Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Marge on the Lam With Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

As Marge and Ruth battle the police state, we welcome back experts in satirizing dumb cops, Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, creators of the comic Justice Warriors (the new volume 2, Vote Harder, makes a great seasonal gift)! After reflecting on this story in the current post-election climate, learn how Thelma And Louise inspired this ep, why good waffles stick together, and how to balance parenting with watching Simpsons reruns constantly. Plus, the history of sunshine, lollipops, and everything that's wonderful on this podcast! 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!

Welcome to Finally Caught, a true crime podcast from the hit North American and UK television series. I saw the one girl with her throat cut and her abdomen stabbed and slashed. It's a gruesome sight. Blood stains on the bed wall. This is just the beginning of the journey. Each episode details a horrific murder and subsequent investigation in order to capture the killer at large. The newly released first season of Finally Caught, available wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Simpsonsons where we enjoy all the meats of our cultural stew. I'm one of your hosts, the invisible cola liker, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today as always... Pink cheeked and robust, Henry Gilbert. And who are our special guests on the line? Lumber has a million uses, I'm Ben Clarkson. And I'm Matt Bors, and I didn't think of a line.

And this week's episode is Marge on the Lamb. Hello? Marge, this may be hard to believe, but I'm trapped inside two vending machines. Sure Homer, trapped in vending machines, okay. This week's episode originally aired on November 4th, 1993, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh! Oh my god!

Oh boy, Bobby! The NBA grants Toronto a franchise, James' fan man Miller lands during the Evander Holyfield Riddick Bow Fight in Las Vegas, and Robocop 3 and Look Who's Talking 2 both debut in theaters to terrible reviews. This is the dawn of the Raptors, correct? They would be named the Raptors the following May, but this was the birth of the Toronto Raptors. Yeah, I remember this explicitly as a child, that everyone started talking about this far- off place of Toronto having a basketball team. They won at least one championship, right? I don't know sports. I'm asking this fair. I know they won one, right?

What's the basketball Stanley Cup called? What's that one called? The Super Hoop. The Super Hoop? Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're really cashing in on Jurassic Park fever in 1993 by just coasting off the success of another media property entirely. And I credit them for that. It's the raptors from Jurassic Park, which are not real raptors. It was the mistake of Spielberg and Crichton to make the raptor so cool without owning the right to a natural creature that is scientific.

Just like the protagonists of Jurassic Park, they should have copywritten the dinosaurs. Yes. I do want to jump right to Look Who's Talking To because this movie has a fundamental flaw. I can understand crying into the first film, but I will tell you, in that first film, the baby keeps his mouth shut, you hear the voice of Bruce Willis. In the second film, if you've seen it, the babies are like waggling their mouths and vocalizing, and then they overlay the dub of Bruce Willis and Roseanne Barr. It's really weird and doesn't work as much as the first movie was a flawless piece of comedy.

It implies that they had to make a sequel and make two babies talk, but didn't want to suggest that they were psychically connected, because then that creates another problem for the in-universe comedy. There should have been a wizard. Add a wizard, keep the mouths not moving. It should have made it more like Dune, I think, with the sexiest babies. I needed to see the first one, but did not see the second one. I didn't even rent it as a kid.

I think it was the Roseanne thing is all I remember from the trailers, but that wasn't enough to pull me in. Maybe it's because Rugrats existed at that time. I was like, I have Rugrats now. I don't need to watch the live action version. I like the idea that Christie Alley was so spiced up during pregnancy that the children developed the ability to talk.

Yes. They came out with the voice. Now, Henry, I was doing some fact checking in the background and I hate to prove you wrong but this is actually the debut of the third film in the series, The Rise of the Skywalker of this franchise. Look who's talking now in which the dogs talk. Oh, my bad. It was now, not two.

I wrote to... Sorry. My mistake. Apology. So this is even sillier than the two babies talking. What I said about the second movie still applies, by the way. Do not edit that out. Who's doing the voices of the dogs in the third one? Oh, I think it's Meryl Streep and Danny DeVito? That's not a really good career move for Streep. To be associated as like a talking dog.

She did fine. She recovered. Oh sorry, it's Diane Keaton. It's Diane Keaton. Oh, then that's fine. Yeah. As Daphne. Keaton's a better fit, I find, somehow.

So it was two part 3s against each other because yeah, Robocop 3 was the other one, which I believe the PG-13 Robocop, they couldn't even get back the lead actor, it's a new guy in it. And I remember it was being sold as the most toyetic one with a hang gliding Robocop. Yeah, he has a jet pack at some point. The thing I love about the third one, this is the only thing I like about the third one, is that his shoulder pads have sirens on them. And I love to steal this gag over and over again. But RoboCop 3 is really bad.

Well, a lot of synergy at the time, then, because the little kid in this episode who has the siren on his helmet, that was a good. Yes. I remember RoboCop 3 the last time I thought about it. I haven't watched it in a very long time and didn't like it then and I'm a Robocop enjoyer. But when I went to see a screening of Monster Squad with the director of Monster Squad, he directed Robocop 3 and when asked about it, it's like, so Robocop 3, like he jokingly stands up

and hides behind a curtain, cause he's like, I know, I know. But then he went back to the mic and he's like, yeah, look, I know it's not good, but I was offered to do Robocop movie, and I knew the script sucked, but I wanted to work on a Frank Miller script. I loved Frank Miller comics at the time.

He wrote a script, we thought it could work, it couldn't. He was apologetic, but he had understandable reasoning for doing it. Yeah, it sort of fits in with my overall theory of like cultural degeneration that over time we're stripping everything that's good out of our culture and it's just weird that Robocop itself was like a toy sent like Robocop and Terminator 2 these became big toy sellers as R-rated films. Oh yeah I had all that stuff.

I had a toy of Arnold that had like a spike that comes out of his arm and he's all like torn up. I loved that thing. You could pop his arms off. The RoboCop toys fired caps. I remember that the N209 had the cat, like I would just feed the caps in. I love that. And I like that you can see the future a little bit of like, okay, we're not even gonna have the R rated film anymore that's gonna create the toy line. Just everything is PG off the bat now.

Like when's the last time there was an R rated blockbuster? I guess Deadpool. Yeah, Deadpool. Wolverine, there you go. You know, not to defend them just shamelessly cashing in corporate IP, but I think it made sense back then because we were watching the R-rated movies as little kids with our parents. Our parents didn't care. So they watched Terminator 2 with us and Toxic Avenger and Robocop. And then you're walking through the toy aisle and you're like, look, they got toys of all of it.

And then they have to buy it. So good play. We need to go, we should go back to that. Yes. Return to tradition of traumatizing your children by showing them an R rated film. Where are the terrifier action figures and play sets? I felt so unaware. This Halloween was the first time I learned who Art the Clown was.

Two friends of mine or old coworkers on their Facebook were like, I was Art the Clown was. Two friends of mine, or old co-workers on their Facebook, were like, I was Art the Clown with my kids this year. I was like, I guess that's who that is. And he's terrifying things. I'm not cool. I hadn't seen him. I've never seen it. I don't.

I want to watch them, but when do I have time? I have to watch The Simpsons. And yes, the fan man incident, the real fan man incident that The Simpsons would then turn into the ending of an episode In season 8 that happened and James Miller who landed in the middle of that Holyfield bow fight He got beat but he still kept fanning around but he did not get beat up by anyone famous Now it was just all the security guards of the famous people, you know, they didn't stop him He got famous people would we even care about a fan man now?

Like, I feel like we have a fan man every day. They don't get famous anymore. No, that's just the low level background radiation of X the Everything app now. It was just fan men. Fan men on main. But that's what happened the day that Marge on the Lamb aired on television.

And yes, joining us on this first post-election recording is Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, the guys behind the graphic novel series Justice Warriors. And by the way, volume two, Vote Harder is available now. Welcome back to the show, guys. Hey, thanks for having us. Pleasure to be here. It's great to be in the post-Vote Harder landscape

where people apparently did not vote hard enough. I think 20 million of them just forgot this time. vote harder landscape where people apparently did not vote hard enough. I think 20 million of them just forgot this time. Yes. Disappointing outcome. Can't say I didn't think it was possible though. You know what the Democrats need? A newsletter. If they had a newsletter, they could update people that the most

important election was happening. Yeah. I think we're recording this, I think two days after election day. And one of the most popular Google search results of election day was, did Joe Biden drop out? Is Joe Biden still running? People were just not aware. You know, there's so many theories already about why this happened. And, you know, I don't think it's any one thing. But I definitely think moving to being a post-literate society is certainly one of the problems we're facing.

BF Well, and everyone is so siloed too, right? Everyone has their own little... And I'm sure this podcast itself is a good example of it. Everyone is in their own media environments. And if your media environment isn't incorporated into the political industrial complex, then are you even aware that something is happening? Maybe not. If you don't watch the news, what a beautiful life that must be. If only I could stop. BD Soterios Reading back through your book after the election, Vote Harder was, and I think it's a great holiday gift and something to reflect on after the election. A story your volume two is all about an election in the bubble, which is really, it was extra fun to read after an

election, I'd say. Yeah, thanks. I mean, I don't know if it's uplifting, but it is meant to be funny and somewhat thought provoking at the same time. We like to say that we're trying to make the dumbest and the smartest comic simultaneously. Yeah. If you've got assets, it's a pretty uplifting story, I think. Like if you've got skin in the game, if you have a good 401k, you love this. It's actually spooky to me. And I knew it when we were writing the book, like, oh, what if this comes true? Because we had a lot of stuff that we predicted that came true with the first volume with

the original Justice Warriors that came out last year. And Matt and I just have a blast. We just sort of try to think of the stupidest things that we can possibly think of and put it into the book. But there's always this part of our brains that's like, what if we're predicting the future again? And I don't know, maybe I'm blowing smoke up my own butt here. Almost everything we write in the book came true. I was going to say, we need to update the jokes that we fall back on online. So it used to be, Idiocracy is actually a documentary. We need to change that to Justice Warriors is actually a documentary. Don't explain to me how a graphic novel can't

be a documentary. I don't want to hear it. It's nonfiction comics journalism. Yeah. There you go. It's what you specialize in, Matt. Yeah, no, that's what I used to do. Yeah. You know, doing satire that feels like it's coming true is just really, it's not about predicting anything. It's just about doing things that are about the present, but, you know, abstracting them a bit like Justice Warriors is not about Trump and vote harder is not about the U S election, but you know, it is in ways. I mean, it's about the system.

It's about voting. It's about the media. It's about how elites suppress movements. So it's about all these things that are relevant basically to every election and just feel extra relevant now, especially because we have multiple assassination attempts in the book. Trey Lockerbie Yes, that was something as well. I don't want to spoil a book for folks. I just, yeah, I want to say that, Ben, your satire is sharper than ever. And man, Ben, some of the detail you put in that is just like, whether it's like a gun made out

of toy building blocks or huge crowd scenes full of specific people, your artwork is so detailed. It's just incredible. Oh, thanks. I feel like you need to do it because otherwise we really want Bubble City, the city that Justice Warriors takes place in, it's a far future city that's risen from the wastelands. We really want Bubble City to feel like a real place. And so there has to be like a consideration always of like, okay, how is this place different from our world?

What happens here? What does everything look like? And leaning on sort of stock art background. I like a lot of comics just sort of have like gradient backgrounds because they're based in like the Marvel version of the world is just our world but everyone has spandex. I feel like we need to go farther with Justice Warriors

to sort of like fill in the gaps of like what this space is. Well, and you know, I mean, it's much like Springfield in that, you know, we are influenced by The Simpsons, and it is supposed to be this very lived-in place with recurring characters. It's almost like The Simpsons, but crossed with Robocop to bring that back in, but even cranked up even more. So like every single person, except those who live in the bubble are, you know, different mutants and different varieties of species of mutant. There's all sorts of deranged characters. I've always sort of thought of it as a smart McBain movie. That's good. I like that. And we picked a great episode for you guys to come on too, I think, because this is an episode that's more violent than usual and also has a lot of dumb cops in it, which is

the centerpiece of your series too, I'd say. Well, you know, I was actually thinking when I was watching this, I was like, yeah, you know, Justice Warriors is kind of like if you took Ralph Wiggum and you put him in like the plot of Die Hard. Yes, I would watch that episode. So Marge on the Land though, it is a real classic episode and it's written by a new writer to the series, I believe. That's right, Bill Canterbury.

And we put together a little writer's corner about him. So now it's time to talk about Bill Canterbury. And I just want to note that we recorded this segment after we recorded for three hours with Matt and Ben. We had to come back a day later to talk about Bill Canterbury. So yes, if his name sounds familiar, he is the author of The Canterbury Tales. He was born in medieval England and then traveled forward in time to become a Simpsons writer. Of course I'm lying. I did go to school enough to learn that Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales. Meanwhile,

Canterbury wrote Marge on the Lamb. Important distinction there. I like the idea of a story of Chaucer working in the Simpsons writer's room after falling asleep under a tree like a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court. He was a comedy writer. I think he'd fit in. So Bill Canterbury, yes, he is a Harvard grad. And based on when he graduated and why they hired him, I have to assume he wrote for the Lampoon. I couldn't find anything in his search, but I don't understand why he wouldn't have been

a Lampoon writer. You can't have just gone to Harvard. Yeah, if he wrote for the journalism side of things, the Crimson, then he wouldn't have made the connection with all the other Harvard guys. So one would have to assume, if you end up a comedy writer at his young age, you already made it to the the lampoon while at Harvard as an overachieving smart student. And so he didn't stick around on The Simpsons for very long, as I think Ben alluded to in

our conversation. He was only on the show for production season five. He wrote this episode and the Bart Simpson's Dracula segment of Treehouse 404. And of course, he was a staff writer at the time, so he was pitching jokes that you'll see throughout season five. And based on my research, this was his very first job in Hollywood. So he was likely in his early to mid 20s, I'm guessing. I don't have an age on him, but I'm guessing he was fresh out of Harvard or maybe had a few years under his belt of just doing various things before jumping to the Simpsons.

RG That's very interesting that he is a first real job as Simpsons because nowadays, it really doesn't seem like anybody would be hired to Simpsons as they're straight out of college or whatever. You'd work on a smaller series before going to Simpsons as they're like straight out of college or whatever. Like you would have a, you'd work on a smaller series before going to Simpsons. But I think that really speaks to, as we mentioned in the Merkin first episode when we did Rosebud, that Simpsons was at such a low point at that time that they were just staffing up. And so if they, uh, they would take a chance on a guy with his first job Especially if they're probably thinking this is the last one. We'll hit a hundred and we'll be done soon Yeah, and I like that Merkin took a chance on something like this

I guess he liked his packet he put together and some things Okay, this guy's funny we can get him on the staff and see what becomes of him and Merkin was willing to give a lot Of people chances he he gave Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein the reins to the show when they were in their late 20s. Now the current showrunner is 64 years old and his apprentice is, I don't know, 53, 52, something like that. So very different age groups running the show between then and now. Yeah, it's well and it's funny that Bill and Josh were given that kind of trusted position because it sounded like they Didn't always see eye to eye with Merkin creatively either and yet Merkin Was part of the guys boosting them and putting them in that position So yeah, it said that the Merkin giveth and taketh away

So Bill Canterbury is on twitter as at Bill Canterbury funny enough And I remember him tweeting about the simpsons and his difficulties the year he was on the staff But now his feed contains zero mentions of the Simpsons So I'm guessing he deleted those and didn't want those to be public anymore There are a few things I remember But I'm not comfortable with sharing them because they're no longer publicly available So all I'll say is that I do remember him saying something about his first year on the show and his only year on the show didn't go well because he was so quiet in the

writers room. And we hear from all the writers we interview that in the first few weeks you're there, unless you're Conan O'Brien, you are just paralyzed with fear being surrounded by some of the smartest and funniest people in comedy. And it seems like he could not get over that hurdle of being too intimidated by all the very funny people in that writers room because you have to kind of be a performer as well and not every writer has that skill set I'm guessing that's what happened to Bill Canterbury this is all my speculation though yeah it's I mean it was a tale especially about season five I'd say even more than season six that like we talked to Mike Scully he started late in season five and I as I recall

from our interview our first interview with him he was himself said he was very quiet for a little while like it was an intimidating writer's room not just a very smart people but you know also like it's it was one of his first sitcom primetime jobs. I think it would probably be intimidating to anybody. And then separate from that is of course, you know, and the, as, as I mentioned in the Merkin history, we did a few episodes back in the unauthorized Simpsons oral history, it mentions that not everybody got along with Merkin. And he also is kind of a creatively, a could be a dictatorial force or a guru slash cult leader type force. And so I, there were,

there were multiple writers who didn't seem that comfortable there. Dan McGrath was another guy of the one season of season five that when we interviewed him, it, it, there was a slight feel of like he didn't love his time there either or it was short for for an unspoken reason too yeah I'm just trying to put myself in Bill's shoes and when Mike Scully joined the show during the same week Conan O'Brien left the show but imagine being 24 years old this is your first job in the business and you're told to be funny and you're in the same room with Conan O'Brien. When do you stop shitting your pants? I know. No, yeah, when I had my first big job like that, which was joining just a website as an intern and just being scared, I was scared to pitch anything.

