collector. He is spending them like they're just plain money and it doesn't realize their worth. And also that Abe is saying, here's the most prized thing I have. This is your inheritance. And Homer goes like instantly, we're getting rid of this right now and spending it right now. Oh, and then the original script, they cut a scene where Bart is gifted something by Abe.

He's gifted all of Abe's old man tobacco stuff, including a can of Prince Albert and pipes. You can see the pipes on the coffee table in front of Bart in the shot. So they might have handed it. Okay, I was wondering about that. Is that a bridge too far at that time? You know, maybe the standards and practices

were like, you can't give, even, I mean, giving Bart old man tobacco doesn't make smoking cool. Maybe once Bart smoked a cigar in season two, they said no more. They were really getting away with something there too. That was a slow transition. I feel like when I was younger,

there was so much smoking in cartoons and they would just freely air, you know, old Looney Tunes with, you know, people had big cigars in their mouth. Like, I'd love to see just the graph of how that was gradually phased out because you can't do any of that anymore. Oh yeah. I've been watching a lot of old Looney Tunes lately just because we're covering Looney Tunes back in action or have covered it. But the casual, well, there's a lot of stuff in

those old cartoons, but let's just talk about smoking. Oh, they're not for kids. They're wild. Yeah. But yeah, casual smoking all over. I love in the one where Bugs is basically begging for an Oscar. The way he throws all the cigars out to the audience is great, but what would a 12-year-old think of that now with cartoon star Bugs Bunny?

I always think about, veering off course, but when Daffy douses himself in kerosene and lights himself on fire at the end of his act and he says, I could only do it once. I watched that a dozen times on Cartoon Network when I was younger. I didn't think twice about it, these things are really quite disturbing. I think Bugs Bunny should be throwing out vape pens with carrot-flavored juice in them. Oh no. Yeah, maybe in the, I'll ask Pete if that's coming up.

Right. I forgot, Uncle Grandpa crossed over with Steven Universe. You know, all those loony guys. Yeah, I've got a lot of friends and people I really love working on those new loony tunes and the movie too. You know, the closest thing in that movie that reminded me of like the dirtier stuff

in the old cartoons was Daffy Duck wanted to become a social media star and then grew his buttocks in a funny manner. Right. Yeah, I like that. Yes, that's very, yeah, that's very much in the spirit of, yeah, of real old Looney Tunes. Yeah, I thought that felt very on show. Also that hair ribbon one, Bugs pushes that poor French dog in it to self-harm. He hands the gun to him after torturing him the whole cartoon. And yes, as a kid, loved it, had no thoughts about it at all, just.

Lots of guns, lots of smoking. Wasn't the dog Russian? Wasn't he based on a Russian radio character or something? Oh, you're right, it was Russian, not French. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the toned down one. Like they asked that, like they reanimated it from bugs just shooting him.

That was the toned down version in here. But anyway, yeah, sorry. I just turned into Abe as an old man just talking about it. My animation history teacher in school talked about how when the Looney Tunes were first coming out, people didn't know what they were looking at. They didn't understand what animation was. There's a story of these guys, I think he overheard them in the theater or something where one was like, how'd they get that rabbit to do that? And the other one was like, you idiot, that's a guy in a costume. That's great. I never heard that. Okay, so the family has driven all the way to the toy

store with grandpa. Great animation on them too, just all their posing that like, normally they would tell him to shut up, but because they're spending his money there, they just are all half-lidded and just sitting through his very long speech instead. And we head into Kidstown, USA, not affiliated with Kidstown Juvenile Correctional Farm. It being a farm, that makes it, it could have been, you know, yeah. It's like a work camp, basically.

It makes it darker. Well, also to sound like an old man, it's like, whoa, kids today don't know what it's like to go to toys or us or whatever This is like the magic of going to toys or us they do in Canada I think we still have a remaining toys or us here. Oh, that's good One of them closed down there were like two toys or us is happening up here I used to go there was a toys or us in Langley Park. That was where we were always begging our parents to go I guess that's not really a thing that

I mean there must be a toy store kids go or I mean I guess they just at whatever giant big box shopping mart they go to they buy toys there What happens is the kid watches another kid open a toy on a youtube channel and then they show mom and then mom will go On amazon and it will show up in 12 hours. Right. I would believe it. I recently learned where the hot toys of last year and because the drag queen Trixie Mattel has fun videos on her YouTube channel and she does a yearly thing of like the hot toys for kids

and she does basically unboxings and explains them to the elderly and childless. And the theme of those toys now that I noticed was most of them are, well, you're going to get like, you know, a doll or an action figure, but first you have to like birth it and like put the potion in this thing and then spin this thing. And then it's a whole lot of work to get the toy first. Basically, I don't know if you guys have seen these around. No, but Henry, is the Trixie named after the toy company, Mattel? Yes. For branding purposes, she only promotes herself as Trixie. Trixie Mattel is her stage

name, but I think it's just the Trixie channel. And Trixie Mattel is great. I love her stuff. She is a Barbie collector and also a Easy Bake Oven collector. There's an Easy Bake Oven joke later in this. And I was like, every fact I know about Easy Bake Oven collector. There's an Easy Bake Oven joke later in this, and I was like, every fact I know about Easy Bake Oven history is from watching Trixie Mattel talk about the history of them and modern Easy Bake Ovens. Isn't there a thing, I don't really know that much about this, but there's Easy Bake Ovens for girls, but then there's like creepy crawlers for boys, right?

Yeah. It's like the same technology, but it's like, don't worry, you're baking a centipede. So it's masculine. Inedible though. Yeah. There was a reboot of the Easy Bake Oven in the Creepy Crawlers in the early 90s, I do recall that. Yeah.

Only realizing later, oh, it's nostalgia for these older versions of them. Oh yeah, yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Our parents were just like how people our generation buy their kids Transformers now or Ninja Turtles and be like, well, I had this when I was a kid. Our parents did that with Barbies and Easy Bakes and the Creepy Crawlers. Yeah. And they make a point that Marge is a Malibu Stacy owner as well.

Yeah. I love that bit. But, oh, and Homer is written as a big kid here. He is like a child or like say me as a kid describing a toy based on all of the lines you heard in the commercial when he is showing off Sergeant Thug's mountaintop command post. Which is about to kill Maggie, it looks like. I mean, I never had one.

I'm gonna assume Henry did have one. But the Castle Grayskull play sets? Yes, I did have the Castle Grayskull. Of course you did. Was it that treacherous? No, honestly, the most danger you'd have is closing your fingers on the latches when you try to close it.

But yes, I didn't have too many play sets. I did not have, well, this is too many by my standards of having too many toys. Just the 20 or so. Honestly, I didn't have too many. I loved all the figures I could get, but honestly, I found them constricting. The only I had, I did have Castle Grayskull

And I had a wrestling ring for wrestling action figures to fight in but it like the turtles base was made to and I think There was also like I've heard our friend Mike Carlson talk about how he would put his x-men to bed in the the x-men Toy said but I didn't have that as a kid Yeah, and I didn't have like the x-men black bird toy either Like so I didn't have too many of the bases But yes, Bob, I did have Castle Grayskull I can't lie you didn't care about the toys being domestic coming home going to bed putting away groceries Turning on Netflix. No, I mean I didn't have like a bat cave either

I mean I had some bat mobiles at bat wing but not a bat cave So it's clearly I was not a spoiled child who had too many toys. We'll have to check the records on that. No. I'd say every time I watch videos about toy lines, and when we did the turtles history, when we covered the turtles last year, and I saw what was all in the first two waves of turtle toys, I was like, I think me and my brother

owned all of these. Oh, boy. I think we had a lot of these toys. I only realized now I was spoiled. Did you hold on to any of them? That half of them survived. My mom has been very nice in keeping a lot of my old toys because she didn't like how her mom gave away her toys

when she was a grownup. So my mom has actually kept a whole like tub of my old toys. Like it's now in like a rubber made tub. And so I've told her she can give some away to kids in her new neighborhood. I've given her permission to, kept a whole like tub of my old toys like it's now in like a rubber made tub and so I've told her she can give some away to kids in her new neighborhood. I've given her permission to but she said you don't want me giving away the comics though right and I was like yes please mom you're gonna ship me those comics someday. Build a new Billy Henry it's time. I need a garage to keep those comics in to get them out of my mom's garage. I don't yet

have a garage for keeping all my nineties comic books. Oh, sorry, Rebecca. Do you have a lot of your old toys saved or anything or are you more of just new toys? Yeah, I donated a lot of them. I collected Beanie Babies. I know this is several years after what we're talking about here, but specifically the bears, you know, when they were highly collectible, I had a lot of them and I gave almost all of them away, but I still have the Princess Diana one,

and Erin, the green, the one with the Ireland one. I still have them around. Boy, I had like a ton of them. I had the Y2K one and the one with the piece, and I just, I gave them all away at some point. Yeah, I put the little tags in the plastic things so that they'd be mint condition, because it was supposed to be like an investment. That's how you convince your parents. You're like, this is a really smart thing. This means

college to all these bears. The Simpsons will be right back. This continues with a full hour of The Simpsons. Kathleen Turner guest stars. On an all new Simpsons tonight at eight, seven central. Anybody call for a web slinger? Well, too bad. It's only Henry Gilbert here.

And a big thank you to our guest this week, Rebecca Sugar, creator of Steven Universe, professional musician and all around great person for returning back to the show to talk about this episode about toys and gender. And you should know that Rebecca Sugar, you know, if you haven't checked out Steven Universe, of course that's a great series. You should also check out the awesome EP Rebecca did last year, Spiral Bound. There might be some more coming soon. And you should definitely check out the many great charity streams she has done, like the one that Rebecca just did and has been doing monthly for the Trevor Project.

Please check out the great work she is doing there for so many important causes and all of her great music. Thanks so much again, Rebecca, for coming on the show. And if you enjoy the Talking Simpsons podcast But wish you could hear earlier episodes and without any ads like this one You should be supporting us at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons We're only able to do this as our full-time jobs because of the support at patreon.com Talking Simpsons from listeners like you if you signed up today You would get over 200 exclusive ad free podcasts and a couple new ones at least each month I'm talking about talking Futurama and talking of the hill where we cover Futurama and King the hill just like me over 200 exclusive ad-free podcasts and a couple new ones at least each month.

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What a cartoon movie for $10 a month folks. They get all those $5 ad free bonuses I just mentioned, then they get basically a triple length podcast for five or even six hours long. Sometimes of us going into an animated feature films production and all of the great cool History in them this month We are covering an extremely goofy movie the lesser-known sequel to a goofy movie, which we've covered years ago on the podcast So we're getting really into 2000s eras extreme sports and the X games and vertical integration last month We had a ton of fun talking about the crazy production history of Looney Tunes back in action, which we kind of talked a little about

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by supporting us there. Once more at patreon.com slash talking simpsons uh... the minute i think i saw it we're talking about all toys i think i brought this out another podcast i do Oh Wait a minute, hold on I think I saw it We're talking about old toys, I think I brought this out on another podcast I do have my Stimpy from 1992

And the Fart-er, there's supposed to be like a little whoopie cushion here The Fart-er in here is, I'm calling it a Fart-er by the way It's 33 years old so this is all you're getting Hey, it makes a sound It's supposed to fart, but yeah this guy is over 30 years old I have a few of my old toys hanging around up here in my condo But a lot of them are put away, but this one is in great shape, and I wanted to keep it out So yeah, that's awesome. That's Stimpy is in great condition. Yeah, I took care of my toys turning because I had so few I

Mean the stuffed toys they didn't the plastic guys stayed in pretty good condition I mean I would be sad when the lines would wear off of a spider-man from too much play because the black lines we painted on It's like well now he doesn't look like spider-man anymore. He's just like a red guy. Well actually Rebecca You have a wonderful song about toy aging. Yes. Yeah, kind of a couple but yeah, everything stays was about a toy is about a stuffed Rabbit that I lost in the garden. I found it, it was upside down, and so the sun had faded its belly, so it was black, and then it had

this pale belly from then on. It's one of my first experiences with regret. It was just, I didn't realize that I had left it there, now I knew it was never gonna be the same. When the Steven movie came around I accidentally just kept writing about this rabbit. I had this like epiphany halfway through about Spinel being left in the garden. It's like oh I'm still talking about this. I hadn't even thought about it and until I was like looking at the drawings and being like um wow I really can't shake this memory. So Drift Away is about that too. But yeah, I don't know.

It's two separate shows. You can do it in two separate shows. Yeah, you know, you get really, you know, you're really connected to your toys when, I don't know, it was a special one. I don't know where that went, ultimately. I obviously continued to be careless with it until it exited my life at some point.

Oh, and the original script, there's a good joke they cut too. I wonder if they animated it, which is we see Bart in the toy aisle, which we don't, it's not in the episode. So this is like, where did Bart go? What did he buy? You see him later with the Sergeant Thug

Mountain Top Command post. But originally Bart is walking down the aisle of nerdy kid toys, like the Toys for Nerds, which he lists as kites, wood burning sets, AM radio kits, and a stained glass making kit. Oh that's great yeah those are all whenever I would get the toy catalog I would be vaguely interested in that section but then immediately move on to the more colorful non-creative toys. That's all the kind of stuff I had. You know where we would always go that's

making me think about we used to shop at zany brainy all the time Do you remember zany brainy? Is that a Maryland thing? It might be a local chain or just a local shop I've never heard of it. Yeah, I mean they were all like the toys were all a little bit educational anyway Yeah, it's like an entire store of that. That's where we I think through we would always be instead of You know the pink aisle One Christmas I did get a microscope and would always be instead of the pink aisle. One Christmas I did get a microscope and that was a lot of fun.

