Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays With Chris Kohler

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

For an episode about families vs the child-free, we're joined by our podcasting parental pal, Chris Kohler from Digital Eclipse. As Marge battles Lindsay Naegle over kids in public spaces, we judge how well that has aged (in addition to references to Steve Irwin, Raffi, and Rudy Giuliani). In an episode full of funny dialogue, what does this 2004 political commentary have to tell us two decades later? Grab a kid's menu puzzle and listen now! Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie Podcast, and tons more. or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that makes the Blue Man Group look like mumminshaunts, which is still pretty good. I'm one of your hosts, the skydiving masseuse Bob Mackie, and this is our Chronological Exploration of the Simpsonsons who is here with me today As always Henry Gilbert a member of single seniors childless couples and teens and gays against parasitic parents

And who was our special guest on the line? Chris Kohler Hi In this week's episode is Marge versus single seniors childless couples and teens and gays How's the crowd Steve? Awful fussy. You kidding me? Did you make funny faces? You did? Did you jiggle your keys? I did it all man. This episode originally aired on January 4th 2004. Happy 2004!

And as always Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Happy new Year Bobby! Return of the King tops the box office after a very strong Christmas season. Britney Spears is married for 55 whole hours and The Apprentice debuts on NBC. Oh so a Trump Renaissance is about to happen. Remember the guy we made fun of in the 80s? Remember the villain in all the 80s movies? Well the people patterned after him. Well, he's back now and he's very funny Yeah, it is the beginning of his full-on rebrand. Thanks to reality show producer extraordinaire Mark Burnett

he made him into a fake TV billionaire instead of a not billionaire which he was and he Played it into eventually becoming the president and it it's a horrible, horrible world we live in. It was somehow, this came out in 2004, which at the time I thought, well, this is the worst year ever. Little did I know, I'm a fool, but I'm sure nothing like that is happening this year that 20 years later will seem

like a horrible harbinger of the future. Are you ready to laugh? That's why I have to say. And I'll say yes, Return of the King, we talked about a ton, but I saw it at least three times in theaters I was working at a movie theater at the time So I always made sure when cleaning the theater I would stay for the entire End-credit song as well because I just I loved it so much. Yeah I'm actually one day away from watching that film for the first time

I saw the first two in theaters skip the, and my wife and I are working our way through the extended editions. By the way, if you're watching those extended editions, the running times may fool you, but keep in mind, 10 minutes of that running time is the credits listing every member of the Lord of the Rings fan club. That is not a joke.

You're gonna see, like, basically a list of Kickstarter backers at the end of your Lord of the Rings film. They were very respectful of the One Ring.net fans. They love those guys. And yes, if you guys remember when Britney Spears was briefly married, she would look back on it as that her and a childhood friend got very drunk

one night in Las Vegas, as she tells the story, and decided, you know, let's get married. They were having a lot of fun and decided we're gonna get married, and by the time she sobered up, she got it annulled by 55 hours later. And unfortunately, there'd be no other problems for Britney Spears after that. Yes, and she married Jason Alexander,

not even the good one. Yes. The guy's name, Jason Alexander, perfect. She could have married Duckman slash George Costanza. Yes, I put them in that order. That would have lasted like 60, 65 hours. It'd give her some good stability, I think, some needed stability in this rocky time for old Britney Spears.

But yes, an auspicious start to 2004, that's for sure, when this episode first aired. And yes, joining us once again is our pal from the gaming industry, Chris Kohler. And Chris last joined us in 2022 for season three's I Married Marge. Welcome back to the show, Chris. Thank you very much. I'm sorry I didn't have a fancy introduction or anything like that, but you guys are the Simpsons professionals.

You know what I mean? I'm a dilettante. I dabble here and there. Well, though, you could beat us in all other bar trivia than the Simpsons. That's true, that's true. Maybe. I just wanted to say that you're

the Tetris Forever collection. You guys are the criterion collection of games. I just wanted to say that is some great stuff. Thank you very much. We're doing our best. We've been really gratified by the response to Tetris Forever and obviously it's all very personal for me. You know what I mean?

I really want to tell these stories in the right way and give them the respect that they deserve. And because you're the criterion of games, now you need to publish enough games to fill an entire closet. Yeah, I'm doing my best. Slow down. I did think of you guys though, because we did put a still from The Simpsons into Tetris Forever, you know, from the episode, the strong arms of the Ma. But at the beginning, Homer, Tetris is all of the, I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to use Tetris as a verb. It's a trademark. Homer puts all of the luggage and then the children into the car

representing Tetromino shapes. We got the rights to put it still in there. And I thought it was really important because when you get Simpsified, I am gonna use that as a verb because I don't have any relationship with the, not making a Simpsons game right now. But when you get Simpsified,

I think that establishes a certain, you've hit some level of pop culture notoriety And so we really wanted to show that and we're excited to you know We were happy that we were able to do that in that little way So I assume you work directly with Disney to negotiate that yeah, I'm sure there's some things you can't say But it was it easy was it an easy process to do. Yeah, it was a pretty formalized kind of process It was like we would like to license this still they're like, yeah Okay

it will cost you this much money and here's a form that you have to fill out and you have to, you know, show what you're going to do with it. And then, you know, we got approval for it. And it was of course, you know, like many things, it's sort of the last minute basically, but then they, you know, they sent over like a nicer still and everything like that. So yeah, it was pretty turnkey as it were. Simpsons gets a lot of, it's a good marker in so many documentaries.

The great marker of time or shows how famous something is. Yes. I went to one of the Elton John farewell concerts when he's doing I'm Still Standing. They play on the Jumbotron like this just real of Elton John in popular culture and the Simpsons comes up and South Park comes up and things like that. We often lean on you Chris because me and Bob have been accused of being, you know, childless freaks who complain about parents too much. Psychos, if you will. Yes. So this episode all about the childless versus the childed, it felt like, well, we got to get Chris back to help us have an informed viewpoint. Yes, you're a father of two, is that correct? Father of two, yep, yep, yep. Like Homer thinks he is for a second, I think, in this episode.

Oh, right, the baby. Oh, right, the baby, yep. You're not forgetting a third in this moment. As far as I know, no. I have some preamble information about this episode. So when I was sitting down to watch it, I do like this one, by the way, and I was getting the sense like, wow, this kind of feels like a classic episode in terms of the tone of the jokes and the pacing of the jokes.

I neglected to see up front that it's written by John Vede, one of the strongest writers, if not maybe the best writer of the first four seasons. So he was working in a freelance capacity around this time. He comes in to pitch the idea. Al Jean says on the commentary, it was one of the most complete pitches he had heard for the Simpsons. And this all came from John Vede, who did not like to do social commentary, but it was the Bush era, so he was angrier than normal.

And he was especially angry about these social issues being wrapped in the idea of the family disingenuously, like, oh, we got to help the children and save the families. And being a childless person, still to this very day, he felt that families are often prioritized over single people. So this was him getting out that rage in the George W. Bush era. It was funny to hear him on the released in 2013 commentary, say like, you know, reflecting on the Bush years

and saying like, some of us were angrier than we are now. If he's talking in the happy 2013 times of like, oh, I was too angry about Bush. Yeah, they don't know what's coming. Although to his credit, John Beatty said, later in life, I did learn how hard Bush. Yeah, they don't know what's coming. Although to his credit John VD said later in life I did learn how hard it is to actually raise a child So I feel a little ashamed of some of the things in this episode It's balanced with Al Jean who is you know a dad and bring so much of his parenting to the story though

Yes, it's funny too I think Al Jean is living a little through VD of like, you know And I am sick of this stuff with kids like the child sections and restaurants or whatever Yeah, true. None of it struck me as you know off base as far as yes like yeah Bob you mentioned to how much this feels like a classic one I agree that there's so many great turns of phrases that feel like a pure VD writing There's so many good lines like as I was writing him down. That's a great line. That's a great a pure VD writing. There's so many good lines, like as I was writing them down, God, that's a great line, that's a great line.

Getting VD in, it makes for a great script. I think the only times that this episode feels like it's lesser than it could be to me is choices that don't really, I think, have to do with the script. Mainly that, honestly, my biggest complaint is too much licensed music. That's my biggest complaint.

There's like four songs in this. Yeah, I will also say it feels like a classic in that they're openly lampooning something that would have been a perfect parody in maybe 1992. Yeah yeah that too. We'll get to it though but I think it's funny but when it originally aired in 2004 I thought like this and now? Like why? What's going on? One other thing I liked on the commentary that I decided to do some research on is there is a fun exchange again 2013 John VD and Matt Selman are talking about who has written the most episodes of Simpsons And if one is ahead of the other of those two and where do they stand next to sports welder? and I do have a

Count that is accurate up to a week ago of numbers here. And this is just top five I'm gonna list here. So today, John Schwarzwolder is still number one at 59, episodes written. And I will say, I am counting any episode written with story by or teleplay credit. And this does include multiple writers on episodes like say Treehouse.

So just put that in mind. Schwarzwolder 59. John Frank is number two at 39. Joel H Cohen is tied at 39. Tim Long is at 34 though he did also do the Simpsons game. So you could count that as one more at 35. Selman is 31 and VD is 25, but only six were produced after 1996, so I still consider that like, that's an important stat. That's like getting the most home runs before they like change some rule in the baseball.