I was scared to say like, oh, you know, this could be a good thing or this game was good or whatever. I eventually, you know, got my confidence, but that was like ages 27 to 30 before I really felt comfortable or enough confidence for that kind of stuff. That's not being even younger than that and also working on the best sitcom or one of the most celebrated sitcoms, at least as a comedy for my comedy nerds at the time. Like I don't think I could have functioned very well in The Simpsons then either. Yes. Your joke is going to be viewed by 13 million people and then watched over and over for

the next 30 years. Now be funny. Go. Go for it. I dare you. And also you have to say it to the funniest people in the room who are like, oh yeah, this is, for example, Greg Daniels, like one of the funniest, best writers of his generation as far as like us sitcoms go in the nineties. And you have to pitch a thing to, and you do need to have

confidence in your joke, but then also what if the somebody else says, well, you know, that's, I don't like that or whatever. And it, we've heard Merkin on the commentaries is a sarcastic guy. And if he doesn't like something, he doesn't just say, nah, we're not doing that. He, he kind of, he might rip it to shreds and say like that's shit. That's so I would think if you're already being silent, you might not want to talk even more if, if David Merkin tears your thing apart. Well, we're going to find out soon what happens when you talk back to David Merkin. It's a sad story. We'll cover it soon.

So he leaves the Simpsons, but his career of writing for crass yellow characters isn't over because immediately afterwards he is hired on Duckman for season two. There is a long hiatus between seasons one and two of Duckman, but he joins with season two. long hiatus between seasons one and two of Duckman, but he joins with season two, he writes three episodes and works his way up from story editor to executive story editor and then leaves after episode six of the fourth season. So Bill wrote the episodes The Amazing Colossal Duckman, The Road to Dendron, and Ajax and Ajaxers.

So he was a big part of most of the run of Duckman after The Simpsons. I remember seeing his name in the credits and recognizing it and thinking, wow, are they poaching Simpsons guys? That's, you know, that sounds like a great, if for somebody who might have been intimidated at Simpsons and is starting to get their sea legs, it honestly feels like if you could fix it, it would be the other way around. You get started on like an important and very funny show of Duckman that is lower stakes, lower budget cable versus network, and you gain your sea legs and confidence and can also produce a script and say, you know what, I am funny because that was a good episode as

opposed to having never broadcast an episode of a cartoon yet and trying to convince people something's funny. Going from The Simpsons to Duckman, that's what we call pulling an Avon Zeno. And maybe you might know what that means by now, but if not, hold on to your seats folks, it's coming soon. Anyhow, moving on with more Bill Canterbury stuff, so he seems to be more comfortable as a freelance writer than a staff writer, so outside of brief producer roles on Maggie Winters, which was a short-lived Faith Ford vehicle and the creatively titled Shasta McNasty all of his IMDB credits seem to be for freelance scripts

And here are a few of the shows he wrote for Boston Common, Pinky and the Brain, together the series, which was the MTV boy band mockumentary parody series starring Kevin Farley. Yep. What's new Scooby-Doo and Phil of the future? Wow, that, you know, that Pinky and the Brain one, I wanna look into that a little more because we, when we, another, calling back to another interview we did, but with the late Reed Harrison, he mentioned that he did his Pinky and the Brain

because Pinky and the Brain did get repositioned for a season as could this be our Simpsons on the WB? And so they hired some Simpsons people to write things that would work as a Simpsons style episode, but could also be still rerun with Pinky and the Brain on Cartoon Network. So it had to be this balance of like, will adults like this if we write it PG at best? It was too crazy for Boys Town in the end. But Bill's TV writing credits dry up after the aughts and I'm not really sure what he was up to in the 15 years to follow,

but most recently he has entered the world of children's books and you can look for his three book series titled My Life is Weird starting in April of 2025 and the books are called My Mom is a Mermaid, My Dad is a Unicorn, and My Teacher is a Dinosaur. So he's joining the ranks of Mike Reese, former Simpsons writers becoming children's book authors. Although in this case, it feels like he's working with an artist. Mike Reese has talked about he writes the book, and then it shows up on shelves, and he has no input at all with when it comes to what it looks like or what the cover is, etc. etc. Sometimes he's not happy with that. Yeah, a side on that with the way Mike Reese mentioned it in his book, I'm like, I

don't know, I guess if that's the pipeline that his publisher makes him go through, then I can't put the blame on him if his editor's like, this is how we do it or whatever. But to me, I, especially as somebody who like loves comic books and knows the collaborative medium of that, we both know a comic book artist who works, but other multiple artists who work closely with their writers as a combo like Nina, why, why would you have this wall between you and the person who is illustrating the story that you're both doing together? Like that is just so strangely divorced.

It seems like it pays well, so he doesn't question it, but he realizes it's kind of a racket. But I'm interested to see that he became a kids author. I wonder if he, if it's a thing where he had a kid and was like, oh you know what I want to write kids books or it seems like a lot. But then again, Mike Reese is a childless man, but some of it I think comes from adults reading kids books to their kids and then going like, these these suck I could write a better one and they Didn't get to it

And I will say I would really like to interview bill if he doesn't mind talking about one year of his professional career one that Didn't seem especially happy because it's great to talk to you know The Mike Reese's and Mike Scully's of the world who go on to create other shows and have very long careers But it seems that Bill's career wasn't quite as fruitful as he maybe would have hoped and he's found another place to go. But I'm curious as to what that kind of path is like if he doesn't mind talking about it. Yeah. And what, you know, how fruitful is it when you get on the outside of Hollywood and want to do your own thing? And also like I would like to hear about the Duckman. Now from Peter Avinzino. We may be heard how it was on the artist side versus Simpsons.

It'd be fun to hear from the writer side of things and how, how that worked comparatively. But yeah, I'd be interested to talk to him too. And also just to ask about, you know, nobody remembers Shasta McNasty other than the name. That's the, the power of a good or bad but memorable title. You'll never forget the name Shasta McNasty. I'm sure it was not a good show but people were mostly mad at it because of the name. It was it was crossing the line like you can't name a show that. Or if you were in the just writing an easy like what's the fall look like article in entertainment weekly or tv guide. It was easy to just use that as like your joke third example. and easy like, what's the fall look like article in Entertainment Weekly or TV Guide?

It was easy to just use that as like your joke third example. And we got Shasta McNasty, whatever that is. Not everything can be Shasta McNasty or whatever. It was a real punching bag. But anyhow, that is the story of Bill Canterbury. Now please enjoy the following three hours of this podcast. I think it's his only full credit this episode. I looked through and he's on as staff writer and he's a tree house of horror credit, but

this is his only episode. Yeah, I think he was just on the show for a season. Yeah, it was really quick. Though this is directed by Mark Kirkland and I really liked that on the commentary he brings up how he boarded this with Stephen Dean Moore and also they date to the commentary I love that it's literally like by a week sorry by 10 days 20 years old 20 years old minus 10 days from when we're recording this oh I thought they said it was being recorded in June of 2004 I thought he said November 17 did

he know did he say June 17th? There's simply no way to know at this juncture, but it was 20 years ago. And also there's a funny joke. We just listened to a commentary from, I don't know, 2004. Was it 2011 or 2010, Henry, where Al Jean said, oh, we should make a list of all the things the show predicted, not knowing that would be an entire article industrial complex in our current realm in this time around they're saying oh and I bet in Ten years people will be writing retrospectives about these Commentaries or we'll be doing commentaries of commentaries now the commentaries are 20 years old Yes, and we're literally doing commentaries on the commentaries. It's true. They predicted it. Oh shit. Oh god

Well in like Kirkland's work I didn't know much about Kirkland before I looked into this, but he fits in with my ongoing theory of American cultural degeneration because he studied under the best animators maybe ever produced ever. He was under the Nine Old Men, he was under Ollie Johnson. And it's amazing to see these guys invented animation for the Disney golden age. And then I don't mean to put down the Simpsons visually,

but it's not necessarily the level of work of the nine old men at Disney or the invention of the golden age of animation. It fits with my America's Culture is just a copy of a copy of a copy Which also fits in with our little commentary of a commentary of a commentary Well, you know it brings me no joy to report that I just put on my fact-checking hat once again And I discovered that this DVD was released in America on December 21st 2004. So I feel like it was June

Okay, yeah, I'm down. When I was making these notes clearly my brain was scrambled by something. What were you distracted by? Why couldn't you focus on the right talking baby film? Because we elected a talking baby president. Whoa. Big orange baby president the sentence will be right back Thursday move over Thoma and Louise pursuit of two female suspects Spring One has dyed blue hair. Springfield's favorite mom turns out long. My blue hair?

What a freak! It's Marge! Find out why Marge is on the run. On an all-new Simpsons, Thursday. Marge is stepping out for a wild night in the town. How can you desert your children? Have a blast, Mom! Rock the cast ball! The Simpsons, Thursday at 8, 7 Central. I am Christopher Titus of the Titus Podcast.

I am Rachel. And I'm Ken Hyland, aka The Hylander. When the rest of the world is screaming insanity, we scream sanity. We do a satire comedy news and events podcast. First and foremost, funny first. Whatever's happening in the world, if you want to hear it in a way that doesn't rip your soul out, we'll make you laugh with it. At the end of the day, we just scream sanity. That's what we do.

Can't we just talk sanity because they have to scream sanity because nobody's going to hear it. So tired of you guys screaming. I talk stupidity. Well, that's true. The Titus Podcast on all major streaming platforms, YouTube and at ChristopherTitus.com. Titus Podcast, it's time to scream sanity. Welcome to the break, everybody. I hope you're enjoying listening to this on your own blinking beeper headsets, just like

Kearney has in the episode. And a big thank you to our guests this week, Ben Clarkson and Matt Boris of the Justice Warriors comic. It is such a hilarious, amazing to look at, political satire of the many violent cops and horrible things happening in our world. Their newest volume Vote Harder just came out and it is a very well timed release and a perfect one to get as a gift this holiday season for any friends in your life who would love a great comic book.

So thank you again to Ben and Matt, always awesome to have you guys on. And you know this podcast is brought to you by the subscribers of patreon.com slash talking simpsons. Those subscribers get so many extras for helping me and Bob do this as our full time job. What am I talking about? Come on, I'm talking about you get to hear next week's podcast and all future podcasts of ours without any ads like this one in it. Not to mention you get 200 plus exclusive podcasts including each month a new episode of Talking Futurama and Talk King of the Hill, us covering those series just as

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What a cartoon, movie podcast, an animated feature film discussion that's five to six hours long about so many classic movies and modern classics too, and even some infamous stuff like last month we covered eight crazy nights the Adam Sandler Hanukkah film that was basically the end of 2d feature animation in the US we had so much fun talking about that including a little 30th anniversary conversation about the creation of the Hanukkah song that Adam Sandler sings with one of its co-writers Lou Morton.

And this month you can hear us talk about Frozen, the start of the new era of Disney animated features. There are so many cool things we've done in six years of what a cartoon movie. We've covered every Disney Renaissance film, many Disney classics, a ton of Studio Ghibli films, every Toy Story movie, even crap like Bee Movie and Cool World, and our longest podcast ever, six and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit. There's so much you can hear. At patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, including at the $10 a month level, all ad free, all the awesome bonuses, you can see the full list of it at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. I tell you what I do know for sure this is influenced by Thelma and Louise and I did

watch it wrong again Henry no I'm kidding. No. I watched Elman Luis for the first time in forever this weekend. We got in the 4K criterion a little bit ago and I'd say it holds up pretty great, that movie. Gorgeous, gorgeous movie and it's crazy. I was seeing on the special features, they have like a time capsule of some reviews from the time and how it was called like, you know,

a hateful towards men movie back then and it just feels like nice now. I watched it maybe in 2022. I would admit the pretty and just say it's a great film. I think it's still amazing. Yeah. It's Ridley Scott. Like even his stinkers are technically well done.

I also watched it maybe 2021 something pandemic rewatch for the first time since the nineties, it's great holds up. And it's a real rags to riches story for the screenwriter who wrote it while she was working as a waitress and it was how she got into the industry and built a career just on that as her first script. Great, beautiful. I love to get that Hollywood money when you can get it. She won an Academy Award for it. Are you kidding? That's great. Yeah, there's a great interview with her on the Criterion disc that I think was recorded in the last couple of years. And she is, you know, reflecting on how she was basing this on a lot of her real life and experiences

she had too. And just being a woman in that world and that it spoke to a lot of women then though. She also mentioned how like she didn't love how some people responded to the violence in it. And that's why her next film, she wrote her next film to have no guns in it. She wanted that violence to feel like a tragedy more than any kind of like fulfillment, I think. Not a word in her mouth as a man. More violence.

I mean, Sarandon and Gina Davis are just so perfect in it. Like, it's just, yeah. Such, and Harvey Keitel being the nice guy in it. Like it's just, yeah. And Harvey Keitel being the nice guy in the movie, that's crazy at the time. They should do a remake of it where Thelma and Louise are like John Wick level murderers where they just go into like bars and they're just like, there's too much toxic masculinity here and do like 13 headshots on guys. And they're on a road trip to kill an ex-boyfriend

who's like pull yourself up by the bootstraps entrepreneur Instagram guy. By like a hustle culture ex-boyfriend. Well, of course it needs an open-ended ending so they can make it into a franchise. You can't end like the original either. You know, I think that this feminist John Wick is probably coming to theaters during the second Trump era.

Yes. Like, I know I can see this movie. Thelma and Louise are no longer waitresses because their jobs got replaced by coffee-serving robots. So they're on the edge. You know, Atomic Blonde was sold as like, that was like the John Wick starring a woman kind of movie. It was more about being a spy and stuff. I thought that was all right. They could make more of them. I don't know what's up with that.

I'd have preferred more of a grounded road trip across the South kind of story than fighting through East and West Berlin kind of story. Sure. And then glorifying suicide in the end. Oh yeah, that's the message. You should kill yourself. Jesus. That's the only way out.

When there's no way out. Or if you're bored. Yeah. I wonder if that was a criticism of it at the time. Well, actually I did watch, as I like to do sometimes after watching a classic movie like that, Bob, I think inspired me to do this cause he did this with several is when I finished

watching it, then pull up to Cisco and Ebert for it. And Cisco as usual was not a fan of the violence. He usually does not like violence in movies and Ebert meanwhile was very positive on it, but his biggest complaint, the reason he didn't make it four stars and he gave it three and a half was that he felt the last shot not what? Happens at the end, but he felt the last shot of it was too rushed like he thinks it whites out way too fast and then it's straight to Like basically a clip package of all the fun times they had and he thought it erased the message at the end of the movie

By having it be speed through it. I Think the tragedy of the ending was erased by the Wings World 2 parody. I was gonna say, it's so parodied that it's hard to view it in its original context where you take it seriously. It just became one of those things of the 90s. Also, Tom Cruise coming down on the wires

in Mission Impossible, there were like a thousand parodies of that. Now that wasn't exactly a serious scene, so it's fine to parody it, but it's just like a thing that, as Ben would say, lives as a copy of a copy at this point. You don't even have the original context in your mind. It's almost too effective of an image. You have to satirize it. You have to make a cartoon out of it to control it or something. Although how funny would it be if the end of Thelma and Louise was them landing in a big

pile of garbage and just being like... Those idiot environmentalists. Jokes like this and the one from Wayne's World 2, like that spoiled the ending for me years before I would see it as a teen. It is a different experience probably going into Thelma and Louise, knowing the ending as opposed to watching it just unfold and then seeing it play out naturally. It's like how I find Cape Fear really funny now. Mm-hmm.

I'll tell you what, I'm not letting my kids watch Wayne's World 2 before Thelma and Louise. Definitely not before Terminator 2 either. And not before Marge on the Lamb. I'm preserving... That's the way my family did things. We watched Thelma and Louise as a family in 1992, and then I was ready for the parodies in 1993. Nice.

