Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons LIVE With Dana Gould!!!

Episode Date: February 9, 2018

Recorded at SF Sketchfest Nightlife on January 18, 2018, Bob, Henry, and Chris all did our first live show and it was a ton of fun. Not least of which we got to have a live chat with Simpsons writer/standup legend/creator of Stan Against Evil Dana Gould! Hear all about him working on the show (including a joke too dirty for The Simpsons), as well as Dana weighing in on our topic: The Most Pathetic Man in Springfield. All that and more on Talking Simpsons' historic first live show!

this week's episode is brought to you by patreon at patreon.com slash talking simpsons not only you get access to every episode a week early and ad free but we have tons of extras including our two newest interviews we chat with mike scully about his time executive producing the show i ran it through seasons 9 through 12 which I always characterize as the four most consecutive seasons of the show. And we talked with writer Mimi Pond about what it was like to write the first episode of The Simpsons. You know, and I get to be the turd in the punch bowl every single time I tell this story,

because nobody wants to hear anything bad about The Simpsons. You can find all that and more exclusively on patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. I'm Bob Mackie. I'm Henry Gilbert. And this is a special intro we're doing for our live show at the California Academy of Sciences. If you couldn't make it, we're sorry, but we have it recorded for posterity. And 35 minutes of this is with the great comedian, writer, show creator, actor Dana Gould. He's a renaissance man who also worked on The Simpsons from seasons 13 through 18, which we talked about. I don't know

if we set that up entirely in the interview, but yes, yeah, this was a ton of fun. We recorded this on January 18th, 2018, and at a science museum of all places. And we had a really good time. If you want to hear all of the behind-the-scenes stuff, I guess we talked a ton about that on our community podcast, Talk to the Audience on the Patreon. Go back to last week's Talk to the Audience. And if you're listening to this way, way, way down the line, it's the January 2018 Talk to the Audience.

You can hear, I don't know, 10 minutes of talk about how the event was set up, how we ran into Dana Gould, how he was very nice. And I think this is a great live show. Our first. So you can hear all of us as, I don't know, new fish in this dangerous world. And yeah, SF Sketch Fest was super awesome to have us there and to not only offer us a space on the show, but to set us up with Dana Gould as well. So super big thanks to SF Sketch Fest, especially Cole Stratton and Janet Varney.

So yeah, please enjoy this live Talking Simpsons show. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to the very first Talking Simpsons live show. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Hello. Thanks for coming. I am your host, the very washed, based, and fresh Bob Mackie.

Who else is here with me today? I may be hate-filled and ugly, but I'm Henry Gilbert. Hi. And who else? And Chris forgot to come up with something funny in Tista. Uh-huh. Yeah. That one's going to stick.

In case you haven't heard our show before, who in this audience has not heard our show before? Oh, wow. We got a lot of newcomers. That's a lot of newcomers. So in case you don't know us, we are Talking Simpsons. We are a chronological Simpsons podcast on the Laser Time Podcast Network.

We've been doing this for three years. We do a podcast episode for every episode of The Simpsons. We're up to season seven right now and you can find us at TalkingSimpsons.com. And that's basically the sales pitch. Please subscribe. You came to us for what we do normally, but the bad news is we're not doing what we do normally, so the joke's on you.

We have a very special thing planned for this live show, and it's all about the most pathetic man in Springfield. And to help us out, we have a very non-pathetic guest, the great Dana Gould! Dana Gould, ladies and gentlemen! Hooray!

So I believe Chris can give a brief biography on Dana here. Yes. Hey, before we start out, congratulations on season three of Stand Against Evil. Thank you very much. That's where you clap, people. Jesus. Yeah. It's a non-Simpsons show with live actors on an ad-supported cable channel.

It did have one of my most laugh-out-loud moments with your character Kevin last year, because... Kevin is basically Groundskeeper Willard. Not a spoiler, but yeah, there's a moment where you can't speak and must pantomime. Yeah.

Oh yeah, this guy worked in cartoons. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah. But yeah, you worked in... That's one... Two of my favorite things is crying so hard that you can't make a noise, which is just. And the other one is crying, segueing into laughing, segueing back into crying. You're at a funeral with a friend and somebody's like, I can't believe it.

I can't believe it. What are we doing? Oh, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. What are we doing? Oh, God. That's my favorite. Well, that crying is very appropriate, Dana. We're here to talk about the most pathetic man in Springfield. Frankly, they're all pretty pathetic, but you were a Simpsons writer for several seasons,

and you've probably written through several of those pathetic men. Is it? I'm blanking on the name of the character. You'll have to hear me. I was not prepared. Basically, is it the Jack Lemon? Gil. Gil, yes.

Oh, Gil. Sorry. Yeah, Gil. I sent you to Phoenix to tame this town. Or are we guessing who it is? I mean, we each have our own pitch for who it is. Okay, good. All right, good.

I mean, we kind of ruled out Gil initially for being too pathetic, because he would automatically win, but you definitely have him pegged as a loser. It is the lingua franca of Gil. Well, yeah, so you worked on the show seasons 13 to 19, right? Yeah, 13 to 19 and 13 to 20. What was it like? Like, 13 was when Al Jean took back over on the show, right? Like what was the feeling that season?

It was bloody warfare. Yeah, I came in. I was hired by Mike Scully. And Mike and George Meyer were sort of running the rooms. And Mike went off to do a pilot for Robert Schimmel. And Al came in. And Al took over the show. And I think the feeling on season 13 was probably the feeling on season 8.

