Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Marge Simpson in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers" With Stephen Sajdak

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

We're once again joined by Stephen Sajdak, cohost of the great We Hate Movies podcast, and be sure to check out their awesome West Coast tour happening RIGHT NOW! Stephen helps us deal with our road rage as we watch Marge drive all over Springfield, which somehow leads us from singing teachers to a dangerous rhino stampede. Listen now to learn how to properly deal with your murderous rage! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

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That is patreon.com slash talking simpsons. Now, please enjoy the rest of this podcast. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Sim Simpsons where the pretty ones are always insane. I'm your host, the hot-to-trot soccer mom, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and this podcast is more exciting than a three-chambered peanut. And who do we have on the line? I am an astronaut waving a golf club, Stephen Sadek.

Excellent, and today's episode is Marge simpson in screaming yellow honkers today's episode aired on february 21st 1999 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby em Eminem's second album releases and his stardom truly begins. Office Space debuts in very low attended theaters. And sadly, Gene Siskel passes away. Oh, no. I saved the sad one for last there. Well, originally I wrote that one first. And so I was going to be like, oh, boy, Bobby.

This great man is dead. Go back to Talking Critic. They are in the best episode of The Critic together that really underlines the sweetness and also the hostility of their relationship. And also the movie Life Itself About Ebert is a very good film about them and him. Quick question.

I'm going to start us off with a digression. Do you think The Critic would have been more successful if it came out sort of in the late 80s as opposed to the early 90s because of like the Critic boom as you could see it? Like, you know what I mean? Like, Cisco and Uber were on the decline in the 90s. You know what I mean? Do you think that had anything to do with the lack of success there?

I think so. I mean, it was successful in terms of a Fox show, but the president hated it. But I feel like it really couldn't have lasted into the 2000s because there was nowhere for it to go. Yeah, totally. Yeah, uh the the heyday had passed by that point and so it seemed weirder for to be the main character of the show is the successful urbane film critic now it's the most ridiculous thought in the world a a upper class kind of rich film critic making and thinking is in the show they say his salary is like $270,000 a year. Oh my god.

Something like that. But yeah, it's really tragic because Roger Ebert was early to the internet. In the late 90s they put all of his reviews online. Then he became a blogger when he lost his voice. A little bit before that actually. But Gene Siskel, none of his work I can find online. Oh, that's sad. This will tell you who I

am. When Roger Ebert's reviews went online, all of them on the Chicago Sun website, I spent summers reading every one by star ranking. I'm like, first, I'll read all the zero star ones and then one star and then one and a half star. So I probably have read every Roger Ebert review through like 2000 or 2001. So that's my life. That's an impressive life. Yeah, I don't I don't I never have the discipline for that. i just sort of like i would i was into ebert specifically for like movies that i wanted to see but i'm such a spoiler phobe i have been forever like i have to be well after i've seen the movie i can't know what's even a movie that i'm totally not interested in i will not want to

know what's in it until i get there myself career-wise for me as a person who has to have hot takes i have to save reviews now for later. I have to be like, well, first I have to see Joker and have my own opinion. And then I read what other people's opinions are. I worry of an opinion messing up mine or I'll end up just parodying it. You need to have the right to complain. That's what it's about. That's why you vote.

That's why I try not to listen to too many comedy podcasts, honestly. I don't want other people's bits influencing my own or whatever uh it's dangerous it is totally and you don't know where these ideas come from they're just in your brain and then someone's like um actually and you're like oh shit uh and but then you sound like carlos mencia used that excuse he was like well no i was just in other comedy clubs, and people just hear things. And then you find out, no, you were writing things down. So then you just sound like a liar if you say, no, no, I just heard other people. Yeah, I was at a comedy club with a 20-gallon camera hat.

And yes, Eminem's Slim Shady LP was the- So not the proper album. I think it was just called the Slim Shady LP, but that is the one that had... Oh, okay. My name is like the... Oh, yeah. The assault on our senses of Eminem began right here.

Will society survive? He really held up a mirror to us, man. A carnival mirror, if you will. And yes, Office Space, a pretty good movie. I was a dollar movie theater viewer of office space and i did enjoy it despite being 17 and having never worked in an office and while i say it is like probably the only good mike judge movie uh and it's a very good depiction of office life it's also the very late 90s movie of i'm so tired of my nice job with health insurance it's

just so boring the worst thing is being bored in the 90s, right before everything collapses. Well, when you look at the 90s, this episode specifically, and also people were desperately worried about Eminem. And again, to your point, office space. It's a pretty good job he's got. It looks like a nice company. And I want the nice Ikea apartment

that the character has in Fight Club. That's my ideal lifestyle in that high rise no uh yeah office space american beauty 2 was the same vein of like oh everything's wonderful i have such malaise and that character was a magazine editor making like 70 000 a year oh yes yeah uh yeah it's uh the i really liked office space i would say i mean you know beams of butthead was a really great bike judge movie. It's not the only. Oh, that's true.

Yeah. I mean, I guess live action because idiocracy is so uneven and there's a few funny jokes, but I find it's overrated. It's also about eugenics. In a way. At a certain level. And people reference it too much. It's like, is that really a documentary?

Yeah. The idiocracy thing was a little too on the nose. A lot of those jokes really hit. And I think Luke Wilson's really funny in it, etc But yeah, as a movie, it's not great What was his one with Bateman? Extracts Yeah, which that's about being a manager, right?

Yeah, it's about Mike Judge's experience as being a boss But I guess Silicon Valley is good I've heard good things I'm too close to that world to enjoy it yet But I want to watch it in like five years I watched the first two seasons, I really liked it And then I just sort of got Like with most uh hbo shows if i get distracted i'm done it is really funny i think camille ninjani is really hilarious on it thomas middle just really

good zach woods just always fantastic and they threw away tj miller so thank god for that he said he was too good he said he was too good for that as he was being tossed into the parking lot pretty amazing that tj miller interview about how he's actually great for taking the emoji movie like that comes like three months before his fall from grace began he's like i'm a it was his i am a golden god moment i feel like everyone saw that implosion happening in real time like it's gonna happen it's just just look at this guy and then sure enough it did but today's's special guest is Stephen Sadak of the amazing podcast We Hate Movies. Hello, Stephen.

This is your three-peat performance on our podcast. I know. This is exciting. One more and I'm like the Buffalo Bills. You're the Steve Martin of our SNL. Exactly. I always come up short, though. That's the problem.

Yeah, that Bill. I disagree with that Bill's comparison because i would say you lose every time you're on here you're a winner you're a winner yay i'm like the dallas cowboys i'm winning greece hat no uh yeah this is super exciting i love coming on this show you guys are amazing we oh thank you a big old love fest back back and forth and now you've actually completed the set am i correct you've got everybody at this point yeah cabin was the last get we got him it takes a lot for that guy to show up he did a great job and uh and a special thank you to you for mentioning us on your simpsons uh episode you just did of animation domination by the way

yeah you had we had to uh sadly not sadly no it just sort of if we're doing a simpsons episode it just feels weird that we're all doing the Simpsons show, and then we go onto our feed and make our own little Simpsons show. It was fun to talk about that, and I'm always down to talk Simpsons on Talking Simpsons. And you'll be coming out to our neck of the woods in the Bay Area, and also, I believe, Portland as well, very, very soon. Is that right? Yes, actually. If you are a Talking Simpsons Patreon, you've got a week to get tickets. We're coming out on 11-6 at Cobb's Comedy Club.

We're going to be talking about The Rock. And if you're a cheap bastard free person, it's actually tonight. So you really got to get moving. Get in the car. You can keep listening in the car. Yes, November the 6th, we're going to be at Cobb's Comedy Club talking about The Rock. It'll be a We Love Movies episode. We like to have fun with good movies these days,

sometimes, especially on the road, because you have to watch the same movie like three times in a week just to kind of get it. So it helps when it's a good movie and not like pure garbage. Well, and also if you're going to have the audience come out, they,

they might want to watch a good thing before they come out. Exactly. Like actually, as we're recording this, this is the week we we're doing uh our hollow our annual halloween spooktacular this is the week the human centipede is coming out and so many people are upset with me for and i i had to put out a statement like it was a damage control be like listen guys you don't have to watch the human centipede i'm not endorsing

that film at all but listen for the jokes it'll be fun. I have definitely still enjoyed many an episode if I've never seen the movie or saw it like 20 years ago. Thank you, Henry. That's a good attitude to have. And you should all go out and see We Hate Movies live because they're amazing. But to sweeten the deal, Henry and I will be there, but nowhere near the stage.

Not performing in any way. All sorts of podcast celebrities are going to be there, in stage and off stage. We're not going to be inside the stage we're going to be on top of it i promise i want you to emerge from the stage the pyrotechnics is always kind of a thing that it's a it's a down the line dream so we're actually doing a west coast tour uh that's the beginning of it november the 6th will be in your hometown in san francisco which i love uh the next day we're flying to portland o to the Aladdin Comedy Club or the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon doing Kindergarten Cop, which is also kind of a We Love Movies because I've seen that movie way,

way, way too many times. And a couple of days later on November the 10th, which is Sunday, we're going to be at the Hollywood Improv. We just added an early show. We're going to be doing Teen Wolf right before we do our sold out show on the Karate Kid. So those tickets are still available for Teen Wolf, I think, at this time. And you should get them because we're doing an 80s night. You should go to both shows if you can. Yeah, I will say as someone who loves your podcast, West Coast appearances for you guys are rare because you're based in New York. So I've been waiting probably nine years for this. Yeah, I mean, I went to San Francisco a couple of years ago with my wife, my now wife. We weren't married at the time and I loved it. And it's been kind of far too long for us to get out there sort of officially. Yeah. I mean, you know, you have so many

opportunities on the East Coast. I mean, we're hypocrites. We don't go to the East Coast. Yeah. We've had many people going like, why don't you go to Boston? And my response is like, why don't you go to San Francisco And my response is like, why don't you go to San Francisco? Yeah, how about that, buddy? Yeah, exactly. The money is kind of hard to make that work for a couple of grown adults to fly around. It's not that easy to do cross-country flights

on a podcaster's budget. Until our patrons unlock the Talking Simpsons jets, this won't happen. It's a certain level I think we'll get to eventually, for sure. We can buy the jet, the Simpsons. They had the Simpsons on it before. The one non-pervert private jet.