I don't remember seeing it, but I used to watch every R-rated movie with my parents when I was very young. So I probably saw it close to it coming out. Unfortunately for super nerds who love deleted scenes or things from the scripts, there's no deleted scenes on the DVD and the original script isn't out there. So I'm sorry, there will be no notes on it this time. Even though there's a lot of ADR in this, I do wish I knew what they originally said. But the episode begins with David Merkin's loving hatred of Garrison Keeler and Prairie Home Companion, which I would say he's won that war as far as public opinion

goes. He had a major downfall, a me too moment in like 2017. Though technically he's still around. Like you can still, he's going on tour. You can still see him. He got to come back, unfortunately. He didn't pivot to the blaze or something like that. Riveting performances are still available. They really nailed him in that opening scene.

I wasn't really aware of Garrison Keillor until I was in college and I started driving and would listen to NPR. And every morning, I had eight o'clock classes, so I was driving pretty early. And every morning I would hear Gerson Keeler read a poem via his segment called The Writer's Almanac, and I wanted to do a thumb on Louise every morning. I was thinking about it. My mom in 1993 had to explain this joke to me

because she was a big fan of Prairie Home Companion. Like she's been into Prairie Home Companion. She's been into Prairie Home Companion live performances more than once, I think, even twice over the years. Not recently. Bregman O'Reilly We have an off-brand version in Canada. What was that called? The Vinyl Cafe, if you've ever heard of it. We have a Canadian garrison keeler who tells these stories about a guy who sells records. And it's just once again copy of a copy. Canada is just a shitty copy of the United States. I feel like this opening bit wouldn't work entirely unless we cut away to the upper middle class audience losing their shit over this. Yes, to be frank, I liked the children are pink cheeked and

robust joke. I thought it was delivered. Well, it was subtle. Oh, yeah, it got a laugh out loud for me. That was the running gag. That was like the chalkboard gag of Lake Wobegon sketches when

he'd say the men are this, the women are that and the kids are this and that combined. I have the clip here of it actually because isolated you could really appreciate Harry Shearer's parody of this especially with like the audible inhales and exhales into the microphone. Well Sarah it has been an uneventful week in Badger Falls where the women are robust, the men are pink-cheeked, and the children are

pink-cheeked and robust. What the hell's so funny? At the Apple Biscuit Cafe where the smiles are free, don't you know? Sven and Quist studied the menu, and finally he ordered the same thing he has every day. Maybe it's the TV. With TV, be more funny! Well, sir, I think it is time to turn this pledge drive over to Troy McClure.

I can't keep up this pace forever. I love Sven Inquest. I love that. I love that. I love stupid TV be more funny. Oh, that is such a great moment. It's very daring for the show to spend a minute on this parody. Much of the audience like Homer is not going to understand it, but they really have to devote time to get this performance as labored as Garrison Keillor's is. I think that's a really great example of that fine line between stupid and smart that The Simpsons pulls off. Because I, being aware of Garrison Keillor, I find the Garrison Keillor parody funny. And then I also find Homer being stupid funny. But then somebody who doesn't know Garrison Keillor is still going to find Homer being stupid funny. Stupid TV be more funny. That's

good regardless of the level of access you have to the joke. Well, and you get... I think if you're a kid watching it or you're whoever watching it, even if you don't know the reference and get how spot on it is, you get that this guy's boring. Yeah. I also kind of like this as it feels like a parody of, I think I've heard the term is claptor of just that the laughter of recognition that is not really like actually spontaneous laughter, but just like, I agree with this laughter on that commentary

that was in June, 2004, I think maybe that on that commentary, Matt grading, he's defending Garrison Keillor. He feels bad that Garrison Keillor is getting a knock on there. He's like, he thinks he's funny. He's defending his obviously with a me too guy like that, I'm not saying in the past, he was defending this me too guy. He was saying he thought Garrison Keillor was funny.

And he was like saying, I'm sorry Garrison, I think you're funny. Wasn't Matt Groening on the Lolita Express? What's his history on that stuff like? Just a consensual foot rub. Okay. Yes. I believe that Jane Doe's had nothing else to say about him on that, but he was on

it. Yes. These are true statements. Then we cut from this to the pledge drive for PBS, which is always in trouble of getting money. I was looking it up. Currently they have a 500 million appropriation from the government that covers all of US TV and radio that's public radio and the rest, which is a lot they need, covered in donations. Back in the first Trump administration, he pledged he was going to cut all of it and he didn't pull it off. Will he succeed in his second term?

Time will tell. I'm sure he'll get distracted by something else. Like not the top of his list. I feel like they already sold Big Bird to max all they have left is copper wiring now Bought Sesame Street didn't they oh they did okay? Yeah, it's all private now. They privatized Sesame Street, which is insane There's not much that's gonna be really good under. Oh, yeah, I Also like this Troy McClure bit here, the way he's introducing things. The telethon he says includes, let's say Tony Orlando's house, which would lead to, I would say my favorite Yola Tango song. I really love that

song. I've heard him do it live on podcasts as well. like the original version's great, any cover's great. They tell a tale of Tony Orlando's house being burned down that is captivating, that fully inspired by The Simpsons, but it's not just a reference. They built a story out of Tony Orlando's house being burned down and being needed to be saved. We also see Edward the Penitent, which is a good parody of a typical BBC series you'd end up seeing on PBS, I think, back then. They have the collar tugged. They were really liking this back on the show then. Yes.

It had just been seen in Treehouse of Horror IV the week before this. It was Kodos who pulls his collar. I think it's what's called the Charles Nelson Riley noise. That, ooh. I think that's Bill Canterbury's only other writing credit to is that tree house of horror So it could just be his little meme that caught on at the Simpsons. Who knows fact-check me. I

Took off my fact-checking hat. Oh, right. Sorry and Marge Pledges to get opera tickets in a tote bag Homer at first is mad at this small j towards supporting the R.I.C. He's mad that they don't have Geraldo's or Eubanks's. Kevin Eubanks still touring around as a musician, not on TV so much. Geraldo's still at it.

He has been selling himself as an anti-Trump Republican. I wonder, will he find a new scam in the next four years? So I looked this up. I wasn't entirely sure if Homer was referring to Kevin E banks or Bob you banks because Kevin did not become the tonight show Bandleader until 1995. I'm not sure how well known he was before that so he could be referring to the color commentator Bob you banks Oh, I think you're right man. I'm just counting up all the cinema sins on this podcast. Yes, we need a ding counter editor on this podcast. Yes, we need a ding counter. Editor? Homer was just that there's some jokes in here

that are dated, but the Geraldo one still is at it. He's not on PBS, he is on regular TV. A lot of these cultural references went over my head in the same way that they did as a child, to be honest. It feels like there's a lot in this episode. A lot of just random cultural references, you know, the clear soda and the, I mean, just, I don't know, you guys watch more Simpsons than me, you can tell me if it's the reference ratio is the same, but I felt like they was

just throwing a ton of things out there. I mean, even just the premise of the episode, which is riffing off Thelma and Louise. It's weird, people seem to now get offended when The Simpsons or Futurama, or one of those shows, does a newer parody, but then you have to remind them, look back at what they did in the past. They were always trying to be relevant. They were always trying to riff on things that were, by the time they hit the air, nine months old.

There's even like a Family Guy cutaway, the hated cutaway format, like remember the time that you did this and then they cut to that. This purity of the Simpsons is not there, right? Like it is really just throwing spaghetti at the wall most of the time. But the jokes are funny. They keep coming fast, but they are good. But when it comes to Family Guy style cutaways, they have like two in a minute here. Like first with Homer's envisioning of the ballet and then after that

his dosing. Like in both those cases they are so quick together. Just like remember this, flash away. Here's what's in my mind, flash away. Yeah. I have good things to say about the serum when we get to the serum. I love a good serum. Well, why don't we give a listen to the returning Ruth Powers. Hehehe! Alright! Woohoo! Yay! Hehehe! Yeah! Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do Hi Marge, I was wondering if you had a power sander I could borrow? Homer? Nope! That's one right there!

Alright, but remember it's mine! Yeah, Homer's vision of the ballet is very funny. Number one, I love any joke from The Simpsons that shows what the person is doing while they're having the dream sequence. In this case, he's singing along to the music in his head. But despite how fun Homer thinks the ballet is it's very sparsely attended in his fantasy sequence there's only four other people there weird little subtle joke that even his fantasy is kind of crappy

yes Homer's the only person who bothers to go to the front row and be that excited about it everybody's standing by and I like the bears almost like making eye contact with Homer when it spins back around to look at him too. I also like how it's continued, that running gag several times of like, he has to be informed that the ballet is not a bear in a car. Lenny makes the same mistake. These tiny little details are what make The Simpsons writing stand out.

I do love that Lisa has to show Homer basically a children's book from the library of what that is. Like that's what teaches him. And I love the return of Ruth. I feel like this is a mostly new writing staff and they're realizing, oh, you guys had this new neighbor character join the cast last year. Let's bring her on. And then they kind of forget about her and she won't return in a real speaking role until

season 14's Large Marge. But she'll be in almost every background scene from this episode until then, just as an extra character. Yeah. In season four, she comes on and it definitely sounds like she is a very Jim Brooks pitch of a single mom with a kid next door that gives us a lot of new plot devices we can use with her. Like she's supposed to be Ned Flanders is equal like oh sometimes he'll talk to

Ned as his neighbor sometimes I'll talk to Ruth and this feels to me like they introduced Ruth in season four because Brooks wanted it but then they weren't that interested to do anything with her then when Merkin starts he's told again by Jim Brooks hey Ruth do something with, hey, Ruth, do something with her. I really want to do something with that character. So at the start of the Merkin era, he's like, yeah, let's do something with her. And I think they actually find an interesting thing to do with her as a single mother going through the pains that are heaped upon them in American society.

But after this, they stopped finding things to do with her, even though I think she's funny as well. I think she's used well here. Yeah, I think it's a good use of the character. And Pamela Reid's a great actress too. I would say relatively available. She was fresh off a kindergarten cop when she was first cast in the show. Yeah, I do find her performance, like sorry to be a negative Nancy here, I find her performance a little flat in this episode. Everyone else is being much more of a cartoon and she's much more, she's a little,

she's not given it her all. She's not given her best in this, I find. She's not carrying the character all that well. I think it might be because in every scene she's talking to someone with an insane voice and she's just seemingly using her normal speaking voice. So it just it does seem like an entire different acting style and performance altogether. Yes, she might be a normal human and that might hurt her by contrast. I love the shot of Homer using a power sander destroying his carpet as a footrest and just his blank look on his face like he doesn't give a shit like he likes it. It's shaking his feet.

There's one right there. A great example, too, which this episode has in spades of like the comedy coming from the character like Homer is stupid and awful. Last time I was on the show, I talked about this a lot like Homer sucks and he's stupid and awful. And honestly, as I grow older, I relate. I'm an idiot. And I've been going through one right now, nowadays, just sort of realizing how stupid

I am. And so I relate to Homer a lot in this episode, especially as a husband and father. And a lot of the comedy for Homer in this episode comes from his stupidness and his awfulness and a lesser comedy like cultural degeneration again, a comedy that would come out today would have a character say like, I'm a bad father, or have another character in a dialogue say to them, it was really bad what you did to the kids, or something like that. They would address it directly in dialogue. Whereas here you see Homer being stupid. You see his vices creating problems. You see him being a buffoon. And I appreciate that. This is a little bit of art that we've lost. Whatever tool you've borrowed from your neighbor, Ben, you need to return. I need to be comfortable while I watch TV, Matt, and I refuse to give up my lawnmower.

Now, is it just me or does the property of Ned Flanders appear there out of nowhere on the next shot so that they can have another joke? I appreciate the next joke, but I wish they would have like zoomed in and it just has like a little sticker he put on it or something. The sticker takes up the entire surface area of the belt sander so everyone can read it. This is a magic belt sander though. That's how it got there, of course.

So Homer is told what ballet really is. And I also have a quick clip of that because Dan Castellaneta was already funny with his singing that song for too long in his fantasy. And here he giggles way too long too, and I love every second of it. That's what ballet is? Oh. You promised.

You can't back out like when you volunteered for that army experiment to avoid dinner at my sister's. Mr. Simpson, you do realize this may result in hair loss, giddiness, and the loss of equilibrium. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just give me the syrup. Heh heh heh. It was worth it. Heh heh heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh.

Heh heh heh heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh Yes, I have a lot of, not a lot to say, I'm continuing my previous point of cultural degeneration because this is like a cutaway, right? So Family Guy will basically do this, but then they'll leave out the punchline on the other side of it, right? They'll be, yeah, yeah, give me the serum. Just give me the serum is funny on its own. But then you don't even suspect that that's going to set up to this punch line outside of the fantasy. We live in a world where we don't have the punch line anymore. I'm worn it.

That's a great point, Ben. The last joke we hear in the episode is a reference to this cutaway. Yes. Yes. Yeah, they build into it very well. And then yeah, no, in Family Guy reference to this cutaway. Yes. Yes, yeah. They build into it very well. And then, yeah, no, in Family Guy, when this cutaway would have happened, or in a Family Guy-like show of the many inspired by it, it would just then, after Homer gets like,

hey, give me the serum, then it would just cut to the next scene. We're like, da, da, da, da. You get the typical Family Guy music sting next scene. And this, there is like this self-cohesion. There's so many running jokes and set up and punchlines throughout the whole episode that it really rewards you for watching the whole thing. And I think that's a joy of watching and I think that's the joy of time-based media like movies or television or Radio or something like having something placed earlier

it's loaded into your consciousness and then having it paid off at a later time and This is a thing that I think we've disavowed as a degenerating society They do a great job of I mean, this is a Simpsons thing in general. But in this episode, there's a lot of jokes on jokes. And then a third joke sometimes. This also is a good explanation of many they say it on the commentary. Like, oh, there's many explanations of why Homer

is so stupid. But this is a good one here. Somebody put a unknown serum in his body and it gave him all of the things that changed him from the high school Homer we once saw. I just love, yeah, yeah, yeah, just give me the serum. And then they've been checking in on him apparently and he needs to go back for more testing at the end of the episode. So then we go to the nuclear power plant, Homer's going home, that's where we get another great callback. There's perfect callbacks built into this script.

Lenny and Carl both think the ballet is what Homer thought it was. So it's just what all the guys think the ballet is. And the next joke is really a law and order style rip from the headlines kind of thing because Crystal Pepsi debuted in stores in December of 92. This episode had to be written in very early 1993. So they're getting it just as it's exploding and it barely lasts for a year.

I think it was discontinued maybe a year or a little over a year later. So you had to get your Crystal blank jokes in as soon as possible in the world of comedy. I want them to bring it back. Cola should be crystal. I think they've tried. People don't want it. People don't want it? I want a crystal Pepsi.

I want one right now. No, you don't. You don't know your own desires. Capitalism does. You don't have a grasp on what you want or need, but the market has determined that you don't. Can you do that in like a Slovenian accent? I do have a little history on that.

Yeah, the Crystal Pepsi went away by the end of 94. They phased it out. It did not sell that well. I think my family only got one case. I remember. And so what happened though was like it was mid aughts 2014 there were multiple movements of this online this is what we could think of in the Rosie Obama years we can focus on bringing back sodas. We're about

bringing back Conan O'Brien and ancient sodas. Yes. And then everyone who failed at that went to 4chan. I want my OK soda with the Dan Klaus art on it. See, yeah, you know, that's what Indie comic guys got to do back then, like whoever did all the art on the Barks root beers, they got the big money from that. But yeah, groovy. Yeah. Sellouts. So in 2014, after it was deemed a successful online campaign to get Coca-Cola

to make more surge, which they did, they did bring back surge. Then there was literally change.org petitions to bring back Crystal Pepsi. Like people were saying that that was the next move for it. Pepsi did do it. They brought it back in small, small batches that they actually made into an online game of like, ooh, find the Crystal Pepsi wherever they're selling it in your area in 2016. You know, I can see why we all forgot this happened in 2016, but you could hunt down Crystal Pepsi's

for about 10 bucks, get a couple Crystal Pepsi's from 2016 off of eBay at this very moment. Mm, delicious. Democracy works, people. I remember being very excited about this because I was 10. I'd only lived through so many things. And a new soda was a big deal. But this made me so jaded, I did not care about Surge when that launched in 1997, let's say. I was over new sodas. I was a big Surge head, I gotta say. Used to go out skateboarding with my friends, get a six pack of Surge, you know, break them out, hand them out to the crew, smash them down.