It was probably the feeling on season 4, which is probably the feeling on season 27, which is, please don't let this be the season we screw it up. Well, yeah, that must be an intense pressure coming on to something like The Simpsons, right? Oh, it's horrifying. I liken it to, to use a sort of an older reference, but if you've ever seen the movie Let It Be, the documentary of the worst Beatles album, there's a scene where they bring in Billy Preston to play with them. And he's like, okay, I'll just sit in with the Beatles, cool? And that's kind of your feeling, like, oh, all right.

Yeah, we actually interviewed Mike Scull, and he told us his experience was being the average guy in a room full of Harvard people who all knew each other. Was that a similar experience for you? Yes, absolutely. And I did not go to Harvard. I went to UMass and dropped out, which I think endeared me to Scully because he lived near UMass. But, yeah, there's a lot of that.

A lot of people talking about their time on the lampoon. And I came from stand-up comedy, so I was just like a weird carny that had wandered into the room. What I was sort of wondering is you come from stand-up and then you go work in animation, which is essentially a nine- to ten-month joke delivery system. Or 12-month joke delivery. Was that difficult for you? Yeah, it was a big transition period in in my life because i had just gotten married and i just bought in a house and i had started to do stand-up comedy when i was 17 and i was 30 and i was i just got married i was ready to i was like

great i'll be an adult now i'll have a job and a house and an office and a name tag and uh and and that worked for a while and then i went i hate this not the not the show i never hated the show but just like the routine the nine to five yeah the nine to five i i i like to do a lot of different things and you are right now jesus yeah i stay i i stay busy but i you know i learned how to write on the show, and it was a great time. You were the first person, I mean, I didn't know writers in Hollywood, you were the first

person, I knew who you were, coming onto The Simpsons, and so it was the first time I was excited for the introduction of a writer on The Simpsons. Oh, that's funny. No, I understand that, and people go, oh, I can totally hear your voice. And I'm like, no, you can't. That's sort of like

seeing a Viking ship go by. I can really see Clem's rowing. You don't think... There's not one thing you'd put your... That's a Dana Gould stamp on The Simpsons. Yeah, but it was all stuff that was too gross to make the show. I'd like to know what you pitched

that maybe couldn't make a Makeup Simpsons episode oh I can tell you we're an R-rated podcast we opened at a book fair and I had Dr. Nick looking at a copy of Our Bodies Ourselves and he said

with shock and horror that woman has a baby coming out of her abortion hole oh boy whoa that's that's a little too spicy up next living single but made the script so is that the table rate then uh but the but the one thing that was good was in the first episode that I wrote, it was called Homer the Moe, is the first on-screen suicide. I was going to ask about that. I swore that had to be you. Yeah, that was. George Meyer had a lot to do with that, too.

But, yeah, that was actually all George Meyer. But after the table read, Matt Groening walked up to me and said, 13 seasons without a suicide. Thanks a lot. There were several more after that, I assume. Yeah, and then we really got into a jag. And that was one of the interesting things. You know, you'll get into jags of stuff.

And one of the things that, you know, there was the jag for a while that, like, things would roll away. And whenever they would hit something, they would explode. And then we hit this jag of Homer chloroforming people. And we got a lot of mileage out of Homer chloroforming people. But at one point, Homer chloroformed Marge. I could get out of an argument or something. Yeah. And it aired.

And Jim Brooks hit the roof. Wow. Anybody bring any chloroform? Yeah, he was not pleased with that. I mean, he seems to know what he's doing, so you have to defer. How much day-to-day is Matt Groening and James O. Brooks still involved, or at least in your time there? In my time there, I mean, it depends on whether or not Jim's making a movie.

And if he's making a movie, he's not making a movie. And if he's not, he's down the hall. And he's absolutely still involved. Wow. And Matt, too. Matt's around. Matt sits in the room and pitches funny stuff. And people just go, God, I met Matt Graney.

He's such a nice guy. Yeah, he's a billionaire. Of course he's a nice guy. He doesn't move your mood. I love Matt. He's a lovely guy. What does it feel in the writer's room compared to, I guess, other writer's rooms you've been in? Well, it was my favorites i run my room the way um mike scully ran the room and

i'll just give you a a my my theory is that nature abhors a vacuum and if you know if you say all right let's just work and people don't know when they're finishing, and they don't know what the goal is, they'll just kind of meander. And I usually, like I had the first story room yesterday for season three of Stand Against Evil, and we met at 930. And I said, I really want to get at least a good head start on six. I want to know what six episodes are. I already have three. So we have three hours to come up with three episodes. And I'd like to get out of here by four.

Because we're over in Santa Monica, and I had to pick up my daughter from tennis. And it was like, great. And we nailed it. And we left. And I think if I just like, what do you want to do? We'd have been there all night. And I just don't think that that's – this is my own personal thing. I had a really great story with Mike Scully.

We were in the room and something happened and we had to stay late. And Mike was like, guys, I'm sorry. We have to stay late. I apologize. It's at 9-11. We have to finish this. I Mike was like, guys, I'm sorry. We have to stay late. I apologize. It's at 9-11. We have to finish this. I have a story about that, too. His first episode was like a month after 9-11.

Yeah. Well, let me finish this story. Sorry. And then I'll tell you the hilarious 9-11 story. Okay. Yes. But so everybody goes, call your wife or whatever. We'll order dinner, and we'll finish up.

And then we all call our wives. We're going to be late. It's going to be a late night. Sorry. And then we all come in, and Mike goes, screw it. I told my kids I'd take them to see Chicken Run. Just come in an hour early tomorrow. And we all went home at the normal time, and we all came in an hour early the next day and nailed it, which is kind of, you know, people like to go.