Well, VD's retired, so he'll never be able to catch up now. I noticed recently there is an unreleased Gendi Tartakovsky movie, an animated feature called Fixed. John VD is a writer on that too, so I guess he's not fully retired, but he's no longer working on The Simpsons. This is really the last era in which he would be doing that. Well, movies paid so much better too. I mean, that's why. Once he got on Ice Age, I think

it was, that opened the door into the movie world. And you know who's catching up and moving up there and could surpass Selman? Al Jean. He now writes an episode per season at least. He's up to 28. Though also if you want to count the 15 shorts he's a writer on as like three, then he's more like at 31. No, no. We don't count those, we don't count those.

I will say one more little tiny thing in this preamble. There's interesting lore on the commentary that I have not heard before. So Al Jean and Mike Reese were hired because Tom Gamble and Max Prost were busy working on on a pilot and it's briefly mentioned on the commentary. The pilot they were working on, I don't believe it ever aired, it was called Red Pepper and it was a sitcom where the titular character was a marionette and I cannot find a trace of it but I believe on Tom Gammill's YouTube page, I think

it's his page, you can watch the intro song for the non-produced sitcom Red Pepper and it's bizarre. So I encourage everyone out there to go look up Red Pepper Tom Gamble, Red Pepper sitcom, and you'll see what could have been competing with the Simpsons had it launched around the same time. I love this story Tom Gamble brings up that when Al Jean mentioning that when he learns who Sam Simon is looking to hire, he says like, oh, I'm hiring this guy, John Vede, Gamble like brings up that, you know, when Al Jean mentioning that when he learns who Sam Simon is looking to hire, he says like, Oh, I'm hiring this guy, John Vede, ever heard of him? Al Jean goes like, I've known that guy for 10 years. We went to college together.

I do like hearing Vede like fanning out about knowing his fandom for the 1966 Batman series. Like, it really is. I've said it before, but for so many Simpsons writers, especially John Vede and George Meyer, I think they are nerds to the Batman show like we are to the Simpsons. I think so, yeah. I don't think there are any Batman 66 references in this episode unless,

but I think the way Batman talks kind of leaks into the show in general. It's also funny to hear like the slightly bashful John Vede saying that he had just gone to another event to get signatures from the cast of Batman 66. Like even though he's been working in Hollywood at that point for like over 25 years and has already gotten their signatures before, he went to get Julie Newmar's signature and sounded like he was still in love with her, which I get it. That's all the preamble there, but to begin in the episode,

it does begin on a dark, dark note, unfortunately. Yeah, it's funny. We just recorded the episode, Springfield with a dollar sign, and that has the Sigfried and Roy parodies being attacked by a tiger. On the commentary, it's right after the being attacked by a tiger on the commentary. It's right after the actual event happened.

They're very sorry. Same thing is happening here. They're not too far out from Steve Irwin being killed by a stingray and they have to say we're very sorry. We don't know what we were thinking. This is very tasteless now. I know what they were thinking, which is that everybody who's watching Siegfried and Roy is like, oh, that tiger is going to eat one of them.

And everybody who's watching Steve Irwin is like, oh, one of these animals is going to kill him. Nobody expected the stingray. That was the appeal of the crocodile hunter, as people who watched it when he was alive, that it was like he got into such more dangerous situations than your usual zookeeper you would see. Like, you know, Jack Hanna never like wrestled a gator, so like, oh, I Jack Hanna never like wrestled a Gator So like I can just put my hands right here And also I think they promoted to almost like how they promoted how like watch this Jackie Chan movie Here's a list of all his injuries

They would tell you all of like Steve Irwin's injuries that was the appeal of the danger Though I think this bit here of the Gator Bator It did feel a little dated to me in just that. I had to look it up like, okay, how long before it was? Almost five years before this, they did the joke on South Park with the crocodile hunter. It was the episode about the man who was frozen in 1996 and he couldn't come to terms with 1999. Yes. Prehistoric Iceman is the name of the episode.

And their croc hunter kept saying, I'm going to stick me finger up his bum. That was his bit with everything he encountered. And I think he even encountered the unfrozen 1996 man. I was shocked how far on Simpsons they go here that like the gator baiter is ripped to pieces on screen. We see his leg bitten off and when it comes back, it's bloody water with floating body parts, which yet it is funny to listen to comedy writers who liked to doing a brutal joke about like, Oh, wouldn't it be funny? This guy gets eaten and dies in the water.

And then now bashfully like in 2013, they're like, Oh boy, this seems very poor taste now. Though, you know, his kids are thriving. Daughter Bindi is still has TV shows to this day. She even won Dancing with the Stars in 2015. Oh, how nice. Yeah, this episode has a lot of early aughts TV parodies. The next one is a parody of Trading Spaces, which was the peak watch with your girlfriend TV show of the early aughts.

I'm not trying to brag here. I had a girlfriend in the early aughts. We watched a lot of Trading Spaces. Which was just about to give way to the apprentice, basically. Yes, yeah. It was passing the torch from the lady Paige, I believe her name was, to Donald Trump. of trading spaces. Which was just about to give way to the apprentice basically. Yes, yeah. It's passing the torch from the lady Paige, I believe her name was, to Donald Trump. You should be thankful your partner wanted to watch home makeover shows instead of The Apprentice.

I didn't watch many home makeover shows. I actually have in the last couple years. I watched a couple, mainly the one I watched were hosted by the drag queen Trixie Mattel and so that was like my in into them. And I totally get the appeal. It's you are with your partner and going like, if we had a house, we could do this. Yeah, I should point out that I was living in a studio apartment and we were making each $5 an hour.

So the thought was, what if we had a bedroom? What could we do with it? And we get a joke that, you know, that Ken with Barbie kind of gay, right? Which they were still doing that joke in the Barbie movie. I think that was most of the Ken jokes. So I guess the gayest jokes about him were offloaded onto Michael Cera's character of like Ken's pal, whose name I forget. Deep Barbie lore is about Ken's best friend who was played by Michael Cera in the movie. And I believe his name was Alan, I want to say.

Though also like lots of, I think at least two openly gay actors also played Ken's in that movie. So the jokes weren't intentionally homophobic or anything I would say. Oh, then we also have a joke about who will marry a million bears. And then there's the King of the Hill joke. I don't get the intention here. Did they like or not like King of the Hill? It seems like they don't like it, which is weird because John Vede's the King of the Hill joke. I don't get the intention here Did they like or not like King of the Hill? It seems like they don't like it

Which is weird because John VD wrote for King of the Hill some of the best seasons and best episodes and these Parodies the King of the Hill thing and the bear thing they're not seen so I feel like these are last-minute jokes They're slotting in so not their best material But it sounds like they think the King of the Hill is just these catchphrases and that's it They're being like very reductive about the show. Now, Chris, here's my first of many times I wrote down, ask Chris about this thing for a parent. But how do your kids share TVs or screen time? I mean, they each have an iPad.

Like, I'm, you know, I'm not going to dance around the subject. It's that they each have an iPad. They can just go ahead and use that. And then, of course, there are, course there are fights over who gets to use the big TV and it's really difficult to explain to them that there is a second, almost as large television in their parents' bedroom, which they are free to go and use and it has all of the same apps on it.

But it just gets to this point where nobody actually wants to like take the second tier anything. And there's a fight over who gets to watch what on the television. And of course, you know, third and fourth priority here are mom and dad who are like, I feel like I'd like to play my PlayStation 5. No? Oh, okay, fine.

So you sort of like try to get them off. This sort of goes into a little bit more about what happens in this episode, but like the extreme convenience of modern age technology in which all children can have their own portable content, you know, screen and nobody needs to fight over the not just like what's on but like, how pervasive it is and how it affects other people because it can be completely self-contained, which is, you know, both good and bad, right? Yes, of course they fight over it. Everything, I mean, it's the classic, like that toy has been sitting there for the last five years

and nobody has given it a second glance, but now one of you was playing with it. So five minutes later, the other immediately wants it. And it's like, you have to share with me. It's like, you only care about that because she cares about that. Even Lisa made that point in the Thanksgiving episode with the glue. Yeah. Yeah. With the glue, with the glue. Yep. All drawn from real life. All very true.

All intractable problems. You cannot solve these problems. They accidentally flipped to a channel for a thing that Maggie had never seen before. And I count myself lucky that I really never had to deal with this. Like this singer was not a big deal to me when I was a kid. My slightly younger brother than me, he got into Barney, not this guy. So I really only know him through friends with kids who, who had to put up with him a little bit and we're not fans of him. Yeah.

I guess we're talking about Raffy and he really peaked when we were little kids. So he was really for us. He never stopped making music, but that was the baby beluga era. Then his banana phone renaissance. That was kind of for millennials. But they're hitting this parody super, super late. I imagine it could be some parents just remembering Raffi and it's so late that they actually reference Raffi in the episode, Brother you spare two dimes because her pal is talking about his

baby translator it can translate anything from feed me to turn off that damn Raffi record. You know I think he persisted well I don't know how big he has been in the last like 20 years I remember when my friends in their 20s who had kids in their 20s they were still in the late like 20 years. I remember when my friends in their twenties who had kids in their twenties, they were still in, in the late nineties and early aughts, they were talking about baby Beluga and how they were sick of having to hear that song over and over again, like when I pulled up like, okay, what's his biggest songs for this research and I heard baby Beluga, I now instantly heard my friend's young

daughter singing along to it. I was like, oh, okay. I know this one. I now instantly heard my friend's young daughter singing along to it. I was like, oh, okay, I know this one. It was big to kids 20 years ago, those kids who now I realize they are probably in college, that baby I knew 20 years ago. That hurts, that hurts. I will take Baby Beluga over Baby Shark any day.