I guess I was a burgeoning Martin in some ways. That's sick, that's so cool. Yeah, oh actually, that's funny because yes, the payoff of the joke in that aisle is Bart goes like, who buys this stuff? And then Martin walks in and he goes like, which stained glass making kit should I get today? Oh no, I would have felt so called out if that thing was still in the episode.

Well, the secret of the show is it's mainly Martins who are the writers of the show. Like many of the writers have said like they had trouble writing for Bart because they're like, well, no, we were like Lisa or Martin or Milhouse. Like they're all of the nerds. Right. But he becomes the animation writer ultimately. And so we walked down the toy aisle with with Abe as well Which yeah, I think but you know what me walking down kids toy aisles I instead have the thought of like boy

I would have loved to have a Lego set of the Daily Bugle when I was a kid or I would have liked all of these Star Wars toys that are better than the Star Wars toys when I was a kid I'm not wanting to smash and break them. I'm jealous of children today. Though for Abe, he's told that the soldiers won't harm him and it won't bother you anymore. For everything is going against Abe to humiliate him. He's trying to complain about how cheap and worthless the toys of today are and he has to like try really hard to break something. Yes. I think there are adults who do complain about kids toys still today, but for me I mainly am just like, oh you get toys of everything now kids. It's been established Henry, you got too many toys. This is your

punishment. Now children get better toys than you. Well also though there's an entire market for just adults toys. I don't mean adult toys in that way. I mean toys for adults. Yes, Henry, we can see into your apartment. We know what's going on in those bookshelves. Yes, there's- The serious adult collector has logged on. I'm constantly thinking about, like, I feel like Parents' Generation,

there's that whole people getting older and having an elaborate train set. You know, they do that with, is it Reverend Lovejoy who has the giant train set? Yes, yes. And I'm always thinking about like what the millennial version of that is. I like see it congealing. Like we were all hanging out, like playing a, like an original PlayStation game as friends

and I'm like, oh, these are, you know, we've kept all these old video game consoles and we keep playing them or we buy the new version that's like miniature, but it has all the same games on it. It's like, you know, that nostalgia is so hard to fight. But I think, you know, for me, that's how i feel about like the super nintendo so i wonder if that'll be the model trains of you know 2060 i think it is just buying expensive japanese versions of things you like 30 years ago like this guy yeah what is that expression i'm sorry this is audio the woody from toy Story, he has detachable faces,

movable eyes, he has the classic smug Woody expression, but I'm making him look creepy. He's a podcaster like me, so he's got the Mr. Microphone and everything. That expression is unreal. If only you could see it, everybody, it's great. I forget, is that like Figma or Mafex? It's one of those, one of the best Japanese brands of toys.

Yeah, he's got this little armature that holds him up. So yeah. It's woody figma forget who made it, but it's like it's a pretty popular toy You see a lot of like memes that are made with this guy. Oh, wow. It's definitely a figma stand I don't know if that's I own a few of those a few Just a few yeah, I need a headcount on Henry Spider-Man. I keep saying this. Yes. Well, what is a figure really? I mean, are we just talking action figures? Are we talking like statues? A small plastic version of a humanoid character. Okay, so just if Peter Parker Spider-Man, probably.

Of any Spider-Man. Oh, well, come on now. That's too big of a problem. Is there a separate spreadsheet for Peter B. Parker? Is that what we're doing? Well, sure, I mean, if we're just talking Peter B. Parker alone, it's probably like five of those, but they just keep making so many good ones.

My millennial guilty pleasure is Ian gifted me a Neon Genesis Evangelion Tamagotchi. Oh, those are cool. Boy, it's going to sound like I own a lot of toys here. I have the unit one of that as well. Yes, we have the same one. Oh, it's so cool. I actually, it's mitten box. I didn't open. Oh, it's so cool. I actually, it's mint and box. I didn't open it because I like it so much. I could list more things. Well,

I just came back from Japan. So there's also, I went to Tokyo a few months ago and it was dangerous. Our hotel was right next to a Tomashi nation store, which was full of exclusives. But see, I would never break these and complain about them like Abe does. To get back to... This is, yes, somehow this is related to this. Yeah. Well, and speaking of referencing things, this is where a big reference comes in. I didn't mean to pun there.

It is a... By the way, the Gracie Films production, big. Did you know that? I just realized that. I watched it again for the first time in over 30 years. It's a Gracie Films production, which is probably why Penny Marshall is on season one of The Simpsons. I'm guessing I think so Yes, yeah big that 1988 success huge huge hit like yeah, it's and I think for a time Certainly got surpassed by Barbie, but it was for a time like the highest-grossing movie directed by a woman. I think

But at least for a few years. Yeah grossing movie directed by a woman I think but at least for a few years. Yeah very big hit, no pun intended. Something I watched a lot as a child but I think everyone has that moment where they watch it as an adult and realize a certain thing that happens in the movie. Yeah. Not to be uncouth but to let everybody know, Rebecca should I not include this in the podcast because I'm gonna be delicate about it. It's very disturbing. I watched Big a lot when I was younger. Me too, me too.

Exactly the same. I watched it as an adult and I'm like, she should know, she should not be in a relationship with this child. Yeah, it's kind of played out discussing this, but everyone has this experience where like, oh, I love Big. I've heard there's something weird in this. And yes, it's a boy becomes a man boy brain meets a woman

They do eventually have sex and it's a big joke in the movie and then she watches him transform back into a kid She's like wow, what a great experience. No, no They're both so damaged reprobably their lives are over at this point It's bad, but up until that point I say directors cut Penny Marshall She's dead now, but Gary Marshall also dead one of the marshals can step in and maybe fix that part of the movie for a re-release But it's still got some 80s stank on it is what I'll say It's a family movie both a little bit of 80s stank well also I mean the stuff with his mom also felt like it was played for laughs then to instead like now and as a kid

I feel like I've maybe laughed at it, but now his mom thinks like her son is like kidnapped the entire movie that's an also weirdly dark thing in that movie but the fun part is when Tom Hanks and I forget the other actor is it Robert Loja right there you go yes play that big piano yeah they're dancing on the big piano it's a great scene and it's much like this where a crowd gathers to watch except they actually play a song well Homer breaks the piano does not understand why everyone is booing him and has to be carried away from the piano but that's probably the most iconic scene from big I'll say I don't know if I've ever seen those giant piano key like in real life I would guess if you had it in your toy

store for decades after this, all people would do is play that song on it and just recreate the scene. I saw it in theaters as a little kid. My mom took me to see it because it was like a kid's movie. And I just, I remember childhood just confusion of like, why is she taking her shirt off?

This doesn't make sense. Like I didn't understand it at all. Is she hot? Yes. It was Gracie Films. We did a whole history on Gracie Film on the Critic podcast, but yeah, it was a big deal for the brand new Gracie Films, and they were at Fox, so it's also like a big Fox hit too.

Like, it was, yeah. It's one of those movies with the time bomb inside of it. Like, if you have fond memories of Ace Ventura, and you're like, let's watch Ace Ventura, then you realize what is ahead of you once you get in and remember parts of the movie. So let's disarm these time bombs, remove them from the films, alter the director's vision is what I'm saying. Yes, yeah. Actually, I find it really cathartic to return, especially to movies from the early 2000s and just and see like how like shockingly upsetting a lot of the messaging is. I don't feel insane

anymore. I'm like, oh like I remember that this was just the environment that I was raised in and sometimes I forget until I go and and look at that stuff again. Like you know it's nice to think that things have changed at least some things have ceased to be acceptable. They're not making Ace of Turra 3, that much is true at least. Yeah but I'm glad I got to see all those old Looney Tunes where they were smoking and setting each other on fire. So Homer plays rock around the clock poorly. It has to be escorted out.

And then we head to the pink toy aisle, though not pink enough, although that I guess wouldn't fit with the Simpsons color design at the time. They were much more like the purple and orange. Like now, I think in the modern show, they just do more natural coloring and so I think they would make the aisle pink in color design for the show. I think pink was one of their big choices in terms of using a color you don't see a lot on television. I just don't think the entire male writing staff knew that the aisle was pink. By Toy Story 2, there's a joke like, oh, it's the pink aisle. We don't go down the pink aisle, but they at least know there's an aisle just for girls but because they're all men they probably have not ventured down it or

have been that curious about it for a very long time. I got the impression that Malibu Stacey is just so so important that it gets its own giant display like that felt like the weight of this one specific toy seemed to be the focus of the environmental design for the toy store. It's like a mountain to climb. We here in our next clip get to see Lisa freak out as a new toy debuts. When I was your age, there was a... Hey, horse face, get your ugly pie hooks off that summer fun set! Look, Icky Bricky Stacey for a dollar ninety-nine! Live from the improv, Stacey's only eighty-nine cents! Eww! Hey, mister, what's in the box?

Um, it's the new talking Malamu, Stacy. Get up, Stacy! Help! Mr. Wise! You know, we're talking about pink and I was thinking, what Simpson's character wears a pink shirt? Abe, Abe Simpson. Oh yeah. He's strutting around in pink, or I guess it's like a creamy or peachish pink. It's hard to, like every time you look at it, it's a different color, but Abe and Troy McClure has a pink sweater, so they're into pinks and purples.

Yeah, I mean, they're house. The house too, yeah. In the Armintam Zarian episode, they talk about how like it's, what was it, a mauve shirt? He points out the coloring of Skinner's shirt. Like a lavender shirt? Yes. We see that Lisa is just as feral

as all the other Malibu Stacey fans there. It's a dark side to Lisa here. And this is also when, Bob, you pointed out at Homer and Apu, David Merkin really hates the TV show Evening at the Improv. Yeah, yeah. I guess that was A&E's stand-up comedy showcase and David Merkin, a stand-up who probably hated every other stand-up based on what the common stand-up material was like at the time. Which is why even children know it's gross in this universe. Marked out, nobody wants it. Just like in the crackpot Stacey, that is a random one there that she's wearing the

like the you know, the third eye that's on the dollar bill thing as part of it. That's next to the eggy-brakey Stacey. I think it's supposed to be she's like a new age kind of it. That's next to the eggy-brakey Stacey. I think it's supposed to be, she's like a new age kind of lady. Ah, okay. Which is why she has the pyramid hat on. Yeah, this is where we learn that there's a new talking Malibu Stacey and we'll talk the history when we get to Lisa playing it, but this is where we cut to Homer driving

with his Easy Bake Oven. I like that Marge doesn't want him to, he's like, that's the whole point of this, so I can do this. It's like, that's why I bought it. We get some more crazy Abe-isms. When Abe is telling Bart, you know, watch out my skull is eggshell thin. That's a great line.

If they had kept what was in the original script, it would have added continuity to Abe. Abe says, watch out, you're gonna put out my not glass eye. Abe would have canonically had one glass eye if they kept it in that line. I prefer the eggshell skull joke. It's very subtle, but I like how Bart is playing with the playset like it's an airplane. He's like moving, zooming it around the car and making machine gun noises like it's a vehicle and not like it's a location. That is good, yeah. I like that the the missile is, it's a working missile that actually explodes.

Yeah, it exploded in Homer's mouth earlier and then it just flies off screen and we hear a huge explosion. Yes. Like there's a flash of light. Like it's that big an explosion. You know what? Lisa is polite enough to thank Abe for the gifts, which was very nice of her. But he's mad they didn't buy more important things like weatherstripping. Storm windows.

Storm windows. Yes windows, yes. And it's trapped in the car whining too. I think that's great. Like they could extend it more and more of just, of the look at that one. I also love that. You know, that's one of the many really good embellished animation I feel like they do in this.

Like the turn into the driveway has much more like, you know, perspective shifting in it than they need to have in it. They could have done it in an easier way. And the shot of the family leaving the car, leaving Abe behind is done from an overhead shot of the car in the house. It's a shot you don't normally see even on The Simpsons.

It's very interesting. You can see why Jeff Lynch would work his way up to being like second AD on Sam Raimi and Brad Bird films. Though I don't know what his deal is now. His most recent credit, I keep checking this every time we do him, but like still his most recent, at least, credit on IMDB is additional storyboard artists on Incredibles 2.

So he hasn't had like a credit in a while, and he doesn't have LinkedIn, so I can't keep up with him. He could be retired or teaching. I mean, he's been in the animation industry for a very long time, so. I would have loved to have seen his, Drag Me to Hell is a good movie, as Sam Raimi directed it,

but I would have loved to have seen his version of it when he was the original director of it. This is where Abe walks in, everybody has avoided him, but it's also just great, Homer fails at being stealthy, and the way he trips on the cord, that's executed great, of pulling down the telephone that brings Abe's attention

to him as he realizes he's the Grim Specter of Death. Which that's not the problem. It's that he's a crank that nobody likes him. That we get to see, there's a more specific reference later but this is about rockin' old people commercials of the early 90s. Though nobody's rapping yet. This is not yet the rapping grandma era of commercials This might be the most important plot point for Buzz Cola up to this point in the show, right? I feel like there were bigger plans for Buzz Cola, but it's never really materialized into anything big And I guess the joke is there's a lot of caffeine in it. Yeah I mean, it's basically jolt right as a name the Buzz Cola But the and it's what they give Homer when they sell them as an action figure and they can't give him a beer.