You promised me a 9-11 story. I did, the 9-11 story. So many jokes I'm not saying right now. But please appreciate them. Yeah, you know, 9-11 happened. And for people that were alive and old enough during that time, happened early in the morning and nobody went to work. But some people, I guess guess had already gone into the office and we're like calling i'm like well i'm not going in you know we're not going to get

anything done today yeah um and we lived my wife and i uh at the time lived kind of halfway between right in the center of town behind the chateau marmont and i said well you guys just want to just come over here and just because people want to be together you know you you guys want to just come over here. And just because people want to be together, you know, you don't want to just be alone. If anybody wants to come over here, just come over here. And everybody came over to my house. And then I turned to my wife and it was like, you know, now it's like 11 o'clock in the morning. The other tower fell. The world's at war.

And I go, I go, everybody's coming over. We don't have any food. So she goes, run to Ralph's. So I run to what's called Rock and Roll Ralph's on Sunset Boulevard. They go in. It's 9-11 before noon. And it's like L.A. looks like the Omega Man. Streets are empty.

The grocery store is empty, and I run in and buy a bunch of hot dogs and potato chips. That's a 9-11 barbecue. I'm checking out, I'm the only guy there, and check out, and I don't know, the cashier just goes,

oh man, you're having a party. But not like, he didn't, it wasn't like, you're having a party but not like he didn't it wasn't like you're having a party it's like no one told him no one's on the street they must be at your house it was the craziest thing it was the craziest thing

and then we found out the next day the whole thing was a prank well how does writing for a comedy show change after something like that? Were certain things off limits? I noticed that there weren't very many jokes about George W. Bush in those years on the show. No. Some people on the staff had a very healthy attitude towards it. Some people went bananas and thought we were going to get bombed because we worked at Fox.

And you forget, you know, that was, you know, in the days after that people were sending anthrax around and you really didn't, no one knew if that was a one-off or if it was stage one of a giant thing. I mean, it really was spooky, spooky time. I remember the day the onion came out. That was brilliant. It was all about 9-11.

And we were like, oh, okay, yeah, you can do it. We can be funny about it. And then SNL came back on and we started to move forward. That's right, because everybody changed their theme song for like three weeks. Yeah, it was just showing flags and sad eagles. And I remember, yeah, I mean, it was a different time. And we all went on to hate George Bush again. But yeah, the immediate aftermath of it was really crazy.

Because you just didn't know how far this endeavor was going. We didn't know that. They were like, did you see that? They didn't plan on that happening either. Always bring it back to 9-11. Yeah, that was not our intention. Every single time. Let's talk about something less depressing. Moe Sizzlek.

I know what the lady's like, that's why. Well, yeah, isn't Moe one of your favorite guys to write? Moe's my favorite character, hands down. My dad was a bartender when I was a kid. Oh, yeah. Isn't Moe one of your favorite guys to write? Moe's my favorite character, hands down. My dad was a bartender when I was a kid. Oh, wow. The first episode I wrote was Home of the Moe, and that's about the bar that my dad ran. My dad ran the Nip, Muck, Rod, and Gun Club. And it was a private bar.

You need a membership, but because you had a membership, it could stay open on Sunday, which you couldn't in Massachusetts in the 70s because of what were called blue laws. It was a religious thing. But because it was a private club, you could go there. And the design of the bar in the show basically mirrors what my dad had. And then the other part of it was Moe turns the bar into a very upscale shishi restaurant called M, which was based on my experience

of being at the W Hotel in New York and being in the men's room and not realizing I was in the men's room. I just walked into this room and there was like a waterfall against one side of the wall and nothing else. But the door said men, and I'm looking at it. And within a five-second interval, a guy walked out of the wall, and somebody started pissing on the waterfall.

And I was like, oh, okay. I guess this is the best. But it was, dare I say it, an orgasm of form over function. And that's where the rabbits hanging in harnesses came from in the giant video of the eyeball. And the doorman for M, Cecil, with the long hair and the beard, is my friend who was then completely anonymous, and now he's somewhat famous, my friend Greg Nicotero, who's now the executive producer of The Walking Dead. But at the time he was just my friend Greg with long hair.

And so if you ever watch Home with the Mo, Greg is the doorman for M. He's Cecil. I think you also had your brother on one of the commentaries. Yeah, my brother was. My brother Kevin, whom I'm named after in Stand Against Evil. Yeah, my brother was visiting, and I had to go do a commentary, and he came with me, and it was Matt. He was like, Kevin, sit in.

What's it like doing a commentary on this? It seemed like a lot of fun. Oh, it's a blast. It's just like this. It's it like doing a commentary on this thing? You seem like a lot of fun. Oh, it's a blast. It's just like this. It's just like this. It's just watching it. And, you know, the best commentary.

Underneath a globe. Yeah, yeah. We're at Pal Arts in San Francisco. Very Dr. Strange lovey. But it's the best commentaries are when you just get sidetracked. I think it's the commentary for John Carpenter's The Thing, and it's just John and Kurt Russell, and they're old buddies, and they go back, and they go like,

Kevin, I think Kevin built that. Yeah, is he still married to Shelly? No, did you hear about Shelly? Oh, his sister got real sick, and she moved. Oh, that's terrible. I love that. You just hear, oh, they're just guys that have friends and talk. It's great.