That's my statement. Yeah, the Baby Beluga official video upholstery four million views. Like that, that big. statement. Yeah. The Baby Beluga official video upholstered four million views. Like that. Yeah. We need to boost those views. Nobody cares anymore. Yeah.

Yeah. They've moved on to more dangerous sea creatures. But yeah, this is coming really, really late because I remember in the early nineties, there were a lot of raffy parodies, probably from parents who were sick of hearing the music over and over. This came over a decade after Buster Bunny took down a Raffi-style singer in a segment called Ruffled Raffi in the episode Music Day. So that was in 1992, Tiny Tunes doing a Ruffy parody,

or sorry, Raffi parody set piece. This guy is Ruffy, by the way. Problematic name, I will say. Yeah, a little bit. I think there's something, also, I feel like in one of the infographics on the news, show within the episode, they, it refers to Raffi. So it actually both Raffi and Rufi.

Yeah, Raffi and Rufi exist sort of like Block-O-Land and Legoland both exist in Simpson's world and Don King and Lucia Sweet can coexist. The parody and the real thing can in the same world together. Now, yeah, Raffi Kavokian, he is an Armenian Canadian singer. And I read up on him. He seems like a really good guy. In fact, what they're parroting here has nothing to do with the actual singer

because he has been lauded for not marketing directly to children. He refuses to shill for his CDs and albums and other things. So he is super pro kid, super pro nature. He seems like a good guy and he's still hanging in there at 76. And he just released an album last year with the Canadian folk trio, The Good Lovelies. So check out new Raffi music, presumably for adults. I think he does adult things too. Compare that to the Wiggles at the time who were really cashing in like big time and were

having these like giant kid concerts. Yeah, I mean, you know, there is something, even if you got sick of hearing the music as a parent, now seeing him compared to like most kids programming feels like just made for a YouTube algorithm and meant to make kids watch a video over and over again. Raffy feels quaint to me. Yeah, well, the thing with Rufy is that I'm watching this thinking, oh, this feels a lot like Lippy. kids watch a video over and over again. If Drafty feels quaint to me. Yeah.

Well, the fun, I mean, the thing with Rufy is that I'm watching this thinking, Oh, this feels a lot like Blippi. They're sort of predicting Blippi 15 years in advance. If you don't know what Blippi is, you don't have children and, you know, count yourself lucky. But I mean, that's literally, I mean, when you watch some of the stuff on YouTube today, it really is, it's like we did so much work in this country, you know, in terms of like regulating marketing to children

and you know, separating the marketing out from the content itself. And then YouTube came along and I mean, you know, it is like just building all of the ads for the products right into the content of the show. So, you know, what your child, if you look over their shoulder, what they're consuming is this like lengthy ad.

We've had to have a lot of conversations about like, you know, these guys, I'm not necessarily blimmy, but it's like, you know, these guys are millionaires, right? Like these two like jokers who are acting like children, you know, they're like, they're multi-millionaires and they're just like trying to get you to buy these products.

I'm like, no these products like no, yes They really are you're ruining the magic for your children with I know well also they watch something and they're just like, oh I want that It's like yes. Yes kids Like, you know, all of these videos are like intended to make you want things you're not getting all of it Why would mr. Beast lie to me as far as I know he wants to feed me and cure my blindness There was all that journalism it feels like eight or so years ago about you know The Wild West of kids YouTube that's how I first learned about how all of the pregnant Elsa Mary Spider-Man videos Okay as far as like YouTube kids and stuff like that yeah, cuz there was so we went through that era as well

Where my you know, they'll go. Yeah. Yeah watch YouTube kids and stuff like that. Yeah, because there was, so we went through that era as well where my, you know, they'll be like, oh yeah, yeah, watch YouTube kids. And the next thing you know, they're watching something like super disturbing. What the hell is this? That was in that area of that journalism, but whatever they've done, they've gotten that straightened out. You know, as an adult, I liked watching Elsa and Spider-Man fight the Joker over a kiddie pool. It felt like any moment of snuff film was about to break out, but I was enjoying it on some ironic level. I know it was poisoning kids' brains, but I was enjoying it on some ironic level I know it was poisoning kids brains, but now with how far things have degraded I kind of missed the narratives in those weird knockoff videos

Well also Bob did you know that baby beluga was inspired by a Vancouver whale I know he saw a whale at an aquarium I didn't know it was the Vancouver aquarium. I think I was just there with my folks recently. It might've been the same one. Yeah, apparently it was a whale in Vancouver named Cavena. I think it is, or maybe that's location, but regardless, that's, yeah. Yeah, I know they have not had captive whales in 20 or 30 years at that aquarium, so. Oh, so you're right.

You know what, baby beluga's problematic, that it's about a captive whale. We gotta get rid of this song now. And now it's an adult? They show that Rufy, which yes, named after, that's the one thing that makes it feel like, well, they wouldn't have written this joke 10 years earlier because, you know, Rufy's and those stories about them

were not in the news back then. Rufy was a relatively new idea. It was two years earlier, they did that horrifying joke about Moe with the giant Rufy, that he was gonna go out to the... There was a plot line on Arrested Development where Job was Rufying everybody. Oh man, that's right, God.

He called them Forget Me Now, I believe. That's right, oh boy. It was a comedy term, and we weren't really thinking of the implications. And it will be used for great plot purposes in the first Hangover movie, I remember that as well. Maggie is loving Rufy and everybody else hates it. Then Bart makes the horrible suggestion of buying a CD, which again, like this isn't a thing anymore, right? Like just play the YouTube video 100 billion times if you're baby shark.

It feels like a very season one or two joke of the kids using Pig Latin. Like it feels like, oh, remember the thing we did as a kid that kept Bart and Lisa do it Well, I have to ask Chris what was in rotation in terms of the things your kids wanted to hear over and over I grew up in older era as we all did and I think the thing I watched over and over was spaceballs Which I think is delightful and any parent could enjoy that but I know it's so much easier to just rewatch the same things over And over even post VHS, especially. Mm-hmm. They didn't really watch a lot of the same stuff over and over and over.

Well, certainly from a music perspective, they like listening to the song, What Does the Fox Say?, which I'm fine with because it's a great song. We also poisoned them, actually, with the song Drago Studdintey, studying Tay the new manuma. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes Which we love and we were playing the game just dance and then we're watching YouTube videos of the game just dance Which is the same as playing the video game just dance. There's no Wow between watching a YouTube video of it and dancing Versus playing it on a game system and holding a Wii remote and dancing. At the end it just tells you you got a high score but

so does the YouTube video which just tells you got the same score every time it's not actually related to your performance. There is nothing that I'm sick of hearing so there's nothing that they've like listened to over and over and over but again if the iPad kind of helps with that because if they're just sort of sitting watching like a kid video and just like restarting it, then it's not actually like it's not really bothering anybody else or they can remove themselves from the situation after they ascertain that what they're watching over and over again is appropriate. We get a little montage of Maggie endlessly playing Rufy, which I think a key part of

it is that is uncommented on is that Marge doesn't hate it at all. Like she loves Rufy just as much as Maggie. She's bopping along with Maggie. Yep, yep. Does not see the issue. It's on batteries and backed by solar power as like Lisa has been driven crazy by it. Which again, it's like, I guess, you know,

it's just is the iPad charged or not is the equivalent now. Like the boom box is not really needed. Though I guess you need, maybe you'd have the update to this joke now would just be a Bluetooth speaker that is blasting it all the same. And we also see that Bart is getting so sick of it that he's trying to call back old jokes in our next clip here. Time to go home Bart. You don't sit. Time to go home, Bart. You don't understand.

I can't go home. You've got to give me detention. Look, I fed the dribble coffee. Please, make me write something on the chalkboard a thousand times. We all got tired of that chalkboard years ago. Now go home. So we went upstairs and knocked on the door. There's a helpful bell on the 28th floor. 28th floor. 28th floor. There's a helpful bell on the 28th floor. Aww, look how happy she is.

Her eyes aren't focused. Maggie's unfocused eyes is a very funny drawing, as is her like, beast you'll freak out at changing the channel. I've heard my mom talk about how she was a little disturbed in my youth that I would just blankly stare at the TV for too long and she wondered if she should do something about that, but she didn't. She was a busy mom.

She had a full time. She saw a podcasting career in your future. She knew I needed to catalog all this information to be set on a podcasting career in the future. She knew I needed to catalog all this information to be said on a podcast later. Well, that's the thing. It's like, you know, I don't know. There's this idea of, oh, the kids are zombies sitting in front of the television.

It's like, I don't know, how engaged are they? How much attention are they paying? What are they learning? Oh, I also like the animation of when Homer is caught turning it off, he bashes himself in the head and it is like, it's just a little trickle of blood. Like, yeah, it's a little too specific. Very painful looking.