Oh, God. I'm now imagining you guys having a big, like, Righteous Gemstones compound where everything is branded for talking Simpsons. I think it's going to happen. That's a dream. Oh, man. But, yes, I can't wait to see those. Definitely, if you come

to the san francisco show on the 6th you will hear my laughter which is in a way a performance oh sorry one last thing you can find all the tickets on whmpodcast.com slash tour or just go to whmpodcast.com and find the tour tab it's all there all your fun tickets awesome well man uh So this episode. Well, I got to get out of here, guys. Thank you so much. What a prima donna, I swear. Sorry.

But yeah, no, this episode of The Simpsons, Screaming Yellow Honkers. Should we explain the reference up front? Yeah, let's do that. It's not about Marge's breasts, in case you're wondering. This is referencing an obscure candy popcorn from the 60s. It was glazed popcorn that was sort of taking advantage of the hippie-ish movement at the time but now apparently it still exists but is only uh distributed to certain walgreens yeah it's released every now and then for a limited time starting from 2012 con agri-foods killed in 2007 i liked the look of the old box that it was just

like a black box that said screaming yellow zonkers like believe it it's basically cracker jacks without peanuts in them and even if there's no screaming yellow zonkers believe me there's no shortage of sweetened corn in america so don't don't feel too bad yeah they my buddy of mine was way like he was like a candy aficionado would have like i'd go to his house they were like like the Halloween kids, so they were totally nuts about all sorts of Halloween and obscure candies. And I remember very specifically when this episode came out, I was like, oh, that's what this is about. It was very bizarre. the fancy sweetened popcorn at something uh like at a movie theater when i eat it i i just think like this is corn pops i just paid a ton of money for a bowl of corn pops with chocolate drizzled you need to bring your own corn pops from home in that space bag they come in that little pointy tube whenever i go to the movies by myself i'm always like it's always a

a total fucking emperor at the coliseum i go absolutely nuts because no one's there to judge me and i got a flaming hot cheeto popcorn last time and my stink my fingers were stained for days i've never experienced this i've never experienced i've had i know i'm a cheeto man myself but i've never experienced that it's the uh it's the popcorn equivalent of those dye packs they put on clothes so you can't break them off when you're shoplifting. You're just marked with shame. Yes, I look like Robert Pattinson in Good Time leaving that theater. I got special Spider-Man popcorn.

That's the most recent fancy popcorn I got because my husband was like, you need to have an opinion on what Spider-Man popcorn tastes like. So I was like, fine. And this was at AMC for the most recent spider-man movie and so it's just candied popcorn that is red or blue and it it seriously is just captain crunch crunch berries like it again felt not special at all except that it was red and blue popcorn i'm sure it tasted like red and blue pretty much you mainly taste the food color i'm more a fan of salty popcorn with a nice uh syrupy coke at the movies i need my my pig dinner with my pig drink uh but also this episode is

about suv moms did you either of you guys have suv moms uh growing up no i did not there were not enough kids to uh you know necessitate an suv in my family yeah yeah we we didn't um we were in the bronx we didn't really my dad had a car but not my mom didn't for a really long time i don't and also i feel like suv moms were kind of a thing when this episode was coming out for for younger people you know what i mean like i think that that was kind of the thing i think well i indeed did have an suv mom oh she she didn't get road rage like uh marge or any comical thing like that but she really enjoyed going up to an suv like i i don't know why we had it other than just it was a status symbol perhaps or whatever i i was slightly upper middle class i'll say that but

when it was time to get a new car which like we only got new cars like three times in my entire childhood it wasn't like a yearly event but we but we got an suv and that was my mom's regular thing and she really did like the feeling of being above traffic just it was like an empowering feeling for her and also the the storage that marge celebrates in this episode my mom really liked too i don't think it made her a more aggressive driver. And I do think the stereotype of suburban moms and their SUVs is a little sexist. But I also do think it was a real thing going on for some mothers in America at the time. I actually had an SUV for about two or three years.

Really? Because my old shitty car broke down. I couldn't use it anymore, and I needed a new car. And the cheapest option was to lease an SUV because it was the early 2000s, and that was the least popular time to get a fuel-inefficient

car because of obvious reasons. But also, another reason it was cheap was because the car was called the Rendezvous, and we all hated French people and the language yeah that's uh that really paid off for you so for the princely sum of 188 a month i drove a new rendezvous that's pretty good yeah that was a rock and a hard place for certain people like i hate the french but i do want to destroy the planet how do i do both the few times i drove it or drove other big cars, I honestly, I get, I hate driving. I am happy to have not driven for the last 13 years.

And when I didn't like the power I got in it, I felt too above the other drivers. And it also like, you know, I could sometimes miss things that I was definitely worried of. Like, well, I ran over a child who is beneath my view line in this giant suv yeah as a new york elite i do not drive a car um but i and like i do feel like if i did i'd be afraid that i'd be either version of marge in this episode either the beginning part because that that fits with certain parts of my personality the completely passive like oh no you you you and also out of fear of getting into a crash but also like i feel like the second i got comfortable i would be running over people like like nobody's business and uh i think the writers on this one too they found a

funny way to give marge a story that didn't involve marge gets a job it's marge gets a car but it's not marge gets a job it's true true. And also, yeah, this is kind of a fun callback to Steven's first appearance on the podcast where we did Marge Gets Friends, the High Society one. I'm almost a Marge expert at this point. Yeah, I actually like this episode for the Margeness. There are a lot of air holes in this one. It's very, very light. It doesn't try to solve the problem, which is kind of a thing for me.

It's also written by classic Simpsons writer David M. Stern, who came back in season 10 to write like this, and Viva Ned Flanders. And the director, Mark Kirkland, and his team, I think, did a really good job with the script that probably was not thought about how hard it would be to animate. A bunch of rhinos stampeding for five minutes. Yeah, and car action and just a lot of difficult stuff for sure. The end of this one reminds me a lot of The Listen Lady in terms of just a bizarre animal happenstance that isn't really set up in the plot that kind of ends the episode. You know what I mean?

Yeah. The typical Act 3 zoo panic. Yeah, yes. Wow, you're right. It's a very similar third act and and that was also a march centric episode too either marge gets a job or marge runs afoul of zoo animals this episode starts out with another difficult thing to animate which is a musical number a lengthy musical number as we uh we get a very funny uh fame parody here

not gonna teach forever gonna Gonna give showbiz a try. Try! I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows. The Spain! Whew! Mercy. Good evening. Our old friend Noah Webster defines laughter as the act or sound of laughing well illustrated nelson and now fasten your funny bones for groundskeeper oh or should i say grinskeeper no i'm sorry groundskeeper was correct willie

i love that joke and they remembered that he says, oh, mercy. Yeah. For the first time in like two years. And that he flubs lines, though. That's not really what Groundskeeper is about. That's my favorite joke in the episode, honestly. It's very skinnery. And they were careful to point out it's a faculty talent show. Yes. And so it was very nice of them to still invite willie and otto on stage for the song about being teachers i i think they were just running so low on faculty yeah like there's only

three teachers at the school there was one previously unseen teacher but apparently this is based on uh there was a faculty talent show when mike scully was in school that's crazy and the closest thing that happened to me that's similar to this was in like maybe third or fourth grade uh there was a a reading of a christmas carol and all the teachers were playing parts and uh everyone got a laugh because the crankiest teacher i believe her name is mrs berkey and yes that's hilarious she played ebenezer scrooge oh man yeah that she was brought down the house that's uh boy, I didn't get any performances. I mean, we had assemblies that teachers hosted, but it wasn't them acting it out.

The closest I got was in high school. There was the teachers played against each other in a softball game, which really just went two innings before. They're like, look, that's the end of it. We're not playing nine innings of softball. I like the idea of just giving up. You saw it, right? It was good. You understand.

Well, the biggest joke was that there was a gym teacher who was quite old and overweight, which made it funny enough that he was the gym teacher. But when he actually got a hit, the joke was that he had a golf cart that drove him to first base. And they really did it. They did make him run. Oh, geez.

But yeah, no talent shows. My Florida suburban teachers, I think, were more into playing softball than singing fame together. I'm kind of curious why anyone's at this event. It seems horrible like i was waiting for a gag about like oh and this is 10 of your grade or something like that because like why on earth would anyone show up to this i guess springfield doesn't have a culture scene so should have been something about attendance being mandatory or yeah these these talent shows or that is for charity or something yeah i would think these town shows work during school hours

where it's forced attendance and they just take the classes there but yeah this is like every parent got dressed up and came to it also the budget of the show is incredible i think skinner wasted all the basic assistance grant money on this and that's fine they they go to all the trouble of having a giant backdrop like it's that's a joke of that's edutainment uh i do love i do love the grinskeeper jokes about edinburgh versus north edinburgh which is just like it's just exactly that's that silly stand-up comedy gag but nobody gets it until he starts cursing at them they were there for insult comedy yeah yeah uh it's just it's a great gag about how you can't do local,

like how local jokes don't play. And his is so specific, but it's all he's got. When I lived in Southern California for about a year, I finally got all the jokes about the various streets you hear referenced so often. Pico and Kohanga, now I make sense. I understand that. And as a kid, or as a teen, I did like Bart's pronouncement that it both sucks and blows.

Within the same act, somebody says, this sucks or you suck. Yeah. It's not their smartest. I just got the pacing of the statement of like, or should I say Grinskeeper? No, it's Groundskeeper. I have taken that in my own life. Skinner feels more like a classic Skinner to me, which I like. He's a bit different in Scully's years.

And I like too that Skinner just leaves the pyramid to say his lines and just lets Chalmers fall and doesn't seem to care at all. I do love the Krabappel gag coming up here. It's so disturbing. It's so well animated too. Yes. The animators are really enjoying animating striptease. That's for sure right before that i did want to say what is it about south edinburgh golfers is that they are

short and have to they have short arms or i i mean you could go blue and say they have to put their legs far apart because they have large testicles i'd go for that yeah that works for me and willie knows the stand- up code of like whatever got the big laugh just leave just like oh hey it'll be great I do love after bombing he's like you've been great the Simpsons will be right back. and you guys should all be checking out their podcast we hate movies and if you're on the west

coast please check out some of their live shows that they're doing right now as for this podcast you can support talking simpsons by going to patreon.com slash talking simpsons if you enjoy this podcast and want to hear every episode a week ahead of time and ad free five bucks will get you that as well as early access to our what a cartoon podcast which we do every week on top of talking simpson plus you'll get to hear all of our patreon exclusive podcast interviews exclusive episodes and our many mini series including our current one talking futurama season two part one where we're going through the first 10 episodes of the second season of Futurama.