Well, you did make a very permanent addition to the show, a very biographical addition. I did, yeah. Ling Bouvier is my daughter, Lulu. And it was one of those things where I was trying to come up with an idea for an episode. My ideas always start off in the toilet. What if Homer finds a hat you know haunted key fob and then um matt graining said well why don't you write about you know going to china adopting a baby which i had just done like oh yeah i can do that easy and i did and and uh it's all based on my wife's and my experience of going to China for the first of what would become three times.

And Ling Bouvier is my daughter. Her photo was the design. And it's based very loosely on our experiences in China. And Ling is now a recurring character on the show. She shows up now and again. And that girl is now 15 and is really funny a great sense of humor is really sharp and she's watching the simpsons and she was on and i went oh honey that's you and she goes yeah like no that's you that's that's ling that's the character that i wrote about you and

that's your baby picture and She just goes, yeah, I like Bob's Burgers more. Didn't even look at me. Yeah, I like Bob. I took a picture of the albino alligator and texted it to her and I went, honey, look, an albino alligator. I saw it last year.

It sounds like she posts on Simpsons forums. Yeah, exactly. That was another question I love asking Simpsons writers. We talked to a lot of earlier guys, but you're around with the existence of the internet in full force. Was that difficult working on a show with that kind of dynasty? People really paid a lot of attention to it. In the writing room?

Yes. I differ from a lot of that opinion. This will be sort of airy-fairy, but I believe it is the I don't consider myself an artist. I consider myself a craftsperson. Look at your badge. How could I not be an artist?

It's laminated. I believe it's your duty as a creative person to not let the audience create your piece. That you create what you believe in and you show it to them and it's theirs to like or not like. The death of the Star Trek franchise before the J.J. Abrams thing,

all the next-gen movies, was because the audience had these rules. This has to happen, and this has to happen, and then Data does this, and that does, and it became Kabuki theater, and they start to dictate what they want. And I believe that you have to challenge them and constantly surprise them. And the other thing that you found is if you read these, the No Homers site was dictating all this stuff. And then, yeah, it's 23 people in Wales. It was like 23 13-year-old people in Wales that were dictating everything.

It was driving everybody. I don't think you should read that stuff. Oh, Dan, you got a bounce? Unfortunately, we have only one. Do you have a candidate to go for the most pathetic springfield male outside of gill i would have to give it to homer i mean no no no no i misspoke i misspoke i was gonna say homer i have to give it to mo but homer the mo i was just saying i would have to give it to mo and and I would cite something that I wrote.

It's not in one of my scripts, but it's something I wrote. It's the image of Mo that will always live with me. It's a man sitting alone in a bar drawing a wang on Marmaduke. And then cutting it out and putting it in a cardboard box and putting the cardboard box away, waiting for the next day's paper when you draw another wang on Marmaduke, cut it out and put it in a cardboard box and putting the cardboard box away waiting for the next day's paper when you draw another wing on Marmaduke and then someday somebody finding a cardboard box

full of Marmaduke cartoons. That took a turn. That's genetically accurate. Awesome. Please give a round of applause for Dana Gould. He's great. Thank you so much, Dana. Like most 9-11 reveries, it ended in a man drawing a wang on Marmaduke. Thank you so much, Dana.

Appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. The Simpsons will be right back. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care.

Did I mention that we care? Oh man, isn't Aana gould awesome man but the podcast is not over yet just pop it in here to remind you guys that we get to do cool stuff like this live show where we interview dana freaking gould at sf sketch fest we're able to do this through our patreon at patreon.com talking simpsons your support there helps me and bob do this full time and book cool guests and do tons of other cool stuff like our upcoming futurama series other interviews with folks like mike scully mimi pond bill oakley reed harrison you can listen to all of those along with our entire runthrough of the critic in talking critic exclusively at patreon.com slash talking simpsons we've gotten a ton of support there recently but every little bit helps just five dollars a month you get a ton of cool stuff ten dollars a month you get access to even

more awesome stuff and we just keep adding to it each week so check it out patreon.com slash talking simpsons you know something else that was awesome seeing at the live shows were people wearing the talking simpsons t-shirt it looks pretty awesome in a beautiful sky blue in a logo designed by Nina Matsumoto, awesome friend of the show. And you can get one for yourself at tiny.cc slash talking shirt. Or if you head to shirtsickle.com, you can get one of your own for just $19.99 plus tax and shipping. It comes in multiple different styles and ships somewhat internationally. So check it out even if you're not in North America. tiny.cc slash talking shirt. Hey, this is Sideshow Luke Perry.

You're listening to Talking Simpsons on Lazer Time. This week on Lazer Time, the Internet's seventh leading pop culture podcast, the gang is tackling a brand new topic. I tried to find a negative review of Citizen Kane. One star. It had no color. It was utterly depressing.

The camera angles were okay, but the acting really wasn't too good. All the actors were always interrupting themselves or each other, and it just didn't flow well in my mind. And this is my favorite line of all time. It's just like the Blair Witch Project. I mean, he's right. It's just like the Blair Witch Project I mean he's right it's just like the Blair Witch Project a lot of people watch Citizen Kane because of the hype and find themselves disappointed it's sad but true Citizen Kane was a real disappointment totally unoriginal plot bad lighting cheesy sets boring too and gosh what is this rosebud thing that was fre freaky. Whoa, dude. Anyway, this movie was whack and mad boring.

It was a bummer, too, that it was all black and white and all the guys looked the same because they all wore suits. That's Laser Time. New every Monday on LasertimePodcast.com, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Now Dana is gone.