It is painful looking. It does make you cringe. But I think this is a good fix on Homer. I feel like season 11 Homer, he would have just destroyed it or like been too much of an asshole. This season 15 Homer cares just enough about Maggie that if she looks sad He'd rather hit himself in the head than make Maggie sad Yeah, he still makes the wrong choice, but for good reasons also more of the violence in this episode

They kill a gerbil on screen you watch it die like it makes me think raining I said it before but anytime I see animal violence. I think, oh, Graning wasn't around to say, you can't do this. Because he really hates the animal violence. But this is at least the second gerbil that Classroom has seen die after Super Dude. Oh, Super Dude, yeah. And for a second, I thought there were two more, but actually I got them confused with the two fish that Bart kills with his yo-yo in that episode in season three. Oh, also, I think it's dangerous to tell the audience, Hey, we're tired of this joke. Like if you tell the audience like, you know what? This joke sucks now.

It's like I still I still like the chalkboard. I miss them. I was gonna say I feel like after a few years nobody is rolling on the floor of the chalkboard gags. Well, the best thing the chalkboard gags can do was to be like they're most like ripped from the headline things of like, oh, we can do a joke today about this. Right, right, right. It feels less like a commentary on the audience not liking it and more maybe about the writers like having backed themselves into a corner where they now need to come up with a chalkboard gag every single episode. That sounds more like it. And 15 years later, they're're like what have we done and end up barely care. I mean, yeah, they talked about on the season four commentaries They're like boy. We're sick of this. Like these are hard to write. We never think they're funny Yeah, I watch recent episodes. Did they get rid of the chalkboard entirely? Is it so the chalkboard still there, right?

Not always I feel like it's rare But I do think it pops up the last time it really does feel like They do it in response to a Simpsons predicted it like obviously the most recent I definitely remember the one after the 2016 election that they did which like being right sucks Something like that was written, but I think they've done some more since then it's certainly not in every episode or every five episodes thing I think yeah recently it feels like I'm looking at the list now. There's maybe two per season they must either be self-referential to being a chalkboard gag, or a pulled-from-the-headline type deal.

["The Simpsons Theme Song"] ["The Simpsons Theme Song"] The Simpsons will be right back. ["The Simpsons Theme Song"] I'm detecting luscious bite-sized gooey things. I will trade you this rare chocolate radioactive man for the box. Quite literally, mint condition. Not anymore.

Ooh! Ritz-Bit sandwiches s'mores, fudgy marshmallow graham crackers. Now it's Simpsons' faces. Fine. I will throw in radioactive man comet number one. Deal. Hello, this box is empty. You said the box. Welcome to the break, everybody, for an episode that's at least as good as a Rafi album. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Chris Kohler. It's always awesome to have him on, and we really appreciated all of his parental guidance

about this week's topic. And you can find Chris on Blue Sky, the link's in the description, as well as a link to all of the great video games he helps produce at Digital Eclipse, including the most recent one in their historical collection, Tetris Forever, which gets the Henry and Bob seal of approval as well. We both really enjoy that. Thanks again, Chris, for coming on the show. And if you enjoy this talk about this 2004 episode, I think you're going to enjoy all the awesome stuff we offer at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. The people who sign up there get to hear these episodes early, one week early, and ad free.

That means no advertisements in them. Like you hear right now in this podcast, you for five bucks a month can get that ad free early stuff. Plus two bonus podcasts a month, us covering talking Futurama and talk King of the Hill. We're into the Comedy Central years of Futurama. We are in season four of King of the Hill. We're into the Comedy Central years of Futurama. We are in season four of King of the Hill and you can hear the entire back catalog as well. Over 200 exclusive podcasts at that $5 level.

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So then we see that the helpful bear is working with Rufy, which is also not a bad joke because him saying 28th floor, that's a great lyric because it implies you've been hearing about floors one through 27 before this and the songs about this long. But this is when Rufy lets his audience know he's going on tour. Hello Springfield! Rufy is coming to your town! One show only! Tickets will go fast! Very fast! So your parents should be getting in line! If you don't come, Rufy will be sad! And the helpful bear, she will die!

Rufy will be sad and the helpful bear, she will die. Cough, cough. Tickets, tickets, buy them now. Rufy, he will show you how. Visa, IMAX, OMC, or make out a check to me. I feel like this is actually what YouTube channels just do now is the streamers tell kids like this channel will die if you don't do this or you have to buy my new energy drink. If you buy enough prime energy drink, then I'll keep doing this channel. Right. I know I had to like talk my kid down sometimes like you know, it's okay. You don't need to subscribe to his channel. It's fine. First of all, you don't even have an account. Second of all, let me check. He's got like 5 million subscribers.

Dude is doing okay. You don't actually need to do it. Even though he's telling you, you'd have to. It's fine. I do love, now the bear has been gravely injured also. So it's like we have Homer, you know, destroying his brain a little bit more with a hammer. We've got Steve Irwin.

He's either severely dismembered or gone. The gerbil's dead. The bear is in critical condition. And we're just getting started. Yeah, I feel like four. We haven't even gotten to the actual A-plot. Four extreme acts of violence up front. I think the Steve Irwin figure is dead because Bart says,

oh, I missed the feeding frenzy. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, and we've had a dead gerbil too. Man. And yeah, in under five minutes, all of this horrible violence. It's a dark, horrible time in 2004, you know? And also I think too, they're trying to keep up like South Park did change

the rules of how dark things can get. And I think sometimes Simpsons was trying to keep up with like, well, South Park is doing this, so we got to at least get a little more violent. The line has moved. And then Homer is trying to get the remote back from Maggie, and you know, him being like Curly from the Three Stooges, it's fine in a vacuum, but unfortunately, like, they've done it better. Like, that's the problem.

This was a real season four thing of like, oh, Homer is just curly and he'll just do things curly did. Maybe it's John B. returning to that. Well, not realizing like, Oh, this has been explored. And honestly in 2004, who's talking about curly? Yes. Every stooge fan is dead by that point. No, no, I mean, I like the execution of Homer being turned around by the pliers on his nose. Yeah. And Dan Kessler is always good at making these sounds and then we also have a rare joke about Janey's mom Janey rarely appears even less. Do we hear about Janey and his mother? I'm sure she's been drawn at some point in the background. I don't know if she's ever spoken No, I think she maybe she was in my sister my sitter and maybe one scene

I think that's it. I'm just plumbing the depths of my brain to figure out where Janie's mom has appeared. But yeah, it's an odd reference to a character that we know nothing about. She did something undignified that you can assume for yourself what she did to get those tickets. I'm racking my brain too, Bob. The only other time I can think of seeing Janie's mom in a non speaking scene is in itchy and scratchy and Marge when There at least is a Janie's house to watch the show and Janie's mom like walks in the doorway Yeah, that could be what I'm thinking of and so Marge also seeing Homer being injured She also has seen this so much that she just goes whatever like she he just cannot care

And this is where we now get into a brief callback to both. I feel like this is not just the obvious reference to like, you know, the original Woodstock and also Altamont Free Concert of 1969. But also there is some Woodstock 99, I think mixed into this too. Yeah, a little bit. And also I think it's referencing

the Woodstock documentary film from that era, the way certain shots are set up with the split screen and everything? Oh yeah, I think so too. Yeah, just like in the original Woodstock as well, like it's a rural area farmland and then all the cars are just stopped and people are abandoning their cars to walk to this huge concert. That's how big it is. And this is where the first of many musical montages come in here set to gimme shelter,

which is like as probably as expensive as a song can get. Yeah. That isn't a Beatles song on the commentary. Al Jean says, I don't think we could clear this today. Only like a decade after this aired. Basically, I wonder if they got any sort of friend discount because you know, Mick Jagger had been on the show two seasons earlier than this. So maybe they were still in contact with the Rolling Stones management and

could get a friend price on it. Still a very expensive song. I'd gather also to use it in reference to a very dark time for the Rolling Stones as a band, the Ultimont free concert. I would wonder if that was that mentioned to them. This is a reference to that concert where somebody died that you guys did remember the worst thing that happened to you we're making fun of it yeah there's also another like as I watched I was like oh this feels like a much darker joke than I realized when

that mom passes out and then the baby breastfeeds on her I was like yeah this feels very dark it's like a free love joke I guess. Yeah, yeah. Though I hate being in line for a porta potty anyway. With a soiled baby in line for a porta potty that seems like um hell to me. Chris nodding with knowledge of this is... Yeah I mean it certainly makes the urgency to like you know use a restroom sometimes is like you start getting to that point where you start asking people like can I can I go ahead of you please because Yeah, this is where there's the dancing naked babies again It's like it feels like oh aren't naked babies cute kind of thing of like that was

All the rage in those photos back then and then on top but also you're right Bob I think in the Woodstock the classic Woodstock documentary. It's like two nude women dancing, aren't babies kind of like high concert enjoyers? Kind of. Yeah, they're passing around pacifier like a doobie brother. Yeah. Like an extended, weirdly extended scene of like all three, you know, babies sitting in passing the pacifier back and forth. It's a bizarre episode.

Like it's already had all these very strange jokes. And now it's like, it really is hitting the height of weirdness with this like extended, you know, Woodstock free love nudist baby drugs. And a fountain of puke. And this is a baby puke centric episode too. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Talk about dated though. I guess less dated than a Raffi reference is a Teletubbies bit. Cause I had to double check Their last new episode had been in oh one So, uh not i'm sure kids know for watching the baby that was the son is now joe biden's age I think every five years I get an article. Do you know how old the baby in the sun is from teletubbies? And I think they're referencing they sing a lot t Tinky Winky because that's the one that Jerry Falwell called gay.