You definitely want to check that out. Just $5 a month at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And if you want to support patreon for this adorable little puppy then you really want to go to the ten dollar and up level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons at the premium level you get all that stuff i just talked about for five bucks plus our monthly what a cartoon movie podcast where we talk about a different animated feature film once a month this october we did the nightmare before christmas for all the halloween thrills and chills and that's just the most recent one

over four hours sometimes these can last and you can hear all the back catalog if you sign up now for 10 bucks a month that's batman mask of the phantasm kiki's delivery service aladdin cowboy bebop the movie beavis and butthead do america tiny tunes how i spent my vacation and tons more you want to hear all those you got to sign up for the ten dollar level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and uh edna's posing and her burlesque balloon dance they had a lot of fun with that i i looked up a couple of burlesque balloon dances and the uh i always wonder like what happens when you run out of balloons or what is it and at least the ones that are on youtube eventually you you lose enough balloons and it's like okay let's just take off the harness and i'm in a bikini let's just skip to that nothing is

sexier than the phrase balloon harness you know the balloons aren't literally like glued to you and in that case you after you pop them you have parts of balloons stuck to you so it's just the losing the balloons is actually seemingly less sexy than it would appear to be you do want some protection between the balloons and the rest of your body i would hope oh it must kind of yeah you you'd be in danger of popping them i i don't think they normally pop with a cigarette is that a kerbopple touch i think i like that. And also, though, the animators draw her too sexy for the joke to be that everyone's grossed out. Yeah, I kind of agree with that, totally. And especially when Comer's like, oh, I had to see her butt. I'm like, wouldn't you be?

I don't know. She looks like a pretty good-looking woman. I mean, she's not as young as she used to be, but I would think they would have wanted to see her butt. Yeah. That bit doesn't work. They need an uglier person to be doing it, I think. Well, how old is she supposed to be? I mean, is this before or after her and Skinner get together?

It's during. Yeah, this is after they've gotten together, I think. I think she's supposed to be read as late 40s, I'd say. Okay. But the body, I mean, the body they gave her in this sequence, like she has stayed in shape. She's doing great. Yeah.

They should welcome seeing her butt, though she should go to jail. She's exposing herself to minors. Yes. She is committing a crime live on stage. Why you go to these things to see the crime? And speaking of crimes, it's a crime against comedy. Skinner and Chalmers doing Abbott and Costello in their next clip.

This is great Skinner stuff, too. Well, Seymour, it seems we put together a baseball team. And I was wondering, who's on first? Yes. Not the pronoun, but rather a player with the unlikely name of who is on first. Yes. Well, that's just great, Seymour. We've been out here six seconds.

You've already managed to blow the routine. Sexless freak. Well, seems as though we're just about at the halfway point, so why don't we call it intermission? Don't go too far. If you like cafeteria workers in beetle wigs with tennis racket guitars, you won't

want to miss the second half you drive i eat dad you were supposed to pay for those snacks i saw krabappel's butt i paid yeah again he didn't uh he should welcome seeing her butt yeah yeah uh but god beetle wigs and tennis racket guitars love that descriptor god you could feel how uncomfortable that would be i imagine it'd be like a medley of beetle songs not just one yeah they'd transition between them that reminds me of every year at college the ras would put on some sort of a show and every year i successfully skipped it and i feel like that's exactly what it would have what it would have been. Yeah, at a certain level,

seeing a show of Friends is like a responsibility, not an enjoyment thing. It's one thing if you're seeing a play or whatever or someone's legitimate musical act. Any kind of review, you can keep me way the fuck out of. I have no interest in your review participation. You know, Stephen, I think you guys would sell even more tickets if you promised Beatle impersonations on stage. There are four of us, so there's that.

It's easy to do, but we won't sell that many more tickets. You got to call Paul now, Stephen, before anybody else does. Though actually, you know, if you advertised you'd be playing Beatles music live, you'd probably get shut down. Oh, pretty quickly. They burn the theater down. But yeah, it's also weird he's calling Skinner a sexist freak when he's like, he's been with Edna long enough. They should know he's no longer a virgin, I would think. Kind of, yeah.

Sexist freak is a very specific and mean joke that almost works. I like, too, when he's exiting the stage the extra animation like he's swinging his bat angrily as he leaves the stage i like uh these driving scenes shows how marge's politeness is incompatible with just what you need to do to be a driver this was me for my first few years driving i i didn't get my license i think me and you were both late licenses people in that i got it at 18 i think i was 19 and yeah and i only did it from peer pressure of like you don't know how to drive but living in suburban florida i did need to learn how to drive to get and do anything but this was how i was for many years of just being very anxious

of like no no if i change lanes something bad will happen or i i'll just let this person go and uh i actually uh on my first driving test i did i wasn't turning right on and so it was in this parking lot and they're like all right let's turn out into traffic for your next part of the test okay and it's a you know turn right on red kind of situation but i wanted to wait for the green and then there were people behind me honking of like you can turn right just do it and so then eventually the pressure got to me so much that i just turned right without looking oh no and a car had to barely dodge me get out of the lane uh then my driving test person was like okay you're gonna pull back into the parking lot right now you know what you just did i was like

um she shows you her shaking hands yes uh that was probably a story for her for a long time yeah whenever i go home i haven't driven in at about seven years like regularly but when i go home i drive for a few days and it's like a disneyland ride it's like i could do this all the time when you don't have to do it it's kind of fun to do it just for a few days a year your no your story henry is exactly why i've never driven i feel like i just i'm a 36 year old man and i feel like i'm never gonna get behind the wheel of a car because that would happen you've you've made it this far as long as i'll be all right as long as you don't leave the tri-state area exactly and now now i've i i tricked my wife into, so that works out. That paid off, man.

It did. But yes, Marge is certainly stressed to driving. Whoopsie. This could take a minute. There's an opening, Mom. I don't know. I hate to change lanes once I get going. That's really for race car drivers.

Mom, to your left. He's letting you in. Go. Come on, Mom. Get your head down. No. No. As soon as I get over, that lane will stop moving. Irma Bombeck said so, and Dave Barry agrees. Oh, you suck, Marge. Come on, move it, you clowns. what in blazes and that is the return of the canyon arrow the beloved canyon arrow which took over the ending of uh season nine episode yeah i'm glad they remembered it it's a good uh if they need a

go-to for an suv that's your go-to. And that Krusty's still driving it. They made sure it was like, Krusty is still driving the free Canyonero he got in Last Temptation of Krust. Krusty attending this local grade school faculty talent show. That does seem odd. I do think, yeah, it is kind of a neat bit of continuity there that you don't get super often, which is like, this is the thing that he got at this episode and now he's using it. You know what I mean? It is a nice little decal for the episode too. And what on earth is he doing there?

Come on, man. Unless he's cutting through the parking lot to do something else. Maybe he was like huffing something in the back of the parking lot. He was there for the kerbopple show, I think. Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. And then the car like sort of like bucks

and whinnies over the horizon. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, idea and then the car like sort of like bucks and whinnies over the horizon yeah uh i love that yeah impossible acting on the car and then homer is just saying canyon arrow catchphrases out loud he's he's almost like turned on by the canyon arrow it is a kind of a nice one two it feels like it's going to be a homer episode but it's not kind of a thing yeah homer's interest in it is uh you think he's gonna just take it over and so it makes marge's timidness seem just like an interesting scene not set up which makes it work even better as set up it seems a little harsh that homer says you suck that's a little mean don't tell your wife she sucks he's not sometimes you get good homer husband this is

not good homer husband he's making her drive just to eat. Not like he has what I'll call a disability is not knowing how to drive like I do. But he can drive. He refuses to. He says she sucks. Later on, he steals from her. It's not good Homer husband. I say punch up your insults

if you're going to insult your partner. Yes. Second draft. Friend of the show, Mike Scully, is great, but his seasons are not the best homer uh husband acting seasons for sure i also like marge is very mom inciting irma bombeck and dave berry columns as fact like i i love that there's nothing better than a milk toast dave berry uh like or just making fun of dave perry d being milquetoast what the Simpsons love to do

So yes, Homer heads down to the OK Car Row to buy a Canyonero We get a much more down-to-earth Gil He's sort of back to where he was in his debut episode where he is conceivably a real businessman not this desperate lunatic

Yes, and a somewhat employable Gil, at least. This also, though, has one of his lowest moments, I think, too. Yeah. But yes, Homer is shopping for a canyon arrow, and Gil seemingly gets lucky. Go ahead, drool all you want. You can't hurt that

finish now. Rainwater, that'll strip it right off. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. Come on, Gil. Hey, a red one. Can I buy that, please? Well, if you... Really?

What? Hot dog? A sale? I'll take it from here, Gil. No, wait. Oh, no, you can't take my sale. My wife's going to leave me if I don't start from here, Gil. No, wait! No, you can't take my sale. My wife's going to leave me if I don't start bringing in the green.

Come on, let me have this one, Stan. I'm begging you. Look at me. I'm begging you, Stan. Let's go write this up, shall we? Honey, you should have seen me with my last customer. No, but I came so close. guy was whose voice is that is that fred oh you said it was over no don't put him on it hello fred i think everywhere he works he's doomed to work with an alec baldwin type who just pushes him around i mean that that i'm begging you seen

that is uh very similarly posed even of the end of glenn gary glenn ross where he's begging kevin spacey's character not to reveal that he stole that he faked something i forget exactly but he's he's so so sad in that moment shelly i i do love any time you can get Gil into an episode where it makes sense and he's just doing the bad salesman thing. It's my favorite thing in the world. I love the journey you go on in that clip all the way to the end of him and his wife's lover

where he can't even be mean to him. He's like, oh, hey, how's it going? Just the social pressure of like, well, I have to be friendly on the phone. And the uh rotary cell phone he has god yes yeah and that well i like that this is like two joke tropes in the show meeting each other because in the world of the simpsons gill must always fail but in the world too homer cannot say no to buying something no matter how awful the salesman is homer is the perfect consumer so homer would have to buy something from gill no matter how bad gill is is at it so that's why they have to give an extra reason for gill getting screwed out of the sale

for no reason that guy can't take his sale but he just so easily he knows gill folds in so he's like oh you gotta say hey i'm finishing this sale gil like it's mine you get you get none of the uh i guess they work commission commission yes yeah yeah it's it's it's such a brutal moment where he just takes it from him it's so rude oh yeah the one thing i do remember about leasing that suv is just like it was the cheapest thing so i was going to still get it no matter what And the guy was still trying to talk me into it when I agreed with it. And one of the things he told me, he was a very stereotypical car salesman. And he says, this thing was going to get you laid.