What a great guest, everybody. Such a great month. We were all very lucky to see this. Now we're going to get into the meat of our main topic. We actually didn't know we'd have Dana for this long, which is great. So we got to ask a lot of great questions. But we're here still to determine the most pathetic man in Springfield. And we should just get into it, right?

Yeah. Oh, go ahead. We're not qualified pathetic men, by the way. No, no. We're not a podcast. Yeah, we podcast about The Simpsons. We are not pathetic at all. We podcast about The Simpsons.

I have a really cool vape pen. Not pathetic in any way. He was asked to put it away earlier. I know. What the hell, man? That never happened. Sir, this is a museum. We all decided, we all separately chose our own pathetic mail for

The Simpsons, and we're going to let you guys vote in a very unscientific way in this very scientific building. Oh, but we discounted certain people, didn't we? That's right. That's right. So Dana immediately chose Gil, but he is discounted because Gil is too pathetic. He is the ringer.

Well, it's his job to be pathetic. Yeah, I mean, he came into being as a very pathetic creature. I mean, like Dana said, he was invented to be Jack Lemmon from Glen Gary and Ross. I just need the Glen Gary lead. Give me the, what? No one's seen it. Diana, where's the laughter? Jesus.

Homer, of course, if you watched the episode Homer's Enemy, old God, grimy. He gives a good argument as to why Homer is not a failure. He lives in a mansion. He eats lobsters. His son owns a factory, for Christ's sake. I mean, Homer has got it made. And he makes $5 an hour. Anybody out there married with children who owns a home?

Not in this fucking city. Stop it, Matt. Put it down. Put it down. Also, so Wiggum, he can legally murder people, so we don't want to throw him under the bus. He's the chief. He has some pride in his work, too. And same, like, comic book guy.

He's too detestable. I mean, he's too, like, shitty. Like, he's too full of himself, too, I'd say, that he's not pathetic enough, even though his catchphrase is, I wasted my life. He has a lot of pride for being so pathetic. Though Otto's catchphrase is also, I've wasted my life. He wasted it in different ways. More accurate. So now that we've cleared the air, we put some of these characters off the table,

I will tell you my pick, which I believe will win, and that is Seymour Skinner as the most pathetic man in Springfield. Eater of individual fruit cocktail cups, wearer of armor hot dogs, overseer of unforgettable luncheons, and a big, big fan of dioramas. It's better than hearing Test Thursday. You heard it from him.

You were right to pick him. I'll tell you why I chose Skinner. Well, he has a very specific kind of patheticness. He was a virgin for a long time up until season eight. He's very lonely and lives with his aggressive mother. And there are just so many reasons, of course. He was a veteran, but he was a veteran of an unpopular war. So, boom!

Boom, Vietnam. Go back to Vietnam. And, as we all have seen from the show, he is some sort of non-giving-up school guy. He loves school. Automatically makes him lame as hell. Yeah. He also, he would not be invited to the veterans of Popular Wars in Springfield that Grandpa gets to go to. Not very popular.

Exactly, yeah. He gets the bad memorial. So, last thing I have as to why he's pathetic. He is actually an imposter, but we can't talk about that under penalty of torture, so we won't even bring up Armin Tamzarian. That'll be the last you hear of him during this live show. But I will go over Skinner's five lowest moments to convince all of you

that Skinner is the most pathetic creature on The Simpsons. You will get a vote. And you guys are all going to vote informally. So, number five. These are all in order from least pathetic to most pathetic. Number five, I have shot in the back by his own troops during a Bob Hope show. He was trying to get

Joey Heatherton to put on some pants, and one of his own men shot him in the back. I imagine they did not release that USO show to the public. It was right after they took a photo. They took a photo of him and then shot him in the back. That's the best way to do it. So this should be number one,

but we don't see it. This is only told to Barts, so we don't actually see this flashback. So that's why it is number five. Number four I have, so I chose all of my instances from the shows we've done so far. So we just hit season seven. There are more pathetic moments after, but these are all fresh in my mind.

Number four is the inflatable bath pillow incident, which landed Skinner on Springsfield's version of Cops. And it did come up again in an episode we recently recorded where Skinner's mother was in a child care class because again, fighting over an inflatable

bath pillow. It's all a matter of pride for Skinner. He won't send it back to Taiwan for repairs. He won't spend, I don't know, $8 for a new one. He has no money to buy that new one. Just like he has no money to buy a new pair of underwear for $3. It was his last pair.

A $3 household Walgreens item is tearing his family apart. It's impossible. He could easily fix this. Yes, so that is number four. And again, Skinner was shamed on cops. His face was blurred at the last minute. Blur my face. Yes.

Also, so number three, I have, this could be up higher, but I think Big Butt Skinner deserves to be number three. In case you forget it from the episode Bart's Comet, this is where Bart makes a weather balloon, looks like Skinner, with his naturally big ass. And he's wearing a sign that says, hi, I'm Big Butt Skinner. And this floats around town humiliating him until he is humiliated even further by Bart discovering Skinner's Comet. So that's number three. What do you guys think about this? No! No! Also, the president says school is for losers.

Yeah, I know. He can't take it. When a four-year-old has turned your ass into a celestial object, you're a fucking loser. It really is low. Number two, I have getting fired in front of the entire school in Sweet Seymour Skinner's Badass Song, of course.

It was not his fault, but that was a very shameful moment for Skinner. And we see the one-time quirk of his where he hiccups when he's anxious. I wish they would have kept that. I don't know why they did. That was after he was accidentally anti-Semitic, I believe it was. Yom Kippur. It sounds so made up. Yom Kippur.