They could have done a commercial about me, you know, out skateboarding, drinking Surge. I was like the prime demographic. I wasn't into Surge until the Obama years. You were a late late comer to Surge. I was not a soda boy, I'm still not a soda drinker. I had heard from pals that Crystal Pepsi wasn't all it was cracked up to be, that it was just like, yeah, it looks like 7-Up that tastes like Pepsi,

was pretty much what I remember hearing. All I remember is Zima, remember Zima? What is Zima? It's a clear malt beverage. It's like a malt beverage? It's like a malt beverage? Like is it an alcoholic beverage? Yeah, it's like a malt alcohol that is a crystal Pepsi of malt liquor.

There was one called Orbits that had tapioca beads in it. That was weird. They weren't really experimenting with what we would drink in the future in the 90s, right? You know what the hot drink of now is, the hot special soda of now is, it's Coke Zero Sugar Oreo flavor

that's matched with Coke flavored Oreos that you can buy. So you get both, you get two sides of it. I love having diabetes. Is that, is that something that people are buying though? Is it just a gimmick that's gonna be gone in two months? Well, it's a gimmick. It's a gimmick around, I wouldn't expect it to be around in six months,

but you're getting more of the flashy gimmick sodas and Oreo flavors now than you used to get. Are there people whose cultural identities are based a lot around novelty drinks, you think? Like people who derive their pleasure of being from Oreo Coke? I guess so, right? You gotta have something to live for.

Yeah. Oh, we're just looking forward to all the new sodas. Maybe next year there'll be a Twix flavored Coke Zero. That'd be fun, right? I'm voting for Twix flavored soda. I want a Snickers flavored soda with peanuts floating in it. Oh, yes.

Starting online petition, get it going. I think that was so much of the odds too though was millennials like us wanting the old flavors of things back. We also got back Ecto Cooler in 2016 as well, remember? All these things came back in 2016. Yes, it was a sign of a certain rot, I guess. Yeah, once again, cultural degeneration. We can't produce something new anymore. It's all copies of copies. Ecto Cooler, though, was straight up great. It wasn't really a

gimmick. It was't really a gimmick, it was just a good combination of flavors, which is why they kept it around for like 10 years after the movie came out. What are the flavors of Ecto Cooler for the ignorant one here? Me. It's like a heicy orange kind of thing, I'd say.

Specifically tangerine, I think, is the flavor. Okay, yeah, I could get behind that. I think it's orange, lemon, and tangerine like mixture of some sort, or maybe it's just tangerine, I don't know. That sounds great, I'm going on eBay now. Slimer told you to drink it, and he was right. He was right.

But in this case, yes, it's great that Homer, just the idea of a crystal Buzz Cola excites him so much. He has to then show kids that you can steal sodas as well. It's a good lesson for kids. And I really like this visual gag of him reaching into the crystal Pepsi machine because there's a skeleton. Like one his arm is like a snake it's like flowing through like early Disney hose arms. He becomes Mr. Fantastic or if you're a kid Monkey D. Luffy Disney hose arms. He becomes Mr. Fantastic or if you're a kid, Monkey D. Luffy.

Grabs that can. By kid, I mean you're 35 or younger. Yeah. I consider anyone under 35 a child at this point. And then he passes. That's 36. Yeah. You know, not like me, sophisticated. He passes a skeleton arm holding a fresca, which I enjoyed because I would lose an arm for a fresca. I love me a fresca. Fresca's around? What do we... Fresca still exists. You can't beat a grapefruit soda. Haven't seen one in a while. I believe they're a plot point in the most recent season of The Boys, I think, or the most recent couple seasons. A cult is marked by how they all drink fresca. believe we're talking about sodas I did not grow up

with Fresca I grew up with squirt mmm all you squirt heads sound off in the comments I like to search that online yeah squirt I'm a real squirter what's funny that Fresca is used as like this is the lame dated soda when like Crystal Pepsi now would be used as like, Oh, this arm has been in here so long. He was stealing Crystal Pepsi. Also, I like that since the joke later is Homer is going to have his arms sawed off. I like to imagine that that is a guy who agreed to have his arm sawed off just like Homer did and it happened.

That's why it's in there. Yes. He's even dumber than Homer. Oh, there you go. I didn't think of that. Yes, yes. Good joke. Now, I'm going to say Homer's holding on to the can. Spoiler. I saw that one coming. It's a good joke though. That joke has stayed with me my entire adult life from when I first saw it as a child. I think about this gag all the time, and I was happy to see that it was in this episode. It's a good piece of directing too,

because in animation, we think of things in terms of layouts, like backgrounds, and what you animate over top of the backgrounds. You try to limit your layouts because it's expensive to do a layout, and they spend a little bit of time, a little bit of budget on a specific layout just to show the guy being like, uh, yeah, your arm will grow back for the reverse shot on this. So I appreciated that they spent their money correctly. It also does make physical sense with how they animate Homer that

like you can tell, got it. He has it in his arm His arm moves a little bit more and you can tell when he's pulling it it is because His hand is on the can and the can is like pulling it at the exit point Yes, and then Lenny and Carl abandoned him immediately like he's on fire or something not that they're getting for help like he's done for They've seen it happen before. So Homer walking down the hallway, then runs into a second one. Also the shots of the empty plant,

a couple are reused from the blinky episode from season two. They didn't make the rat glow in the shot of the rat, but it's the same shot of the rat. Also the reveal of Homer somehow being able to call Marge with both arms stuck in the machine for the little intro clip That's great, too Marge isn't even surprised She knows at this point she dates a sitcom character who gets in buffoonish problems and just is like she can't even be mad anymore

She offers up the tickets to Patty and Selma. They won't do it because it's girl stuff It's cute and then Ruth shows up and I like how Ruth explains herself as like, oh yeah, she lost all these things when her husband left her, including any self-esteem as well. And she's just like, it takes Marge a second to realize that Ruth could be her date to the ballet. Yeah. Things move so fast that after we hear Marge say, Hey, wait, we just smash

cut to the auditorium and we're there already, we don't have to see the conversation or anything like that. No, and that's good writing too. Cause you know that that's where things are going to go as the audience. So why even include that scene? Like there's a certain economy to the script too, which I really appreciate that once again, cultural degeneracy, you don't see anymore. You have to have that like literal conversation nowadays.

You can't just cut away. As they're watching the show, I like that Marge and Ruth have this kind of, you know, girls moment of just like giggling at like, hey, this guy's got a big bulge, or his loins should be like, they're just giggling to each other. That's funny.

I like that. It's very ADR, but I like that Smithers wishes there was more mincing. I also like the American version of ballet ballet where even though it's not a bear in a car, there's still a slam dunk involved. Was the Shaq attack happening around this time? I recall a lot of shattered backboards in the early nineties. I was going to say, I think that this, you know, it's a reference to the fact

that it was happening a lot more frequently. I did look this one up too, yes. This episode was written after, or the tail end of Shaq's first professional season in the NBA, where he broke at least three backboards and he had also done it in college. And it was becoming a real thing of like the Shatterback board. Not that anybody had never done it before,

but Shaquille O'Neal was such a huge guy pulling off dunks that it was kind of unprecedented that much. And there's whole new stories about how the NBA then rebuilt the hoops basically, not just reinforced the backboard, but also the things holding them up, like they had to be reinforced and rebuilt for a man as huge as Shaquille O'Neal pulling him down. Yeah, I guess if you smash the backboard, the game is over. It's the very least they got to pause for a good while. He often pulled them down too.

He would break them entirely. Yeah, they had to like stop the game. And then I don't know how it worked. But I imagine it's not a piece of material that they were used to swapping out constantly. So it's not like, you know, you got to just bring the hoop guy out and he just installs the new hoop. They just wheel out a peach basket on a ladder. He shattered it. It also did make it. And I know this term now, we just did the eight crazy nights podcast where we talked about that film where there's entire song called technical foul. And now I know that a technical foul, it is a technical foul to intentionally break the backboard. If you accidentally do it, that's one thing. But if you slam dunk and then hold onto the rim intentionally to pull it down, it is a technical foul and you could be kicked out of the game

for it. Or at the very least, like you'll be penalized in some way. Thanks, Shaq. Yeah. But yeah, this is right after Shaquille O'Neal was making it. A young Shaquille O'Neal was making it very famous to shatter the backboard as the ballet dancer does here. Ben, you say you see yourself as Homer. As Marge is talking about going home at 930 and being scoffed at, I've felt like Marge a few times. I feel I've turned into Marge in my whole life. Oh, you're serious.

Yes. Yes, as a parent, I've felt that one. I had to stay up with my daughter. We had to go to the emergency room for some bullshit reason this week. I was up till two in the morning. I used to leave my house to go party at two in the morning in my youth. I was real struggling. I couldn't even listen to media.

The room was spinning. I was just jostling my leg over and over again to stay awake. It's real. I want to go to bed at nine. I want to go to bed at eight. I used to shut down bars in my 20s and last night I was fast asleep at 10 30 blowing a single feather in the air as I snored. Did you have your fact check hat or your sleep hat on? My traditional sleeping hat was on. Yes. Yes. With a candle wick on a dish next to you. Yes.

Yes, Homer, then he is about to give up on things and this is another just like hilarious moment here. Homer, this is never easy to say. I'm gonna have to saw your arms off. They'll grow back, right? Oh, yeah. Homer, are you just holding on to the can? Your point being?

I envy you and Homer. Thank you. Why? If you ever met my ex-husband you'd understand. All he ever did was eat, sleep, and drink beer. Your point being? And to top it off he's been stiffing me on child support for the last four months. Mmm. Well you were unlucky, but there are a lot of good men out there. Hey! Can I throw up in your bathroom? I'll buy something. Good shudder at the end of that. I love that Marge and Homer are back to back,

both say your point being after facing like an obvious thing in their lives, like your point being they can't connect what people are trying to tell them. I also noticed, I guess, just because it's such a Marge focused episode is that we get a lot of good Marge grumbles. Yes. You know, throughout this, I can't do it. Sorry. That's good.

That was a bad. That sounded noncommittal and reassuring. Yeah. Oh, just the Marge grumble, She has to acknowledge that something's been said, but can't fully express herself. There's a lot behind the marge grumble. Yeah. As I grow older, the gender roles, they become more and more real parts of my life, rather than just like cartoon characters. I am a homerer I get the grumble from my wife all the time when I say something egregiously stupid it's real folks your hand is stuck in a machine because you

want to get a fresca yeah I also think it's very well observed of just a drunk guy showing up to say, could I throw up in your bathroom? I'll buy something. Just the charitable like, I'll buy something. I've been this guy. I've been every character. Yes, at different stages of life, we identify with different Simpsons.

Credit to the artists on this one because when it comes to backgrounds or settings, because Thelma and Louise to parody it, because Thelma and Louise, to parody it, in Thelma and Louise, half the movie is driving around in beautiful, you know, countryside or these huge landscapes. And the other half of the movie is in, you know, diners and restaurants and bars. And so to parody it in this episode, they have to find so many different bars and diners to draw and make them distinct each time. Also, they credit Susie Dieter for the great shutter that Ruth does at Seeing Barney.

And Susie Dieter, I mention that just because our interview with her is really great. If you haven't gone back in our archives and listened to it, she has a lot of great insights on what it was like to be the first woman to direct an episode of The Simpsons, which she'll do in season five. It's a really great interview. Susie told us so many cool things. Like, what's the ratio of Homer and Bart episodes to Marge episodes and to a lesser extent Lisa episodes at this point? It's still pretty heavily, like, do we have gender parity with Simpsons episodes now? I doubt it, right? It's still very much a Homer show, I would say. What do you guys think? You're the Simspers.

I don't have the stats in front of me. I feel like maybe there is one Marge release episode for every six Homer or Bart episodes. Not counting if Marge has a B plot in a Homer episode, things like that are different. But it feels like that has always been the ratio. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'd say these days, maybe it's closer to four to one or in a big year, three to one of if Homer and or Bart focused episode versus a Marge and or Lisa episode. I'd put it a little closer to three to one now, because in the most recent

season, I can remember a couple in the most recent season, one of my like favorite episodes that I talked about on the minion death cult podcast was the bear parody one where Marge works at a ghost kitchen and it actually is like about trying to unionize an app was pretty good by modern simpson standards. I'm not calling it as good as this episode. Yeah, I think there are more marginally some ones because back in this era it was considered a form of hazing where when you join the staff you have to write a Marge episode or two just to learn the breaks and write for what they consider the least interesting character.

I don't think that is the vibe now on the show, or at least I hope it isn't. Bill Canterbury obviously couldn't take the hazing and quit after being assigned it. I mean, I, of course, when I was a kid, I loved Bart Simpson, older, I like Ben, identify with Homer. But now, I think because Marge isn't used enough, I find her the most interesting character. Like, you can tell every episode I've seen with her where she's centered is like about how Marge needs to cut loose because she's incredibly repressed. Yes. Which is, you know, just great potential for character and, you know, relatable in some ways.

Statistically, she voted for Trump. If you had to bet, I guess. Yeah, she did. We need to stop talking about who Hank Hill voted for and start talking about who Marge voted for. Yes. I feel like Marge is Kamala for sure. The fictional character in scenes has endorsed Kamala. So yeah, I mean, yes.

If we're to guess without... I forgot about that. Well she did for vice president. I don't know if I can specifically should say she did in 2024, but yeah, there was, do you remember Bob, the little video they had of Marge responding to, let's say it was Ted Cruz, but a conservative said that Kamala's voice was annoying like Marge Simpson's. And so Marge responded like in a cannon appearance. Yes. Yes Oh boy, look it up folks. That sounds bad Yeah, it's very cringe. I think it's funnier if Marge votes for Trump

I think it's much funnier if she's like well, you know Groceries were this price under Trump and this price under Biden. That ability to confuse her. I feel like giving a character a vice is funnier. Making characters stupider is funnier. Having the right opinion is never what you want out of your farce. I want to believe this won't happen because they're owned by Disney now, but 2016 and the Trump presidency was some of the most embarrassing shit the Simpsons ever did, especially in terms of the political commentary in their shorts, even though they're on the right side of things. And I hope they're not allowed to do that now. I hope Disney's like, no,

just make a short advertising Agatha along season three. Yes. Yeah, I feel like it's going to be different. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself on the politics, but I feel like this time they're like, well, you know, we did the whole hysteria thing and it didn't really work out for us last time. I guess Trump's just a normal president. I think that there's gonna be a much more like, things are just normal now. There's not gonna be the same-

More denial. I don't think so. More denial, full court press. I don't think it's gonna be the same full court press. Like there's no, what do you think, Matt? You're the smart one here. No, I'm not. But I don't know.

I mean, I think it's, I think I was saying earlier, we're a more illiterate society, less people are even reading news across the entire political spectrum right now. Like, I think everybody is siloed in their own spaces a lot more. There's not going to be like, for instance, a gigantic rush to support the New York Times and the Washington Post. Yeah, it was when Trump was elected.

I think a lot of liberals hate those institutions now, maybe even for some of the wrong reasons. So I think that things are just more diffuse in our culture. So there is gonna be a lot of resistance stuff. I think it is gonna be, meaning the real world politics, Trump is gonna be pretty bad, potentially worse than his first term in a lot of ways. And there's gonna be a lot of people who check out out a lot of people who, I mean, I know

people who were kind of like, pussy hat wearing white women feminists in 2016, who are now like, fully radicalized in a way that in some cases is bad. Like they've just become deranged by whatever issue they focused on. You know, a lot of people have become lunatics because of COVID and vaccines. Like, I don't know. I think we're just spinning out into all these little political fiefdoms where everybody develops their own ideology. And that's going to continue. And that nothing great is going to come of it.

You guys are going to have a presidential candidate on this show at some point to try to reach the Simpsons vote. Hey, they're looking for the liberal Joe Rogan's, right? I know, I'm going to apply. Gonna take some steroids and apply. I'm not pink enough. We need to have like a Kenny Rogers roaster sign

behind us in our video setups too. Don't have that yet. And that's our goal for 2028. We're working towards that by 2028. So Marge meets Homer when he gets home. She can't even be mad that he burned out a lumber yard as part of his plan. I like when Marge reads that note, which is all ADR, like it's clearly changed, but I think it's a great joke because when she

reads it, Homer's reaction is, oh, lumber has a million uses. Like he didn't read it. Like this is when he's learning a lumberyard burned down. When Marge reads a note, he handed her, but Marge can't even be mad because she's already got plans to hang out again. And this is the closest Homer gets to acting like Thelma's husband in Thelma and Louise, who in that movie, it starts out with Thelma having to be cautious about asking her husband to get to go out and do anything. He never likes her hanging out without her, but also he just wants to, he gets to stay out all night and is said to Thelma at the start of the movie, like, is he your husband or your father? Like that's the kind of, and Homer's kind of being that here, that he, just because she won't hang out with him,

he is telling her she can't do that. It's a bit unhealthy, I'd say. My father did not like my mom going out and doing stuff without her, and that's why their marriage was so healthy and lasted a long time, too. I don't like it when my wife goes out, because then I have to do everything by myself at home. That's how I relate to Homer. I relate to the villain in this. Well, I would say it's not like, I mean, I wouldn't give my wife a hard time for going

out. We don't go out a lot because we have young kids. If one of us does get to go out, it's sort of like, if somebody asks, it's just sort of like, well, wait a minute, aren't we supposed to just stay home and watch something on Netflix? Like are you betraying me? But it's like, oh, no, we're trying to get back to having normal socialize after having young kids. Yeah, I just point to my children and say, you're leaving me with them. What is the Dr. Quinn medicine woman of your home lives?