So in this case, Tinky Winky has been acquitted of manslaughter. There was a trial for Tinky Winky who was a real creature. I do wonder if that like how the parodies of, you know, King of the Hill and who wants to marry a millionaire, if this was also like a late change that they, because I feel like you just go for a gay joke with Tinky Winky, right? Like isn't that the one you do, like you would say oh, congratulations on him recently coming out of the closet. Yay.

Yeah, although that was five years before this, so it was already dated, so they're finding a new angle. Although I love that Marge immediately is bored with the Teletubby shtick, like oh,, now the other one's getting cussed her kind of repetitive. I love that because after she is not like, she has loved the constant repetition of Rufy. But now finally, when she sees the Teletubbies repeat things a bunch of times, now she's a sophisticated viewer and be like, Oh, over and over again with this.

So then in comes the rain and the mud and the soil diapers expanding. This was the part that felt like where Woodstock 99 comes in because Woodstock 99, it's when the rain comes in, it's making everybody miserable. It creates all this piles of disgusting mud to mix in with all the other, like gross shit in the ground. I guess there were like localized riots within Woodstock 99. Everybody revolting in bottles being thrown at people's heads that's really more Altamont. I believe Mick Jagger had a bottle thrown at his

head that made contact at that concert. Famously they got Hells Angels to do security, bad idea, and events happened that were not so great. The only other Woodstock 99 specific to me I think was when they're shaking the one big antenna, when they're shaking that over, that reminds me of what happened at Woodstock 99 as well. There's two competing Woodstock 99 docs. The Netflix one I didn't see, I did watch the one in HBO Max. I actually heard the Netflix one might be better because it's, it's more about.

One thing I didn't like in the Max one is I think it blamed the musicians too much of like, Oh, they made everybody too angry and made everybody want it when there was a much better point of like, no, this was a horribly run festival by as Marge says, an unscrupulous concert promoter. Like that's why Woodstock 99 fell apart. Yeah. Rufy should have started playing break stuff and then it would have led to the baby riot. Rufy is a dark jerk off screen we see as the chaos is beginning. A playdate with disaster at Cletus' farm.

I'm at the first aid tent. We're overwhelmed. Doctors are trying to sort out the owies from the boo-boos. Now I'm told we have the leader of the babies on the line. Tyler, is there a peaceful solution possible? Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing.

Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing.

Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. Zing, zing. working class Brooklyn guy. He drops the, I guess, Armenian, I don't know what Hank Azaria is doing. It feels more like French to me. It's a little mean to Rafi that it's like, oh, this guy's a big phony. He doesn't even have this like sweet voice. But yes, Chris, this is where you mentioned it.

The chiron on the screen of like Rafi denounces Rufi. That's a great, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Also, Rufy should go to jail because he kills five babies here. Well, we don't see how far the helicopter's off the ground, but yeah, Chris was mentioning all the violence.

Babies are knocked off of helicopter landing gear. Cops are clubbing women and babies off screen. It's babies. Just barely off screen. Just like, not like fully off screen, just out of the scene. The police beating women and babies to me less far fetched. This satire no longer satire. But yeah, also yeah, it mixed in here with all the other like late sixties, early seventies stuff is like his escape in the helicopter is like the fall of Saigon as well.

Like there's no way those babies didn't fall at least like 70 feet. And I feel like if a baby fell five feet, it's not a living baby anymore. It feels particularly young in this act one. Chris, are baby's fingernails very sharp? Is that dangerous? No, that's exaggerated.

I think it's because the rest of them is so soft. I've heard that sharp little fingernails thing before. Oh sure, that the rest of them is so soft. I've heard that sharp little fingernails thing before. Oh, sure. That the rest of them, like, essentially fool you, lull you into a false sense of security, and then you get hit with the nails. Look, man, if your baby's nails are sharp, you know, file your baby's nails, I guess. I also feel for the animators here who are usually asked to do, like, giant riots of hundreds of people.

This time, it's babies. So not even just regular people, like a sea of babies just are all over the country. You have to draw even more of them to fill the frame. And then this is where the commercial break comes in. We come back from the commercial break and this is where we get bits like, you know, babies got backlash and the tot offensive. Ken Brockman, this would have worked in the 90s, but this is a good pair. Like this episode feels so post 9-11 and this all of the fear-mongering on this definitely feels like in a Fox News era of writing the news. Yeah, there's a lot of Kent in this area of the episode. Yeah, we get three different Kent broadcasts, which that's L-Action, sorry, four, because

he was also on the scene in the last clip too. Right. Yeah. That's right. Well, we have to show that it's not a localized issue. This then becomes a societal problem. Chris, what's the closest you've been to having to like, you know, supervise little kids at a concert? Have you taken your kids to any concerts?

Uh, no, cause we're not crazy. They actually do have a lot of things like Four Kids. You know, nowadays it's like they have like, you know, movie screenings that are specifically like, oh, everybody just things like for kids. You know, nowadays it's like they have like, you know, movie screenings that are specifically like, oh, everybody just like bring your kids. And so your kids can, you know, it's like nobody's going to be bothered by your kids because everybody's got kids. There's all kinds of stuff you can take your kids to.

I actually just to bring my son, who's 10, we went to see a dog man, the musical. And that was fun. I mean, that I think it was a lot of like older kids and stuff like that. So not babies or anything. But no, I have not tried to, you know, deal with, I'm letting them become old enough to handle going to events and things like that. And you know, I could play the clip of the broadcast version, but the deleted scene is 50% different.

And I kind of like it a little more of his interview with Cletus, which I assume this is another like Woodstock reference because it was the farmers. Though maybe that was an Ultima 2 actually that affected the farmers but in the original one broadcast version Cletus is complaining about losing the equity I built up there in in his farm there's a little different scene in the deleted scene on the DVD babies got backlash legislators say the law needs to be wiped powdered and above and above all, changed. After a riot last night devastated the home of Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel.

There's poops on my lawn, and there's not my poops. Asked if he intends to take legal action, the farmer replied, I ain't fungified, Heidi, who about no ligrification, no ways. Then scratched his rear, hitched up his pants, and scratched his rear again. Dang liberal media quoted me out of context. I like a good 2004 joke about the liberal media. Yeah, that tag is a bit 2004, but hey, it was 2004,

so all is forgiven. But I think I like the cruder joke about his poop on the lawn. Well, it's not his poop, but there is poop. Yeah, but you can sort of see it coming also, you know, there's poop on my lawn. Isn't there always, Oh, it's not here. I think in that case, I like the version that ran better. I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with that. If they could just combo it of him talking about the equity and then have him

complain about the liberal media, then we're talking about more 2004 stuff. This has to be the only appearance in the show of the Simpsons of a parody of the President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Oh yeah, yeah. Making a special appearance in Springfield to tear up the flag. Yeah, the joke is that Kabul doesn't want to be their sister city anymore, which you know no American, I include myself, I would say almost no American knew about Kabul as a location before 2001 and this is very Specifically a drawing of the then president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai from his hat to the beard and everything then Comes the actual point of the episode here as we see the tax dollars literally vacuum out of them And this also does feel like a little bit of the 90s

Democrat complaint of like our tax dollars are spent wrong or whatever. But obviously, you know, the problem is it's spending too much on kids and schools, right? This led me to look up, I'll cite it specifically here. In 2023, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute calculated that in 2022, 10 times the amount was spent by the US government on the military, then on schools, a trillion versus 200 billion.

Stockholm, huh? Isn't that whole place a little iffy? Can't trust that number, you're right, Bob. So this also feels like VD just doing Classic Simpsons of, okay, let's get now to the main plot with Mayor Quimby bringing us into a whole town meeting, like a perfect town meeting setting. It works in Monorail, it works in all the ones after it,

and it really does work here. Yeah, characters stand up, they do their bits. There's lots of fun gags about corruption. It all works, and then it shoves you into a new plot. Like here's the thing we're doing, now this is what the episode is about. This is where the villainy episode comes in, which I gotta say, I think this is her biggest role

in the show to date and show that this character can be used as one of the major characters in the show. Yeah, I think outside of, when they named her in Girlie Edition, I think that was her debut, her real coming out, and this is the next big story for Lindsay Nagle. Let's hear what she has to say at the town meeting. The baby's damage exceeds $1 million,

which will now be sucked out of your pockets. I'm changed! Let me now introduce a woman who wants to make sure that what I just did never happens again. Good evening. I'm Lindsay Nagel, and I am the founder of Saskatagap. Single, seniors, childless couples and teens and gays against parasitic parents. Catch your name. We're tired of picking up the bills for other people's kids. We already pay millions every year in school taxes.

Yeah! Excuse me, everyone. I'm a mother. Boo! And I'm an American. Yay! I bake apple pies. Yay! And I love baseball.

Boo! Save your breath for blowing up water wings, breeder. I dream of an America with nudity and F-words on network TV, where the whole world doesn't stop because a school bus did. Children are the future. Today belongs to me! Yeah! I was saying how this feels like Classic Simpsons.

I love the joke about the organization with a very non-catching name because in I forget which episode it was it was the Michelangelo episode oh it's you scratchy and Marge yeah that's it yeah snuh was the organization there. Saskatagap is good I also love papasca tag yes coming up later since you mentioned it I really appreciate how VD I'm gonna credit it VD, that he made sure that both groups have the same letters in them just rearranged. They're not like mirrors, but it's great. Which makes the voting process even more confusing.