When Chalmers shamed him for the children being ugly. Room after room of ugly, ugly children. I mean, it's not the children's fault. I hardly think it's the children's fault. So number one, and I am totally rigging this. Number one I have is Steamed Hams. Who's a fan of Steamed Hams in the room? Yeah.

It is now the meme that will never get old, I swear to God, on my own life. I will never get sick of seeing a new version of steamed hams. And this version is three guys, steamed hams, but three guys explaining steamed hams to you. So of course, this is one of the greatest two minutes

of written comedy ever on television. Skinner invites Superintendent Chalmers over to his house for an unforgettable luncheon. Arguably the lamest term of all time for a regular lunch Yes For a quiet lunch in your mother's house So

we see, I mean you guys all are familiar with it his roast is burning, he has to go across the street to Krusty Burger and through a series of lies his house catches on fire and possibly his mother is seriously injured by smoke inhalation. And completely unbelievable. Like Chalmers is not fooled at all once.

I think Skinner gets a brief bit of respect that he is an odd fellow, but he steams a good ham. But tens of thousands of dollars of damage were done to his house. And I mean, there's no real going back from that. And I'd say that's also pretty pathetic. That's his greatest triumph, that he fooled Chalmers into thinking that those were steamed hands. By sacrificing several rooms of his house. That's true. Nothing gets by Chalmers.

And somehow Skinner won. He may have lost his mother and a house. Yeah, I mean, it's just the Northern Lights. Before I wrap this up, I do want to ask you guys, what is your favorite Steamed Hams meme? Mine is Metal Gear Solid, but Steamed Hams, where you get the Kodak conversations, you get the sound of a disc spinning, you get

the alert signals, you get the little radar on the top of the screen. Look this up. Not now. Look this up when you get home. It's amazing. My favorite, I think, was the one I just saw today, so it's most in my memory, that every time a door opens, another Chalmers walks into the house. So it follows the order of the sketch, except a new Chalmers walks into the house.

I believe it's called Steam Hams Only Every Time the Reality is Contorted. Yes, yes. And you end up with like 16 Chalmers. Mine is a really good one where it's Pulp Fiction. Like, really, Skinner, these burgers just take like Big Kahuna Burger. And then Skinner's

ends up being murdered at the end of this. It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. Pulp Fiction steamed hams. It's impossible not to Google. So this concludes the us explaining memes

portion of the show. Did that go well? Did that go well at a science museum? A stuffed ostrich right behind us and we're explaining shitposts? We're showing how we ruin our brains.

Memes are scientific. It's a Metal Gear Solid 2. I mean, very scientific game. Well, all right. So mine, actually, I already have Dana Gould's backup on this. Oh, come on. Unfair. I wrote this before, though.

So this is my pick before Dana Gould voted. But, yes, I'd say Mo Mo is the most pathetic man in Springfield for several reasons. Like, mainly that he is, in every scene he is in, he is the rock bottom of the scene. Like, they set up the, like, well, who's the worst guy in this group? Who will make the joke that a man has a rope belt in the car when they're talking about their girlfriends, which he doesn't have. He has a woman he's stalking. That's Moe.

Like, that's it. And Moe is either in his late 30s or early 60s, depending on different jokes in the show. It's mid-90s, according to the little rascal he murdered. Yeah, so that's also... Okay, so Moe Sizzleck, a.k.a. Moemar, a.k.a. Kid Grusome, a.k.a. Kid Moe. He's a cruel man who pushes everyone away from him. The only time he got to have a girlfriend on the show was when they wrote in Hank Azaria's real-life girlfriend, Helen Hunt, to be his girlfriend on the show.

They were so happy together. I know. So happy. I'm disappointed on that commentary. They never talk about how they're divorced now. They're just like, no, I'm not going to talk about it. I think it was recently fresh. Mo murdered

the original Alfalfa, which they just kind of let fly by. He beats his head into the ground until he is dead for stealing his bit. Stole his bit? Stole my bit! That's better than the actual death of Alfalfa. You should have done the same thing for me for mentioning that too early.

And as Dana said, Moe was also party to the first suicide on The Simpsons, watching his teacher walk into the water and drown. And also, yes, that Moe has committed many crimes in Springfield too. He's usually, if it's not Snake, then the crime is committed by Moe, usually. Or it's too lowly to be touched by Fat Tony.

Yes. Smuggling pandas and carrying a whale. Carrying a whale, smuggling pandas and whales. He serves liquor without a license. He runs a Russian roulette game in his back office run by Vietnamese men. He attempted to murder Jimbo Jones and then just walked away. After breaking into the Simpsons' house, by the way, he robbed Homer at gunpoint by pointing a shotgun at his head and saying,

I rob people now. He also once kidnapped David Byrne and forced him to write a song about how nobody likes Moe. That's the song he writes. And he has said multiple times he is a registered sex offender as well. And it's also like that even when he's happy, even when he is doing charitable things, he actually hates it. When people found out that he was reading books to sick children, he threatened to kill Ned for daring to talk about it.

So he can't even be happy with that. As a positive, he does have two knives. And also, he invented the flaming mow and just stole it from Homer and only was going to give it to him after basically he was going to get the most rich from it. So he is always the bottom of the place. Also, he only got darker as it went on, as I feel Dana has confirmed for me, but this was my theory beforehand. I think the writers think he is the most pathetic as well and will give every horrible thing to mo that they can having your head in an oven with a sign that says no funeral taped your back in the christmas special yeah well so yeah it's the best mo joke yeah so that is uh so my five saddest moments yes i burned

it off yes no i'll go with that one first so There's almost too many Moe suicide attempts to list, but the darkest one is in the season 11 Christmas episode, Grift of the Magi, just the image of Moe with his head in an oven, and taped to his back is a note that says, no funeral. It's okay. He joins the Simpsons for dinner later.