Bake Off. 100% Bake Off. It's the only television my wife wants to watch is people doing competitive baking. I guess Seinfeld for me. Way more Chad than mine. Well, because actually I haven't seen it before. So now I'm only watching Seinfeld for the first time. Like in random, you know, for like folding laundry or sitting around and then we can't decide on something to watch and we're like, let's put on Seinfeld. So that's, I'm experiencing Seinfeld for the first time.

You know, I think you mentioned that last time you were working your way through it. I think, yeah. The reason I don't have anything new to say, I guess, is because I don't watch a ton of TV. So you know, I'm not burning through shows. Yeah, some people are reading. Harrison Keeler over here. Yeah. Half of it's stupid comic books. But Homer and Marge have appointment viewing with a Jane Seymour vehicle, Dr.

Quinn, Medicine Woman, which was relatively new when this joke happened. It was a Saturday show. So I assume they tape it on Saturday and watched it on Thursday. Yes. And it went for over 150 episodes, depending on if you count TV movies as like multiple episodes or what, but till 1998 and again, it's just a reminder of like the Simpsons has been on so long that a show that debuted during The Simpsons like that was new in The Simpsons fifth season has been off the air for

26 years now while The Simpsons is still on. And it's interesting how television culture hasn't really changed all that much too because basically Homer's saying like Netflix and chill in this situation. Like we're going to make out and watch Medicine Woman, which I remember being a little too, because basically Homer's saying like Netflix and chill in this situation, like we're going to make out and watch Medicine Woman, which I remember being a little steamy. Oh, I don't think this making out happening. Well, it could be. It's a bit of a steamy show, as I remember. She often took that bonnet off. Yeah. I saw an ankle or two.

I think I remember this being a Saturday show because I was a cool kid watching Snick on Nickelodeon. I'm sure, Henry, you were there too. And I would just be curious, what else is on Saturday night? You turn to something else and you immediately run back to Nickelodeon because it's something that looks like Dr. Quinn. Yeah, Dr. Quinn was like the thing right before

Walker, Texas Ranger. It was a compatriot of that show on Saturday nights on CBS. I think like a second uncle was one of the producers. One of my second uncles was one of the producers on Walker Texas Ranger. Something like that. There's a Clarkson involved. Ben Clarkson nepo baby. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry everyone. I actually have no real talent. Yeah. And after Homer first tries to forbid it from Marge, he then is very pitifully asking like, you know, you bring me something? Like he's just giving up and he's just begging her to like bring him something back like he's

a child. Which is real. My kids ask for this all the time. The flashback with the spraying of the skunk, not to go too far back. The Simpsons made, I think, three to four no fat chicks jokes because that was a popular T-shirt and bumper sticker slogan. I'm glad I never lived through the era. I only lived in people making fun of that fad. Yes, it's pretty offensive now. Like I was, I'm sorry.

Homer does not age well. This might have been a little bit more lovable in the 90s, his stupidity, but he has very ... I love how she goes back to him and embraces him at the end of the episode. He's encourageable. There's nothing redeeming about Homer's character, which is what I keep coming back to when I watch The Simpsons. He's a complete degenerate. There's nothing worthwhile about Homer. Homer purposefully wearing a no-fat shake shirt

does feel very reactionary for Homer now. Yeah, it does. But I also do love how Homer says, ew, it's doing it again. Like, it's doing it again about a skunk spraying. Like, of course it is, but he brought it in with him. He's holding it. Yes.

You know, the Simpsons still does episodes about Marge, you know, failing to have female friends. It's very sad. This episode seems to end with Marge becoming friends with Ruth and achieving a female friend who she never hangs out with again until she becomes a bodybuilder in season 14 as we covered. And when Marge meets up with Ruth, they're getting the convertible that is basically Louise's car from the movie. And both are wearing outfits that kind of mirror Thelma and Louise's outfits in the movie, though not exactly.

I think the jacket sweater tied over you is, Louise definitely wears that in part of the movie. And the leather jackets are in there. That's part of what I forgot was so great about the movie. Like they go through so many like changes in clothing. The costuming is great. Their clothes evolve through the movie as their positions change in the world. Like you compare how Thelma is dressed at the start of the movie versus the end of the movie. They are different people. They have changed that much. Yes, that's good Ms. Onsane.

That's good filmmaking. Visuals that give you a feeling. I think all you need though is the kerchief around the head to sell the parody and it works with Ruth because that's baked into her character design. I think they immediately saw her and thought we should do Thelma and Louise with her and Marge. Though when Marge's adventure with her begins

in a Thelma and Louise style thing, she should remember watching that movie at Rancho Relaxo and say, hey, this is a lot like Thelma and Louise, that movie I saw. She drank too much tequila that night, Henry. You're right. That's just a blacked out night for Marge at Rancho Relaxo. And I also like that the kids are supportive. They want Marge to have a good time time which Homer refers to them as man's best

Friend indeed. Yes, is it sad how you parents feel sometimes? I think a dog is more loving than a child They definitely throw up in the bed just as much That's your fault I won't allow kids in the bed only dogs I Am Christopher Titus of the Titus podcast. I am Rachel and I'm Ken Highland aka the Highlander when the rest of the world Is screaming insanity if we scream sanity we do a satire comedy news and events Podcast first and foremost funny first whatever is happening in the world if you want to hear it in a way that doesn't rip your podcast. YouTube and at Christopher Titus dot com Titus podcast it's time to scream sanity as they speed off we get another of a great first step in building jokes

in this episode which they're so good at how can you do this Marge how can you desert your children man's best friend indeed. Whoa You look nice tonight has nothing to do with nice tonight's all about sunshine lollipops and Rainbows, as seen in the Frankie Avalon Ski Party. So that's where it goes back to. Now I have to say, The Simpsons' David Merkin takes credit for having used it before on his show Get a Life.

And, but this feels like the first time it was more famously used as a comedic thing. When I looked up what it's been in lately, in the last 15 years, I would call it an overused joke song in TV shows or movies now. I think they need to ease up on it. Yes, yes, ban it. We need to shut down Sunshine Lollipops

until we figure out what the hell is going on We were watching a lot of get a life a few years ago because we did a podcast about it I think David Merkin might be thinking of Georgie girl, which wasn't an episode He might have also used this as well, but he loves bad songs that are so happy. They're almost manic Thanks Bob, I was trusting what Merkin said on the commentary though Manic. That's a great way of putting it. Thanks, Bob. I was trusting what Merkin said on the commentary, though I could not remember a specific one. Maybe he's getting it mixed up with,

he used it on Newhart or something. I couldn't find proof of it in the Get A Life Show, but he thinks it on the commentary. He really liked using songs about women when it came to doing montages with the Chris Peterson character. I think he even uses Pretty woman in an episode. Right. I feel like we need the manic happy song back. It's such a 60s coded thing that it's untrenched

ground. We just haven't done it. Everyone's too sad. Yeah, happy was too laid back. The the feral song happy. Feral? Yeah, it wasn't even insane. Hey, maybe that's more Trump II predictions. It's the return of the forced happy song because that's what people need. That's all you can do now. Orange Man Bad, Song Happy. We just have to induce happiness through manic pop songs. You have to pull the Hope Punk clothes

out of your closet it's time again. Yes, Oh God. That's going to happen probably. Some recent uses of it were this song for comedic purposes. They put it in two seasons ago on The Boys and also in Umbrella Academy, which are dark comic based on comic book dramas. I feel like both used it in a similar circumstance and I'm like sorry one of you has to choose to not do it and I think Umbrella Academy did it first

so the boys should have picked a different song. When Justice Warriors becomes an animated series we will do Sunshine Lollipops that song but as like one of those dark intense movie trailer redo's it's like a cyberpunk with synths to really give a nasty feeling about how happy this world is. That's my promise to you too. And Leslie Gore, you might also know her for the songs, It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To,

or You Don't Own Me, or she played Catwoman's sidekick Pussycats in Batman 66. And this song, they set it up great, and they spent the money to get a very big hit at the time, the Guns N' Roses, Welcome to the Jungle, to play it as the real song she meant. Like, that couldn't have been cheap then, and it is probably extra expensive to use it on Disney Plus Now. Yeah, that must be like when you buy the rights to that. Do you buy like infinite rights? Do you buy like single broadcast rights? What's that even like? It must be a crazy negotiation. Like these Disney lawyers, they got a job to figure out.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to talk like I know, but I mean, it's Fox. That's, you know, they're buying the right to use it in perpetuity in that scene or else you know they'd fuck themselves over. I don't think you'd be able to clear it if you didn't have the and they do very little too they use it very well which I think would help them. It feels like it all had to be renegotiated and relicensed for home media and then I guess there had to be another round of deals to do the streaming rights for all of these because a lot of these sometimes the songs would be on the DVD but they're not on the streaming version. Oh, okay.

So yeah, that's very interesting. That is complex. Yeah, not for The Simpsons, but for other shows where the DVDs would retain the music. But if you go on to Paramount Plus or whatever, you won't just hear like generic library stuff. That's interesting. It really is just the question of does Disney or a different corporate overlord, do they write the check for it or not? And when, if you were lucky enough to have a song that appeared in a sitcom that was huge in the nineties that they only negotiated the TV rights for,

you do have them kind of over a barrel of like, you want this to be complete on this thing. And this is the only way music makes money anymore now is licensing them to TV shows. So they're gonna have to pay a whole lot more than they did in the 90s to get a song on a streamer. That's the advantage of major media monopolies because you get to license your own music, right? Like Warner, you get to have all of Warner's Warner, you get to have all of Warner's movies, you get to have all of Warner's music, and it's all just like internal shuffling of paper.

There's no yes or nos going on there. You've heard it from me, I endorse our corporate overlords and them purchasing everything so that I can have my TV treat. Disney doesn't own enough record labels. We need to get them on that. Yes, exactly. I was just in New York Comic Con a couple weeks ago and I was standing among reading books, some old timers, standing around some old timers listening to them talk about,

I won't say the names because I don't want to ID them, but there are comic book professionals that a lot of people would probably recognize, but they were talking about if they did or did not get checks from Disney when Disney bought Marvel and the one guy was encouraging another saying like dude you're due like a hundred thousand dollar check because you know they own the stuff you're not going to take them to court and get ownership of some character you created for Marvel in 1993. But the contracts, Beth, then weren't thorough. They didn't cover all this stuff. And, you know, they go around and write checks to sort of solve these problems and cheaper than the lawyers for sure. Yeah. And like I said, you know, you're not going to come in and make a claim 30 years later, after they've used the character in

books, and you've never protested and say that you own it. But they are at least giving them, I don't want to say they're giving them their due like they're being nice because whatever they're giving them, they can afford a lot more, but they're trying to sew up the holes that are in contracts from companies they bought that were created before they ever thought they'd be making streaming shows for Disney plus 2020s. After this recording, I want to know who those people were. But on the record things I've before they ever thought they'd be making streaming shows for Disney Plus in the 2020s. After this recording, I want to know who those people were. But on the record things, I've heard from like Jim Starlin,

for instance, who created Thanos and many other characters. He has said publicly like the times he gets the checks from Marvel is when he has to complain in the media for it. And it kind of embarrasses Marvel to the point they're like, oh, hey, this check got lost in the mail, I guess. Here's your character payments. Here you go. Or here's an honorary, whatever they would call it legally.

Yeah, I'm sure they handle it very haphazardly and inconsistently. Like these people I was here talking, they said, most of them said they got paid and they were encouraging someone else to get paid. And I was thinking, well, this guy must just be a hermit and like rarely come out because this is like a conversation that most of these people would have been having 10 years ago when they started doing the MCU because that's when they were saying they got paid and everything.

So they were basically encouraging the guy who I guess didn't get the memo that he's probably do a check. and a guy who I guess didn't get the memo, that he's probably do a check. We come back from the break. Homer is still stressed about this. He's trying to cope with it. First with Bart offering to give him a makeover, which he accepts at first. And then even Lisa is calling him whipped

for his wife going out on him. This is when Homer tries to make some phone calls and get his own friends. I feel like one of, maybe there's one other joke for this. This is like the only joke that's coming to mind for me right now that implies Lenny at the very least has a girlfriend, if not is married. I think this is it. Yes.

Do we ever get much of Lenny, nothing jumps out to me from my six out of 10 Simpsons knowledge, maybe five out of 10 Simpsons knowledge, if I'm going to rate myself, of Lenny, nothing jumps out to me from my six out of 10 Simpsons knowledge, maybe five out of 10 Simpsons knowledge, if I'm going to rate myself, of Lenny's personal life. Yeah. Lenny lore. I want to know more Lenny lore. Well, do we really go from- Do we get into the Lenny see you much?

Yeah. We learn a lot more about Carl in recent years. But with Lenny, we go from this to please don't tell anyone how I live to him being in an implied gay relationship with Carl. So that's kind of the path he's on, but here he just seems to be, this is a partner and we never see her again, you don't see her face here. He could be liking this, I don't know.

There's something nice about shaving a leg. This might be part of his deal. This might be part of a whole evening, Lenny and this woman have planned. Not gonna make a mistake of saying I relate to this one real hard. No, no. Certainly not on a podcast.

This is not in my internet searches, no. I more relate to Burns eating chocolates on the carpet with his legs kicked up. Who's in my phone now? I love the scattered 45s around him. He's been having a fun night thinking about his favorite pops, idols, and eating bonbons. He doesn't even know who called him or how he got the number. Just such a great end to that bit. And then Homer calls Ned and the second Ned picks up he realizes he can't hang out with Ned.

Yes, that's a great punchline to all of this. I just had it this week where a person called me I'm sure to sell something but they don't say anything and They just stay on the line and if I do have to say hello three times The third time I say hello, I do say hello to Lee. Oh, Dali Henry why are you answering that phone? We live in the year 2024 Well, if it doesn't say probable spam I'll'll give it a chance. Well, because also at my current apartment, there's a number that comes from somebody trying to get into the mail room.

And so I give it a chance like, oh, wait, is this the mail room number? But I can't even tell you what this number was from because nobody talked. I like to talk to the spam people. I want to know how they live. I ask them questions. You ask them like, oh, I did buy that on Amazon. Well, okay. Do you know when I bought that on Amazon?

I honestly just start out like, what part of India are you in? What's your relationship with your mother like? I want to see into people's lives. So Homer gives up on this. He's going to put on his light green jacket and head out. This is when he's told that he needs to plan for the kids. I can have a great time all by myself.

Hey dad, I think state and federal laws require us to have a babysitter. Oh Lisa, haven't you seen Home Alone? If some burglars come, it'll be a very humorous and entertaining situation. You're absolutely right Homer, we don't need a babysitter. Wait a second. Hmm. You kids do need a babysitter! Plus that infernal card. Don't give that card to me.

Here you go. No! Mr. Simpson, I was just going through your garbage and I couldn't help overhearing that you need a babysitter Of course being a highly skilled attorney my fee is 175 dollars an hour we paid dollars for the night You can take two popsicles out of the freezer three two, okay two and I get to keep this old birdcage done Still got it We get Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure in this episode.

So great. Yeah, they had them. They had them in the booth. They got them to do too. It's great. Lionel Hutz is downfall continues. He goes from being just a kind of crappy lawyer to he's a vagrant now is what he is. Who has drug issues.