Right, right. Oh, yeah. This is actually like a really sweet interaction between Homer and Abe. The fact that he actually sits down and takes the time to say, you know, I love you, but you know, but you're a crank. It's like, you know, he didn't have to be honest with him He could have just gotten out of there. So considering that Abe is not the best father I feel like that's generous on the part of Homer. Yeah, I love how Homer puts it because he says dad I love you, but and then there's a bunch of items, but nobody likes you is the last thing he says Of course he replies like con sarnit. There's a little boogie in every bottle.

Only when I wrote this down I was like, oh wait a minute, that's like gross. That's like a joke about there's a booger in every bottle. Sure, maybe they're going for that. I can see it. The bubbles are burning his tug. Yes, also how Buzz Cola is used in merch. I bought Christmas Simpson's pants to wear.

Christmas pants. You know, it was like Christmas, it was holiday PJs because you know, you're visiting family and you wanna have, it's fun to buy holiday themed clothing to wear on Christmas morning at my family. So they had Simpson's ones, and it was Homer with Duff Beer. But then it had to say like, on the label it said,

nobody can buy this under 21. Like it had the warning on it, cause it had beer on it. That'll stop them. Yeah. It was age gated pants. You have to watch for those eagle-eyed clerks who are reading every tag on the pants they're scanning.

Yeah. Checking your ID for your pajamas. Well now I'm learning about Christmas pants. This is a whole new world for me. I just have regular everyday pants. Yeah, or like, or fam jams. Oh, fam jams. Oh, fam jams. Everyone gets identical holiday pajamas.

I enjoyed it so much, I did start buying them for my husband too, of like, okay, so here's mine, that's Homer, and here's your, that's Stitch, and it's Stitch, it's like Christmas in Hawaii Stitch. Isn't this fun? That's so cute. Do they have Simpsons branded fam jams? Like, can you get a Buzz Cola PJs for your dog or whatever?

Ooh, I don't know. I'll check the always reliable Disney store. Disneyshop.com. Oh, right. Yeah. I don't know, I like the idea, but around my family, I just wanna be wearing a belt at all times. Ha ha ha ha.

Keep it nice and formal. So Abe goes off thinking he needs to start acting young and then it's time for Lisa to learn the horrible truth about her toy. A hush falls over the General Assembly as Stacy approaches the podium to deliver what will no doubt be a stirring and memorable address. I wish they taught shopping in school. Let's bake some cookies for the boys. Come on, Stacey. I've waited my whole life to hear you speak. Don't you have anything relevant to say? Don't ask me. I'm just a girl. Right on, say it, sister. It's not funny, Bart. Millions of girls will grow up thinking that this is the right way to act.

That they can never be anything more than vacuous ninnies whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty and have a rich husband. Just what I was going to say. Look at me! I'm acting young! Wow! Ooh! Hey, this ain't so bad. Ha! Ha! Ha! In my alternate history of Simpsons,

this is where Abe dies. Yeah. His story should be over here, but he's going to pick himself up, dust himself off, get a job. Man, that shot, it's like full animation. Everything moves in the shot of Lisa throwing the doll. It's like an incredible shot.

Yeah, they have one of those earlier in the car too. These animated background transitions. It's like I'm watching a Kira here. It's possibly hard, yeah. Well, we could talk about the real life origins of this story. So this episode is wrapped up in the controversy behind the 1992 release of Teen Talk Barbie, which was a doll that came pre-programmed with four out of a possible 270 phrases.

And one of these phrases was Barbie saying, math class is tough. And that sparked controversy, especially among educators, because it was seen as discouraging girls from studying math and science. So in response to this, Mattel originally offered to exchange non-speaking dolls to consumers for their talking Barbies and then eventually that math class's tough phrase was eliminated from future runs of the product. That's funny that they're like, we'll silence her. We'll just, we'll make it so she can't talk anymore. What if Bobby didn't talk? Here's how they promoted it. I found a quick ad of the original Teen Talk Barbie here. I love to shop, don't you? I can't believe my ears. I can't believe my eyes. Every Teen

Talk Barbie is a different surprise. Mine says, Wanna have a pizza party? Mine says, You're my best friend. And now she says, Meet me at the mall. Cool. What's she gonna say next? Listen.

Do you have a crush on anyone? You won't believe your ears or eyes. Teen Talk Barbie, what a surprise! Each Teen Talk Barbie doll says four different fun things. Barbie dolls each sold separately. So there you go. Though now that I know that it was only four phrases out of so many, I must have been hell on Barbie collectors to want to get every possible utterance that Barbie says. Yeah, I guess they were all randomized.

As a kid, I was a very precocious kid, which is why I became a podcaster, and I was watching a lot of news magazine programs like 2020 and the like. And I do remember seeing a new story on this on one of those shows. So when I eventually watched this episode when it aired, I thought like, oh my gosh, I feel so connected because I know what they're talking about. It was the first time I felt like I had my finger

on the pulse of pop culture, even though I was barely 12. You did. Yeah. I feel like I had heard about it before I saw this episode too. I swear I had heard of the response that we'll get to in a little bit, but I think I had heard about that. Maybe I heard about the response first by a certain group, but this stuff about, you

know, also I wish they taught shopping in school. Another of the phrases was, will we ever have enough clothes? So not that far off in real life. In some ways I do relate, math class is tough, but I don't know, it's the first time Barbie's talking, you gotta think about, you gotta get all those positive messages out to the kids, I think.

Let's have a pizza party, that's pretty equal opportunity. Who doesn't like a pizza party? But yeah. I feel so much for Lisa here that like, you know This is some of my favorite episodes with lisa and and yardley is so good in this one But a lot of my favorite with lisa is when she you know Gets cynical or well, she's not cynical in this actually she's the opposite but that she's demystified about something like that She grows up, you know, she learns. Oh everybody in congress is evil or

like that she grows up, you know, she learns, oh, everybody in Congress is evil or that like this toy that I've built up in my mind, like, oh, this character can represent all these things. And then she finds out that she has no control over it, that Malibu Stacey actually is like a very sexist construct. And here she learns it firsthand when she's trying to have her Malibu Stacey speak at the UN seemingly, which I think is literally seen in the Greta Gerwig film. I remember there is President Barbie in it. I don't know if she literally talks to the UN assembly in it. I can't remember. This is the kind of stuff that Greta Gerwig in her film, I think, was dealing with as well this kind of history of Barbie versus feminism and where it fits in. I think as

a company, Mattel had a better response 30 years later. Yeah. And I guess so as a man, I'll speak for women everywhere about feminism by saying this is an older version of feminism that I think there's a little more nuance lately in that when you do an episode like this, which I largely agree with and think was very good for everyone, you also run the risk of saying things that are feminine are bad. It's bad to like shopping and baking, etc. So I feel like that was something that was a slight issue when you're dealing with this decades worth of feminism and what came before. But I think now people realize like you can like baking, you can like sports,

you can like shopping. You might like to make cookies for the boys or you might like to have a bowl of strawberry ice cream, but feminine things aren't necessarily bad. Yeah, I feel like this is skirting around that it's really specifically talking about the sort of depreciating statements being made by Malibu Stacy. Right? Yeah. You know, it's not what she wears. She, you know, Lisa loves her outfits, not necessarily saying that she wants to go shopping. It's that you shouldn't ask her because she, you know Lisa loves her outfits not necessarily saying that she wants to go shopping It's that you shouldn't ask her because she you know couldn't possibly have an opinion That is relevant. So You know, I think they they they target what it is. They want to say and

The Lisa is you know rightly as she explains it all to Bart's face and Bart is the perfect person to Tell that to like this is this is telling girls They can just be vacuous ninnies who just need to get a rich husband. That's all and then Bart agrees. He's like yeah That's what I like. That's what Bart representing like, you know a sexist man in a childish form And I think some of these things are just part of like a fantasy life you can have and still be functional and feminist and everything. I think like 15 years ago or longer, a lot of people assume like, oh, Twilight is ruining women. We're going to have a bunch of women who want to be subservient. And it turns out like, oh, no, this was just like a fun fantasy for people and they can live a life separate of that. They can compartmentalize the problematic fantasy

and then be a feminist or whatever pro-social way to live outside of that. Yeah, there's a lot of both and going on, right? I mean, you can love something that is problematic. You just can, and when you live in an ecosystem that has been feeding you these unbelievable double standards your entire life, you know, you're what you're interested in is going to be shaped by that. So I don't know everything about

this, but you know, a lot of people's frustrations with Barbie was the inspiration from the Lily doll, right? This is sort of fundamentally a product designed for the male gaze and to, you know, to be purchased and enjoyed by German men based on a saucy comic strip that is honestly totally, it's really cute looking if you go look it up. But, you know, the creator was, I think, famously inspired by this doll that was for adults, And then this version of it ended up marketed for children. So there's an inexorable male gaze component to what Barbie was created from. And that's related to a lot of the criticisms around her as a sexy sex symbol,

because Lily, that's what she represented in those comics. But I thought it was interesting that that wasn't part of the Barbie movie or or this story I think because you know we the myth of Barbie's creation is something that is you know is so American and oh yeah that part isn't always discussed and why I think also because so many people had it I'm saying this I I since I didn't have Barbies when I was young because so many people had it I'm saying this I Didn't have Barbies when I was young. I feel like I shouldn't be the one to speak to this but you know, I think because it's so meaningful to the people that had that toy especially like the you know people who then

Mothers who then their daughters have the toy that history is overridden by personal experience as it, you know as it would have to be. So anyway, it's a fascinating story though. Yeah. Well, I think, well, also I remember around this time, like, you'd hear stories about Barbie. In the 90s, I remember you'd hear about Barbie talked about by Bemis in media about how, like, the, if Barbie was a real person, this would be like her measurements, this would be like her measurements This would be her body type and an impossible Standard to introduce to young kids to have to live up to like that was another of the things against

Bar and also like the the lack of diversity in Barbie dolls for the longest time as well Like there's there were many things about Barbie that teen talk Barbie just kind of put one of the biggest things just With a few phrases it made it into a big talking point in discussion Henry What did you think of this episode as a child? I'm curious You know, I think I liked it. All right, it wasn't one I like skipped through but you know, the Barbie stuff flew right past me I think I love the Abe stuff and fun stuff, but I know the Barbie stuff flew right past me. I think I love the Abe stuff as fun stuff, but I enjoyed the episode.

Yeah, I didn't think too much about it as a toy until other than the toy stuff, they finally talked about a toy I did own at the start of the next act. You know, I did. Yes. That I remember very well as a kid being like, hey, I have that Spider-Man.

I have the Spider-Man they're referencing here. Oh, but here's another important thing. Enough about this feminism history stuff. Where is that borrowed image of Bart from? I always try, I am very proud of myself when I can identify reused animation in the episode and I have here. That's when Bart says write on Say It Sister. Is that the bit of animation? Yes, yeah. It's about four frames of Bart that is clearly from a season two episode and not this episode. Though if you want to know what it's specifically from, it's from the way we was when Bart says, I'm living it, but I ain't loving it.

But it's reversed, so at first it might be hard to remember like, wait, that's not how it looked. They flipped the image to trick you, so there you go. Another reused animation identified. That's why he's got the little line behind his mouth. Very season two, Bart. Yes. I wonder who made that choice to pull that animation. That's also hard to do. You know, just to unearth the, you know, the actual cells from something several seasons ago. So. For things like this, I think it was a case of them asking their video editors, like, can you find us a clip where Bard is facing this way in this room with this many mouth flaps? They ended it in post, not a conversation with the animation studio probably.

Yeah, it's all done in post, which is why The Simpsons can never be remastered because so much of the show is reused animation that is all done in video. Right. After we come back from the break, we have Lisa talking to her friends, which is also a good joke about how Lisa has kind of outgrown her friends to be. They follow up this even better with like, Mariah Caret stuff, like just, I did identify with Lisa, you know, anytime she feels like the outsider in the group. Here's Lisa trying to talk about sexism with her friends. Let's buy makeup so the boys will like us. about sexism with her friends. No, Celeste. I mean the things she says are sexist. Lisa said a dirty word!

She's trying to talk about sexism and they think she just said like the word sex and a dirty word. They aren't ready for it. And this is based on the Barbie Liberation Front, which was a group of performance artists in, I believe, New York City. And what they did was they took the voice box out of the Talking Duke GI Joe action figure and slotted it into the Barbie action figure. I guess they're both in by Mattel, and they both have similar technologies.

So these are rolling out across the nation. So if your Barbie said they're going to murder Cobra or whatever, you got the bad Barbies. Yeah, Rebecca, did you heard of this part of the history? No, I didn't know about that at all. Those must be amazing collector's items now, right? Yeah, Rebecca, have you heard of this part of history? No, I didn't know about that at all. Those must be like amazing collector's items now, right? I wonder the lucky kids who got those.

But yeah, it's such a great, I mean, talk about like earned media or being able to like, they just did this in such a small group of people, but they get national news on it with this kind of thing. Like it's an incredible like piece of, I don't know, transgressgressive art you can even call it. Yeah, that's good activism if you can make something so poignant and so entertaining at the same Time this makes me think it's speaking of Woody Is that how it works in Toy Story 4 when he gives up his voice box does that doll say there's a stake in my boots now Is that the red? So like a reference to one of these? All guess it just allows her to speak, but I don't know if they... Yeah, I guess she doesn't speak in Woody's voice. That would have been great.