And in my head, I was like, well, I really doubt that. Nice try, buddy. I'll mess that up. Now, one of my only interactions with this car salesman when I got a car was with a guy named Chuck, who was a lot of those stereotypes, too. But what I remember most is on his forearm was tattooed the word Chuck, which I'm like, why is your own name tattooed on you? I really want to know that story. That is really something. Was it like a big gothic-y kind of script, or what are we talking?

It looked like a signature, actually, like in cursive. It was so strange. I'll never know. I'm sure he's dead now. Maybe it was like a Don Draper situation, and he stole somebody named Chuck's identity to really sell it. It's like, no, no, my tattoo right here clearly says I'm Chuck. Someone named Chuck would have that written down. I just love his exclamation, like, hot dog, a sale,

like the one time he's ever been happy on the show. Mike Scully reveals on the commentary that the names of the other salesmen on the board are all of his best friends from high school. Aw, very nice. And his family appears with him in this episode, too. Almost too much, honestly. So then we get the scene of homer being upsold all of the bullshit at the dealership which this is like so soon after cruddy sunday's

clear code and stem lube gags so yeah it feels like the writing staff were buying a lot of new cars and were pissed off at all the bullshit about i think that's what they mentioned on a previous commentary was that uh all the writers were going through like midlife crisis and buying new cars yeah around the uh mid to late 90s it also sort of i mean the whole uh all the language about payments and all that stuff and then later him cashing in his 401k it's kind of like oddly prescient of the housing bubble kind of you know what i mean like all of these middle middle class people just getting bamboozled uh buying things that they desperately do not need. Actually, on the commentary, George Meyer says this predicted the housing subprime mortgage crisis.

Nobody laughs and then there's silence on the commentary for a while. Well, that crippling balloon payment is what fucked over a lot of homeowners. Yes. Oh, God. Yeah. They told us. They warned us. But I'm sure another recession will never happen again.

The important thing is all those people are in jail now. Oh, yeah. Everybody got their just desserts. Thankfully, the country is fixed and we'll never be preyed on again. I love Homer's perfect response to that too. Like, but that's in a while, right? Like, oh, yeah. That's me filling up every college student loan that I have.

It's like, oh, yeah, sure. No, but that's later on when I'm a millionaire. Okay, that's fine. I was like, 2009 is so far away. By then, I'll be the next Steven Spielberg, and I won't have to worry about that stuff. Yeah, what's a couple of 10 grand against millions of dollars? Yeah. Anyway, Homer is so proud of his new car for about one hour, and then toxic masculinity rears its ugly head.

Sorry, Homer. We thought you were one of those hot-to-trot soccer moms. Yeah, you don't see many men driving the F-Series. See? Instead of a cigarette lighter, it's got a lipstick holder. Oh, crap! It's a girl's car! I can't drive this! Oh, sure you can, dollface. Pretty thing like you can do whatever she wants.

Shut up! Screw you guys! Lousy, absurd, frilly, girly, fruity car. Where's your keys? I'm taking your car to work. You cashed in your 401K to buy that stupid Canyon Aero. Why can't you drive it? Are you saying I'm gay? Because if that's what you think, then just come right out and say it. I don't think you're gay. I just have to do my grocery shopping.

Now, please, give me my keys. Fine. That's really good at hot wiring that car. Yeah, it's amazing. All of the gadgetry inside the Canyon Air reminds me of the last car that i had was i believe from like 2005 or 2006 so old the car was so whenever i get into a car that's now like 13 years uh newer i'm amazed by all of the gadgets that would make me a much better driver now like all of the cameras and the sensors like the backing up camera oh it's amazing it like there's like a holograph of your

car it projects and it shows you where to go it's amazing it It's incredible. The self-driving car is around the corner. That would make me a driver, I think. The self-driving car. I'm for it. It'll kill some people, but you know what? Omelets, eggs, you know how it works. It'll kill people, destroy the trucking industry, but it'll be a safer driving thing.

I mean, people are dying already from car wrecks. So it's like, would you rather a robot do it or a drunk driver do it? But yes, all those truckers being unemployed that that won't be good that'll probably be bad and they're big and mean yeah they are they're gonna get rowdy once they get unemployed i do love the idea of lenny and carl cat calling a car not knowing who's inside of it the idea that it's a lady car therefore has to be a lady therefore it has to be an attractive lady and a hot to trot soccer mom especially for sure they're looking to get with a soccer mom letting carl are but it's such a funny idea too of the upscaling of

the idea of you're riding a girl's bike don't you see where the bar is or whatever yes yeah it's like who can a bike's a bike but obviously the last thing an american boy wants to be called is a girl like that would be the worst oh god let alone uh homer simpson yeah it's it's kind of it's an amazing turn for this episode and also like it's a one of the weirder things like do you think i'm? Which seems very unsimpsons to me. I do like that Homer says it while holding a purse. Oh, that's right. Yeah. I guess we don't see any more of the feminine features in this car after Marge takes over.

I wish there was more jokes about that. I guess that's why there is a woman's voice talking to him. Also, Homer driving off with just, screw you guys, just feels like very not witty and just real. Like, just the real reaction i'm also surprised that they even bothered to have marge reference how homer could possibly afford to buy a new car but it's because he cashed out his 401k for it which i mean uh burns probably would have invested that in a hedge fund anyway and lost all the money so i i think homer ended up on the better part of that yeah yeah we don, we don't have pensions anymore. We just gamble. We're just gambling.

We're having fun. It's all about choices. We all have choices now. And it also is very season 10, Homer calling her a sucker as he drives away, stealing her car. Sucker is like the end of scene word in many of these episodes. You have to punctuate a scene with sucker.

Yeah. And yes, there's a very accurate looking undercarriage view of the SUV as Marge approaches it. I really like that. I have to laugh at the idea that Homer would ever buy. They couldn't write a script where Homer buys Marge a car as a gift. It would only be a gift he buys himself and casts it off to her. That's how she'd end up with her own SUV. And it takes that long to get Marge in her own car to start the plot too you know or she or she decided to get another car or whatever you know what i mean like no it has to be homer is is literally the vehicle to get you where you need to go i mean marge won't even buy another pair of shoes so it's hard to that's also true marge buys a blank episode uh and yeah it's it's honestly kind of heartwarming to see how happy marge is to feel wanted by her car, just feel like she has a space that's hers.

That reminds me of classic David Emster writing of his more feminine stories. It's true, yeah. Famous for his Patty and Salma stories. Well, that line when she punches into the GPS, the very new idea of a GPS. Oh, my gosh. When, you know, where do you want to go? And she says, no one's ever asked me that before. It's just a classic killer sad Marge line. It's really funny. It's all our dreams are coming true. Yeah, I love, I could not even, like, function without GPS now.

I remember the days of me printing out MapQuest instructions and then writing them larger on an index card that I would put on my dashboard. Wow. Yeah. You know, I should have done that. I just had MapQuest things, but I'd usually have another person to read them to me or whatever. During my big road trip, I'd be like, what exit is it? Which one?

Thinking about having that without just a phone in your hand that says that is crazy talk now. Even for walking around, I mean mean i have no sense of direction another reason i'm not a driver um is when i would meet people in my 20s like uh at parties or whatever and like oh we're going down to this really cool place in brooklyn or whatever i would print out a map quest as to how to get there and like even up to it including like the early 10s when i before i got a smartphone it's like oh wow it's like it's like all my printed maps are right here yeah i uh i don't know how i even get around my town without it now i'm just like yeah i need to go up that way i could just it was the thing i hated driving it was another of my many like driving anxieties which was i'd have to drive someplace new for the first time once i drove

to a place for the first time i would be fine driving to it 8 million times, but any new place I had to drive to would fill me with dread. Even if it was a good new restaurant, I'd rather drive to a bad restaurant I'd been to dozens of times than try to figure out how to drive to a new place. Yeah. So Uber and Lyft are two companies that shouldn't exist. They're just founded on lies and they don't make any money, But I can't take taxis anymore. I've had too many bad taxi experiences. I probably talked about a few of them here. But what drives me nuts about a taxi is they all have GPSs, but only half the people will use them.

I've been taken to the wrong city before twice. Jesus. And I've had people get mad at me for not knowing directions. Like, there's a GPS in your dashboard. Yeah. That is my number one petp even why i too uh unfortunately do not use taxis i do use those horrendous services because yes if you they do not use the gps and yes i do get yelled at for not knowing where i'm going when you are the driver you that's

kind of your gig man like yeah yeah it's a thing that i can't abide is like getting into an argument with a taxi driver either him thinking he knows where he's going or asking me how to get there. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is all on you. Well, because they're extra pushy as know it all in my experience, too, especially if you get picked up at the airport and you're like, can I go here? And they if they don't know where you're going, it's just like, well, I clearly got off an airport, an airplane. I'm not a local. I don't know well that's that's

where i'll get into this kind of super aggressive conversation at the up front i'm like hey i need to go to this place do you know where that is and the guy will either be like yeah sure or what and once he says what i'm like i'm out of here i'm not yeah i'm playing this game is uh bart and lisa enter the car lisa does what her main job is in seasons 9 through 12, which is to say facts that then Bart does a joke about. I think they were kind of getting tired of Lisa being the fact checker on jokes, but that's her job in this next clip. But Mom, I read that sport utility vehicles are more likely to be involved in fatal accidents.

Fatal to the people in the other car. Let's roll. Hang on. The manual says I need to log on to the onboard computer. M-A-R-G-E. Hello, Marge. Where would you like to go today? No one has ever asked me that before in my life. Well, that's a first. I've never been able to fit 32 grocery bags into one car before ew why is courtney love on the wheaties box i thought it was sandy duncan yeah the lisa well the thing lisa cites was i looked up some research only from the early 2000s about safety studies with suvs and uh lisa and barter both right at least for then

from what i saw which is quote the average suv chart poses nearly twice the risk to drivers of other vehicles as do the average mid-size and large car interesting yeesh and i think this episode was inspired by some article at the time uh stating that women experience road rage more often than men yeah i and i mean they have to deal with uh they i think a lot of suburban wives have to uh stifle a lot of emotions yeah that then would come out on in the car now look i'm just a man saying this about women and their dumb feelings but that's what i what with their hair and rollers uh holding a rolling pin in their house coats they also have to deal with Lenny and Carl catcalling them

because they're in girl cars. It's not a good experience no matter what. Well, I think that fact Bart shares also went to the general belief that the SUV drivers are selfish and deadly on top of driving around a wasteful car, that they're driving a car that... If everybody were to drive the same type of car,

then it's the same amount of risk for everybody but when you're in this taller tougher car it's more likely especially like in if you're hitting a mid-sized car you're closer to their windshield than you are if your bumpers are just hitting each other like it's just very very dangerous that was actually i i had i totally forgot this happened to me. I totaled a car hitting an SUV. Oh, gosh. The cops said it was their fault, so this is not me just lying, covering for myself, but it was. They had to yield on left, but they're like, nah, we're going left.