That's what he has become at this point. And is it good guys to hire a babysitter for your kids who is rooting around in your garbage? Is that a good move? Where else are you going to find one? These days, you know. In this economy, come on. Yeah. Well, for people who have kids our age, Ben, it was, I mean, do you hire any babysitters ever? We've considered it, but I honestly, we don't even trust my parents with the kids. Well, here's the thing. It's like, it got interrupted by the pandemic. So then there's like these kids that are, you know, like 14 year olds who would like

be the kid across the street that would be the babysitter. They didn't do it. And they didn't get in the mode. So then people like us are like, oh yeah, we just don't hire babysitters. Because we used to do it with my oldest when she was two and three and had no problem with it whatsoever. We did it all the time before the pandemic hit. And I don't even, I don't know how many times we've done it since then. I don't know if any. I think I'm just going to really try to get the person going through my trash from now on.

Nice little broken birdcage out there. Yeah. See who you fish in. Yeah, yeah. It's like a little bit of bait for a babysitter. A babysitter. Put the popsicles in the freezer? I got a bunch of banana popsicles in the freezer that my daughter wanted that no one is gonna

ever eat because they're disgusting. I will give them to the babysitter and $8 and I will be free to drink coffee late at night, I guess. What do adults do? What do people do? I just watch Seinfeld with my wife. Okay, so I'll get a babysitter so I can watch Seinfeld with your wife. Kind of, you don't want to interrupt it right the kid comes down. I like the little bit of Homer

Basically, it's memento Homer needs a card to tell him yes. Don't trust this person I love that and I love that infernal card. That's such a good gag And hey Lionel Hutz getting eight dollars an hour. that's still more than the federal minimum wage. So, ha! And no popsicles are promised in the minimum wage. Homer doesn't exploit. Homer is, you know, fair employment practices. I like to see it. Homer believes in the market.

I love how creepily Bart says, don't give that card to me. Like it's so he almost gets Homer with no. Okay, no. So Homer heads out. We then cut to the ladies at basically a honky tonk. It took me many viewings to get the joke shot kickers. Did you guys get it immediately? Being a really smart person? I got it. Hmm

See it's all the letters and then the I and shit kickers is not there I don't think I ever heard the term shit kicker until I was much older So I didn't get the joke where they cut inside and marches. I love shot kickers It's a good Interpretation of the hunky-tonk they go to in Thelma and Louise for the eventful first act, though in this case, this is what makes this a good Simpsons-level parody of the film to not get too dark, that when a guy comes up who seemingly isn't going to take no for an answer, he immediately pulls back. He's like, oh, I'm so sorry, and just leaves, and their night goes on uneventfully.

I like how they both doff their caps and back away. So we're immediately diverting from the Thelma and Louise plot, wherein one of them is the victim of an attempted rape. Yeah, it's not good TV. Let's keep it light. We don't want to. Also, I just want to give a shout out for the Thelma and Louise scene in this

features a band doing great version of one of my favorite John Hyatt songs, Tennessee plates. I don't know if anyone else cares about that, but I do. I noticed that. Oh, that's great. Thanks for pointing that out. I was more distracted by the song at the hate box later, the techno song. No, in Thelma and Louise Louise they have the John Hyatt song

And I like the friend of the mean man Oh who silently doffs his hat that's is drawn to look like David Merkin who on the commentary It's funny because he seems to take slight offense at how bald they drew him in the cartoon You got to draw people to their appropriate level of baldness. I have drawn people balder than they should be and gotten upset people, hurt people's feelings. You have to be careful with hair. Well, you know what?

I'm glad you brought that up, Ben, because you can tell this to my daughter, who draws me baldheaded. As you can see, viewers can't see me, but I mean, I have a bald head and I buzz it close. So we're to the skin, there's no hair. My kids draw me like goddamn Homer Simpson with a bunch of hairs popping out. And I asked them, I said, where's this coming from?

And they're like, you don't have a lot of hair on your head. And I was like, well, I don't have any. So why are you drawing, why are you making me look foolish when I look sleek and bald like Montel Williams? You're aerodynamic. Exactly. So it's quite embarrassing. Get roasted by your kids.

You know, maybe there's stink lines. Maybe it's not hair. Well, they'll throw in that stuff too. Okay. I'll go, you know, it is, it is a little bit humbling and embarrassing. I do want to nurture that roasting nature in a safe environment. Then we cut to Homer trying to have fun out when he goes to Moe's, he tries to treat it like cheers, which just went off the air with, with his episode aired and Moe under David

Merkin is at a new level of bleak. Like it's not even funny. Moe is being actively uninteresting in this scene. Like no, no to anything. And everybody's just silently staring at the floor while sitting at the bar. I love how it's like a trough of drinking. We're phasing out the games.

They getting the way of the drinking. I like what he says is that, you know, when people are having more fun, they drink less, which I don't think is true, but it's why people have games at bars. That's why they're having more fun than they drink. But Mo is so cruel. He thinks it's the opposite. The people drink less when they're having fun. Then we cut to Lionel Hetz watching LA law, which I love this bit here. And I'm going to play the clip, but also in the clip, it's then going to transition to the hate box scene.

I ask listeners to pay attention to the music in the background here. Oh, sure. Like lawyers working big skyscrapers and have secretaries. Look at him. He's wearing a belt. That's Hollywood for you. Oh, I've never been to an underground club. Do you think your hair's a bit much? Hey, Mrs. Simpson, you should try one of these smart drinks. Oh, I wasted my life. Would you care to dance? Mayor Quimby, what are you doing here?

I'm here with my nephews. Oh, that's nice. Merkwimby's nephew is talking about mercury in vaccines. He's got a bear in his trunk. Fuck, it is RFK they're talking about there, isn't it? Oh my God. Well, I'm just afraid Immortal Kombat is gonna break out. Yeah.

Yes, thank you, Bob. That tune is so similar. Yeah, you can sort of hear the voice of the announcer that, Marge. Fatality. Yeah, the tune is so similar to Techno Syndrome, which had come out at this point. It did get famous in the 95 movie, but the single was released in 1993.

Now it would have been brand new when this aired. So my, I don't think it's meant to be a parody or they just used it. I think this is just such a like baseline for an electro pop track then, that you just end up in the same place, is my guess. This writer was so jacked into 1993, it's crazy. The smart drinks thing, I looked into this, I think I did last time we covered this, but it was because raves did not often offer alcohol

because they wouldn't wanna go go through the getting the permits because raves were not held in traditional spaces so smart drinks were drinks with like lots of vitamins and neotropics and things like that because when you're high or rolling you're going to be sweating a lot you need your nutrients back so you would drink these vitamin-filled refreshing drinks. Oh so they're like sports drinks for e-heads. Yes, exactly. Okay, smart actually. That's very smart. Good idea. I'm hydrated, yeah, perfect.

I remember this from the really great movie 24 Hour Party People about the history of the Manchester music scene of the 80s and Steve Coogan playing the real guy who ran the record label. He talks about how his music, that the rave scene got big, and he invested in these bars to host the raves.

And he's like, I lost money on this while we had huge attendance because I ran it like a bar and nobody would buy beer because they were getting fucked up on the ecstasy and other things they brought to the rave. Bad idea. That's why the Smart Drinks, it was they brought to the rave. Mm-hmm. Bad idea. That's why the smart drinks, it was smart for the businessmen too. And I love Marge's little step dances.

It's a great looping cycle of dancing, especially how innocently she takes Mayor Quimby wanting to dance with her when he is shirtless, barefoot, and covered in paint and like mud it seems like. Yeah. It's, uh, he it's basically straight out of, um, the movie. What's that movie? Rock Hudson seconds where he's covered in grape and he's like, life I want to live. I also love it that Lionel Hudson watching LA law. He treats it like, you know, a know, a real lawyer watching Law and Order,

but he just sees them as them having an office and wearing a belt is impossible for him to believe. I love that line. I love that line. Wearing a belt. That's Hollywood for ya. It's really good. That's one of those shows that was incredibly popular,

won a million Emmys, and nobody remembers it or references it at all, unfortunately. Nobody's going back to it on streaming? None of that, yeah. No, there's a lot of that culture. I had never heard of this Emilio Estevez sci-fi movie, Free Jack, that I was watching on Prime the other day.

And never heard of it, but it was released. Mick Jagger and Emilio Estevez, It's complete trash, but there's huge stretches of culture that have just been compressed away. We don't need to talk about it. Not a stand out. It might even have gotten awards. They don't want you watching Free Jack. They don't want you. Because as soon as you do, you start questioning things. Yeah. You start to see that the future is all about a billionaire downloading you from the past. LA Law should have a suits style comeback

of everybody starts watching it and then Corbin Berenson has like a big comeback in his career. Marries a royal. Yeah, we can do it. I'm assuming Corbin Berenson is still alive. That's my assumption. So then we go to Homer trying to kill the time. First he goes to the quickie bar and he's reading

Jed magazine. It's Garrett Morris's birthday. It only reminds me that that movie Saturday night, I really hate the story they get. I think the person who plays Garrett Morris does a good job, but they give him a lame story Garrett Morris. They don't know what to do with him and then his story is who am I on this show? What do you do with me, Garrett Morris? Like, and that's, the movie doesn't really know what to do with Garrett Morris either, I'd say. Though obviously I'm the only one

who watched Saturday Night here. No, yeah, we gotta just compress that movie out. That movie's gone. We now know this episode takes place on February 1st, though, because that is Garrett Morris' birthday. But it's an unseasonably warm February 1st. Yeah, yeah that's true. Yeah. T-shirts. Then Homer gets kicked out of the library because he's treating it like a quickie mart. Then we stop by the roadside and we get a gun pulled out on her which you know sets up. They

set up the gun you know screenwriting 101. People who have read screenwriting books would love the Thelma and Louise use of a gun, because they show you that gun in like minute four of that movie. It's a real Canterbury's gun move they're doing here. Yeah, I actually talk about this all the time with there was like a year where the only thing I talked about with Matt was Chekhov's gun. I can confirm that. Every time we had a conversation, I'd be like, it's Chekov's gun, Matt. You got to set up everything. Everything's a Chekov's gun.

So I like that they introduced the gun, although technically the gun doesn't really go off in this one. Like they pull it out and they shoot it, but it doesn't have a payoff in the episode. Let's call it Canterbury's gun then. I think that's more appropriate. And here they steal whole cloth basically the shooting the cans gag from the jerk. Did that click for you guys? Am I seeing that?

Am I hallucinating? Am I chat GPT? Oh, I mean, it's like this guy really hates these cans. Yeah, yeah, I feel like he basically just rewrote to that joke of like, you're shooting the cans at the side, but those cans are really important. Well, in this case, the cans are important to this old man. Yeah, I feel like it's very much a I'm going to rewrite that joke from the jerk. Maybe it's me just being a stupid idiot.

I mean, it's Simpsons. I mean, putting in references to random stuff and culture that you don't have to notice to get, you can notice and get deeper is like, that's what they do. That's what we were talking about earlier. I think it's an upgrade. You think it's better than the jerk joke? I think so.

Maybe I'm just more familiar with this one. Well, also the jerk doesn't have a joke about being the most dangerous game, which is what Marge thinks the episode's about to become. We then, after they shoot the cans and they're having fun shooting guns, then see Dan Caslenetta come out with his classic Walter Brennan voice, complaining about, my am-a-cans, my anti-cans. When I see him in movies, I think he's in Rio Bravo which I watched recently it's just comedy I'm just like my cans I just see him being a can man it's a great voice to complain about cans and you know what I guess if you want to say what does the gun pay off

in the end this is why Marge gets arrested in the end is for shooting the can it's true then Marge and Ruth are about to wrap up the night but why Marge gets arrested in the end is for shooting the can. It's true Then Marge and Ruth are about to wrap up the night But now Marge isn't ready to call it a night So instead they head over to the I believe this is the first appearance of the Springfield sign I looked into this because I thought it was too. Apparently it first appeared in flaming Moe's I think in the Montage with Moe on the cover of magazines. I think one of them shows the Springfield sign. Or if there is an Eye on Springfield segment in Fleming Moe's, it might be in that opening. I'm not sure. Yeah, you're right. This is the first time the Simpsons have visited it, but they've

done the Springfield as Hollywood sign before. Yes. Though it's sweet how Marge is like using it as her memory of like, Oh yeah, I used to do this with Homer all the time. And Homer smashing the weather station and then being turned on is just such another amazing acting bit by Castle in that of just like, I smashed it. Good. Your hair's real pretty. I love how American that is. I'm going to smash public works and then make out with my wife. It's fun to smash things. And Homer smashes it when he sees there's the new weather station. He's going to smash it again. But he doesn't have the heart for it. We then see Marge and Ruth watching over the city and that's where there's a giant plumes of smoke coming from her house,

which is impressive. Marge can tell from that far that it is specifically her home. Maybe she just assumes, oh, if there's a giant fire coming from a place, it has to be my home. Well, and also like how much black smoke are your lifetime of documents really going to produce? A lot of documents. A lot of documents. I love hearing Hutz say hello to Miguel Sanchez. That's another all timer classic to me. And then Marge and Ruth are heading out. Ruth says she wants to get home before the new talk show comes on which feels like was I don't think this is a specific thing, right? Like just that I think it is Henry

It could be referring to a number of varieties of public access programming But I think it is a reference to the Robin Bird show Which was a public access talk show starring adult film stars who did get naked and it was so popular that there was at least one SNL parody sketch in the late 90s starring Sherry O'Terry as Robin Bird. I was wondering because when I heard this, I was like, did I have a false memory of that or did I stay up late enough that I caught,

when I was a kid, that I caught this naked talk show? I don't know. And this is the only reference to Sarah Gilbert's character from the first Ruth Powers episode. Like, this is the only reference to Sarah Gilbert's character from the first Ruth Powers episode. Like this is the only reason you'd know that she still has a daughter in the show who Ruth returns. The daughter never Laura never shows up in backgrounds or anything like that.

Ruth is always there. So they head off. They pass like ships in the night with Homer who he says young love. He thinks it's two women on a date and he thinks it's adorable. Not his own wife. And this is where he runs into wig, who's making his own moonshine. This is just so great. Wigam is the only character who's dumber than Homer in this time in the show. It's so great that they make the, the chief of police stupider than the stupidest man in the world. Complete degenerate, yeah. I like when they team up, I like this pairing,

and this was part of a runner that they dropped of Wiggum having a lot of sex stuff happening in his life that most people aren't privy to, because with I Love Lisa, he explains how he got the tickets to the concert or to the show, and it's because nothing like a good porno. He goes to the porno theater and sees crusty and But apparently his pants were off at some point

But not in the version of the story told the kids so we have that story and the story of him buying an inflatable man And trying to have sex with it. I guess this weird sex creepy Institutional corruption is just like a constant of American life Right like Roy Moore is just like a constant of American life, right? Like Roy Moore is just Chief Wiggum. Yes. Yeah. When I think of Chief Wiggum, you guys in volume two of Justice Warriors describe an ideal cop as high aggression, obedient, and middling pattern recognition, which I'd say would fit for Wiggum as well.

Yes. There's a little Wiggum as well. Yes, there's a little Wiggum in our characters, for sure. Literally, Chief Wiggum is in the book. You just have to keep your eyes peeled. That's like a Where's Waldo thing, but for Wiggum. Yeah, every single Justice Warriors, there's a Where's Waldo aspect of like, oh, that he's in there. How did he get in there? We draw a lot of crowds.

Well, Ben draws crowd scenes and riots. And so we came up with the great idea that every single mutant in the world would be entirely different. So Ben has to draw them all. And you know, sometimes I run out of ideas and just draw copywritten characters. Yeah. In a satirical way that is not actionable right They're all 10% different Yes As wigam is offering helpfully to drive home or home who's very sad they then spot a car

And this is where wigam cannot trust his eyes There's nothing like moonshine from your own still. Oh, Simpson! What are you doing here? My wife's having a girls night out. I just get one of those inflatable women. But make sure it's a woman though, because one time I...

Come on, I'll give you a ride home. I missed you, Marge. Huh, the left tail light's a little smaller than the right one. I better pull him over. I think they want us to stop. Bet chance. This car's stolen. Stolen? Looks like we got ourselves an old-fashioned car chase.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together. Brighter than a lucky penny when you're near the raincloud. Disappeared here and there. It's so infectious Homer can't help but join in. A lot of Homer singing in this episode. This is such a perfect callback, like the timing on it. That's why I love so much of like, Wiggum says it's an old style car chase. He puts in the tape and he gives you just long enough that you think they're going to

just repeat the joke. He's like, oops, wrong tape. That's what the callback is going to be. And then as you get used to it, then Wiggum goes like, starts singing along. He loves it. This is the chase song he always uses. The timing on it is perfect. Yes. And the way Homer slowly joins in is also just timed out perfectly as well. And there's a really great gag. One of my favorite gags of this whole episode happens really shortly after this, when Wiggum describes lots of blue hair, red pearls, green dress.