Yeah, that would have been cool and interesting toy. We're on the side that thinks that... What was her name again, Henry? Was it Talky Tina or was it a reference to Talky Tina? Yeah, we feel like she didn't get her comeuppance. She did not deserve that voice box. Check out our Toy Story 4 podcast for more. He does kind of get away with maiming Woody

and then getting to get what she wanted. We come down hard on Chatty Cathy or whatever it is. I have a lot of thoughts about Toy Story 4, but I'll save them for another. Mm-hmm. Well, a credit to Brian Van Hooker, a crack, because in his article on the oral history of this, he did got a statement from Igor Vamos, professor of media arts and founder of

the Barbie Liberation Organization to talk about it and yeah he mentions Barbies would say things like dead men tell no lies and GI Joe would say I love to shop. Both those toys have their cultural baggage which was really easy to see when their voice boxes were swapped. With a group of about 30 people across the country We switched out about a hundred dolls though We said it was 300 and created a media spectacle that came to a head in Christmas of 1993 Oh, by the way was Gabby Gabby. Ah, okay. What a great piece of activism. That's so cool

To hear one of the leader of it or the founder of it admit like oh, yeah a hundred dolls tops But it made huge media. And it is a great statement of like, well why is it wrong if GI Joe says these things or Barbie says these things now? Or also like, isn't it crazy that GI Joe says all these violent things? All right, should we question that?

Right, that's true. Yes, there's controversy over Barbie, but it's fine. Yeah. Everyone was freaking out about Twilight, but it's fine. Yeah, yeah Everyone was freaking out about Twilight, but no one was freaking out about whatever the boy equivalent was I don't know what boys were reading Probably nothing Reddits 4chan 4chan sure when they were watching the the Michael Bay Transformers movies, which were basically Military ads as well. They were definitely watching those

Isn't great like if you guys have both ridden the, or seen the Universal Transformers ride, that is basically like you're joining the army to ride that ride. And you're- It's the only time that it's not illegal to impersonate a soldier. Yes.

Is when you're working for the Transformers ride. I just remember feeling really overwhelmed. There's just a lot of visual information happening on that ride. for the Transformers ride? I just remember feeling really overwhelmed. There's just a lot of visual information happening on that ride. There are very few rides you're gonna watch where characters are murdered by your heroes on the ride. Like they kill other Transformers on that ride.

Like you will see Optimus Prime shoot and kill other robots. Yeah. The real life thing they're pulling from action figure wise here. When I heard this guy talk, I was like, oh, I know this exact one. And I looked it up so I'd know the name of it. It is from the toy biz 1991 line, amazing Spider-Man electronic talking action figure. And he would say, spider sense tingling and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in that same

muffled way. And you had this? Yes, yes I did. No, my brother, I think he got the talking punisher I wanna say, which that's also a great toy to sell to children, now that I think about it. Was your brother a Spider-Man fan, or did you totally plant the flag in that IP? He was more the X-Men guy.

He liked X-Men. So you're saying he's a cooler? Yes, he would say that too, but. No, he was cooler, I'll admit it. I just told the story about going to attend one of his soccer games as a kid while I was reading the Red Dwarf novel. So I think we know who the cool one is here.

This action figure though, it didn't have any as good as the Barbie technology. The thing that talked was a backpack. Like you had to put a backpack on him and that had the button that talked. So it wasn't even like built into him. It's basically greeting card technology, right? Yes, yeah.

And I bet none of them even work anymore because you have to think like all of the stuff inside of them is rotted out, right? That it could barely talk in 1991, let alone now. If someone left the battery in that thing, it has since exploded and ruined whatever function it had before like an old NES cartridge

Or a Vita or a PSP. Oh, right. It's a ticking time bombs check your drawers everyone if you value your family's life Those things are gonna go off really a PSP is dangerous now. Apparently those batteries are popping in those PSPs these days I hope DSs are okay. Oh, and last thing about this scene that I like is that Celeste is a very funny design. She's fun, she has a lot of character to her. I'm not like saying she's ugly. She's designed to be kind of dopey looking, it's fair.

She's the goofus of the group. Yeah, yeah, it's cute that they gave her a name and like a very distinct design, but she never comes back. It's too bad, a waste of Celeste. Lisa has so few named character friends other than Janie. Like they kind of have to make Sherry and Terry her friends sometimes when it's like, but they're in a different class than her.

She never does stuff with Sherry and Terry. There's just Janie. Right, but that's why it's so impactful when she makes friends in an episode. I think that's the trade off. So then it makes it even sadder that by the end of the episode, the friend is never seen again.

I believe. Yeah. So here after all of this, this is when it's around the dinner table and Lisa is looking for support from her family. They cannot keep making dolls like this. Something has to be done. Dolls like this, something has to be done! Lisa, ordinarily I'd say you should stand up for what you believe in. But you've been doing that an awful lot lately. Yeah, you made us march in that gay rights parade. And we can't watch Fox, cause they own those chemical weapons plants in Syria. I can't believe you're just gonna stand by as your daughters grow up in a world where this, this is their role model.

I had a Malibu Stacey when I was little and I turned out alright. Now let's forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream. Now let's forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream. Strawberry ice cream. Mmm. Ha ha ha. So I love this scene because it's just like how a few episodes earlier, they were making a story about how Marge, you as a plot device are the wet blanket on everything.

And here they're pointing out to Lisa, you know, we've actually done a lot of stories of you standing up for what you believe in now. It's getting a little repetitive. And by the way, I'm about to debut some Simpsons trivia that has never been heard before in the history of Simpsons podcasting. Thanks to the Instagram account Simpsons.production.art I can tell you that the two prominent gay

men in the photo with Bart are character designers Lance Wilder on the left and Alex Diltz on the right. Whoa! Wow! So the guys standing next to Bart under local g gaze show their pride based on those two artists. Yes, yes. Sure it's an inside joke, but the character designers basically did

their own character designs, and they just became background characters for a bit. They used these two guys. I guess a layout artist had a funny sense of humor. Or maybe one of them did the layout, I'm not sure. I love when they can get away with drawing themselves into the show. It sounded like Matt Groening was usually, he didn't always like when he could tell can get away with drawing themselves into the show. It sounded like Matt Groening was usually,

he didn't always like when he could tell somebody was an animator drawn into the show. Or an animator's girlfriend. Yes, yeah. It's part of the fun of watching Steven Universe when you get to know the Crewniverse is recognizing artists drawn into the show, I'd say. Well, it's a tradition to do cameos.

One would hope that one would check with whomever is being drawn when they're being used for anything specific. Yeah, everybody is tired of Lisa standing up for things. I mean, that drawing of Bart is so, his face, his blank face, God, that's so good. And now every major corporation

owns chemical weapons plants around the world. So it's called diverse investing, guys. And we shouldn't be so judgy about it. No, I kid, I kid. I like that they're so mean to Fox. Bob, we said it before, could you imagine a joke like this where you would replace the word Fox with Disney? Right?

No, no, no, absolutely not. They're too busy promoting Loki and Billie Eilish to make jokes at Disney's expense right now. Yes, true, true. I like when Marge can be, I don't want to call her conservative, but when she can be like, she'll make an old-fashioned statement,

or even, you know, basically she's talking like people like, hey, I did blank when I was a kid and I turned out okay. Like me saying I watched Looney Tunes as a kid and I turned out okay. Statements like that. By the way, I want to note, I mentioned the two character designers. One of them is still working for the show

and he started in season two. So Lance Wilder is still, now he's a background designer and he's working up to the last aired episode as a background designer. So congratulations, Lance. That's amazing. That's so awesome. It can be a full lifetime career, The Simpsons.

Now The Simpsons just got renewed to season 40. Can he stay on until season 40? I wish him luck if that's what he wants. I saw the Simpsons show at the Hollywood Bowl and David Silverman came out and played the tuba on stage. I like shed a tear. It's just like, oh my gosh, it's so amazing. Like what a career and what a brilliant artist.

And we're from the same hometown. So I've always wanted to meet him. Oh, that's so cool. So cool to see him with his tuba. I need to set up a general meeting for you two guys to finally meet. Oh man, I'd flip out, oh my gosh. I mean, his drawings for me.

How have I met him and Rebecca hasn't? Yeah. This is crazy. Our paths just haven't crossed, although I was there at the Hollywood Bowl watching him perform, so. You've at the Hollywood Bowl watching him perform. You've told the story in here before though, you have been Matt Groening and presented him with your comic.

Yes, yeah, oh my gosh, when I was like, I think it was 19 or so, that was a long time ago. I would see Abe Groening pretty often at the Annie's. That's cool. Yeah. You mean his, almost certainly passed away a long time ago, Matt Greening's grandfather Avery. No, no, no, his son.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And yes, he was a rabbit. That's right. I didn't pick up on that, if that is so. This is where Lisa decides she's going to call the company to complain. There's a joke that Lisa is so excited to complain in person. This is bordering on, I won't play the jingle because this episode is on Lisa's side, but

it is bordering on saying that Lisa complains too much and that she is a complaining liberal woman, I feel like. Yeah, and treating Keebler employees like they're wearing fur or something. Yes. In the original script, it's Maybelline is the company which that is more serious It's a funnier change to make a Keebler, but it also does make Lisa into a more unserious character I think so more more animal testing related It feels like something you actually should be mad about instead of the Keebler elves like yeah

So they head over to the Malibu Stacy factory. I've mentioned it before I've gone on a Jelly Belly factory tour, but that's the only factory tour I've ever been on. Bob's been to some breweries, but Rebecca, have you been to any factory tours in your life? Yes, actually. Oh, it was something we used to do as as kids. Our parents would take us to the, you know, the snack belt, you know, in like Pennsylvania. They make like hers chips. I think I saw the Cape Cod chip factory. They make a lot of snacks near where I grew up.

And so, yeah, you can go to the snack belt. You can see them make the chips. You can see them come right off the thing. Hershey Park, also close to where I grew up. And it's like, there's a theme park, but you can also, the chocolate, and get an education, I a theme park but you can also the chocolate and get an education I guess about Hershey himself and yeah I don't know I learned a lot about snacks. Hers has like a I'm gonna get this wrong like it's chipmunk or something it has a mascot there's like

one of these mascots that would be like walking around and saying hi to the kids yeah factory tours. Now you're speaking my language. I didn't know about this snack belt, otherwise known as the pretzel belt apparently, and I lived in Eastern Ohio, so I only made it to Western Pennsylvania. I need to yell at my parents. They could have taken me there. Could have taken you to the snack belt, could have gone to Hershey Park while you're over there. Yes, I'm going to call my mom and say there was a pretzel belt and I wasn't informed and just hang up Yeah, I mean we had good snacks. We had utz they were better than nuts The utz cheese balls fantastic, they're so good. Yeah

but sometimes there's some places out here that'll stock us and I'll get a bunch when I see him just like, you know It's such a surprise and bring him back, I'll squirrel him back from the East Coast if I visit. Grandma Utz, that was my favorite. I like kettle chips when I was younger. Did you ever see a chute get clogged there and have to be undone? No, I'm pretty sure they kept it pretty uneventful when people were walking by. I don't know, I remember everything going pretty smooth. I remember seeing stuff coming off the belt, a bunch of chips. I don't know. I remember everything going pretty smooth. I remember seeing stuff coming off the belt bunch of chips, but uh, I don't know. It makes me think about Ian with Don't. I think in Florida they had it set up where you could like watch animators working. That's like not a comfortable situation.

Oh, at Disney World, yeah. Yes, it's like it's not a comfortable situation, you know, to be like a fish in a bowl working on your stuff while people are watching you. Any factory that's thinking about it would probably set up some sort of secondary tour thing. But I don't know. I felt like what I saw, at least on the snack belt on the pretzel belt was pretty authentic. I'm learning for the first time now I can order Utz cheese balls in Canada.

And I might be doing that as we talk. Are you familiar with the Utz cheese balls, Henry? Is that the one in the big clear tub? Okay. Yes. Yeah. Despite all these salty snack treats I ate as a youth, I did not have those too much. We were more of a Cheetos household.

My UTS Cheeseball Sense memory is like being at like some sort of like rabbinical Jewish summer camp, just sitting with a bunch of other kids watching Star Wars and eating fistfuls of UTS cheese balls. Yeah, that's nice. You know, also I did go to another factory recently. Well, it was a fake factory, but it was more of the, it was the Cup Noodle Museum that's in Yokohama. Oh, that must be amazing.

Oh, Cup Noodle has such an interesting story too. Yes, you'll learn all about it there. It is a really fun museum and you get to like make your own cup noodle and draw on it and stuff. Yeah, I read that great manga about it. It's charming. But here we see that they're getting a tour and also get to watch actually at the cup noodle museum. There was a really cool like 10 minute film that basically is like what Lisa and Marge

are watching with. There must not be a popular tour that because it's just the two of them on it being shown around by this female employee of the Malibu Stacey Company. But yeah, the clog in the torso chute, it is such a fun, Azaria's delivery that makes it great, really. And torso chute is just poetry. Like there's, you know, when you just hear

a transcendent Lee written joke, that's one. I think Walking Bird, torso chute, these are the things. The sound design of him just jamming a broom handle in there and rattling it around, it's very well observed. And then they're all just falling out, and it's a horrible pile. It is a fantasy that these would be made in America, though. True.