And so I hit into the side of them when they were going left. No one was hurt. One friend had a little nagging like shoulder pain but that was it he's dead now um but my honda uh civic was totaled and their suv was like kind of dented on the side and it was just uh it was a frustrating thing to us though i'm glad nobody was hurt but like so yes i have uh i'm one of those statistics right there of it being more dangerous for the other driver than the suv did you get a lot of cash out of there not so much i used to uh to move to berkeley so this podcast if that suv wasn't so dangerous i might not have

been able to afford to move out here so in a way it was a gift i think of this the grocery bag joke too whenever i'm walking home with two bags from trader joe's i'm like this is heavy it's i i wish i had a canyon arrow you need a wagon but it's i mean i do i do love uh there's sort of this rubish marge uh comparison where she's like i love her being impressed by things that are pretty impressive but not that impressive like um in the episode of Bart Sells His Soul, where it's like, street signs and doors, whatever. It's akin to that, which I kind of love. It's sweet. It just shows how small her life is.

So she's tickled by very mundane things. And also that she's never heard of Courtney Love and only knows Sandy Duncan. Yeah. Which, boy, they have a little dark joke on the commentary that they keep putting her into the death pool inexplicably still alive still with us yeah she's uh oh knock on wood remember oh yes oh shit i gotta play the anti-death jingle now after saying this okay we're safe i she has definitely had her ups and downs and definitely she herself has done some crappy stuff in her life i will say though i looked into what the most recent news on courtney

love is and i give it a thumbs up one is that uh she's planning a whole reunion tour there that seems like they're uh rehearsing but two uh she's shitting on the sackler family and the the causers of the opioid crisis. Oh, good. Yeah, I think she's a victim of a lot of... I mean, she's not a great person, as noted by her daughter, but she's a victim of a lot of casual misogyny and bizarre conspiracy theories where she had to have killed her super depressed drug addict husband. That's the only way it could have happened is if she actually murdered that guy it's not really yeah i and i think especially with courtney love with

you can make all these you know junkie rock star jokes with her that you would make with other so many junkie rock stars like i don't know scott wyland if you want to pick one the late guy but but he no one makes fun of him for having too much sex or being dirty or whatever that that's just for courtney love which i i don't like what that reveals but i yeah the the most recent news about her that i found was that uh joss sackler who's like a fashionista who's married into the sackler family to she was like i'll pay you a hundred thousand dollars courtney if you let me go to your fashion show and thenler family. She was like, I'll pay you $100,000, Courtney, if you let me go to your fashion show.

And then Courtney Love publicly was like, this fucking opioid killer wants to come to my show. Fuck you, Sackler family. I like hearing that. Yes, you should be executed by the state, the Sacklers. That's my stance. Just always shame those people. Publicly shame them when you can.

And everybody should get $500 from them in the redistribution of their money, I think. It'll happen. 2020. But yeah, I mean, if Bernie ran on that, I'd be even more vociferous in his corner. But yes, as they are about to take the Evergreen Terrace turnoff, which it made me laugh that that has its own off-ramp from that. It's a very important location in this world. They have another thing that gives me anxiety from grocery purchases,

which is ice cream melting. It's just such a... I just worry, like, have I taken too long? Is the ice cream melting? Will I put it back in the freezer and then it refreezes and it tastes worse in that terrible situation? Well, every time I buy ice cream, it turns into... I hear the 24 countdown in my head about how long I have to get this home.

And yes, Bart is like a marksman with whipped cream hitting Lisa in the face with it over and over there. And as the pressure is mounting in the car, Bart is able to convince Marge to do the wrong thing. Let's cut it out! All right. Hey! Come on, Mom, just cut across the field. thing. Let's cut it out! Alright. Hey! Come on, Mom. Just cut across the field. Oh, I don't know. It doesn't seem right.

Do you want to spend your whole life doing what's right? Of course not. Let's do it! Can you do it? Yeah! You the man, Mom. Out of my way, nature. Canyon Arrow!

And before that, I remembered that Hans Mollman appears in his Gremlin that we saw in Terror at Ten and a Half Feet or whatever that was called. You have to torture Hans Mollman in a car. That's the perfect choice there. gremlin that we saw in uh terror at 10 10 and a half feet or whatever that was called yeah you have to torture hans mole man in a car that's the perfect choice there but he didn't explode which surprised me like no one died in this uh road rage incident i do love her calling him grandma tell him to use the gas it's just a great little dig at poor hans moleman uh and i i wanted to play that clip to the end because only in this time did I catch that Marge is singing along to Canyonero. It's not loud enough in the mix.

I want to hear more of Julie. It could be turned up a little more, yeah. It's true. I should have remixed it. But yeah, this first act is half the show. It's like 10 minutes long. It's really long. It's also interesting.

You got Hank Williams Jr. doing that, the Canyonero song. I don't know if it's a reprise or if they got himiams jr doing that uh the canyoneiro song i think he does i don't know if it's a reprise or if they got him back in for it but they also made fun of him in the soccer episode so it's kind of fun to use him use him both ways oh that's right yeah i think they he's definitely credited on this one but i think it was just replaying the music yeah but yeah i like hearing the song come back. It shows how much the writers loved that song. They're like, we got to do another SUV episode just to play the Canyonero song. It does take over the end of that episode.

You're right. It pushes its way back in. And 18 months after this episode aired, the release of Simpsons Road Rage, the video game. You better believe Marge is driving the Canyonero in that game. It's got gotta happen. We are stealing the Crazy Taxi engine and using it for our own purposes. Believe me, there was a lawsuit and they lost.

That's why you can't play that game. That'll never get an HD re-release. Maybe hit and run. It better. I guess it's up to Disney now if they want to re-release it. They don't know they own it. I mean, you play Road R you'd like it just is crazy taxi it's just pure theft but worse yeah i mean it's not good hit and runs a better

game though then again bob a stolen crazy taxi game beats simpsons skateboarding simpsons wrestling any day oh yeah yeah but that's a better move though it's just literally just use an engine that makes sense and license it to the Simpsons. You know what I mean? Like Crazy Taxi presents, you know, Simpsons Road Rage. I'm playing that game. It's great. You know what I mean?

Like it makes more sense to try to do something whole cloth for the Simpsons, which doesn't make a ton of sense. I wonder if we'd have gotten that game without this episode, you know? Interesting call. this episode you know interesting call yeah i i mean i suppose the pitch of reskin crazy taxi with simpsons is still an easy one to make whether marge drives the canyon arrow or not but this episode is all about road rage so i i wonder uh so we come back from break for the very short middle act of the show uh bart becomes baron von chicken pants which feels very first draft but it does feel like something a little kid would joke about. Something stupid Bart would say.

I do like Lisa's Bart used my own words against me sort of retort. First of all, is he free-balling in that or is there underwear? He's got underwear. Okay, good.

We're going to the hospital if not. I mean, that's just chicken on your genitals. I'm not dealing with it. It looks like an already cooked chicken though. The color, the little chicken hairs on it too. It looks like an already cooked chicken, though. The color, the little chicken hairs on it, too.

It looks like a purchased rotisserie chicken, maybe. Okay, so that's better. All right, I saw that totally different, and I'm glad that I was wrong. Though, honestly, Bart is a big 10-year-old. That looks more like a turkey, the size of it. That's a big chicken that Marge got. I guess she's got to feed a family of four with one chicken, so you've got to get a big one. But, yeah, I love Lisa's,

Mom, Bart took what I said and turned it into an insult. And as a man who likes his snacks, I can definitely identify with Homer's excitement of finding a rare snack thing. The three-chambered peanut. I don't think I've ever seen one of those, but I don't eat many peanuts.

A double PNNMN will cause me to almost call my wife. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Call the factory. That is the perfect comparison. Yeah. I think the only other one I can think of here is like the onion ring among fries that you get at a fast food place.

But yes, Homer is shocked and he's coming to Marge, but she's not listening. A vodka! A three-chambered peanut! Marge, look what I did! Come quick, hurry! Marge? Marge? Marge, you've been out there all morning.

So? So lying on the couch and eating stuff isn't the same if you aren't around to see it. I'll come watch you do nothing after I try out my new high-intensity halogen headlights. Nobody will ever cut me off again. Oh, please come in. Maggie smells bad and the cat wants something, but I don't know what. I'm almost done.

And tell Bart to get out of my purse. And then Homer also robs from Marge's purse. I love how I could just gif that of just them excitedly moving their hands through her purse. It's so great. I love that the halogen lights go right through the house. I love the conversation that has to happen where it's like you shouldn't do that he's like but there's money in here okay sure you know it's great all happens very quickly yeah i i like that it's silent though because you can't hear it through the walls so that's a lesser show would

have just been like yeah let's just hear have them talk but oh i have to apologize the hans moment scene is actually next i thought it was previously oh right oh and elisa has a very impressive chokehold on part when the halogen lights are turned back on i'm glad bart put on clothes to start uh looting through the purse again too homer to his line makes it clear that he is completely useless without marge snowball two should just be dead at this point i'm shocked i do i love that he's hitting his food bowl against the wall it's such a good jet yeah homer doesn't understand why a baby would smell bad it just doesn't connect in his brain uh yeah you get a nice little bit there marge celebrating her new aggressiveness like nobody's gonna cut me off it like she feels

finally empowered for the first time in her life. And really great overhead camera animation of her aggressive driving of just weaving in and out and even driving on the side of the road to get around somebody. Stephen, were you offended at Marge's go back to New Jersey claim? No, I understood it. I get it. I mean, it's an easy joke. I'm also a fake New Jersey. I mean, I've been living in Jersey for about seven years now, but I'm still a New Yorker at heart, and I think New Jersey is still trash, except for the part that I happen to live in. The part that I happen to live in and love.