And then Homer's vision is some disastrous, mutated space alien, and they hit a bump and it pops into Marge. I love this gag. I was going to bring up that specifically. It's a good gag, just that he doesn't get that it's Marge, but that his thought bubble in the scene is jostled by them hitting the bump and it rearranging into Marge. I thought it was just beautiful and something you can only do in animation. Well, and it's really great visual storytelling too, because you understand visually that Homer has a moment of recognition. And this is one of the hardest things to actually do as a filmmaker or an animator

is how do you show a moment of realization and how someone realizes something. That's not easy. You have to externalize this into a visual. And that really elegant bump and everything rearranged into Marge, beautiful. I love this, I'm stealing this somewhere. I love the concept that physical reality can have an effect on your thought bubble. Yes. Pure cartoon logic, man, I love it. Then also that Wigam was gonna pull them over

for having a smaller tail light in his perception. Like that's why like you know that Wiggum has pulled over many people for the same reason and put them in jail as probably to sit next to Steve Sacks who's been in jail for every murder committed in Springfield. This is where Ruth reveals like she has stolen the car from her ex-husband and as a form of payment and back payment. And it also is like the fun innocence of the Simpsons world where when Marge makes what would seemingly be the naive suggestion of like, well, didn't you know you can report them to the cops, which in the real world or in a dramatic movie, you'd say, I did that and the cops didn't

do anything. But when Ruth hears this for March, she's like, you're the level headed friend I never had. Like I never even thought to do that. And when Homer realizes it's March, then he thinks that it is the plot of film and Louise and that she's become a crazed criminal because he didn't take her to the ballet, which is just how Dillinger started. True. No lies detected. I like that Homer is like, really? Like he goes from being concerned to like, I want to hear that story. Oh, that's where we get the great line of Marge saying that she wants to say something reassuring, but noncommittal. And it's just another of her like, just a murmur noise. And then we go, I'd say the only difference between Wiggum and Swamp and Chit is from Justice Warriors is he does not start shooting at Marge immediately as soon as the scene

begins. Yeah, the second in Justice Warriors, the second he saw Swamp and Chit would see the smaller tail light, they would open fire. If you got different sized tail lights, you gotta shoot first, ask questions maybe. Ruth instantly turns off her tail lights and becomes a ghost car and Wigam just gives up. Like it just stops. I love it, it's a ghost car.

There's ghost cars all over this highway. And then the heavy brakes flings over into the front seat so they can hug each other, that's also great. So we cut to, they arrive at the truck stop diner called the Seething Sisters, which that's a good name. I like that. And one of the many, many gas station diners that they stop at in Thelma and Louise, they copy it. And then Ruth is being nice and it's like Marge isn't in trouble, just Ruth, and she's going to let her leave. And Marge lets her know everything before the high-speed chase was just lovely. I love how all the clientele

of this establishment are all Thelma and Louise types on some fugitive adventure. Yes. Well and it's once again really good writing of seeing characters realization enacted externally. So just like everything is sticking together. Like you get it. Marge doesn't have to articulate her feelings. You see her feelings articulated outside of her. Like, oh we got to stick together. We got to stick together. These waffles are sticking together. Sticking together is what good waffles do. Actually here I'll play the clip of the many Thelma and Louise's hanging out. This cross-country flight from the law would be hell if we didn't stick together.

Hey, friends, stick together. It's amazing how through all this adversity we managed to stick together. If there's one thing decent folk do, it's stick together. I hate it when the waffles stick together. Sticking together is what good waffles do. I love that... Yeah? Yeah, the music stick. I love the delivery. I love like the really sincere sticking together is what good waffles do. I love that so much. This is why my wife and I have good waffles inscribed on the inside of our wedding rings. We love this joke so much. Oh, that's so nice.

Is that true? It's true. I could show you, but it's really hard to do on this MacBook camera, but it's in there. I just didn't know if you were doing a bit. Not doing a bit. Completely bit-free segment here. Wow. Okay, that's cool. I have seen it myself. I can confirm.

It's real and adorable. I love that. Of all the lines, like, yeah, that sticking together is what good waffles do, which is not like they just make up a saying that also, I don't know, if you worked in a diner, waffle sticking together is bad. It's going to mess up your plating, right? Yes. It's what bad waffles do actually. Once the siren goes off, everybody leaves. They all leave on their same and matching

convertibles. All of them drive the same car and They're all Thelma and Louise all on different trips. And it's because Kearney knows that this is where all the Thelma and Louise's meet every day and comes by with his siren to scare them away. Instead of a cop bar, this is a Thelma and Louise bar. Also the, the way the guy is shouting at him, like you stupid kid, I felt like this was posed like how, this is a real deep Simpsons callback, but in the telltale head, when Mr. Dandy of Candy Most Dandy is shouting at the kids for not respecting

the Jebediah Springfield statue, he's like, hey, hey you kids. It feels posed in the exact same way with a similar character who's running this bar. And I will note that Steven Dean Moore did storyboards for this episode and that episode. He's reusing old work. Yeah, you fall back on cliches because you're lazy. Human beings are lazy.

I think it's a great callback. Or maybe it's an intentional, maybe not. Maybe he's just like, I already designed a guy who looks like this yelling at somebody. Alfred Hitchcock once said that self-plagiarism is called style. So that's a great quote. There you go. Before we go any further, I believe Matt has to tag out because unlike Homer, he has no Lionel Hutz.

That's right. I have to walk down to the bus stop and get my young children and walk them home. So about a half hour door to door. So yeah, I have to cut out. Thanks for having me on. I love being back and talking about the Simpsons. Thank you so much, Matt. We'll wrap up the pure plugs for Justice Warriors, but we really appreciate your time. Yeah, no problem. I don't know how you'll finish this episode without me, but good luck. Good. Now we got rid of that Matt guy. We can record a real podcast.

So after all of the Thelma's and Louise's are chased away, we then get to see Homer and Wigam what they're up to. And I really, I really love this joke of them making eggs on an engine, which you've seen in movies, but you think about actually doing it, it's probably disgusting. If we can keep these down. We'll be sitting pretty. This is a rare time where Homer is more competent

than another person he's with. Mm, engine block eggs. If we can keep these down, we'll be sitting pretty. Dad, Sam! Quiet! I can't hear the eggs! Hey, it's morning and Mom and Dad aren't home yet. Don't worry, Mr. Hux is still here to take care of us. Don't touch my stuff!

Hey, this isn't the YMCA. A wonderfully dark joke, he nearly stabs the children when he hears them speak. Yeah, I love the pose of the kids all just crammed into one corner of the couch out of fear when he pulls the knife out, it's great. Classic babysitter. It's so great, he's just so used to like, people are touching his stuff and he's just like, don't touch my stuff and he's just like, don't touch my stuff.

And he's ready to stab. Just right to it. A new low for Lionel Hutz. Does he go up after this? Or does he really just bottom out? Is this his lowest? Is this Lionel Hutz lowest point? Boy, I think so because we see him again.

He's losing, but he's got pants on. He's a practicing lawyer. He has a belt. We don't hear as much about his addictions, I don't think. I feel like, yeah, the next time we see him is, I think it's Burns' heir, it might be sooner, but the soonest I can recall is Burns' heir, where the joke just is he is doing shoe repair during the trial, and Burns proves that Bart is his biological son

and Marge just says we should really stop hiring this guy. Then so we then cut to Thelma and Louise being chased like we've gotten to the end of Thelma and Louise basically. It's Marge or Ruth not Thelma and Louise being chased but and I'm directly under the earth's sun now for some reason Wigam can tell from perspective. Yeah, it's a nice upgrade to the previous joke where he's giving the description. He's like he's driving some sort of car and he is hatless. Repeat, hatless. Yes, his positioning under the sun is so great and

we cut back home again and this is where we get to see Lionel Hutz. He's having one of those popsicles he was promised, unless he's having an extra popsicle. I hope that was popsicle number two. He tried to talk him up to three, he got shot down. Yeah, you got to be efficient of your popsicle usage. You got to use all your popsicles, otherwise why are they there? I wouldn't trust Lionel Hutz on his popsicle count, though in his defense, he's been there so long it's into the next day. I feel like he Hutz on his popsicle count, though in his defense, he's been there so long, it's into the next day,

I feel like he's earned a third popsicle. It's total 34 hours, they say, and I feel like you deserve like two popsicles an hour, not two popsicles, that's quite a bit. That's a real breakfast popsicle he's having right here. Yes. Again, we've been talking a bit about how things feel like now or whatever, but Kent's

speech here does feel a bit now of just most, most news people guides just do this on streams now. We now interrupt this program for a special bulletin. We've just received word of a high speed desert chase. The suspects have been identified as Ruth Powers and Marge Simpson of Springfield. Cool! I always knew someday Mom would violently rise up and cast off the shackles of our male

oppressors. Eh, shut your gap. At the risk of editorializing, these women are guilty and must be dealt with in a harsh and brutal fashion. Otherwise, their behavior could incite other women leading to anarchy of biblical proportions. It's in revelations, people! It's true, it really was the JD Vance platform. It's crazy how basically everyone with an Instagram account

is that now, is all of Generation Z is just Kent Brockman talking about revelations now and the guy who is Kent Brockman's age now like those news people do this but from their dashboard cam yes yes I love dashboard Kent Brockman here though in today they don't cut you off with a technical difficulty sign they just tell you to keep going. Like, no, no, keep, keep it stretch. They make you vice president now.

Ah, yep. Yeah, they do. I love that they apparently he does it so much that they have an entire cuckoo clock drawing of him ready to go. I love how the beat also cuts to Bart and Lisa listening to it as well. Like they are in shock at it. Also I like that Bart at first likes that Marge is rebelling against society and the cops are chasing her. But then when Lisa contextualize it as a fight against the patriarchy, that's when Bart hates it. Bart doesn't like it now.

Yeah. Classic Generation Z. Mayhem's good, but pointing at the patriarchy, not so good. Yeah no. I want my male privilege protected as much as possible. Then the animators were told you have to parody a scene where dozens of police cars are chasing Thelma and Louise and they do it on a TV budget. They were told like do gorgeous backdrops of you know the Midwest and of deserts and they did it like

I think it looks by TV budget standards this looks like you compare to a 1993 Hanna Barbera cartoon that was doing this like it looks so much better they rarely airbrushed backgrounds but they had to to communicate the sunset because like they're still using physical tools at this point and it looks great when they go over the chasm there's even some pretty elaborate camera moves. When you're doing animation, you can move entire cells and you can move the camera as well for some parallax effects.

A pretty nice parallax move with some of these backgrounds. Definitely some of the better Simpsons backgrounds I've seen. Talking about your work, am I right that you just did for Chapo? Didn't they debut a new cartoon you did of somebody driving off on the cliff? It's not new. They did a Southern tour a few years ago and I did a Wiley Coyote inspired, what's the name of that congressman from Louisiana that Matt Christman used to do an impression of? I forget the congress's name, but it's basically Wiley Coyote

and this congressman is trying to, the Chappo boys are in a Dodge Prowler, which is a deep, deep cut Chappo joke. And this congressman is trying to get them like Wiley Coyote. And so it's several sequences of him trying to get them. And then at the end, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris drive off a cliff in a convertible.

The man's name is Clay Higgins. I love Clay Higgins. I love it. So Clay Higgins is trying to kill Chappo Trapouse using a variety of tools, like Javelin missiles from Afghanistan, the Positron rifle from Evangelion. I think at one point, just a rock that he pushes off of a cliff.

It's good. I did a bunch of shorts. I did a Looney Tunes short, a Dragon Ball Z short for Chappo. They're all on their YouTube channel. They're amazing, highly valuable animation work. You should go watch them right now. I apologize for thinking that was new because I'd seen it shared again in my feed the week for some reason so I was like oh yeah Ben did all of the cartoon about people driving off. I love I love someone driving off a cliff it's a beautiful image you have to keep going after you go off of a cliff or a gap that's the fun of it. In this case though they're not committing suicide

in solidarity, they are making a huge mistake. They don't realize there's a chasm in front of them. In Springfield, I guess, I guess they're still in Springfield maybe, but there is the Springfield Gorge and also the Grand Chasm. It's so great that it's not the Grand Canyon, it's the Grand Chasm. A great, silly, barely parody line.

You've got monument valley type, like, who do we, structures. It's balmy on February 1st, but then you still have a Christmas episode where there's snow. So the geography, it's all fucked. It's a magical place, Springfield. We had that joke years ago when we covered half-decent proposal that West Springfield is three times the size of Texas So conceivably they could still be in Springfield When they're getting excited that they're about to cross the state line they do say that's every cop in Springfield. So yeah, yeah makes sense

So which I say defund the police. I think so too clearly wigam has too much money What if instead of doing that, we change Dr. Hibbert's voice? Uh, agree. That works too. That'll fix everything. I'll take that. Yeah, that'll fix everything.

Let's change a poo a little bit and change the voice and call it quits. Society fixed. Yeah. Here's the clip of them getting up to the ending of it where Marge turns them violently and they think they are safe but they actually make this mistake and this I also want to

Point out this before I play it. I think that it is not Pamela Reed But Pamela Hayden who says chasm at the same time Marge does you guys listen here and tell me what you think in here and tell me what you think. Oh no! They're headed right for the grand chasm! Oh my god! They're gonna drive right into it just to teach us men a lesson! And it's all my fault! Marge! Marge! Homer? Look, Marge, I'm sorry I haven't been a better husband. I'm sorry about the time I tried to make gravy in the bathtub.

I'm sorry I used your wedding dress to wax the car. And I'm sorry! Oh well, let's just say I'm sorry for the whole I tried to make gravy in the bathtub. I'm sorry I used your wedding dress to wax the car. And I'm sorry! Oh well, let's just say I'm sorry for the whole marriage up to this point. You're right. I am lucky to have him. But please, Marge! Don't drive into that chasm! Chasm?

No! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo- Yeah. Mwah! Ooh! Mwah! Ah! Mwah! Ooh! I think this was pizza. Yeah, Henry, I'm on the fence with this one. Pamela Hayden has a similar vocal style as Pamela Reid. They're also both named Pamela. And maybe she did the temp track and they kept that in, not knowing whose track it was

because they could have been so similar. But it also could be Pamela Reed. They just have very similar smoky female voices. I think it's Pamela Reed. It's just that it has more inflection than like, as I said, I think that her performance on this episode stinks. So I think that she actually gives a little bit more on this one so that it almost seems out of place.

That's my take on it. Thanks, guys. The crosstalk is hard to tell. It sounded a little different, but it is her shouting too, so that also could be why it sounds different instead of that. But okay, I'll leave that up to the comment yourself. Engage in the podcast. Let us know if you think it's Pamela Reid or Pamela Hayden. No, shut up. Don't comment. Okay. Don't comment. There's a really great Looney Tunes sort of layout on this when they're driving towards the chasm

where it pulls out and reveals the chasm they're driving towards. And that's just straight out of a Chuck Jones cartoon. I really appreciated that. I love any small tiny reference to Chuck Jones. And I mean, you can't draw cartoon badlands without reminding people of Roadrunner for sure. You just got to lean into it, which I enjoy in this situation.

There's also the one little bit of bad writing. I don't know if you guys caught the bad writing in this. When Homer says, oh, they're going to drive off the cliff just to send a message to us men. That's bad writing. That's the example of what I've been railing against the whole episode of like, here, let me tell you what this means. If the audience doesn't already know what it means, you failed as a writer. I think that it actually fails because they don't actually make the episode all that much about men and women. Argue with me if you would. too astute for Homer. I feel like the joke is Homer has seen Thelma and Louise and is seeing what's happening and it's like projecting that on to what's going on here. But I feel like Homer

would be too stupid to make the connection. They're like talking about the plot that they wanted to have to this episode, whereas it really is just more Marge wants to be a good friend. It's not she's rebelling against Homer. You would need a little bit more subtext for it to be about rejecting Homer and like teaching Homer a lesson. That's really not what's going on in the plot. That's what I think of as bad writing. And then Homer sort of realizing it out loud. Everything else they've done well in the episode. I do like it is used as a callback to the joke in the act one of the diner where Marge is finally realized oh you're right I am lucky to have him which like it's a sweet callback though also Homer is an asshole. Him apologizing when he

thinks Marge is going to kill herself that's the only time he'd apologize like that is a low bar for Homer to cross. Well and also like I'm sorry I used your wedding dress to wax the car. I'm sorry for the entire marriage up until this point. You're really coaxing her back. You're winning this argument. Marge has low standards. That's what it is. It's also that Marge has to stand up for herself. In the movie, in Thelma and Louise, this is more what Harvey Keitel's character does, which he's the one good cop in America,

basically, in the movie. At least in all of Arkansas, he's the one good cop who's just like, no, we don't want to feel them boxed in so they kill themselves. Let's give them a chance. Please stop chasing them and shooting at them. Stop it. It's a very great twist though that the Thelma and Louise characters are the ones who stop in time, but the cops go over the cliff.