I also love, it's a very American thing, too, of like, in the imagination of all these kiddy things who makes them like union workers, who are just foul- foul mouth union guys, which yes, you're right. But those jobs don't exist anymore in Springfield either. But back then you could imagine it. Right. The hair nets are such a nice touch. So then we see Marge and Lisa get to watch the video together. It also is something that hits me when they bring up that it's like the 35 year history and all that of it. Like this episode is 31 years old now. So the the old thing of Malibu Stacy is almost in this episode is only slightly older than this episode is now.

But we get to learn about Stacy Lavelle, the creator. Yes, this also is inspired by Ruth Handler, the real creator of Barbie, and that she talked about her big visions for it, and also she did leave Mattel after a 1975 SEC investigation for tax crimes. Not funneling profits to the Viet Cong? Not that, no. Okay. Yeah, I guess, I'm sorry if you mentioned this, Henry.

I was looking something up. It's timed out perfectly to be the 35th anniversary of Barbie, this episode. That is great. Yeah, they were pulling it again That is from you know him in real life pulling Bill Oakley He learned a lot about Barbie from going to Barbie conventions with with Rachel Polito Yeah, he does say it was a passing fancy for her by the time the commentary is recorded in 2004 She is well out of the Barbie collector sphere But a lot of this came from his experience going to the conventions with her meeting the people

Seeing what the phenomenon was like learning about barbie I forget if it was the band before or cracked piece apologies to those writers, but in one of them he mentions that While waiting around at a barbie convention. He wrote steamed hams. He mentions that as like whoa Yeah It's where the magic at a Barbie convention, he wrote steamed hams. He mentions that as like, whoa. Yeah. It's where the magic happened. That's amazing. That's Stacy Khan, 94. Yeah. I love that it's forever 94. Oh, and actually, yeah, Rebecca, I forget if we mentioned this last time, but like Bill and Josh are also, they're from the Delmarva area too. They're from the like, greater Baltimore area. That's where they both grew up and went to high school together. Oh man, it's like I get it too because you know that Maryland there's like a Baltimore like sense of humor that you know it's has been so important

and inspiring and informative to me. I mean I can totally see that culture in the work that they do. That makes a lot of sense. Growing up I never thought I'd get to like work in animation because I was so far away from the industry. So like slowly finding out that so many animators and artists that I love were East Coasters or Marylanders was like it was really inspiring to me. The real-life Stacey Lavelle Ruth Handler as well she passed away in 2002. And passed away she was just in the Barbie movie are Are you kidding me? Yes, she was portrayed by Rhea Perlman. I don't know. It seemed like it was done in good intentions, but I didn't love them putting words in her mouth.

I don't know, Rhea Perlman playing like her ghost. It just, it felt weird to me, not to be, again, I don't want to be too negative on the movie, but I didn't particularly like that part. Ultimately, controlling the narrative around Barbie would have to be a huge part of the point of the film. Yes. I think it's okay to be negative because the movie made three billion dollars. You're bunching up. Yeah yeah I didn't think it was very good that's just my own take. The message was fine it just I've heard all these jokes before

and the movie starts with basically a Simpsons joke from 1992 in a 2023 movie and I was like this is it this is what everyone's talking about all right oh the 2001 gag yeah just like this is how a Simpsons and a critic opens from back in the 90s but I like Greta Gerwig stuff that's not Barbie I love Lady Bird I think her and the co-writer Nolan Bombach like they did their best in doing something that is also it's a billion dollar toy movie it is they have a lot of interest to serve in that thing for sure and I mean yes like you said Bob it was the highest grossing movie that year so how can I like be too mean to it in one Oscars who are you afraid of Barbie yeah I mean I am scared of Barbie she's very scary yeah I've been fascinated by

these films that and I'm not saying this even as a negative, that are commercials, like the Super Mario Brothers movie, I really enjoyed it. It's a commercial, you know, the Barbie movie is a commercial, like I think it's interesting the conversation around it, you know, as a movie or as a story, but fundamentally, I think movies, you know, the turtles, it's like, again, it's like, as someone who makes commercial art, I'm like, I do find it interesting to see the ways in which these films are primarily a commercial, can't really challenge and are ultimately designed to expand and rebrand the franchise to make it more accessible and more contemporary.

I think, you know, ultimately ultimately the subversive elements of the Barbie movie were in service of making it relevant and accessible, all in ways that would be aligned with the goals of Mattel. So that's what I found sort of interesting about the conversation around it. And then, you know, the fact that it doesn't talk about these earlier origins or how, anyway, I have a lot of thoughts about it, but there's a lot that I appreciate about it. And I love, I mean a lot of thoughts about it, but there's a lot that I appreciate about it. And I love, I mean, just also the sets and the choreography and, you know, all the ways that it's kinetic and super entertaining. The way that it is a commercial is like fourth dimensionally

smart. I have a lot of thoughts about it. Basically on the same page, I just feel like it had to be too reverent to the brand in a way that I think exceeded what it had to do to be a good movie. So that kind of pushed me away a little bit. You can tell in the movie where they hit the guardrails of like where how many women have been in charge of Mattel and like Will Ferrell just says, go like, there was one once.

There's a defensiveness of the Mattel business culture. Like he's and Will Ferrell is basically playing like the, the comedy version of the guys who are in this episode, except to our, like the straight up sexist businessman who owned Malibu Stacy. Yeah. But I mean, I think the interesting part is like, well, now when you see this and then you purchase a Barbie, you feel like you're part of a resistance against that culture, except you are also just engaging with it, because that's not necessarily untrue. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, are you challenging it? Are you accepting it? Anyway. Mm hmm. Right. That's a whole, you're right.

Yes, yes. You know, two years later, we can finish trying to figure this one out. We can all agree Will Ferrell not the spice that movie needed That's my final statement. I would say that was Will Ferrell. It was his best day. I don't think he's been better Okay, so it's like you're eating an ice cream sundae. You hit a huge patch of cumin. You're like what's going on? This should not be in my sundae, I would say it's an aged banana That's what I would say like it should be there, but it's been there too long. It's like, this banana kinda, it's turned brown. I'll say cumin has a use, not in my sundae.

Get it out of there. Okay, but enough about that. I always think about, this is like a late Simpsons, but that whole like, what's wrong with my sundae's? Puma pride. I don't know, I think about that constantly. I don't know why, just Bart's sad face while he reluctantly eats Marge's giant sundae.

Two more bites. Yeah. Yeah, Cavendish's delivery of that is great. I love that. There is a funny bit cut from the original draft as well that is a joke about classic Barbie history, which this was in one of the oral histories of a Barbie expert talking about how astronaut Barbie released in the late sixties or early seventies was seen as a major, as seen as

like a forward progressive thing to say like, Oh, see little girls, you can be an astronaut just like Barbie. So the joke in the original script playing on that is in the video, they say like, and in 1969, Stacey made history with astronaut wife, Stacey. Why'd they cut it? It would have been funny. Yes, this is where we get a big, big improvement or upgrade on the character of Waylon Smithers here. Waylon Smithers, to this point, they know he's gay.

They're writing the jokes. He's gay. Not just a man who is subservient to Mr. Burns, but a gay man. They can only be so explicit back in the 90s. Making him the biggest toy collector of Malibu Stacy in the world, that is a big upgrade. Yeah, his inner life stock just shot up 10,000%. And the few details we hear about the convention are perfect. I'm not dissing San Diego. I've been there. It's a lovely city. Great zoo, by the way.

But it feels like that is the place where you will have StacyCon and it's such a low rent operation that you don't even have to leave the airport. You get off your plane, you just go to the connected airport, connected hotel, and that's where the convention is. Just so you don't forget though, they do that boot up sequence with Mr. Burns on the computer, which was very, very burned into my mind as a kid. I didn't have the guts to make it my startup sound as a youth. Or I never thought to do it. But seeing Smithers's home is wonderful. I love you get to see like, it's literally the interior life, like it's shot in his house. We'll visit it later. But Bill Oakley is talking around in no actionable way. But he says that when he, via his wife,

learned about the men who collected Barbie dolls, he felt that, oh, that could be Smithers, basically, is what he is saying for meeting those men. I think Oakley in one of the articles talked about that his, the went to weren't in San Diego, but in South Carolina was where he had to go to for it. It's interesting. If you to go to for it. Oh, that's interesting. If you want to go to the national Barbie doll collectors convention this year,

it's in June in the last week of June in Louisville, Kentucky. If you want to head over there, only $500 for one of the fanciest tickets. Apparently you get like exclusive toys with that. So it's not just, uh, it's not just 500. This is where we get the opening clip of the episode of Lisa challenging and being so, I love how she's so angry. Like she's just sitting there ready to just explode with this question. I feel for Lisa here. And of course, like she gets to hear from the female executive there, a bunch of like PR, honestly, what the Mattel company would say in real life about feelings about saying Barbie

is sexist and completely dismiss it with PR jargon and walk out of the room. Though in this case we see that it is entirely institutional there and that this woman is being sexually harassed every day, apparently. The way she closes the door is a funny gag. That animation is really well timed. It really sticks out. It's really, it's quite good. So Lisa sees that there's limits to what she can do

by talking directly to him. And this is where she comes to a realization alongside Abe. It's awful being a kid. No one listens to you. It's rotten being old. No one listens to you. I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.

Well, I'm not going to accomplish anything just sitting here. And griping, it's time for... Action! I've got to talk to that woman who invented Malibu Stacy and see if I can get her to... Come on, a retirement. I'm gonna get me a job. A real Malibu! And see if Stacey can help... invent me... young... hell! You're getting a job!

Yes! I'm going where the action is! Come in, come in! Mayday! I'm losing your transmission! I said French fries! What the, do we sell French fries? There's a lot here, but first off,

Bob, we love Nuts and Gub, don't we? We love it a lot. Can we say it's the name of our company? We have incorporated as Nuts and Gub. I just doxxed us. Really? That's so funny. Oh my gosh. It's the perfect name for any ill-advised product. Yes.

Like ours. Especially one started by white males, age 18 to 49. Which I'm going to be sad when I'm out of that. You know, I'm going to enjoy the rest of the years I have in that demo. It's great to be relevant. And I love the back and forth between Lisa and Abe as they're getting fired up, but then Abe forgets what he's talking about and just the pathetic help Is really good?

Like here's what you do next I Love that it's written as like oh, this is great writing of cross Dialogue that they're both talking at the same time except Abe can't keep up with the great writing. He's lost himself I except Abe can't keep up with the great writing. He's lost himself in it. I like that Lisa is following and also cares about what's going on with him. I think that's really nice. It's a great that they have the crossing of their storylines here too.

Like both the A and B plot meet up perfectly in this scene. Yeah, a lot of people forget the Abe stuff. I tend to forget it's a huge chunk of the episode. And I guess the plot about him working at the Krusty Burger was based on a real world push by certain companies to employ the elderly. I think Bill Oakley cites McDonald's on the commentary. And this is right as we're getting old people as greeters at Walmart. And in a way, it's nice. It's like you're telling the elderly you have a function in society, you can be part of the workforce, but also the underlying sentiment is you kind

of need this because we don't take care of the elderly. So you need a source of income even after you retire from decades and decades of work. Oh, yeah. Well, if you want to look up the McDonald's ad, it's from 1987 and you can find it on YouTube as the new kid, which is very visual. So I didn't pull it to play it. But yes, it is a man in Grandpa's age who's like oh, I'm gonna start a my new job and the joke is or not the joke But the cute conceit of it is that he's like the trainee at McDonald's and he's being trained in how to work at McDonald's Correctly and everybody loves him there. He's the new kid at the place. And so it's also about how it like, and yes, it does seem a

little dystopian to watch it now, I'd say. Yeah. Oh my goodness. There's a whole Washington Post article about it being talked about even in 1987 is like, is this good to make the little people work at McDonald's? Like, seems dangerous. That's the difference. Now everyone, like all these major corporate owned publications would be like, it's great. Headline, inspiring story. 87 year old starts working at McDonald's. Yeah. Packing your packages, shipping them, delivering them to your house.

This is also a joke about like television demographics, too. The nuts and gum thing, which like you get to know very well working in television animation even, I would bet Rebecca. Yes, well, that wasn't my demo, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, especially for ad driven media, that's what it's all for. I was six to 11, six to 11 boys demographic, so that's the one I know really well. I want to say white male 14, sorry 18 to 49 was probably the Simpsons demographic

at this time. Yes. I bet, yeah I'm sure they were constantly getting grilled on whether or not it was servicing that. I mean that's- I think Bill Oakley was saying that as the show was declining in popularity during his tenure there, a lot of kids were watching it, but adults were watching the competing shows, and they weren't actually advertising to the children with the commercials on their show. He still has a grudge against Matt about you for that very reason.

Oh, that's interesting. So we head over to Smithers' place. This is where Lisa is investigating, and this would just be going to a website now, but I love that she goes to Smithers to ask, and that Smithers has his own newsletter. Like, that's just so great. He would have a podcast on Malibu Stasis.