This is like leveling up for Lindsay Nagel. She sometimes has been used as like, she's an avatar for female executives that the writers deal with all of the time Then other times she is like a do they need a sexy single woman for some plotline involving like Ned Flanders? Perhaps they can bring in Lindsay Nagle for that but now her being like there's a lot of characters who could have been the forefront of Singles who hate parents, you know, childless people. Her doing it is a great choice.

Yeah, it feels natural. I mean, trust me, Neil, like this is her top character on the show and she does it so great. Like I love when she says, today belongs to me. Like I almost wonder if that's a reference. It reminded me of the cabaret song, Tomorrow Belongs to Me. I was thinking of cabaret as well. You weren't alone there. And her dream of nudity and f-words on network TV. I'd say it's closer than ever. I don't watch much broadcast TV and I'm sure they still have these rules on it. But I remember I put on USA

Network on a vacation not too long ago and they were showing uncensored John Wick on it at night. So I feel like basic cable, they do, they let it go after a certain hour sometimes. I don't know, Chris, how watchful are you of the content on TV these days? I'm very conscious of the fact that there's a lot of television that I would like to watch that I can't

because I wake up in the morning and then get the kids to school and then go to work and then give the kids dinner and then we all pass out and there's no time within that to like watch TV. If there's television that like we can watch in front of the kids, we will absolutely do that and then just sort of keep a mental tally of like,

I'm only through season one of The Bear right now. Like I really want to watch the rest of that show but I don't know when that's going to be. Mostly because again like my children are aware of the existence of curse words but I'm trying to like at least practice what I preach and say like I'm not going to sit there and watch these shows. Well make an exception for we're watching you know know, kitchen nightmares with Gordon Ramsay. And they, and they, you know, they bleep everything out, but then you know what he's saying. But I guess I just have to go back and tell the kids that it's okay to swear if the food, I guess that's probably, that's probably the only instance in which it's okay to do that.

Or if somebody is actively bleeping you while you talk. Yeah, right. Precisely. If you can get somebody to do that. Or if somebody is actively bleeping you while you talk. Yeah, right, precisely. If you can get somebody to do that, you're good to go. I am just in this window right now where there's this television that I want to watch, but the moments when I can do that are few and far between. And at this time in the show, Smithers is getting close to just being an out gay man.

Like he is just standing behind the letter that represents gays. They make sure everybody who represents those things are there. Like he's right next to squeaky voice teen, which is rare. I don't think Smithers interacts with squeaky voice. They don't share a lot of scenes together. Though it's strange though, too, in the childless couples, you would think that they are represented by Edna and sea captain are next to each other, which it should be Edna and Skinner, you would think. The Sea Captain, I think, is just happy to be next to Edna.

I would think he is more represented by the singles, like Otto, instead of a childless couple. I think so. And her dream also of Hayden being stuck behind the school bus, I get that too. Oh, and also that everybody hates baseball. I got such a great random thing. They still boo baseball.

Everyone has their own gripes in the audience. Luigi hates printing the children's menu, especially he does not care about the plate of Mickey meatball at all. The only thing I don't like about children's menu is sometimes I want to order something from it. Like I could actually go for a grilled cheese right now, but it would be gauche I guess, if I ordered from this.

Or just get a child sideside portion of something too, in a place where they over-serve food. This is where Homer takes to the stage and represents reluctant fathers everywhere. And this ends with another of my favorite lines in the episode. This is so good. You can't change the rules in the middle of the game! We never would have had these kids if we thought we had to pay for them.

Promises were made. Hey, tough tortellini, I'm sick of printing a children's menu. Let Mickey Meatball find his own way out of the maze. Pui! We're tired of buying overpriced tickets for your lousy school plays. Then how would we ever get to see Camelot?

We'll merely watch the movie on tape. Is that better? To me, Ralph Wiggum is Sir Lancelot. If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in summer! Boo! Ladies and gentlemen, let's kill every child-friendly thing in town! Yeah! It's time to put away childish things and

become a man I've seen this one a few times before but Lindsey's saying let's kill every child did get me again this time yeah yeah you got a gasp out of me I'd forgotten how that line goes to perfect delivery perfect execution in the animation to of it like yeah I love every bit of that. Also credit to Nancy Cartwright, she was asked to sing in the Ralph voice and I think she does a good, bad job. Somebody remembered that once Ralph was a great stage actor.

Right. But if you'd like to know how it originally sounded by the man who originated the role of Lancelot in Camelot, why, let's hear past Simpsons guest, Robert Goulet, sing this same line. If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in summer. Seeing you in summer, I never would go.

Better than Ralph Wiggum. Wonderful. I'm seeing you in summer, I never would go. Better than Ralph Wiggum. Wonderful. You know, good, no Ralph Wiggum. That syrupy voice is so great. And so they already spent all this money on Gimme Shelter. But if Gimme Shelter wasn't in this, my generation would have to be the most expensive song in it. Like that has to be the most expensive song in it.

Like, that is, like, that has to be the most expensive song to get from The Who. I don't know. Does it really make this funnier? Well, I mean, we talked about this before, Henry, but now Disney has to relicense all of these. Yeah, I mean, it's nice that Al Jean is cursing Disney to have to spend all this money. I like that. And it's, I mean, he makes a joke, Uh, I think it's on this commentary. They make the joke that like about how they had to spend a, oh, Marge is dressed up later.

And he says like, well, we had to spend her costuming budget before the end of the season or else we'd lose the money. I do wonder if it's just like, that's why there's three huge songs in this one in a row. It's 2004. People still paid for content. You know, budgets were massive. You know, it was only so much. I mean, it's still a year before YouTube.

There's only so much content to go around. So I'm sure they simply had the money to go and do this stuff. So why not do it? Also, I guess too, the music industry hadn't been fully murdered by Napster and Kazaa yet. And so they didn't need to get all of their money from licensing songs too.

Right, right, right. Yep, yep. And there was also, I mean, there was probably a little bit of a, oh, it's on the Simpsons? Okay, great. Because, you know, especially for older music or music that's like, you know, 20, 25 years old

at this point, it's like, you know, there was a well-placed needle drop in a piece of popular culture could, you know, bring back a well-placed needle drop in a piece of popular culture could, you know, bring back a resurgence of interest in that music. And of course they would then go down to their local borders and buy a CD of this music. So again, there was like a lot more money being thrown around at all points.

So there was probably more incentive to just, you know, go ahead and do that. It's also funny, just funny, you know, when a well-placed song just starts playing during a Simpsons episode. It's good for a good chuckle. Well, now when Stranger Things repopularizes an old song from the 80s, the original artist just gets about $10 from Spotify playing it a billion times. Yeah, exactly. Right. In this little montage, we see Baby on board signs being destroyed. The thing that made Homer

Simpsons so much money in 1985. And it wouldn't be a post 9-11 episode if we didn't have a reference to the Saddam Hussein statue being pulled down in Iraq. Though this one's full of blood for itchy and scratchy. Yeah, the ankle starts spewing blood everywhere. I like that, I like that. This parody of the famous, the weeping Frenchman photo

from World War II era, I guess it was world war ii era but this yeah it's interesting because i was looking at that too about the history of the episode and it's like apparently this is something that was such such a deep cut that it passed for a really long time without notice what's the way yeah we're coming up on the last era in which you can reference a famous photo i think i don't know if there are still famous photos or if there are, they seem to be rarer than ever, but I see the meme version of the face Millhouse is making more than the actual weeping Frenchman from that photo. Yeah, the-

And actually, I learned it's not a photo, it's a still from a newsreel. Yes. Actually, I think it was a still photo that was used in a propaganda film, so it may have been a photo that was then sort of used. It's a heartbroken Frenchman watching the Nazi's march on the Marseilles. This scene, I believe got extra meme juice back in 2018. It was used quite a lot because I believe this made it big

on social media was the closure of Toys R Us. And this scene was shown of the R being turned around and Millhouse being sad was then used. And then I think that just made people just like the Millhouse drawing. And it is a very memorable drawing of Millhouse with his super frown that I think that outside of the Toys R Us equivalent got used.

Though it's used incorrectly as reference to Toys R Us because they're not closing Toys R Us in this scene. He's merely fixing the letter. Yeah, he's correcting the... How did I leave that typo up for so long? Bob, you've said it before, but you live in a much happier nation that is not rid of Toys R Us. We still have them, although they are shrinking. The one in a local mall just shut down, but there are still some freestanding Toys R Us. Technically there is in the nearby Macy's where I live, there is technically a Toys

R Us within it, but it's just a sign that they put in front of their toy section that has like a 2018 statue of Jeffrey in there. So it's not even like the Jeffrey I grew up with. It's like the, you know, the 2010s Jeffrey. Well, enjoy it while it lasts, Bob. Trump is going to purchase Canada. We're waiting for all of his executive orders right now. And I wonder if the first one's going to be all Toys R Us shut them down, regardless of where they are in the world. I'm taking control. Much like TikTok, they're going to force the Canadian Toys R Us to sell to Bain Capital as well. I can see that.