Now I feel bad relating you to New Jersey in that question. No, it's a great... I do love... It's just a bunch of car jokes in a row. Move it or lose it, this, that, and the other thing. Go back to New Jersey. Just such a great, I do love, like, it's just a bunch of card jokes in a row. Like, move it or lose it, this, that, and the other thing. Go back to New Jersey. Just such a great, great gag. And then in a very pre-9-11 joke, Marge insults a military funeral.

I love the joke about the coffin full of bricks. It's so dark. Because a man was lost at sea. They don't have a corpse. And great, great posing on Lovejoy pointing at Marge and saying, show some respect. It's really great. And Marge's scream of, the streets are for the living. I had a Mandela effect moment where I could have swore there was a moment where Marge drove through the graveyard and just started hitting graves.

Maybe that's just what I wanted to see. That was actually in Homer versus the 18th Amendment. Yes, yeah. When they drive through a graveyard to escape Rex Banner. That's right, okay. Bart said, it's bad luck to knock over graves. I was like, oh, I are good. That's right, yeah, that's a great line.

But Marge is pulled over by the long, flabby arm of the law. Come on, come on. Get that corpse off the road. The streets are for the living. Slow down, you maniac. Show some respect for this coffin full of bricks representing a young man lost at sea. Hey.

Oh, great. What do I do? This better be important. Can the sweet talk, Thelma and Louise. You have a serious mental illness. The technical term is road rage. I'll see you tomorrow morning at traffic school, speedy. And you got exactly five seconds to get out of my sight.

Huh. traffic school speedy and you got exactly five seconds to get out of my sight why are the pretty ones always insane uh they run a you know doing these last three episodes back to back they want a real wigum run like there's a lot of way into these episodes i do love the it's such a subtle joke of you have five seconds to get out of my face. It's really good. And that it makes her drive off dangerously again. So road rage. I did read a pretty good article on timeline.com about the history of the term road rage, about how, you know, there's as long as cars have existed, there have been angry drivers of course but the cultural uh and media reference to road rage it comes from los angeles and los angeles area from 87 to 88 there were a string of shootings on the road of like not just people being mad but like you were driving too slow for me i will pull out a gun and shoot you yeah i assume road rage refers to not just angry driving, but getting out of your car and beating or murdering somebody for their driving abilities or lack thereof.

Yeah, it seems like something Tom Brokaw would be very comfortable saying. Another road rage incident. Yeah. You can totally see it. And so, yeah, it was just a string of violence in L.A la traffic from 87 to 88 that really popularized the idea and i i think too because it was happening in los angeles obviously a lot of the local media it was easy to spread even more so and let people hear about it and of course it wasn't just angry drivers or guns to blame there but also there's a good deal of xenophobia mixed into angry uh drivers who go like person x

who's not american you're a bad driver and i'm mad at you so that was another component of some of the road rage people would talk up and it's uh yeah the timeline.com article about it uh road rage in the history of los angeles like it was really informative if you want to know exactly how the term road rage became so uh to came to be popularized and now it's just an accepted like uh pseudoscience term where i'll just like oh you suffer from road rage uh a thing that's real well there's like an odd quaintness to it because of like you know obviously, obviously of being worried about road rage versus being worried about, say, mass shootings. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, wow, you can somebody might get into a scuffle on the freeway as opposed to like, holy crap, at any given moment, someone can mow down 30 to 60 people.

And I also think in the mid 90s, many comedy writers started getting sent to anger management courses. And so they all wrote sitcoms about hating anger management and how stupid it is. That makes a lot of sense. That's my guess. That's also why like... Just the idea of managing your anger was new. Like, what? Manage my anger?

How dare you? Yeah. I think of it the same way I talked about how vasectomies came up in all these early 90s sitcoms. I think it's because the millionaire writers on sitcoms were being told by their wives to get vasectomies. So I think it's a similar line here. But yes, Marge is sent to a class and Wiggum hosts it. So this whole sequence here, they reference it on the commentary, but you wouldn't need to even know that. This is the first time they have to do an instructional video without Troy McClure.

Even on the commentary, they mentioned it is missing something without him. Yeah. I think it's why they kind of stopped doing it. I do think it's still funny, and I'm not against Tress McNeil's character. I think she does a really good job. But I definitely feel like the level this is written at, if these were all lines said by Troy, I'd think of it as funnier just from the Phil Hartman delivery. Yeah, we'd be quoting it. She's got a tall order and the move is for her to go less energy, which makes sense.

But it's also just harder to sell, I kind of feel. Yeah, yeah. just harder to sell i kind of feel yeah yeah then it just kind of falls into like easier comedy trope of the you know harsh butch female cop as well yes yeah it's uh which at least they don't do like anything too gross with that yeah yeah but yes why don't we hear the first part of the class okay i assume you all know why you're here. That's right. You're all angry, sick people. But over these next eight hours, you will be broken down to the level of infants, then rebuilt as functional members of society, then broken down again, then lunch,

then, if there's time, rebuilt once more. All right, roll it, Lou. Hello. I'm Sergeant Crew. And if there's time, rebuild once more. All right, roll it, Lou. Hello, I'm Sergeant Crew. And I'm here to talk to you about road rage. Duh. Quiet, fatso. The sergeant's talking.

Go on, dear. In these modern, hectic days of fast food, answering machines, and one-night stands, people are getting angrier. Now, what you're about to see is not pretty. I mean, like, the delivery of one-night stands, I like that bit there. It's a new thing in society. I do love also having to write out in chalk the title of the thing. And any kind of visual effect might be worth it.

And I like Agnes replying to the film like it got interrupted by Kearney instead of continuing to play. And the closest they have to a joke, I think her physical appearance is what you see won't be pretty. And then it just stays on her for like an extra second or so. And then we get the funniest bit of it, which is just cut to the many different types of raging people. And everyone is using their props like the judge has his gavel. I love it. The funniest thing from this that I always remember is the screaming insane astronaut wielding the golf club.

And this is written eight years before the famous diaper astronaut who drove cross country to confront competition for her lover at the airport and almost killed her and did you guys know they made a movie about the diaper astronaut really starring natalie portman it came out this month what called lucy in the sky oh okay and uh i didn't know that was what it was about it's about the diaper astronaut but uh here's a quote. Wikipedia says, the film made $55,000 from 37 theaters in its opening weekend,

which was called Terrible. Ooh. Ouch. And I saw the trailer when I saw something in the theaters and it was really like stinky Oscar bait. Ooh, boy. That sounds like a potential

We Hate Movies someday. Yeah. Diapered astronauts. I'm into it. Yeah, let's go for it. It's kind of hilarious that I do love the idea potential we hate movies someday yeah diapered astronauts I'm into it yeah let's go for it it's kind of hilarious that I do love the idea of all these different tropes of people like the rat

the people you might see on the street like a crazy judge for an astronaut and I do love the quote leave your murderous anger where it belongs at home that's great yeah great button beat up someone weaker than you. And the the end on the fist reminds me of the Beat Kids segment from Wondershows and where Beat Kids is written on the

fist. Oh, right. Oh, and also the saying that you should write a threatening letter to a celebrity. That is what Twitter is. And it does help with your anger. It's a good help. And then they make little TV segments about it. Yeah, it's a nice cycle. That's a good way to become a celebrity yourself,

is write a real hate to a celebrity. But yes, the film ends, and we also get to meet a friendly new bear. Anger is what makes America great. But you must find the proper outlet for your rage. Fire a weapon at your television screen. Pick a fight with someone weaker than you. Or write a threatening letter

to a celebrity. So when you go out for a drive, remember to leave your murderous anger where it belongs. At home. And as if that film

wasn't enough, we have a special guest. Why, it's Curtis E. Bear. The Curtis E. Bear. For the next three hours, this bear will take your verbal and physical abuse with good nature and aplomb. So if you all just grab one of these two-by-fours. Um, Chief, can I at least shield my crotch? Bears can't talk, Eddie.

Yeah, yeah! You rarely get any good Eddie jokes. It's always Lou who's the one who's talking. Eddie's very soft-spoken, as a matter of fact. I do enjoy a good Eddie bit. I like the bears can't talk. It's just very, very mean. Stay in character.

Yeah, it reminds me of From This Point On, No Talking. It's just horrible beating. And it's going to be for three hours. I got to think after the first hour, they're pretty tired. I've never done anger management, but I always wanted one of those foam bats and being able to hit somebody. That just seems like a really fun thing to do. Ever since the Marvin Monroe episode of Simpsons, I've been wanting one of those bats. Though I think they're around

wiffle ball bats. You don't actually get a steel rod like Bart got in that one. I don't know how they spend the rest. So let's say the first hour was watching that video, three hours of beating up Eddie. Then I guess the other four hours include that herbal rinse. Yeah, Eddie's fine enough to drive home. So maybe they're just pretty weak Weakened by that movie You know, that might be a good idea You beat him for so long that you're just like That is part of the breaking down You just get so exhausted beating this bear up

You then are ready to be remolded And then broken down and remolded again Yeah, it's all about catharsis And yes, everybody is happily leaving We get a funny gag with Mo You get kind of both sides of the Mo-Marge interaction Because he's too familiar But also calls her Midge

A nice callback to the Midge runner I always love when they remember that I love that it feels like a later Mo thing Where he's secretly in love with her And always kind of trying to set up an affair But always far too afraid to do anything about it I like that he overplays the classic creep move kind of trying to set up an affair, but always far too afraid to do anything about it. I like that he overplays the classic creep move of like,

well, I'm just kidding. Unless you're, I'm not kidding. Marge is very sweet. Thanks. No thanks, but thanks. She's flattered for being disgustingly hit on like that. Too understanding. It's good animation of the too long hug as hug as well takes a little bit of there's a lot of a lot of good animation there and like her reaction is

fantastic we call that the lassiter on our network also we get to see that kearney now just drives a beetle like they've just accepted that kearney is a full adult with a you can get arrested yes as everybody's leaving it seems like Marge's work is undone instantly thanks to Curtis's anger. After you, sweetheart. Oh, no, you first, ma'am. Well, somebody go first. Not me.

I'm not going until she goes. Oh, for crying out loud. Oh, oh, okay, calm down. Just think, what would Calm down. Just think. What would Curtis E. Bear do? Move it. I gotta return this soon. Get out of the way!

Oh, God, no! Oh, God, no! We're free! We're free! Whoa! Thanks, chick dude. Well, I hope you're happy, Simpson. Those prisoners were one day away from being completely rehabilitated. I'm tearing up your license. Aw, jeez darned, laminated.