He's doing zines in the early 90s. It's great. It's great. This is where we get another truly perfect little Smithers scene here. Yes? Why, it's Homer Simpson's daughter. I thought you might be able to help me get in touch little Smithers scene here. Stacey newsletter that contains her last known whereabouts. I'll print you out a copy Hello Smithers, you're quite good at turning me on You probably should ignore that

Don't know how many conversations Smithers recorded to get all of those words Yes, right. Shearer is playing it like you're quite good, like it's clearly spliced together. He never got Mr. Burns to just say it out loud. It's one full sentence. I never interpreted piece together pieces of his real voice, I think, you know, because there was already some like text to speech technology at that time. My dad had a computer at work, he has a design studio called Oris Design, and when you booted up his computer it would go go, A-U-R-A-S. And it was just such a cool, high-tech thing to me.

Oh my gosh, when I was eight or whatever, it reminds me of it. It just seemed it was like that. I also love the sexy burns, like the way he's holding his arms. We can be honest, Smithers used Gen. AI for that. That's a valid use of it. I hope he had a friend who is an artist who he paid to do that. It's also just cute how he's like, oh, it's Homer Simpson's daughter. Let me help you. Like, it's just his friendliness with Lisa is adorable too.

Unlike Mr. Burns, he recognizes every member of the family at this point. This reminded me of my startup noises, which for a time were clips from Mystery Science Theater 3000 until it annoyed my parents so much that they made me turn them off. Who was Mitchell, Henry? Why do they keep screaming this at me? I think I had six different versions of Mitchell that would be different things.

Of like, oh, you turned it on, you turned it off. Different Mitchells would be said. Did you have the my, my, my, my Mitchell in there? Yes, I believe I did have that, yes. And also a couple of Space Mutinies too, to give you a time frame. This would be late 90s. The best of the best, man, Space Mutiny.

I had more Mitchells than alt names for the lead character of Space Mutiny. Yeah, for a time I had the Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie screensaver downloaded from the movie website and there was a song in the screensaver that was not actually in the movie. I guess they did a rock version of the theme song and they recorded it, didn't use it, but it ends up in the screensaver for some reason. I don't know why.

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's really cool. I missed out on that screensaver or maybe it was too good for my computer. I don't know why. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's really cool. I missed out on that screensaver. Or maybe it was too good for my computer. I don't know. You missed it was a hell of a screensaver, Henry. You're going to live the rest of your life in deep regret

now that you've heard about this. I mean, Mystery Science Theater movie didn't even come to my town. I didn't see it until the VHS release. Same here. Same here. So all I could do is watch the screensaver and savor all eight jokes I would later hear on VHS. And Rebecca has cast Joe Hodgson in her own inner cartoon.

That's now, you're the biggest fan here. Oh my gosh. That was like a really, really long-term dream come true to get to work with him. And he's so funny and he's so nice. Yeah, he really, he's such a brilliant guy. And he did a lot of like ad libbing for so many of those Mayor Dewey lines that it's just hysterical. But yeah, oh my gosh, that was total dream come true.

So Lisa heads to Recluse Ranch Estates and they apparently animated it. Oakley remembered it as animated. It is in the script that Thomas Pinchon, J.D. Salinger and and Salman Rushdie all lived there, and they were driving off to go to El Torito when Lisa arrives. Oh, that's so funny.

Oh, man. Well, Thomas Pinchon would be in an episode later, like seven or eight years later, I guess. Yeah, still, they didn't get J.D. Salinger or Salman Rushdie, unfortunately. They missed out on that, but these guys. Clearly, neither of their kids were Simpsons fans like Thomas Pinchon's son was.

Oh, right. So they arrive at Stacey's Dream House, and it is very cute that Lisa buzzes in, and it's set up like, you know how many people have come here? Nobody has. Am I the first? So good. But yes, this is our big guest star

of the episode, it's Kathleen Turner. She's great, isn't she, in this? Yeah, yeah. So she would soon be the star of John Waters' Serial Mom this year. And her star power would fade afterwards though because she had rheumatoid arthritis, which was very debilitating, and she was self-medicating with alcohol. So the combination of those two factors made her very very hard to work with Unfortunately, so this is kind of the end of this phase of her career. It's really too bad Yeah, she's in a better place today. I think she's doing a lot better and then the ads at least she can be you know You can empathize with what she was going through She was also a star of another hit Gracie film, like Big, War of the Roses.

So she was also in the Gracie family. And she had been Jessica Rabbit as well. And yeah, I do wonder what did she think of like, you know, a lot of the jokes with Stacey Lavelle are that she has a drinking problem. I do wonder if that was like how Kathleen Turner was feeling about that at the time. I like how on the commentary, we made the joke before but they I forgot David Merkin admits You might notice all of my guests are very attractive women Yes, that's his kind of guess and then Oakley says well

We just got a bunch of old men on our show forget on our seasons Yeah, he cast Rodney Dangerfield instead of Meryl Streep and Kathleen Turner she was also interviewed for one of those oral histories in 2023 and she looked back on it very happily. She loved doing it and here's one of her quotes that she loved playing it because of the character's

skepticism, her cynicism, and then being converted, being compelled by the girl. It was just deliciously funny and sad. And I got the sense from the interview that Turner even more so identifies with LaVelle now as she's grown older and aged into the age of the character in the episode two, I think. She plays so world weary.

She brings so much weight to the character. Yeah, and I guess I think because of her signature husky voice, you forget how old Kathleen Turner actually is. She was only 40 at this time. Wow, so we're older than her now. We're older than a lot of people now, it's unfortunate. Yeah. I'm a big fan of hers. She was a short-lister to be a gem, but I was never able to get in touch with her. I'm a big fan of hers. She is great. Let's hear a little bit of Stacey's story here I see exactly what you mean. This is a problem. But what do you expect me to do change what she says? It's your company Not since I was forced out in 1974. They said my way of thinking just wasn't cost effective. That's awful.

Well that and I was funneling profits to the Viet Cong. But you are Malibu, Stacey, and as long as she has your name, you have the responsibility. I'd be mortified if someone ever made a lousy product with the Simpson name on it. I may have had things in common with Stacey in the beginning, but 30 years of living her lifestyle taught me some very harsh lessons. Five Hunspins, Ken, Johnny, Joe, Dr. Colossus, Steve Austin. But if you can learn from Malibu Stacey's mistakes,

so can everyone. I'm sure we can think of something together. Come on. Not now. I'm too drunk. No, you're not. Uh, I'll come back tomorrow. She's so great at deadpanning these very, very zany lines,

including her list of boyfriends. To hear Kathleen Turner say Dr. Colossus, she gives it so much dramatic weight. She must have lived up on Death Mountain with all of his stuff when they were married. It's great that Dr. Colossus is one of the men in prison in part two of Who Shot Mr. Burns. They brought him back for that. The great gag that she married all of these action figure people when she says like, oh, I didn't live a life like Stacey. And then she did all of these things of the

toy marrying other toys, like including just Steve Austin, not Lee Majors, but Steve Austin, who Marge is in love with. So there's a little of Jane Fonda as well in there too, who, well, she didn't become a recluse, but she didn't act in things for a long time. Well, and the Viet Cong thing is that's very Jane Fonda. That's it, Hanoi Jane.

Yes. They're still mad about it. Yeah, they're still. Though, you know what? Well, enough people have forgiven her that she can star in movies now, I guess, or have given up on it, I suppose. But she's now one of the 80 for Brady's. I do think as a kid, maybe I did feel a little for Lisa in that I was around this time just learning what happens to the creators of things I loved, like that I would learn, you know, oh, the person who created Spider-Man must be rich. And you've learned that Steve Ditko was, you know, he was even more of a recluse than this character was.

Or the sad story of you, the creators of Superman, Sigel and Schuster, like you learn as a kid, you think, oh, this person created this character, you must be rich. But the Stacey at least gets to be richer than those people were because she did own the company too. Oh, and lastly, I love that Lisa can recognize that she is too drunk. Like just the way her eyes relax when she's like,

I'm too drunk. Like she was like, yeah, she is too drunk. I'll get out of here. She's around her dad a lot. Oh, you're right. that's how she's learned. We have a quick moment in the Krusty Burger. We learned that special sauces, mayonnaise, and put out in the sun, another great line,

and great delivery by Dan on that. And Dan, god damn, I don't wanna play a million clips, but man, he's gonna bite you, he's gonna bite you. I like his playful attitude towards work here. He's trying to do a bit, and the teen is just staring dead forward and just bagging things without even paying attention. It's a great little cycle of animation on that kid.

Yeah, it's a beautiful bag too. I like that the joke doesn't end until someone is actually bitten by the burger. Damn sandwich took a bite out of me. After that little bit, Lisa has come back the next day and you know what, for an eight year old, she is an incredible character designer, I have to say. That is professional doll design she has there.

It is sweet that she's like, you know what, I am going to, I'm not gonna just complain, I'm gonna make the thing that will fix this. Like, I'm gonna put the thing out into the world and design the doll herself like I think it's a good message for the kids watching I should say it ability he had a funny thing about how it would inspire his kids or not I want to read it from the interview here was I remembered writing this and thinking if I have a daughter someday I wanted to watch this episode and like it he went on to have two daughters age 16

and 25 in 2023 and They've complimented him on it, but unlike the rest of the internet. They aren't obsessed They've both seen the episode Oakley says and I know that they both have enjoyed it, but it's not like they harp on it So there you go Well, I love all of the role models Lisa is funneling into the creation of this doll So we have Kathy guys white obviously the creator of the comic strip Kathy, Gertrude Stein, she was a queer woman writer and best known for her book, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,

Niedan Totenberg, an NPR correspondent, one of the founding mothers of the platform, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an important leader in the women's rights movement in mid to late 19th century America. So there you have it. I'm sure they were all in her little diorama or Thanksgiving centerpiece.

Oh yeah, right, yeah, her centerpiece, that's right. And they had a little dig at Eleanor Roosevelt too, it felt like, just a little bit. Though she did do quite a lot. I didn't know she served in even the Kennedy White House too. A lot of human rights groups in the UN, like yeah, but down to earth good looks is a joke about how she looked. Here's a good change they made from the original script. Instead of Gertrude Stein,

Lisa says, the wisdom of Jean Kirkpatrick, who I'm really glad that's cut because she was a member of the Reagan White House and backed many authoritarian regimes in the name of U.S. interests. So I'm glad Lisa does not look to Gene Kirkpatrick as inspiration anymore. That doesn't sound very Lisa. They must have realized that at the time. Yeah, all the rest seemed good. I think she would look to,

well Nina Totenberg's still doing it, right? Yeah, she's still at NPR. I think I looked her up when I originally took that note from the episode. At the time she would have been famous, she's a Supreme Court reporter, which I'm sure that's a very busy job these days too. She apparently was one of the people

who broke the Anita Hill story as well. Oh wow. So when Lisa shows it to her, it inspires her. Like I love you can see the passion come back in Stacey of Elm. That is Jeff Lynch like perfect action. Just like the fire is established at the start of the scene and then she rides out of her chair throws the drink in the fire and explodes like ah it's

beautiful whose drawings are so good the way your hair flies to like it's a perfect action shot but of course they have to end the scene on a joke which is when I would bet this gets cut for syndication sometime the GI Joe show or. Joe show or Joe. It's so inessential, but it is funny. I'll bomb your house into the ground, Missy. I would assume he didn't fulfill on that. We then see a little bit of toy designing. And yeah, Rebecca, what do you think of this as like designing the hairline of characters?

And I like that Stacy is an artist here. Yeah, well, I mean, I love the joke of everyone wanting it to be their hair until she finally says that they all have terrible hair. It feels like more of a self-deprecating joke about how odd the Simpsons designs are, but that is what makes them so iconic. Yeah, no other character can have hair like Marge, Homer,

Bart, Lisa, Maggie. They have the most unique hair in the show. Right, no other character can have hair like Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa, Maggie. They have the most unique hair in the show. Right. So many of those choices just date all the way back to the Tracy Elman shorts and early Classy Chupo experimentation and art on the characters. I like it when, I don't know, I have a love-hate relationship of when there's sort of a fourth-wall breakie acknowledgement of the fact that they look different than other people in their universe. I mean, I'm obsessed with the character designs of The Simpsons, especially the way they were reinterpreted by Dan Haskett when it became a show. So yeah, that's why I think it's interesting when they acknowledge

how particular those designs are contrasted with other people. I think it gets extra strange when you start to have guest characters with not just normal hair, but also actual pale skin tones and stuff. Anyway, neither here nor there. I like seeing some of the older choices that they're stuck with. No other character can have the beard line except for Homer and Lenny. Lenny is grandfathered in. Beyond season three and four, they weren't giving characters blue or purple or pink hair. So there's still a few characters left who have that hair color. Right. Yeah.

When any of the season two guys pop up or even now, like, I mean, also I love that Homer, he's like, oh, when you put it that way, which he's like, from a design point of view, like he's no longer insulted. He's like, oh, OK. Right. Yeah, that's insulted. He's like, okay Yeah, that's true. That's a real yes is funnier than no that they all totally accept that and Aren't upset anymore. Then we have another scene I love so much another of the perfect scenes in this episode as we head to the recording booth Talking doll take eight when I get married. I'm keeping my own name

I take eight. When I get married, I'm keeping my own name. Oh, you know, that should probably be if I choose to get married. Uh, look, little girl, we got other talking dollies to record today. All right, you poindexters, let's get this right. One, hey, hey, kids, I'm talking crusty. Two, hey, hey, here comes slide show Mel. Again, here comes side show Mel. Side show Mel.