He replaces his head with a fat Christmas goose. I like the thing that he couldn't afford gas to kill himself with. Yeah, they shut off his gas and he couldn't. It's just the image of no funeral. Throw him in a ditch. That's pretty dark. Let the crows figure it out. Number two, in the two Miss Nostalgy Petalons,

it begins with a bachelor auction that establishes Apu is the most popular bachelor after every other man in Springfield is seen to be ineligible. No one wants to date them. But the rock bottom of that group was Moe who when he walks across the stage, he does not stop

walking and the music does not stop and he immediately goes to the reject section. That is how low he is. Even among the joke where every guy in town is a loser, everyone hates Mo the most. All right. So number three, it burns his air. Mo says like he's pretending to be Travis Bickle, which is already a very dark, sad, pathetic thing to do. He's doing the classic you talking to, and moving his hand toward a mirror.

Then the gun flies off, smashes the mirror, which was an antique. So even when he is fantasizing about being a troubled loner, it fails, and he can't fantasize about being Travis Bickle. It destroys an antique mirror. You could be Travis Bickle. It destroys an antique mirror. You could be Travis Bickle with $20 and a trip to any Army-Navy store. It is not that hard, and Mo still fucked it up. Very easy cosplay. Number two, the second to last one, Lisa on Ice.

Mo is about to lose his thumbs from a gambling debt, but not just any gambling debt. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care?

To a children's hockey game, like to a children's hockey game, he has gambled so much that he might lose. Take my thumbs. I wonder if that bet was just nullified by the tie that happened at the end of the episode. I wonder. You can't bet on a tie. You can't bet it's going to tie. Maybe nobody won.

Well, Moe obviously kept his thumbs, though. All right. And then lastly, Moe's most pathetic defeated moment in Simpsons history is one of my favorite moments in Simpsons history ever. It is in Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 2. He is taking a lie detector test. He is told that he has to say he has a hot date tonight. You know the scene. No, a date.

All right, dinner with friends. Dinner with friends. Dinner alone. Watching TV alone. TV alone. Okay, all right. I'm going to ogle ladies in the Victoria's Secret catalog. And then that is proven to be lies like Sears catalog.

And no time has Sears catalog sounded more sad or pathetic. I do like the tag of he's still in the chair and he says, I don't deserve this kind of shabby treatment. And it's proved to be a lie. Like even he secretly believes he deserves that. His body rejects him and thinks he deserves that shabby treatment. A disproven machine believes he deserves that. His body rejects him and thinks he deserves that. A disproven machine believes he deserves this. So yes. Now I think I

chose it poorly. Dana Gould and myself agree. Most pathetic. I think that's a low blow to use someone like Dana Gould to champion your most pathetic person in Springfield. But I can do you one better. He's more adjacent. Because like, oh, Bonnie, oh, Barney.

Like, Barney Gumbel. Already a ripoff of the idiotic Barney Rubble. But, like, the line, oh, Barney from Moe in the brothel episode, when he has to remember, oh, I'm the only one who cares about this fucking guy, is a single, alcoholic,, pathetic 40-year-old drunk who has done every single bad job in Springfield. Even if it includes the most

method behavior ever, wearing a diaper with no underwear that flies off in the wind right before you see your mother. Which also suggests he's never left his hometown. Town big baby sent you. This can't get any worse. He does say come back diaper. which makes the situation much worse. It's why we disqualified Homer, because from the very beginning, from the first show,

we have to be given somebody who is less pathetic than Homer, and that's Barney. Or more pathetic than Homer, because that's Barney. You need to root for Homer. Yes, he's an awful, slovenly drunk, but he's not single. He owns a home and he's got a good job, whereas Barney has been an amateur crusty. I forget

what the other ones were. Well, he was the governor. Well, he was not the town drunk in Colonial Springfield. He was, I'm supposed to be a governor. That's right, and he also played Bart on Bart Chat when Bart got famous. Yes. So the worst possible job.

Clearly the guy has no benefits, even less than a crowdfunded podcaster. I've got a better apartment than that. In his apartment, my God, I don't know if you have ever seen anybody who has an end table that's a fucking cable spool. Like the definition of a loser. But here's where it really bothers me. Because Barney on several occasions has shown aptitude. And who doesn't hate wasted potential? Barney can sing.

Barney can direct a film. Don't cry for me. You know which one that is. He can direct a film. He is an adept astronaut for some reason. And we see in the flashback episode that he was preparing

for his SATs. Harvard, here I come. Harvard, here I come. Much higher voice with no exposed teeth. Until Homer gave him a beard. You know what a fucking loser you have to be if Homer Simpson dictates the course of your life on a regular basis? Yeah.

The only time Barney has succeeded in any way is by following Homer's cues. He's had one successful business by buying a bigger plow. Simpler times. Simpler times. Well, yeah, by ripping. I will say he was friends with Linda Ronstadt. He's friends with Linda Ronstadt. One of two women we see him with in 30 years.

He has potential and squandered it on the Springfield equivalent of fucking Miller High Life. It's infuriating. It's infuriating. And what's even worse of all, like the way I tried to to phrase it was that not only does Barney have no willpower, he has no will. Or, like, will to live. If you didn't close the bar, I'd never leave. Yeah.