Would you mind? I got stubby fingers. Just like Lisa, Wiggum suffers from stubbiness. Mm, that's true. He can't play the saxophone or tear up a license. Marge has pretty strong fingers to tear up a laminated license like that. I couldn't do it. I got stubby fingers too.

It was also a real runner at this time having Wiggum say, X was just one day away from Y. Oh, right, yeah. I believe just last episode his police car gets smashed by a tree and he says, that car was one day away from retirement.

I do love being completely rehabilitated. It takes exactly as long as it's supposed to take. Prison works. Yeah, and then all of the prisoners are about to be rehabilitated on the same day, too. And it just hit me, too, that storytelling-wise, quality is that they end Act 2 with marge freeing those prisoners and then she will cage animals at the end of the episode it's a comment on the prison industrial

complex that's ruining america look it up people and uh yes we come back marge is uh pissed off i like that homer goes too far in a joke and i love his like quiet realization like i went too far let's go Lisa's role in these seasons is either to criticize the plot or to add plot grease to the wheels She sets up like we're going to the wild animal park Going to the wild animal park feels very much

like how you would begin a Simpsons episode not how you would end one, you know what I mean? It's a weird third act, I'll say this I enjoyed this episode, but that third act is weird the ending is very weird yes so i do think i know where exactly this came from though this is hardly there i mean we've got discount line safari was like eight years yeah that's more of the drive-through uh exhibit but i think i know where this one specifically came from is that the previous april of 1998 disney's animal kingdom opened in orlando so animal i mean this is called wild animal kingdom so i think the idea of like all these

live animals and taking your kids to see them in this thing that's where they're going is basically a zoo but disney was like no this is extra zoo. You've gotten rid of the zoo depression. Well, all the stories I heard about Animal Kingdom, I've never been there. I've been to most of the other Orlando parks, but not that one. Because all the stories I heard in the late 90s were animals dying. It's too hot. Don't bring exotic animals to sit in the Florida sun all day.

Bad news. Yeah. Not all animals could survive in all climates. Though now Disney's Animal Kingdom has become the home of Avatar, or should I say Pandora. I forgot that's where it is now, right? Yep, yeah. In five to eight more years,

we're going to really be excited about that second movie. I cannot wait. He just keeps adding more movies to it. I wonder if Disney will keep giving him like another hundred million dollars to just make another another five movies before finishing two i feel like it is sunk cost fallacy for them at this point yeah they've gone too far well why would you want two movies we're gonna have eight well you know every time for 30 years now people have told james cameron you're spending too much money and this will definitely fail.

And every time, it's the most successful film ever. So I think they finally are just like, we can't call him on it. We just got to keep giving James Cameron more money. We have to believe in him. He needs more submarines. At some point, it's going to fail. And I feel really good about this one. That's just me, though.

I bet against him too many times. I bet Avatar 2 will make as much as five end games. That's what I think. But yes, Homer is a bit disappointed with his animal kingdom. Do something! Bart, they're not here to entertain us. I've seen plays that were more exciting than this. Honest to God, plays!

I don't want to pay four bucks to watch a monkey wannabe laying in the sun. But Dad, lemurs are nocturnal. Don't worry, honey. Daddy will fix that broken animal. No! I'm not going to hurt him. I'm just going to wake him up. He instantly screams and is hurt.

Yeah. Lisa tries her best to prevent animal cruelty, but he just can't stop Homer. There is something really at least familiar to me of like, daddy will fix that broken animal. Like the idea of like you being the dad needing to just enforce your will to make sure your kid has a good time no matter what. And taking the stance of the savior of this instead of the cause of misery yes i've had some good zoo luck lately going to zoos they've all been awake and playful oh nice i i haven't been to a zoo in the longest time because of this kind of disappointment but also like it's uh you know i think zoos are less cruel now i think you know to the animals i i just

never i never care i'm sure there's a pretty good san francisco zoo i've never been to it's good it's a good zoo or oakland i bet also good gotta if you're around in new york the bronx zoo cannot be beat it's pretty wonderful okay check it out i i like homer calling a lemur a monkey wannabe yeah me too uh but yeah and for once bart's slingshot has plot purpose. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, so it sets off a chain reaction. And I really think it's like great animation on the freaking out lemur,

the way it like runs a kind of circular, like very, very good animation, which is then followed by like a very loud Hanna-Barbera chomp on a kangaroo's tail. Oh, I do like, it's a very Simpsons thing to have a new character like this crocodile dundee guy who suddenly is very important has a complicated backstory just suddenly appears it's a great like jurassic park riff of the idea of like being the one sane man but also forgetting to tell anyone it's kind of a really hilarious idea to me uh and it's interesting because i think he definitely is a steve irwin reference but I don't think they knew Steve Irwin was, so he's just Paul Hogan. But I mean, the Krakow Dial Hunter was very well known by 1999.

Like every South Park had done their classic riff on him. The old finger in the bum. too when homers causes this giant uh chain reaction that frees all these rhinos i now really appreciate the incredible effort that honestly amounts to cruelty on the animators to draw a rhino stampede on a television schedule and budget like that's crazy it's why like i feel like this is something david silverman many times from happening on the show. But this time, he's not around to stop it, buddy. What if the rhinos didn't leave? Do we need the rhinos?

Okay, we need the rhinos. It's not a rhino episode. It's about cars. Okay, we need rhinos. Okay, got it. What if there was one rhino? I love how in the commentary they point out, like, animating one rhino is very hard no person wants to be assigned animate one rhino animating 20 rhinos is uh that sounds crippling

to do uh it's uh so i feel very much for the animators today because they did a great job the the rhinos do stampede very well they look great and uh yes the uh the steve irwin guy uh tries to shoot a dart that it bounces off a rhino bounces off homer's butt as well and then makes a sloth do a snoopy dance which is very random the noises it makes the animation are funny but just bizarre how long it holds on this dancing dancing sloth it's just it's just inexplicable to me just go back and listen to those noises they're weird it's uh mean, what does an excited sloth sound like? They had to guess. It sounds like Yardley Smith grunting.

I do love when things descend into pure chaos for no good reason, and this is as good of a no good reason as you can get. And yes, you mentioned it earlier, Bob, Mike Scully and his family are in this. And you can hear Mike Scully going, when he runs by. So I actually have situated just that screaming and i it's and oh sorry and the five daughters yeah it sounds so specific i

really do think he had his five daughters and wife all get in the recording booth with him and scream for this like this does not i mean it's uh hey you know what if i ran the simpsons i'd draw myself in at least one scene especially to impress my wife and kids uh but yeah they appear a second time which i'm like that's a bit much hey bill oakley and josh weinstein we love them they give themselves a lot lines in the show they were like playing characters well not them personally but they're no on mission hill they did play two characters actually so yeah i feel like i'd be such a uh a glory hog or fame hog if i was writing i would just be like and then i show up at every like i would make myself the

mary sue like homer loves me obviously i become his best friend and we all kind of hang out together me and bark get into some shenanigans. I'm the only one that understands Marge, and it's great. And then my favorite film director moves to Springfield and hangs out with me. Well, we know plenty of people who make cartoons, and we're waiting for the day when we get cast. I'm feeling offended at this point. We have not been cast yet.

Come on. We have great voices. Listen to this. Hey, look, I can do a Brooklyn accent. Hey, there. I'm a Brooklyn guy guy i'm podcasting here the simpsons have 24 episodes a season they could give you one come on just like look out there i can just say that but uh also homer clearly wasn't watching the film jumanji closely because saying jumanji out loud is not what makes the animals disappear. You have to complete the game of Jumanji being played.

Obviously, the rules changed a bit in the 2017 remake, which is actually an okay movie. And now there's a sequel to that remake? Yes. Weird, weird. Is it still video games? Are we going out even further? Yes, yeah.

It's still video games, except this time, instead of a teen boy becoming The Rock and Kevin Hart, it's Danny DeVito and Danny Glover becoming The Rock and Kevin Hart, respectively. So it's a real acting bonanza for The Rock to pretend to be Danny De devito in the rock it's weird how that turned into a brain swap comedy yeah it's uh it was a funny place to take and reese darby has a really funny like minor part in it too and what makes sense to uh you don't want uh danny devito to become kevin hart because the joke is short and short you gotta you gotta flip that over yeah i agree i it's uh but also they get to reuse jokes from the previous movie because it's a new

person in rock's body so they uh and jack black's in it too i think he's still the same body person but oh no wait no he's the hunk in the body of jack black now so anyway the the homer screaming at jumanji clearly he had forgotten the 1995 film jumanji. Have you guys done that one yet on We Hate Movies? We have not. There's sort of like a soft moratorium on Williams movies and I'm just never sure when we can go back because there's so much there, but it's just the elephant in the room is the horrific end of Robin Williams, you know? And it's like, Paul Walker, we've kind of gone back to pretty quick, like, ah, he's fine. But Robin Williams is a little sadder. So it's kind of a thing where eventually, for sure.

Well, Paul Walker told you not to feel bad for him if he dies in a car wreck. Exactly. You're not supposed to worry about him. It's on a tombstone. But definitely, Robin Williams, it's a little darker. But I do think it's just a matter of time. We're doing that South Park math of how long we actually have to wait.

But yes, as the rhinos are growing crazy, there's only one person they can turn to for help. Ah, nuts. Isn't there anybody who can round up these thunder lizards? They need a pretty rugged vehicle and a heart to match. I'd like to help you, Chief, but my license was revoked seems i'm full of rage Then do it for this adorable little puppy. Look at that puppy mind. That's your hat She's good chief. Now. Excuse me. I've got some dust that needs busting this is kent brockman at the scene of a level three rhino alert authorities say there's no immediate danger to anyone except those three luckless people whom we'll identify once the rhinos spit out their wallets

back back i say Big AC! Oh no, I'm out of popcorn! Throw your peanuts! You throw your peanuts! One of the funniest things is they don't really point it out to you or make a note of it within the show is that one of the rhinos does go down because of the popcorn. Homer killed a rhino. Just by gently throwing popcorn at it.