That's great. Yes. Yes, yes. Much better. And it's a perfect David Merkin resolution that something disgusting saves your characters from death. Like you're going to have to watch your characters die tragically. What saves them? A disgusting thing that also shouldn't happen.

By bringing to attention a real thing which is filling natural wonders as landfills with piles of toxic waste, here they get to tell you about it by saying, isn't it awesome? It saved our lives. Yeah. There's a lot of mercant endings like this. The one I can think of is in the PTA disbands where they turn the schools into prisons as well. Yeah.

Right. It's like that meme of the crow. Schools are like prisons, get better material. I like that. I also think that they're just honestly making fun of environmentalists and like, you know, sort of a reactionary way of pooping on environmentalists. Because everybody hates environmentalists. Like the thing that's most frustrating about environmentalists is that they were right

and they'll never shut up about it. Yeah. I mean, even though David Merkin feels like pretty far to the left, and he's also a vegan, which is why they made Lisa the vegetarian, it feels like he also doesn't like being told what to do. So he'd love to put a message like this in his sitcom just to annoy people. Yes, yes. That sounds once again, very like, I want to do the right thing, but not because you told me to. And Homer is disgusted by it until he can see something was pizza,

that he kind of likes it. So that could have been the ending and it would have worked just fine, but I really love that they turned this into a- I am Christopher Titus of the Titus podcast. I am Rachel. And I'm Ken Highland, aka The Hylander. When the rest of the world is screaming insanity, we scream sanity.

We do a satire comedy news and events podcast. First and foremost, funny first. Whatever's happening in the world, if you want to hear it in a way that doesn't rip your soul out, we'll make you laugh with it. At the end of the day, we just scream sanity. That's what we do. Can't we just talk sanity because... They have to scream sanity because nobody's going to hear it.

So tired of you guys screaming. I talk stupidity. Well, that's what we do can we just talk sanity because they have to screen sanity so they're not gonna hear it so I talk stupidity well that's true the Titus podcast on all major streaming platforms YouTube and at Christopher Titus dot-com Titus podcast it's time to scream sanity dragnet parody at the very end it's refreshing I think to get it as a dragnet parody I love an ending where they show you what happened to the characters with a freeze frame or a narration. I love a college film. TG And they got George Fenomen, their biggest guest star yet, who was one of the main narrators

for Dragnet, going back to the radio days. RG He was 74 when this aired. He'd pass away at 77. He is a good sport to do it and yeah, he was on many dragnets and I complain about dragnet streaming rights folks You can find free episodes of dragnet on to be and free V and crackle But they're the black and white 50s episodes and I want to watch the campy 67 to 70 episodes that are stupid and him yelling at hippies. I want to see Jack Webb yell at hippies and those episodes aren't streaming anywhere.

Shout Factory, they got to get on this and get the color episodes of Dragnet on streaming services. As a Dragnet novice, somebody who wants to watch more Dragnet, where should I start with Dragnet? Oh, the episode where the baby dies in the bathtub. The Eric Clapton episode. It is a great one of a pro pot couple get too high and let their baby drown and learn their lesson.

That was parody a ton in reference to a ton. It's the only reason I know about it. And the one with Rob Reiner as the hippie. Is it the same one? Is it the same one Henry? I think it's the same one, but there's also the boy blue guy who's like taking LSD. That's the Rob Reiner. Little boy blue is the Rob Reiner one. Yeah. So it really just was a series of cops hitting hippies. That's why it had such like camp value to the kids who grew up, the Gen Xers and boomers who

grew up with it, who then became Simpson's writers. Because Dragnet started as a radio show and then one of the first like popular TV shows about cops. And Jack Webb is a star and Jack Webb was a conservative guy, a conservative political guy. And it was taking real, at least they said they were real, police investigations in LA and then dramatizing them. And then you'd have the guy say the results of the trial, which is what gets period here. And then in the 60s, by the late 60s,

Jack Webb, who had stopped doing Dragnet for a little bit, wants to bring it back because he's so mad at hippies and young people and he's gonna teach him a lesson. And the important thing to know is when you're watching Jack Webb he is stinking drunk. He was such a drunk that they had to film all of his close-ups first thing in the morning because otherwise he'd just be too bloated and red and sweaty. And he died at 52 because of all of the alcoholism. He was a troubled man.

Yeah, that stinks for maybe him. Maybe not that bad for everyone else. But OK, I want to watch more drag that I want to watch all cop shows for Justice Warriors. Can't be color. Dragnet is going to be a lot of fun. I think you'll get some chuckles out of watching black and white 50s drag. I think there's I love this is complete aside. I've been really getting into like, really old stuff.

Because like, it's a bit dry. But sometimes there's like these little moments of genius in there because they have so little to work with. I feel like we have an embarrassment of riches now. And we don't write and we don't act and we don't frame things in the way that we should. Cultural degeneration. That's the theme of my media experience this administration. You know what? Now after you watch some Dragnet, maybe this will be how you wrap up the story in volume three of Justice Warriors someday. Well, you know what? It's frankly, it's going to be number four. We're going to do drugs in number four.

Ooh, okay. I shouldn't talk about that too much. Justice Warriors, I've always envisioned it as being like The Wire, that every series touches on another aspect of our society. And then we'll do like a cross between The Simpsons, Robocop, and The Wire. Crazy satire, both sort of educating, not educating, but like, maybe educating people if they want to see how things actually work. We try to put as much real stuff in, which is why people always make the joke about Justice

Warriors that it's a documentary. This is a very common joke. We try to put in a lot of real world stuff, like Vote Harder. A lot of the plot points for Vote Harder actually happened. We take those from the documentary record. Structurally, we reference Co-Intel Pro, the spy cop scandal in the UK. All of the plot in Justice Warriors has happened in our real world. It's just we dress it up to look like an edgelord shithead cartoon so that people don't take it too seriously. Which is sort of how we've been able to get away with everything we've gotten away with with it is people don't

take it seriously and so we're allowed to sort of tell the truth. That's great. And the next one I'm tight lipped about, but we have like a 10 year plan to all these different topics and how they sort of flow into each other to tell the story of Bubble City. Well, that sounds awesome. But first, I want to ask you more. Let's finish this up.

Let's hear our Dragnet finale. Ruth Powers was tried in Springfield Superior Court. The judge dismissed her ex-husband's auto theft charges and forced him to pay all back child support. Mr. Powers blamed the outcome on his lawyer, one Lionel Hutz. Lionel Hutz, aka Miguel Sanchez, aka Dr. Nguyen Van Falk, was paid $8 for his 32 hours of babysitting.

He was glad to get it. Marge Simpson was charged with a violation of Penal Code Section 618A, wanton destruction of precious antique cans. She was ordered to pay 50 cents to replace the cans and $2,000 in punitive damages and mental anguish. Homer Simpson was remanded to the custody of the United States Army Neurochemical Research Center at Fort Meade, Maryland, for extensive testing.

Woohoo! Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music

Why does he like that? I don't know, but you can also hear the narrator too, which is great. He's just happy to avoid responsibilities. A trip to Maryland? Who knows how many dinners he's going to miss with Patty and Salma. It's true. You could get some of that sweet Maryland food. What food do they have in Maryland?

I don't know. Oh, some kind of crab. Crab's my first thought. Some kind of crab thing. You know, they had their own clam chowder there too. Different from the New England kind. I almost was about to complain of like the single mom would never win in this thing and trying to get back child support.

And the judge wouldn't unlikely decide with her in the 90s, but they explained it perfectly. The guy hired Lionel Hutz. That's why he lost the trial. I love Lionel Hutz's many side identities as well. It'd be great if they had kept some of these going. It's the perfect Simpsons gag that it tells the story of Miguel Sanchez isn't even his first fake name. Yeah. gag that it tells the story of Miguel Sanchez isn't even his first fake name. Yeah, despite being a fairly average looking white guy, he has all of these very non-white

aliases. Yeah. That's a good joke structure over time of like Lionel Hutt's, Miguel Sanchez, Dr. Nguyen sort of adding it on every five minutes. You add a new name, a new identity. That's funny. That's good. The last note from the commentary worth mentioning is that they were told that

the network did not like showing Marge smoking. They were against that, but that's what they did in the end of like these shots in Dragnet are the characters playing the person after they've been arrested. And there was often characters smoking after their arrest to show how stressed out they were as their, you know Sentencing was being announced. Hey, and if they let you smoke in there and you're about to go into the the clinker Why not? You know, even if you've never smoked before start now Yeah, I would smoke a dart as they call them in Canada if I was in the clinker

We talked about David Merkin being a stinker. He was told we don't want you to do this and so he did it extra. She took a few extra drags because they were living in the note-free golden days of the Fox era. And then we end with a wonderful Simpsons parody of the dragnet theme. So Simpsons meets Dragnet theme. I believe it was when we, me and you Bob, just went to Universal Studios and walked around Springfield. This was part of the musical loop, I recall. Yep. That nine minute loop you're gonna hear a whole lot.

I remember as we hung around there for a good while, it's like, oh, that's our third Bartman as we're here. What was the attention to detail on the rest of the Springfield like? How old is it now, Henry, like 15 years old? The Simpsons ride opened in 09, but the Springfield section was an expansion in I believe 2013. So we're just over a decade. So forgive me if you've talked about this.

Oh no no. Ben I would say if you ever plan to go in the next year I would go to the Hollywood one the next time you're in Los Angeles if that happens because the clock's ticking on it Disney's taking it back at some point. You don't know when but it's gonna be a Pokemon parking lot pretty soon. Oh Yeah, okay. The attention to detail is great. We've talked about it in several places how much we love it But they do a very good job there with a lot of specifics, especially if you consider they're not allowed to have any Harry Shearer stuff there either. They're not allowed to have any Henry Shearer stuff. Because Harry Shearer didn't sign the deal.

He didn't want to sell out to the theme park, so he's not there. Okay, so they just excise him. There seems to be like a scratchy exclusion deal where scratchy has to be included in certain things, so that made the cut. You won't see anybody else voice by sheer you won't see Ned you won't see mr. Brown like scratchy barely has a voice right itchy and scratchy to have been completely excised like they're not even in the new stuff it's been years no they made a big event in the last season of like we did a new itchy and scratchy in the new season like our last season it had been the first time in a while I think. Yeah because like I don't go back to play my hand

I'm a first nine seasons sort of guy and then after I fell off but I find visiting the new stuff to be pretty cringe very difficult for me I guess if you don't keep up with it it's hard to accept the changes it's a very different vibe I've heard good things about some of the new material. The last five seasons have been better than the 13 to 28. The last five seasons have been better. Yeah, yeah. It was a rough 15 years. And we can't wait to walk you through it. Yes, yeah.

This Dragonet ending, a perfect cap to a perfect episode of Simpsons. We're in this era where I feel like every 20 seconds, I'm like, there's a thing I quote all the time. There's a thing that's a gigantic meme. Here's another hilarious scene. And they're all in the same episode. They're all part of the same wonderful magical animal, as Homer would say.

Yeah, they're in that cultural stew. Love the meats of my cultural stew. Any final thoughts on the episode, Ben? And you have to say these for Matt as well. These count as Matt's final thoughts also. Yeah, I'm gonna say Matt's thoughts. These are Matt's thoughts, not mine. Pretty well written, I would have to say. It's a shame that Bill Kenbury didn't stay on as a writer because structurally it's a good episode. There's a shame that Bill Kenbury didn't stay on as a writer because structurally it's a good episode, there's a good arc. I feel like Marge could have learned

a little bit more of a lesson if I wanna be like a bit of a script doctor here. I feel like there's not a lot of really great animation in the episode. Like it's pretty flat in terms of animation, but I don't really think of The Simpsons as being actually that much of a standout for animation. Yeah, no, good episode. I like the gags from

beginning to end. No stinker jokes. Nothing cringe, no groaners. All of it is good. I'm still gonna think about Lumber has a million uses. And I love a good Marge episode even if it's written as part of a hazing ritual. Yes. Yes Well, thank you once again Ben Clarkson for being on the show and to Matt who has left us but he's still here in spirit Let us know we can find you online and more about volume 2 of Justice Warriors, which is available now Yeah You can find me on X the everything app the home of free speech only because there isn't another place for me to go Like everyone's posting their blue sky after the election.

And I'm like, I guess I could go there, but I have like four followers. I'm not starting over. Fuck it. I'm on the shit app. You can find me there on shit app or on Instagram where I don't go. Yeah, you can find Justice Warriors online. I'm going to send you guys like a Simon and Schuster link. I'll put that in the group chat. That's probably the best place to go to make your decision of which terrible mega corporation to buy from

You can also go to like Matt's website and buy it directly from him, which is nice for him but not good for our like Stats on the internet, which I let psycho for we're there. It's a great book honestly, if you want your cousin to understand the election that just happened, it's a great Christmas gift. I'm very proud of it. It's definitely Mademois' best work that we've ever put out. And this is a continuing series, so hop on. Love it from the beginning. Be cool. A perfect stocking stuffer this holiday season too. And not only is Ben a talented comic creator,

my timer just clicked over past three hours. He has amazing podcasting skills. Hell yeah, yeah, I love to pod. Thank you. We love to have you on Ben as well as Matt too. We'd love to have you guys back again for, well, who knows when volume three comes out, maybe then, maybe sooner.

I got a little notes app going. are bubbling we'll be back who knows what Marge will be up to next time you guys yeah it's gonna be a Marge episode next time I didn't mark that before both episodes you guys were in wasn't just a Marge episodes Marge's name was in the title of both of them too it's true it's Marge gets a job and Marge on the Lamb next is gonna be Marge has a lobotomy that's what pops into mind. But thank you, Ben. Thank you so much to Ben and Matt for being on the show. Please check

out their book, Justice Warriors. Volume one came out a bit ago. Volume two is new. You want to check those out wherever you buy books or like they said, go to the Simon and Schuster website, order one there. But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get nearly 200 full length bonus episodes head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpson sign up for five bucks a month and when you do you get all of our episodes ad free and one week ahead of time and also access to our seven plus years catalog of any series episodes they're all full length we've covered things like Futurama King of the Hill Mission Critic, and Batman the animated series and that five bucks a month

Also gets you new monthly episodes of both Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill. Again, The second you sign up for five bucks a month you get access to all that stuff And if you enjoy hearing us talk about The Simpsons, you should enjoy hearing us talk about those other things as well I think you will and we also have a $10 level at patreon.com other things as well. I think you will. And we also have a $10 level at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. When you sign up for 10 bucks, you get all of the $5 stuff naturally, but also one very long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level. Henry, what's going on there? Bob is talking about our What a Cartoon Movie podcast where we cover an animated feature

film as in depth as we do a classic episode of The Simpsons, which in the most recent one we did, we started off the holiday season with Eight Crazy Nights, a film that is a very 2002 Adam Sandler movie that also features the last gasp of 2D animation in US theatrical filmmaking. So there's a lot to talk about there. The month before that, we covered Hotel Transylvania, the much better Adam Sandler animated feature, and we have six years of previously released What a Cartoon movie podcasts that are often five or even six hours long. It's like getting a triple length podcast in addition to all

the other cool stuff you get at the $5 level of all the ad free things. We've covered Disney classics. We've covered the entire Disney Renaissance era, all the 90s cartoons, we've covered bad movies like Cool World and Bee Movie, and we've even had our longest one ever six and a half hours about Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Sign up for all of the ad free bonuses and early stuff at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. As for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I'm also on Blue Sky as Bob Servo. And my other podcast is RetroNauts.

That is 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 social media at H E N-N-E-R-U-Y-G that's Twitter, Blue Sky, I'm Talking Henry on Instagram and if you're following us on all of these accounts be sure to follow at Talk Simpsons Pod in those places too at Talk Simpsons Pod keeps you up to date whenever new

podcasts hit the patreon the free feed when we have live shows all that stuff and always check out TalkingSimpsons.com for an easy to follow list of all of our previously released free podcasts. Thank you so much for listening folks. We'll see you again next time for season 15's. Today I am a clown and we will see you then. Well, thank you for a lovely time. You're not going home already, are you? It's almost 9.30.

Right, we better turn in. Oh, you're a serious.