It's just so funny to hear Al Jean be like, oh yeah, this is about a Frenchman being sad that the Nazis have taken over his home and like, where it becomes this cute moment or but sad moment with Millhouse all of a sudden about one of the like history's greatest crimes turns into just a funny drawing of Millhouse. That's how history works. And like you said, Bob can't keep popping up in here with so many great lines including kids are people too. Worthless incomplete people. They gotta laugh at me. A lot of kids being brutalized off-screen. We have this press conference where Quimby's announced that children throwing tantrums will be tased. That

the child is tased off-screen. We have the children being clubbed by the police off-screen. The children falling off the helicopter off-screen. They are really sticking it to kids. Quimby has to say, I wasn't kidding. I'm just like, yeah, no, really we're doing this. Like a child was electrocuted offscreen. Again, the police tasing children, less satirical these days. And then we have a joke also to bring it back to Vietnam.

Like this feels like a parody of Vietnam vets who are just like, oh, just a statue. That's it. But in this case, it's two deadbeat dads with the, I just don't have it with a smiling face on it and turned out pockets. And Kirk Van Houdt not happy about it though. If I may be overly pedantic about this for a change, I rarely am. Why would the child free movement support a deadbeat dad Statue because he has a child he's bad at having children

Oh, he's trying to break free from the child having status Oh, so I think they're supporting him they're saying go all the way abandon the child. You're halfway there I see it's like he's converting back to the religion of child. Yes Yeah, that's one way to put it, yes. And now, after that, less than three minutes after My Generation, we then get the 1971 song Signs by Five Man Electrical Band. Yeah.

And only two of the jokes in this four-joke montage are about signs. I think they should have all been about signs. Or they don't cut out the song before they get to the last one that is about a sign of changing the library sign. That's right. There are four jokes. Three of them are about signs. I apologize. The one in the middle is not. But that's when the song goes away. Like the song's not even playing when they change the library sign. So I'm like, so you paid all this money for the use of the song signs,

but then you don't use it on one of the sign jokes. This is the one librarian who was excited for perverts to show up at the library. She's waiting for it. And the character designers found three good new perverts to draw. They didn't use the old perverts like Eugene and Rusty. They got three new perverts. Though it does feel like there's a lost joke there of like, why isn't Mo among the perverts? He should be the fourth pervert in the line. Hmm, though. I guess mo is so antisocial He wouldn't even bother showing up for the no, he wouldn't even associate with fellow perverts. He has his own thing going on

So after all that we then end up in a very 2004 I think idea to have like the legitimate respectful debate like this almost feels like sorkin esque to. I don't know of like a debate of everybody saying, I respect you is like the first sentence. I'm just wondering why Marge is wearing this gray outfit. It feels like they're going for a parody I'm not aware of, or there's a cut scene to reference it. She's just in it for no reason. Marge, she's not wearing it when she's doing the other political action in this. It does feel like she just dressed up to like press Lindsay I guess there is a deleted scene from this section

But there's no answer to why her suit is in it the suit is not part of it But yes, Lindsay when she's confronted by barge she gets the best pitch possible to be apparent Miss Nagle, I'm sorry to surprise you like this, but I thought if we met face to face, we could settle our differences. Well, let's make it quick. I know you have to get back to your kids, and I'm late for a skydiving massage. I'll cut to the chase.

I brought with me the very best reason I can think of for what I believe in. Her name is Lisa, and I wouldn't trade her for all the sleep in Sundays and speed dating in the world. Miss Nagel, even though I disagree with your principles, I certainly admire your success. Well, Lisa, I would be proud

if one of the eggs I sold turned out like you. Hmm. Mom, I locked your keys in the car. Then wait in the shadows. Oh, so Maggie puked in your purse again. Poor me. All my purse is full of his disposable income. This is basically what me and Bob have done to Chris

of talking about our like trips to Japan or the TV shows we've been watching. Yep, yep, yep. This feels like John Veeley is his view on how you could convince him on Marge's side If you showed him a real-life Lisa Simpson, he would be like, well, I guess some kids are okay But the problem is you don't know you're gonna get a Lisa's some kids are barked I mean this isn't Lisa's character to say you're a powerful woman and I can respect that at least

Yeah, also her saying like I feel like Lisa would view herself as a future childless adult, that she wouldn't vehemently disagree with her position. I guess it fits with 2004 that Lisa would respect a woman who is successful and independent. I think these days Lisa wouldn't be so respectful like, oh, Lindsay Nail, you're a great business woman. Like that wouldn't be as important to Lisa now. Yeah. She might question things a little more.

The purse full of puke, that's a great disgusting image as well. Yeah, actually, you had me thinking about that earlier in the show too when we're talking about like the bathroom lines and stuff like that. Like my kid was sick and we were, well actually, I mean, I think we had like just like a doctor's appointment,

it wasn't even related to her being ill, but then like she was just sort of sick that morning and she's in the back seat of the car and I'm like trying to Desperately find a parking spot at the hospital so we can get in for the appointment She like pukes all over herself in the back of the car and then like I'm waiting for a spot I'm about to drive into it and then some other lady kind of comes up and like she puts her blinker on and like Honk at her. I'm like, no, I'm like, I'm going in there and she starts yelling at me

I'm just thinking to myself like lady. I got a kid in the back of the car's puke all over her Like I am absolutely parking in this spot. There's nothing you can do about it But the puke and the you know, the poop and the pee and everything like that I mean you kind of you know, you deal with that for the time, you know that it it takes I mean they are like, you know, obviously they're like total agents of chaos, where it's like, you expect all of that. Like you don't know when it's going to happen, but you're prepped for it. I mean, we first had our first kid. I mean, the first like helpful parenting tip that I could pass down is that if you take a baby outside the house, you should probably bring with you one or two extra diapers. What we forgot about that,

like the first time we went there and he pooped his diaper and it's like, ooh, we should bring additional diapers, maybe in some sort of diaper bag for when this happens because he's not just gonna poop at home. But now it's more like, I mean, I don't know, I can relay this story to you, but like this just happened like a couple of nights ago and like you have to like laugh at this stuff. But like my daughter walks in and this all happens in a flash and she has.

And so, of course, we have tons of these now, which is like little kits. You can make friendship bracelets and necklaces out of with like beads and string and you string together thing you tie it like a bracelet. So now we've got like you know thanks to gifts and things like that like multiples of these things and there was one of them just a whole plastic containers full of little beads that had a string around it so you could carry it or what and she had put it around your neck and I look over and she comes in the room I mean it's like a Simpsons gag or a Vaudeville, you know, show because she comes into the room trips on something and the whole entire box of beads just opens up and just, she's like, and it's like, just to the four corners of the living room, just go every bead.

I'm laughing because it's like, it was so funny. We're still picking up these stupid things today. And then she goes, I guess this is not a very good purpose. And so like, those are the moments that like kind of, it's like you have a choice to either Find it funny and like see it from a certain perspective or get matter and matter and matter at it Which is not gonna help anything. I think at that point the room does not exist anymore. We don't go in there I feel that way when I'm

Pouring rice into a little cup from a huge bag. I think if I drop this bag of rice and moving I can't deal with this Yes cup from a huge bag. I think if I drop this bag of rice, I'm moving. I can't deal with this. Yes. What's that door? Oh, we don't go in there. I'm curious how much the pressure of a nice pretzel at the mall or just like, you know, mommy, daddy, can we go here and get this thing? Like that has to be difficult as well. Oh, yeah. It's funny because our first born did not really, he was not materialistic in any way. He'd want stuff. Then our second kid just like constantly, constantly, constantly like, we have to buy this.

Can we get this? We go to the mall, can we buy this toy? Can we buy that? And it's like, you want to, we have ourselves at a point where it's like, yeah, I can afford all of this stuff that I just don't have room for in the house. And also you have five identical things already.

And it's like, you're not gonna stop. It's like, we all understand that if we keep buying things for you, you're not gonna say, I'm finally happy. I don't need anything else. So there have to be like artificial limits imposed here just to keep you in check, just so you understand that we don't just buy every single thing

that we might want, buy every single thing that we might want. But there's no sense there that anything bad will happen if we just buy everything at the mall. So it's difficult, especially when it wasn't a problem with the first kid. And now it's a problem with the second kid. And it's what do we do? Daddy, you have $4? It's like Yeah Yeah, I have four dollars I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that I don't because then you're gonna be going to school and saying oh my family's So poor, you know, you know, how do I like get this across to you that like this is this is not happening And it's you know, it's for your own good. How do I you know?

So Henry this sounds identical to your childhood, right? Not being purchased things that you want? Well, I... That was sarcasm. I put the sarcasm tag in my voice if you didn't hear it. Yes. My mom didn't have as strong a will as Chris did. Oh, really? Yeah. Can I get this toy? Can I get that toy? And I ended up with a lot of toys. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying we're not drowning in toys right now, which we absolutely are.

I also don't mind that it's, I'm just sitting in the living room right now and it's like, there's toys all out here cause they've, you know, there's only so much space in the bedroom and I kind of don't care, it's fine. As long as we're not getting into a special episode of hoarders situation where it's like, okay,

can you get the shovel and dig out a pack so we can like go to the bathroom, you know? So many cat skeletons. That's the other thing is you're fighting yourself because you want to buy it. You want to be like, of course, of course I'll buy this for you. I'm the best dad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll buy whatever you want, you know? But you realize that like, after you do it a couple of times, you realize like, oh, this is actually potentially very bad. Yeah. You're fighting what they want. You're fighting what you want because you realize that if everybody's giving into everything they want, like all of the

time, it doesn't actually lead somewhere good. It just leads you to, you know, a kind of a big pile of wasted money, no room in the house. And then really just sort of fighting the like, what the hell are we going to do with all of this stuff later? I do think my mom has either lovingly or to rub it in my face, she has held on to so many of those toys, like all of those toys, all the action figures I wanted, a lot of them are still in a bin in her garage.