I do love use your peanuts. It's a very it's a homer thing and also wig i'm pointing out the hat saying that like the hat is the puppy love that too the and him calling them thunder lizards uh the and it becomes a cop movie briefly of like them going to the retired cop and her going like i don't do that anymore like yes so uh and so no clips for basically the next two minutes of the show because it's just a lot of action it's just as the rhino carries homer through the city right yeah marge arrives in time she it's really cool animation of her using her aggressive driving to corral the rhinos i think that it's really well executed i kind of

needed a homer joke whilst he's being uh traipsed through the city because it's like it's like almost there but not quite like it just needs it needs like a button on it of like i think he says at some point it's not my rhino but it needs to be like a bigger kind of a bigger gesture i feel i think the funniest joke is when he gets caught in the porta potty and the rhino stabs it with his horn and he says who's out there yeah that is great and also when he is shitting after the rescue but yeah the stuff like it's not my rhino though that line is is clearly just dan adlib so it's not as it doesn't have really a stage for a joke yeah the the joke is more just people reacting to homer being paraded around town on the end of a rhino also i'm not the biggest line of like it'll be my ass on the barbie it's

like it's i get it yeah but i do like the that ought to hold them on a tiny latch we should get to the uh ending though i want to talk about a few things as references. Oh, yes. Kind of obscure now. Okay, so Homer gets thrown into a port-a-party. Marge knows she can't go in time, so she purposefully flips over the SUV, and she dives out of it perfectly, just like Lou and Eddie did, too. There's some real action star posing there uh and then yes uh we they get a very long like kind of end of a mystery show explanation that is rooted in a lot of stuff it's it's all out

of nowhere yeah here it's uh I I kind of uh dislike it because it comes out of nowhere but I do like how odd it is and how it uh is something else. Yes, it's weird. It also reminds me very much of the Major League Baseball turn in that other episode. But that at least sort of gets sort of referenced throughout where it finally comes through. This is very much out of nowhere. They really needed a way to end this with a punch.

Yeah. So they definitely say that, well, Harry, let me play the clip. How did you know your plan would work, Mom? Thanks for asking. Well, I was watching Dateline, and Stone Phillips said SUVs always roll over when you turn sharply, and the gas tanks explode at the drop of a hat. And she also knew if a rhino sees a flame, he'll instinctively try to put it out. Stone Phillips again.

Is there anything that guy doesn't know? Oh, this Stone Phillips sounds like quite a bloke. What television network is he on? Why, NBC, of course. NBC has lots of great shows, and their news and sports coverage can't be beat. Do you think there's anything great on NBC right now? Oh, I'm sure of it. But there's only one way to find out. I'd like to read the following statement, but I do so under my own free will. It has come to my attention that NBC sucks. I apologize for misleading you and urge you to watch as many Fox shows as possible. So in summary, NBC bad.

Fox, good. CBS, great. Fire into his dead body. So Homer is dead. And the cops are here. Yes, yeah. Sorry. That's okay.

That's okay. So I do want to talk about what this reference is. So Marge referencing what she learned about cars exploding on Dateline references a very famous of the time Dateline scandal. Well, of the time meaning seven years before this. So on November 17th, 1992, Dateline NBC aired a report called Waiting to Explode? Questioning the safety of some General Motors trucks.

To try to ensure dramatic footage, the show's producers allowed incendiary devices to be strapped to trucks for a crash test demonstration. When GM discovered the setup, the carmaker sued NBC for defamation and temporarily removed its ads from the network's news programs. Then came the embarrassment dateline anchors jane polly and stone phillips were ordered to read a 3.5 minute on-air apology to viewers and gm and the apologies

on youtube and they are super careful to not look completely to blame but they are well i mean that's really interesting yeah i i i mean that's insane that they're like that they could take any stance other than it's not our fault it's like you faked an exploding car like what more do you want yeah you faked it when i watched this episode when i was 17 i was like yeah that was like back when i was 10 that happened this is a weird pull i i never thought of that connection to it i just thought it was about like dateline was airing opposite simpsons a lot of nights on nbc at this time so i figured they were just naming the thing that was against them but to have it so specifically

be stone phillips and the thing that they lied about with exploding cars, which SUVs are more likely to turn over just because they're top heavy, but the gas tank explodes at the drop of a hat, which it does in the world of The Simpsons. So they're saying, no, Stone Phillips is definitely right. He told us the right thing to do. I've seen this episode a dozen times. And also, I have that knowledge about suvs incorrectly by osmosis so i'm like oh yeah suvs explode all the time like it'd be like even so i've been duped up to up to and including this very minute wow despite his lies the best thing stone phillips ever did was interview jeffrey dahmer he did do a super long great interview

with jeffrey dahmer and his dad it's really good check it out on youtube you see when they bring up dateline now i just think of how dateline is only about spouses murdering each other that's every dateline now i said that's that's your classic never get on a boat with anybody because you'll be on dateline i'm not gonna go on a boat with anyone uh yes don phillips he's he's been retired since 2007. They didn't renew his contract on Dateline. And he apparently, I looked into this because there's multiple news articles called, What Happened to Stone Phillips? And he basically works on personal projects like he did a documentary on his aging father, apparently. So that's mainly what Stone Phillips focuses on.

He's a bit of a gray fox these days. He wasn't Brian Lauer out of existence. No. Oh, sorry, Matt Lauer. Matt Lauer. Yeah. Brian Williams also. Yes, that's who I was thinking of.

Somehow he's back. I mean, what he did is not the same as what Lauer did. Yeah, that's true. What Matt Lauer continues to do, it seems. It's really funny. The fact that it would be weird that Stone Phillips would retire. Why is it weird to make millions and millions of dollars and never want to work again?

You know what I mean? It's totally fine. I think the true crazy people are the millionaires and billionaires who still go to their office every day like Mark Zuckerberg

and Elon Musk. When you have $40 million, just stop. Just go away. We hate you anyway, so go away. Well, exactly. How many spins of the roulette wheel do you think are going to work out for you? You know what I mean? Just walk away. We hate you anyway, so go away. Well, exactly. How many spins of the roulette wheel do you think are going to work out for you?

You know what I mean? Like, just walk away. You've made your money. Congratulations. Walk away. Yes, though. Fox really hated this joke, but to their credit, as Scully says, they let them do it eventually. Yeah, I think to cushion it, they wrote the over-the-credits Homer being murdered joke.

But if you were watching this on February 21st, 1999. I was. And you did as Marge told you and turned the channel to NBC, what would you have seen? Not Dateline, because it was an NBA basketball game, the Lakers at Seattle, on the East Coast. And if you're watching on the West Coast, that might be over and you'd be turning into the television network premiere of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Eraser. You'd be good to watch that. Skip it.

Previous We Hate Movies episode, also RIP'd the Seattle Supersonics. Aw, that's right. Yeah, I only know that because pro wrestlers have used that as a way to make fun of Seattle when they're in town. That sounds about right uh but yes dateline shows that had run against the simpsons the week before had the segments going to extremes lord of the ring and out on a limb but i could not find out what any of those were about probably all about imminent death at least one of them yes

yeah but yes we do have to wrap episode i do think it's very funny uh the third act kind of loses me they hit the zoo panic button to get out of the episode it doesn't quite work but i do like how the ending is weird and also anti the network they're on so i'll give it that yes yeah i i love that it gives marge a new like emotion a new emotional state to express and it lets Marge be more than just the happy homemaker. But yeah, also with the destruction of the SUV, I guess they're just like, and that cured her road rage.

No more problems there. Yeah, that's a really good point. I do think this episode is heavy on jokes, light on an arcing story that really holds together, but the jokes are worth it for sure. Like, yeah, I do wish Marge learned something, or we learned something about marge but no it's about the stone phillips you know what i mean ultimately most

things are nowadays yeah but uh steve thank you so much for joining us for the third time please let everyone know about we hate movies you've got a great patreon with all these bonus episodes i love listening to everything that comes out every week oh thank, thank you so much, man. We are a quote-unquote bad movie podcast called We Hate Movies. We run episodes every Tuesday. It's November now. We just did an episode on Terminator Salvation with David Sims of Blank Checks

that should be coming out very soon. If not out already, our Patreon episode of the month for We Love Movies, which is on our $5 level, which is the actual The Terminator. All kind of nice. If you're a Terminator head, it's a good month to check out.

We just wrapped up our Horror Month, which has a ton of good stuff, including The Shining on our Patreon. Yeah, check us out at WHMPodcast.com. Thank you guys so much for having us here. Having all four of us and me as well for the third time. And I'm coming back for number four if you have me. Oh, for sure. And we can't wait to see you when you come to the Bay Area very soon.

Yes. Yeah. Check us out on that tour tab, whmpodcast.com. If you're in the Bay Area tonight, Cobb's Comedy Club, the London Theater in Portland. So check all that out,

whmpodcast.com, all your information. Thank you guys again. So thanks again to Steve Sadek for being on the episode. Please check out all of the great We Hate Movies stuff. We love them.

But as for us, if you want to check out our stuff and support our show, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. And if you sign up at the $5 level, you'll have access to over 100 bonus podcasts that you probably haven't heard yet. That includes all of our limited miniseries, including the newly freshly released Talking Futurama Season 2 Part 1. That is 10 new episodes of Talking Futurama just for you and just for our $5 patrons. There is too much happening at that $5 level to cover here, but Henry will hopefully tell you what's happening at the $10 level, one mega-sized podcast every single month. That's right.

If you want all the bonuses of being a $5 a month patron, plus an extra podcast you need to sign up for 10 bucks a month you'll get access to our monthly what a cartoon movie podcast where we talk about a different animated feature film for up to and over four hours sometimes even and in october for halloween season we did the nightmare before christmas and if you sign up right now you'll be able to hear that plus over 33 hours of other patreon exclusive ten dollar and up podcasts you definitely want to sign up once more at patreon.com slash talking simpsons so i've been one of your hosts bob mackie find me on twitter as bob servo i also do the podcast retronauts, a classic gaming podcast,

every Monday and occasionally on Friday. Go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast machine. Henry, how about you? You can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. You'll get all of your Henry Gilbert updates. That includes every time a new podcast goes live on either the Patreon or on the free feed for both talking simpsons and our what a cartoon other series so please follow me there on twitter once more that is h e n e r e y

g thanks for joining us folks we'll see you next week for the episode make room for lisa and we'll see you then Hey many of you hail from the fair city of Edinburgh Sir, have you noticed how North Edinburgh golfers putt like this? And South Edinburgh golfers putt like this? HE COUGHS Eh? PHONE RINGS Eh?

WHISTLE BLOWS Oh, I see. Well, it's not funny unless he's down on his knees scooping up your little brat's puke. LAUGHTER Thank you, you've been great. not funny unless he's down on his knees scooping up your little brat's puke. Thank you. You've been great.