Yes. And not only that, if he wanted to, he can't even die. He can't even die. He can be exploded, be involved in jetpack incidents, have his head slammed in a car door. He has not even allowed the merciful embrace of sweet death to escape this mortal coil. He is stuck here forever to do nothing. Secret talent, though. He makes

really great omelets. Big-ass omelets! And of course, most of all, established in the first episode of The Simpsons, he dates a girl named Diarrhea. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. That is Chris Headcannon. No, it is not Daria! I would have heard Dar dates a girl named Diarrhea. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. That is Chris Headcanon. No, it is not Daria. I would have heard Daria. It's Diarrhea.

Let's roll, Diarrhea. I'd also say that he has drunk beer out of an ashtray. That's true. Oh, it's no beer. It's an ashtray. He sucked it from an empty keg until his gums have bled from the effort. Yes. He cut up his gums pretty bad. And I'm not, I don't mean to disparage Barney. I am Barney. We're all Barney. Well, I don't mean to disparage Barney. I am Barney.

We're all Barney. Well, you don't suck quarters out of a love tester machine. It's only 9 o'clock. I think another sad thing about Barney is he's covered in ears. He has grown extra ears from his multiple science experiments. If it's a shitty job, Barney will do it. And because of Barney, Mo had to create a new job in which you have to guard the beer delivery truck or else Barney will drink it all. Yes. Smithers almost had the Barney guarding job.

Which was the lowest point for Smithers in that episode. And yet he was so far above Barney in that moment. It's true. And yeah, that it was established that if Barney doesn't drink, he becomes a fit astronaut. Yes. That's what he becomes. He becomes an excellent human being. And I've tried to stop drinking. That doesn't happen that often.

That's how much Barney excels. So yeah, I think Barney does have the arc of becoming, but also then falling off the wagon like he's been drunk and not. In any other fucking town, Barney would be the most celebrated human being in the universe.

Because of his affinity for Homer Simpson, who has somehow been allowed to dictate the course of his life through one beer. Yeah, it's sad. I think that, in sad, that's pathetic, right? It's quite pathetic.

That's pathetic. The gods of the Simpsons universe, and by that I mean the writers, they decided Barney cannot improve. They made him sober briefly, but they're like, nah, he's not funny. And if you're a big fan of the Simpsons, that's how little Barney matters to the world of Springfield and the Simpsons. He's the only one allowed to have an entire thing change about him, and nobody cared because they changed it back, and nobody cared either.

Yeah, well, originally, this was in our interview mike scully he said that originally in the script he was just going to fall back off the wagon but he said that was that just was too dark they're like no we can't do that with him there but yeah you know he is below mo but yes exactly mo is this guy's gatekeeper. So he has to be more pathetic than Moe. He's the only one of our selections that doesn't have a job either. In that he has numerous jobs, fly-by-night. If you can juggle a sign, Barney will do it. They're very under the table, you're right.

So no offense to sign jugglers out there. I can see a lot of you very upset about that. That's actually how you knew sign juggling was sad on Rick and Morty, because that was what Jerry was watching a guy to become one to apply to be a sign spinner in one episode. So we're going to wrap up here. I think we should have our audience vote. I don't know if we can hear. How about the applause-o-meter? The applause-o-meter.

Okay, so let's have Chris about the applause-o-meter? The applause-o-meter. Okay, so. Do I have to do this thing with my arm? Let's have Chris judge the applause-o-meter. He can be the impartial judge, but you can't choose your own person. Okay. Automatically. Oh, I won't do that. If you want Skinner to be the most pathetic, please make noise. Quiet, JoJo.

Let's. All right. How about let's give it up. How do we hear for Mo? It's a little higher. It's a little higher. It's a little higher. And finally, Barney Gumbel. No one!

Fucking no one! Are you kidding me? One guy. Oh my god. Okay, look. I think that wins the pathetic battle. He didn't get a vote. It was free. He's not even. He didn't get a vote. It was free.

He's not even popular. Chris may have a point. He is too pathetic to be found to be the most pathetic. From you people. He got one vote. I get it. You don't like me. This is not about Bernie.

Boy, I think Marty should be kind of sold on that one vote. I agree with that argument. Yeah, that should have hurt for everybody listening. I thought I made a compelling case. You did. So, yeah, thanks, everybody. So, Barney, officially the most pathetic man. As of now, we have decided it is now official.

Talking Simpsons stamp of approval. I'm going to email Matt Groening tomorrow, and I'll be blocked again. So, yeah, thanks for coming, everybody. In case you don't remember, we are Talking Simpsons. TalkingSimpsons.com every Wednesday on the Lazer Time Podcast Network. We go through the entire show in order. We're at the very beginning of Season 7, and it's so great and so much fun. Any other things you guys want to talk about?

I mean, we got like 120 episodes on there you can give a listen to. We also did one about the critic, but that's only on our Patreon at Patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. But yes, we are part of the Lazer Time Podcast Network with this big love over here. Chris, you won. Are we doing plugs here? No, thank you for coming out. We've never done a live show before. This is really interesting to do. Yes, thank you very much.

Thank you. You've been a great audience. Our first live show. Thank you very much. Totally. And thank you, SketchFest, for having us out here, too. And thanks to Dana Gould wherever you are. For real. Watch Stand Against Evil. It's great for having us out here, too. And thanks to Dana Gould, wherever you are. Yes, thank you so much. Watch Stand Against Evil. It's great. Oh, yes.

Stand Against Evil. All right. Have a good night, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. Infotainment.