Three, ha ha ha ha ha ha. But a ring, bada boom, I'm done. Learn from a professional, kid. OK, Krusty, we are ready to roll any... What the... This was actually the most relatable thing, watching this after-rater show running. Was this... was this a big sequence? You've been in the booth and on the directing side, too. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think part of it is that the time is money when you're doing these records. And there really are people, like we'd be on a schedule with other shows being recorded at Cartoon Network, so you can't go over. So there's something really powerfully manic in these recording sessions. Not necessarily when I've been behind, you know, the glass doing a voice, it's not my responsibility to keep things moving.

So I don't feel like that when I have been directing. It's like, you just have to move, you just have to move. And if something's wrong, you just have to get it right. And then you have to go to the next. And we've had people come in, you know, we had to get like two lines of pickups, you know, so people would, I'd say, hi, people would come in, they'd record two things and then they'd leave. And then it's like, you just have to have the next person in total revolving door. It's the most fun, but also one of the very, very stressful part of the process. Yeah. If you listen to Dan Castellaneta in real life, DuVoice, I think he's the opposite of Krusty because in recent months, the record sessions for some of the video games were released online and you can hear Dan and Nancy do their thing and they'll do 10, 12 different versions of

a single line. They'll say, Oh, do you want more? They're totally game. But I think Henry and I use this comparison, the crusty doing the doll lines as any celebrity showing up for a thing they don't want to be at and kind of have to do basically like any E3 appearance. Oh yes. Yeah. I love his way like slide show mal. Take it, slide show mal, slide show mal. Okay, see ya. I just think of the two living Beatles who were brought out for 10 seconds for

the Beatles rock band and they said one thing each and then they left the stage. And Paul McCartney openly chewing gum. I like to point this out every time I bring up this anecdote. And he just goes, look at us, we're androids. Yes, or playing like a video game from 20 years ago where they would still get the movie stars to be in the video games and you'd hear, you know, Tobey Maguire is Spider-Man, be like, I better stop this person. Yes.

Oh my gosh, my friends and I, we were just playing, oh, I was talking about this earlier, we're just playing the old Dark Angel game, which the whole the whole feature was like Jessica Alba is doing the voice in the game. But then there are some parts I mean, they have like the central cast doing the voices in the game. But there were clearly moments where they couldn't get a pickup. So a thing would come up, which would be like, you know, I'm sending you this text because I can't talk to you right. It was like no voice. It's just like, but you have to press this button to get to this next stage. And it's like, oh, man, you know, they couldn't get this pickup because they're obviously really, really busy. But yeah, I think it was such a big deal to have actual like voice work in games at that time. So it makes sense that it would be heavily promoted. Did you also officiate any action figure recordings or other toy recordings for actors on Steven Universe? I'm trying to think.

I didn't get to be at the game, you know, for like the Attack the Light, Save the Light, Unleash the Light. I reviewed all of those scripts, but I didn't get to be at those records. That's probably the closest thing. And I wish I could have been, but that was going... I believe that went through the studio grumpy face. But I would always vet that stuff because like we'd have certain rules people didn't necessarily know, like Garnet never asks questions. So I would just comb through material and try to just find

every Garnet question mark and just change it to a statement. Tell me where you found that. That's the thing about it. I did that so much with Garnet that it has become part of my life. Like I'll now say to people, like, tell me how you're feeling. Like I won't just ask, how are you feeling? It's a good habit to just be mindful of how often you're taking sort of a passive and questioning tone. I don't know, to each their own. But yes, I think that would probably be those game records would probably be the closest thing. But I'm trying to think, we didn't have a lot of talking. I would get really involved in, you know, whenever I could with the books. There was like a

guide to the Crystal Gems that came out, so I changed. It was written outside of the crew, so all the information about the gems had nothing to do with the show, so I'd go through and rewrite everything so that was true and stuff like that. It's hard to wrangle because the tendrils extend so far out and there are deals with other companies and you know, they don't want to take the time to like coordinate with you. So a lot of it was me just like wrestling some some sort of chance to give feedback on things that were getting further and further outside of my sphere. And I also love that Lisa's teaching girls like, if I choose to get married, that's a great... That one seems like edgy, that I don't know, that they make it even a joke that Lisa would say

if I choose to get married instead of when I get married. Yeah, like, oh, that's just, she's taken it so far. Yeah, and that she's like, she's taken it so far. Yeah. And that she's like keeping her own name is already a big like move, but. I like to think, the thing that I felt seeing it now after doing show running is just like, she's taking up so much time.

It was, I'm like so, it's so ingrained in me. It's like, you only have so much time. It's like, oh, she recorded it. She was, she's gonna change the line. Oh my gosh, you know, when is Krusty coming in? There's a little good joke in the original script after this, where the doll is starting to go into production and Lisa's talking to Stacey about it. And Lisa says, this is just how the Malibu Stacey corporation got started.

And then Stacey Lavelle replies, actually it started with a million dollar loan from a Dutch venture capital group but this way is good too much like the origins of the box factory it's very boring two brothers and five other men then we get to see Bart he's everybody's pitching names nobody's listening to Bart's hopping up and down it's good animation of him hopping up and down in the background I like that posing to you always trying to keep in it. Nobody listens to any suggestion about Lisa Lionheart, which is, I like that it's Lisa pitches Minerva and it's Stacy who lets Lisa, you know, Lisa wouldn't

be so full of herself to name the doll after her. This is the one other thing that stood out to me having been involved in designing toys is that the fact that they're having this conversation in front of a bunch of packaged dolls, there's no way it wouldn't have a name. Like, the name would have to be printed on the packaging. It would have had to have been decided much, much earlier that I had never, ever thought about that before

until watching it this time. Just totally took it for granted that the final product is sitting next to them as they discuss what it's going to be called In fact, the name is already on the side of the box If you look very closely the sides of the boxes say Lisa Lionheart in one of the shots Okay, well cuz I'm surely designed it for the final sequence. So Boy, we're getting real genius at work here, but that's a good spot there Bob. This is some kind of magic box

They should have called for two prop designs. Right. That's a lot of extra work. Also, when they go to set it up at the toy store with the great light of like, well, I didn't tell them who you were. They cut a bit where Homer is there with them and he's chased out by squeaky voice team because they recognize him as the destroyer of the piano. So they had one other callback, the ending. Oh Oh so it was a rule of three. That makes so much more like it's unusual to have just two of a joke so that makes a lot more sense.

Now that explains why when we cut the Stacey HQ they're looking at the footage of Lisa and Stacey in the store Homer's hiding. Oh okay I missed that. Oh wow so they must have animated it then too that Homer's in that shot. I missed that. Oh, wow. So they must have animated it then too, that Homer's in that shot. Man, I'm sad they couldn't get, there's so many good deleted scenes on the DVD for this season, but none for this episode. I would have loved to have seen that.

We used to have a running joke on Steven when we'd end up, because of cuts for time or whatever, you know, they have the rule of three, which is like, oh, a joke should come back three times and you get this sense of rhythm and repetition, but sometimes, because of cuts or whatever, you have a rule of three, which is like, oh, a joke should come back three times, and you get this sense of rhythm and repetition. But sometimes because of cuts or whatever, you'd only have two. And so we'd be like, rule of two, rule of two, two jokes. Anyway, that became a rule of two. R.R. Rule of two just got invented in the room for just to cover that. So we see that the stand-in for the Mattel Corporation is taking this very seriously here.

I mean, these companies do not like when their old bosses start competition. It seems that they did not sign Stacey Lavelle to a non-compete agreement after this, or it's run out in the years since. But this is where in the smoky back room, they first call up their friend in Washington, which they say it on the commentary, but the script itself says, a GD Spradlin type. So it's in the script that this is a reference to the Senator from Godfather Part II. Yeah, was it Bill Oakley request?

I had looked this guy up, just a character actor. He was in a ton of stuff, died in 2011. Oh, I mean, he's the perfect crooked Southern Senator in Godfather Part II. He's very memorable in it, and it fits for the type of guy who would owe a favor. In this case, just throwing a brick with no damage done to the house that is not even noticed. Hey, 1994, he was in Ed Wood, by the way. Great movie. Oh, that's awesome. I didn't know that.

All right. And remember the I believe the reverend that funds Ed Wood's film later in the movie. I like that, like a bunch of scenes later, they're like, you know, our previous strategy didn't work. And it's like, oh, they're talking about the brick. Like that's, they still have a record that that wasn't effective. This is where they, not only are they failing to stop them,

but also the doll is about to get some free advertising on the news Oh, please honey daddy's job is to bring people important news right now I'm very busy preparing a report about the 40th anniversary of Beatle Bailey Daddy that is boring Talk about the dolly. Well, you were right about the Berlin Wall. Though it was unusual to spend 28 minutes reporting on a doll, this reporter found it impossible to stop talking.

It's just really fascinating news, folks. Good night. Oh, and the president was arrested for murder. More on that tomorrow night. Or you can turn to another channel. Do not turn to another channel. One effort to put a stop to this Lisa Landhart thing has failed miserably.

Gentlemen, we have to reinvent Malibu Stacy for the 90s. We'll stay here all night if need be. Can we order a Chinese food yes we have the debut of Brittany Brockman very minor character I love her hairline is just her dad's that's perfect talk about like wonderful design hideous hair I love it I had to say when I was writing notes about this, it's like, oh, basically our job now is to talk about the 40th anniversary of Beatle Bailey.

Yeah, yeah. 40th anniversary of The Simpsons coming up pretty soon. Oh my gosh, really? Yeah, I guess so. Four years, just four years. 2027, yeah. Yeah, Rebecca, if you count the shorts, it's two years from now, so.

Yeah. Oh, so yes, I was counting the shorts. Should I not count the shorts? Well, we're gonna count the shorts. Yeah. Let's be exact on that. And to think that the Simpsons will be as old as Beatle Bailey was then, though to be extra pedantic,

Beatle Bailey turned 40 in 1990, not 1994. But, though we've learned a lot that news reporters do listen to their kids for what they do, but mainly it's just a complaint about what their kids are doing in college. This is what I've noticed. The Berlin Wall joke is very funny. I hate to get current with this, but this was in the Vanity Fair piece that they did mention that the day the Barbie trailer dropped was also the day a then former president was indicted.

And they pointed out in the piece that like, wow, the Barbie trailer was dominating the news on that day. And they framed it as a Simpsons predicted it, which Josh Weinstein is like, nah, that's not as a prediction. Don't don't count it as that. But it's worth noting, as depressing as it may be. It just they said, I was like, yeah, I guess that is true. That did happen. It was on the same news report those nights. You know what I also like? That Bart's posing is like half-lidded

and all these things. Like he doesn't give a crap about any of this stuff that it's because it's Lisa's thing. He doesn't care at all. He's checked out this whole act. This is where we see, this also reminds me of like the Poochie okay. This is basically like a Poochie-okay joke

except about the Chinese food. It's letting us know this is what the writers were concerned about during their long, long hours of writing jokes for a sitcom. Something about that joke feels so fundamentally Simpsons to me in that it's like, oh, all of these like high powered adults are just like selfish children.

Such a baseline to the humor of it's just like the 30 figures with the power to make or break all the things you love or they're just like thinking about what they're gonna eat for dinner like they're not, you know. They just pause on that like is okay. The drama of their boss going like yes. It's a decisive move on his part. And from watching the on the Netflix the Toys That Made Us series I watched I think I watched the whole It's a decisive move on his part. And from watching the, on the Netflix, the Toys That Made Us series, I watched, I think I watched the whole thing,

they're fun little documentaries that also have some annoying editing, I will say. But they, the Barbie one is really interesting because they're talking to the executives and they aren't that different from the executives in this. Like they have a story in there about how they learned that Hasbro was starting Jim and the holograms, like before production began, they talk about how they quickly got out to the market, a competing like rock and roll Barbie before

Jim got toys out and they're like, Oh yeah, we beat Jim to the market. Like they're basically admitting to like corporate subterfuge and they're just very proud of it of like oh yeah they and so this isn't that far off from the reality of Barbie in the 80s they were ancing Barbies a bug's life in other words they did they and they succeeded they mean general hologram still did well I have people remember a lot of old people remember it I remember it as a thing yeah I mean Jim had a story to it Barbie didn't have a story Jim is like she's a superhero with like alternate identity Yeah, yeah, I didn't I don't think of them as being particularly related, but it's interesting that they would feel

It's surprising to think that Barbie would feel threatened by Jim and the holograms seems like it's such a behemoth They were scared of Barbie losing the 80s. They wanted to keep Barbie hot. Barbie can do glam. Who said she couldn't? Glam her up. And then we get the wrap up of Abe's story as he's seeing he's on the other side of the complaining as all the old people are complaining to him and he's having to hear it and he realizes he doesn't want to be on the other. He wants to be with them old people complaining. What is this talking Simpsons? Yes, we become this I wanted soft-boiled eggs My switch games cost too much yeah

Come on Mario Kart $80 this might be ancient news now, but yeah Well, I mean, come on, Mario Kart at $80? This might be ancient news now, but. Oh my gosh, yeah. Well that timestamps this. We've just discovered this. The Switch was announced yesterday. Switch 2, rather, was announced yesterday. I'm so excited about Peach's little jean shorts, like you don't even know.

I'm sure nobody's going to still be talking about it by then. You know, some artists I follow online, they're very excited about the redesign of Donkey Kong, especially his suspenders look. There's some gay artists out there who really like him and his suspenders. He's so cute. It really looks great. He looks so cute.

He's no longer a brown battle toad. We're all excited. Those who are sexually attracted to him and those who aren't, we both are into it. But I feel like they're reclaiming some rare-isms, like the way that his eyes are bugging out. And they're bringing it back into the language that they want it to be.

And that's really exciting to see. Anyway, yeah, old. This is going to be old news. May? Oh, man. Now Mario Kart costs $90 because we complained too much. You know, I do like in Super Mario World and in Donkey Kong Bonanza they both do have new

hats. I like that. My theory is, I'm not trying to be an anti-consumer, if you have purchased more than $80 worth of games that you haven't played you cannot complain about Mario Kart costing $80. And I can't officially. Your wife Nina also responded to one of my posts about $80 Mario Kart, and a good point, the Nintendo, unlike a lot of companies, does not do mass layoffs.

They keep people employed. It is a more justifiable, we're charging more because we actually keep people employed instead of laying everybody off at the end of the crunch. Yeah, and one last thing. We debuted on Patreon the same year as the Switch was released. We are still five bucks a month. For now.

Hey. For now. Yeah, absolutely. Creeping up, creeping up your prices. Abe quits. He also lets you know that watching that he never once watched the Saiyans, that's your policy, not mine. In the original script, the joke was that when Abe quits, it turns into a badly

matched stunt double break dancing as Abe, as the joke. That was the joke, instead of him falling over. I can see that being difficult to conceive visually in this style. That's a really hard read. I can see, yeah, how would you? Yeah, I don't know how. And very reality breaking. That's pretty merc hard read. I can see, yeah, how would you? Yeah, I don't know how, and very reality breaking. That's pretty mercany, right? Yeah, instead we get to see a bunch of old people fall down and seemingly have like life ending injuries.

This episode begins and ends with a lot of old people hurt. Yeah, I guess that's the closure on the cruelty to Matlock is now you get to see the mob being crushed by Abe. And he realizes, you know, once you're old, your goal now is to find fault with everything that God has made. Yeah, okay, I agree. I'm with that.

But so that wraps up Abe's story. We then head over to the debut of Lisa Lionheart and it's a two more clips here first The store is opening and there's some amazing lines here She is better than ever Oh, I mean that new hat it really it sums it up pretty good. It was the funky mode of its time Is this inspired by the convention experience? I wonder like how oh this seems pretty authentic I mean, that's true. I wonder do they have as much of the rush at the yeah I've been to San Diego Comic-Con It is terrified the people running for all of the new hats of the toys and and not to

It's to resell them. It's the resellers all doing it. Well, I mean, I think there's some real fans, but I like that Just broadly it's a very incisive take on thoughtless consumption where you're just reflecting I am programmed to consume and I will not question the value of what I'm consuming. This is just my role right now. I want it. I want it. I want it. Like, yeah. And Smithers there with all the little girls is great too, but he's, he's just

on the same level as them, but yeah, I mean, there's a lot of new hats in life these days and that it still embodies all, I mean, just the delivery of still embodies all the awful stereotypes is before, but she's got a new hat. Like, Oh, it's perfect. It is such a perfect, perfect line. Lisa is defeated. Like it's such a sad. Oakley on the commentary says, his vision on this ending is that he wants a healthy sense of skepticism for kids. Not to be hopeless, but to be skeptical. Though it's definitely as a mercantil thing. Like Lisa can't succeed, especially not in the mercantil. Nobody succeeds in the in the Merc. Yeah, it's all failure all around.

But the one kid, but if it touches just that one kid, then... Yeah, I like that they allow the glimmer of hope. Merc is more of a like, there is no hope for nothing, but they do allow a little hope. The economics on the production of these dolls is crazy though, because I funded a year of a podcast for more than what? This entire run of dolls cost right? Yeah, that's like just sub 50k or just 46 thousand dollars Yeah, I'm like wow hey, I mean what is that in 1994? Money probably like a hundred thousand I guess something like that yeah still yeah, Stacey seems to be doing pretty good But it's nice. I mean there's rich people wasted money on many worse things than just a run of boutique dolls

This is before all the tariffs am I right we got the switch to we got tariffs. Oh geez let's date all But yes, here's the bittersweet ending for old Lisa here Well, I guess you can't beat big business. There's just no room for the little guy for old Lisa here. Yes, particularly if that little girl happens to pay $46,000 for that doll. What? Oh, nothing. Kudos to you, Lisa. Kudos. Marge, Lisa, Lady, if you'll excuse me, I've got something very important to attend to. I

Guess they do spare Lisa's feelings by making her not hear the very cynical comment by Stacey. That's true Yeah, so it could be worse for her She still is leaving the episode feeling good about herself and what she did Well, Lisa's not taking the hit financially, so. That's true too, she has a lot more to be happy about. Yeah. It is very sweet that what gives Lisa the glimmer of hope is her own voice telling her, believe in yourself and you can do anything, like that's really adorable.

And the other little girl looking at her, like, it's nice. They give you like, you know, we reached one person and you hope that this episode Reached other people too in the lesson, but it actually I've got one more quote here from the cracked article Yardley Smith had this to say about the ending It's so heartbreaking at the end and they do it every time with Lisa They give her something only to take it away and in classic Lisa form's devastated, but manages to take it in stride and find the silver lining, which is that one of the girls loves her Lisa Lionheart doll.

People often ask me, what's something you learned from Lisa Simpson? And my answer is I constantly strive to embody her resilience. We've heard in the past, Yardley, if she has noted that like, I always lose, Lisa always loses. She never wins. She's mentioned it in other episodes of like, why do I lose in this script too? Why do I have to lose this time too? I mean, it is a reflection of the status quo nature of the sitcom, but yeah, she can never have the victory because the victory could change things for Lisa and the family ultimately, I feel. Yeah. Also that after all the stuff they went through Homer still calls her lady. He didn't learn her name at all. He's like, Lady. That's perfect too. Homer has learned nothing at all in this.

My final thought on this is I think it's a good, sad lesson to teach kids. Like Lisa saying, you can't beat big business. And just to blame big business and make them the bad guy in this, not just sexism as a force, but also like, you can't be big business, that was her enemy. I like that it makes clear that it was a corporate force, not just a sexist force, but also a corporate one that she was trying to battle against here. Yeah, it allows them to narrow the scope, you know, story wise, because I think, them to narrow the scope, you know, story wise, because I think, you know, taking on the holistic systemic injustice, they can really, really make it a story about the doll. I think it's interesting that, you know, even that swap of the Spider-Man voice box, instead of like GI Joe saying he's

going to kill people, it kind of takes it away from being something about, you know, the dynamics of these hyper-gendered toys and kind of just turns it into a really specific story about this really specific doll, you know what I mean? Keeps it a little contained, which I think is helpful to the episode. I always felt like Lisa, the fact that she always loses is just because she always moonshots these really, you know, radical pieces of activism. And she, you know, believes in what's good in this cynical world of the Simpsons.

It's like, it's always going to be so hard to fight for that. And I think resilience is the perfect word, but I felt like the fact that she never quite gets there was just emblematic of how big a swing she's always taking, how hard she tries, and how idealistic she can be. Yes, for me, I'm really happy I saw this when I did because it was a very instructional tale of both feminism, sexism, and capitalism. And I want to say episodes like this did help nudge me down the right path in life by letting me know these things, but not in a very didactic way through very funny jokes

and great animation. So I think this is a great successful episode and Bill Oakley set out to influence his daughter. I think he influenced the whole generation of people with writing like this. I think so. Credit to activism around this that was ripped from the headlines.

I think they became, I've really felt this too in terms of what I have, the work I've done in animation. I feel like I have been standing on the shoulders of giants, community organizers and activists that have been fighting, you know, for LGBTQ rights for decades. You know, we get to tell stories. I'm even able to tell stories because of what they've done. I think the fact that this is taken directly from stories about activism around this incident, and it's a great reflection and expansion of that, of what, a hundred dolls that they made to make a statement, you know, it just has so much reach, then inspires a Simpsons

episode, you know. And maybe if they had a woman on the writing staff, it could have been even better, perhaps. Well, it'll happen a few years from now. Yeah, that's true, yeah. They're just a year away from Jennifer Crinton being a junior writer on the show or something. Yes, Jennifer Crinton will come on in, I believe, season six.

Yes, right, though I don't want to call it like a junior position, but it comes with a qualifier, as I recall. It's not like she's- I think literally in the hierarchy of what your title is on the show. It is a junior position Yeah, that's right, but perhaps because she was in her early 20s and that's her first writing job. So yeah, Rebecca You're right the Barbie Liberation organization They could not have been more successful to even get like and the Simpsons was only one of many things that the reference did So and and I can say like, yeah, when I see

the credit to the work you've done too, Rebecca, anytime I see anything queer in any kids' media, I think like, well, you know, at Steven Universe pushing the envelope on that stuff got me to the difference and was one of the big steps forward. I do think that. Yeah, I heard something beautiful and I attended a talk with some fellow activists a little bit ago that described activism as an ecosystem. And I liked that, you know, no one part, there are so many things that you can do. And I feel like there are certain things I can do with with my position as a cartoonist or when I had a platform making a commercial animated TV show. There are things that people can do that are public performance, journalism.

I mean, I like that thought and I see how an episode like this exists in an activist ecosystem and how the activist ecosystem that created the Barbie Liberation Front was you know, was able to expand and reach and influence artists that then become part of that ecosystem. That's really inspiring to me. Well, thank you once again to Rebecca Sugar for being on the show. Rebecca, where can we find you online? And do you have anything to promote on the plugs here? Yeah, I am on Instagram at Rebecca Sugar. I'm on TikTok at Rebecca Sugar. I'm on YouTube at

Rebecca underscore sugar. And on May 28th, I'm in a video game called to a T I do the voice of a character who is a giraffe. I sing the song at the end of the credits. And I'm also the voice in the game. I've always wanted to be an NPC so I'm really excited about it. That comes out on May 28th. It's from one of my absolute favorite game creators, Keita Takahashi, who I was I just was so blown away when he reached out to me. I'm going to have a concert, a big concert coming up in support of the Trevor Project, so please check my various socials for the details on when that'll be and later in the summer I'm releasing my second album

Which is called lonely magic and it is about the arc of the last whole last 15 years of my life So I hope that We'll check it out and I'll have more information about it coming out across the summer So thank you so much if you're listening to us on the free feed, Tuatii is out today. Patreon people, pre-order it one week from today. Yeah. Oh yeah. Tuatii. Yeah, today. Oh my gosh. So excited about it. To be in a game from the creator of Katamari Domacy is just amazing. But yeah, Spiral Bound, your EP was so, so great. I am so looking forward to your next album coming out very soon. I'm looking forward to hearing that.

Thank you so much, thank you. And I'm producing some animation for it too, so that I couldn't be more excited about that. Oh, well, we always love having you on, Rebecca, and for so many fun digressions as well. It's always fun. We've surpassed three hours in this recording, so. I think we went four hours last time.

It's like, yeah, I don't know, do you want to take another 30 minutes to talk about Mario Kart some more? It's an entire world now what's going on? That's why it cost 10 extra dollars For the rest of the world. Yeah But thank you so much for back. Thank you, Rebecca. Yeah. Thanks for having me Thank you once again to Rebecca sugar for being on the show. Please check out the upcoming video game, To A Tea. It's out right now if you're on the free feed and if you're on the Patreon, you have to wait a week, but still check it out.

But as for us, if you wanna check out more of what we do and get all the podcasts one week at a time and ad free and then access to over 200 full length mini series episodes, head on over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up for five bucks a month. And you get all that stuff. You get our tire back catalog of shows We talked about things like Futurama and King of the Hill and the critic Mission Hill Batman they made it series and we also will give you a new episode talking Futurama and a new episode of talking

Of the hill every month for that five dollar tier at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and there's a ten dollar tier as well Henry what is happening there? Bob is talking about our what a cartoon movie podcast where we go as in depth as an episode of the Simpsons But into an animated feature film which often goes for over five or even six hours long Most recently last month we covered Looney Tunes back in action the Joe Dante film that had a real troubled production That was really interesting to get into and if you liked all the Looney Tunes chat we had in this episode, I think you'll really enjoy hearing us talk about that. And that's just the most recent $10 a month premium podcast. We're almost at seven years now of What a Cartoon Movies,

and you get the entire back catalog, I would say 250 hours of recordings. We've covered all these Toy Story films, like we talked about Toy Story 4. You can hear our full discussion of recordings. We've covered all these Toy Story films like we talked about Toy Story 4. You can hear our full discussion of that. A bunch of classic Ghibli films as well like Kiki's Delivery Service. Even a film that Rebecca Sugar loves, Whisper the Heart. And we've talked about so many other ones. You can see the entire back catalog plus all the ad-free bonuses Bob was talking about at the $5 level. If you sign up for $10 a month at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And I've been one of your hosts Bob Mackie.

You can find me on Blue Sky and lots of other places like Letterboxd as Bob Servo and I've another podcast by the way. It is called RetroNauts. It's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash RetroNauts and sign up there for two full length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you? You can follow me on Twitter and letterbox as H E N E R E Y G,

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Thanks so much for listening folks. We'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast, Talk to the Audience, and we will see you then. When I was young, toys were built to last. Look at this junk. It breaks the first time you take it out of the box. Yeah. And look at these toy soldiers. They'll break the second I step on them.

Stupid toy soldier. Break you stupid. Alright, come on pups. Soldiers won't bother you anymore.