She moved with them across the country and they're there. And she's like, you really love these toys. I would never get rid of them. They were very important to me at one time. And now I'm like, I don't have the heart to say, you can get rid of these Spider-Men, you know. I think we need a current head count on the sheer amount of Spider-Men you have.

Well, now I have adult Spider-Men that are made for the adult collector. I see. Yes. Going up in value. Actually, my husband for Christmas gifted me a very expensive, now I just am being Mr. Dink from Doug.

A very expensive. A very expensive Spider-Man toy that I was like, oh, this is too ostentatious, but thank you. I'll tell you what was ruined for me in 2004 though, by this point, a steamy cinnamon pretzel, because I worked at AMC theaters at that point and I made those, many of them, and the scent of them just reminded me of working

at the concession stand. Oh, you had cinnamon pretzels at your movie theater. Yeah, we had a mix of cinnamon and salt and I can just see, I can smell the tray of like, here's the steam tray, like here's the very hot steam tray and you're gonna have to wash it each night. You're also gonna have to wash out the cinnamon shaker and dust it. Like I was covered in cinnamon dust mixed in with all the other scents of the movie theater like so a squishy steamy cinnamon pretzel lost a lot of its luster for me after making so many though

I didn't work in Auntie Anne's though there was one like right next to the movie theater so even the scent of that was ruined for me after that it was all at the time Bart was asking for what. I do love how he goes like, not cinnamon. This is where a ballot initiative comes in, which, you know, there were those in Florida too. I remember voting on some back in Florida, but it was when I moved to California that I realized what a big part of California politics it was. And there are a lot of numbers that are hard to keep track of.

And this also now I vote in Washington and in Washington state, they have similar ballot initiatives too. I just voted on a couple and even now I still have to like the day of the election I made sure that when I voted, I wrote down like this number equals yes, this number equals no because it's so unclear. Right, and then there's of course, there was something in California recently where like the language of some ballot initiative was changed, so it sounded, no, it wasn't in California,

but I mean, there was something recently where like, the language on a ballot initiative was changed so that it sounded like it did the opposite of what it actually did. It's too much, it's too much pressure to be putting on me. It's like, you have to read this and if 51% of people in the state vote for it, then it's going to become, you know, binding law. I feel like this is why we have like representative government, but okay. Yeah. And then everything is given a disingenuous name. Anything with freedom in the title means

you're going to be lose freedom in some way. Anything with like family is usually evil at its heart. It just that happens a lot. And then I think this is related to Prop 8. Oh, no, we're on the lead of the Prop 8. But there's like Prop 8 was another one of those ones where you think, do I vote? Yes. Do I vote? No, I really need to figure it out. Yeah. Prop 8 would be four years after this era. It was just the most in all the series of propositions in California specifically and California is a big state. It's why it gets the biggest national news about it. Like even when I wasn't voting in California this last year, I saw the pressing stuff about the propositions that year included like an $18 minimum wage that failed, expanding rent control,

unfortunately failed as well as banning the use of slavery on prisoners. Like all of these things were major ballot initiatives and failed by a small percentage but did not pass. It was a rough time for propositions in 2024 for California. And here Marge is using it too, which it's also interesting when politics comes into this here, it's interesting they're not making clear like Republicans support this and Democrats support this. Like I'm sure you could view it as Marge is the Republican and Lindsay Nagel is the Democrat because that, you know, the family party definitely in 2004 was presented as George Bush's party, right? Yeah, yeah. They're not drawing those lines. I think they don't want to remind people of

this is an election year and we don't want to bum you out 2004 also bad bad year bad election. It's coming up, you know in 11 months after this airs, but still it was a rough I was feeling echoes of oh four during 24 as well was rough rough time So this scene ends with the dramatic reveal of that It's actually gonna be in the March primary and I love all the done done done. Duns The second deleted scene audio I have here is a different ending to this scene. I think they plused it up in the broadcast version here.

Mom, I locked your keys in the car. Then wait in the shadows. Oh, so Maggie puked in your purse again. Poor me. All my purse is full of is disposable income. I respect your choice. Why won't you respect mine? Oh Marge, crying doesn't work on me.

I know just as well as you do. Women can turn it on and off like that. Not convinced? Ah! Ah! That's gotten me out of so many DUIs. Alright, I guess this means war. But I think you'll find my kids and I are an unstoppable team.

Let's go! Can I ride in her car? Ours smells like baby puke. You're coming with me. Well I don't wanna. I hope this war doesn't start tomorrow. I have a band recital in Ogdenville. You know there are elements of both of them I like. They did remember that Lindsay Nagel has a drinking problem. There's a scene a few years ago or within the past few years where she's in Moe's and they're like oh

what are you doing here? She says I'm an alcoholic and then she just continues what. Yes. Her being an alcoholic, yeah, that she's also a registered sex offender, I believe too, they set up. I've heard sexual predator. I don't know if she's committed any offenses. That's right. Self-identified sexual predator is what she is.

You're right. The canonicity of her DUIs. I like that. You know, not the biggest fan of like all women fake crying. A little sexist. Not the fan of that. Although you get Tress McNeil doing two kinds of crying, I'm sure she has eight different volumes

in temperatures of crying she could whip out for you. It's like the best voice actress around. If you can only hire one woman to voice eight characters in your thing as often as she's asked to do back then, Tress McNeil is the one you get. I like Marge being hit with more responsibilities, but the multiple music stings over where it's going to be is good too.

I do like that. So we come back from the commercial break and here we are at dinner and we see that the singles are all getting to sit together. Some strange couples here is like, Sideshow Mel is dating Lindsay Nagle this week in the show. I'm happy for him. I guess he left his wife Barbara.

Or maybe they got an open thing. Well, not no four, probably not. Well, also speaking of sexuality too, like Mr. Largo is seemingly on a date with a woman, Lisa's old horse instructor. Oh yeah, maybe he's giving a shot. Mr. Largo is not canonically gay. Meanwhile, also at the other table,

you've got Senior Ding Dong on a date with Sea Captain. I missed these pairings. I didn't see that, okay. I had to pause, I was like, wait, who is with Senior Ding Dong? And Sea Captain's right by his table. So I was like, I guess they're on a friend date. Let's say they're just pals.

The feeling of not a high chair, a complimentary crayon in sight, I mean, I do like that when I go to a restaurant. I do like not having to see those things. But Chris, you're on the other side of the equation. I mean, how do you feel about us child-free people who don't want to see any kids at restaurants? I guess there's a difference between, like,

these children are doing things that are disturbing my meal versus I cannot even look upon the face of a child or it's going to put me off of my food. I think those are like sort of the two extreme ends of the disturbed by kids at a restaurant spectrum. I mean, certainly you don't want kids like, you know, throwing food around or running around or bothering you or yelling or screaming or, you know, certainly things that they might do. On the other hand, I do need to eat and I do want to take my kids with me. I think they should also eat when I eat. So I'll probably keep bringing them to restaurants.

Yeah. That's progressive of you. Yeah. I will say her joke there. I don't think about it at restaurants of like noticing if a kid is nearby or whatever when I am policing my language. I do think that when I'm at a friend's house and a friend has kids, I am better than some of my other friends at policing my language of like, wait, don't say, I got that to remind a friend of like, Hey, don't say the F word that there's a nine year old over there. Like, right. Well, that's because you're a podcast. Oh, sure. You're able to turn it on and off at a restaurant. I don't think, but then again, maybe like it's probably where you live in the Bay area, Chris, I would think a lot of people are like it's probably in where you live in the Bay Area

Chris I would think a lot of people are not thinking of kids being at a table next to them as they tell stories There's a restaurant that I actually enjoyed going to they just reopened actually. It's an Indian restaurant in Burlingame they one year a few years back found that they had been given a Michelin star because their food was so good and Within a year or two within the space of two years. They had Closed the restaurant so that they could lose the Michelin star and they rebranded it basically as like an outpost of a different restaurant and it lost the Michelin star and they did this on purpose because at first they were like Oh, this is great. We have a Michelin star and then the problem is as soon as you get a Michelin star a whole

bunch of bay area foodies who have never heard of your restaurant and would never have ever gone to your restaurant are now like oh Let's put this on the list of places we got to go to because we go to all the Michelin star restaurants and so people start going there and there were stories essentially from the restaurant that they started getting clientele in who were like Why are there kids in here? Why is there a high chair? Why are there like children in this restaurant? This is not and they start leaving bad reviews This is not the Michelin star Experience that I was promised because I do not want to see children when This is not the Michelin star experience that I was promised because I do not want to see children

when I'm at a Michelin starred restaurant. Can't there be a trough out back for the children? Well, exactly. And the restaurant was like, we've always, like, yeah, we serve really good food. We've always welcomed families. We've always been a family restaurant. We've always, you know, wanted kids in the restaurant.

And that was a big reason for them to literally say, you know what, we're going to close the place, you know, give up the Michelin star because we, they kind of made the choice of like, we don't want to have the sort of Michelin star hunters in the restaurant. If it means that we have to change the way that we want to do things. Yeah. There was a German restaurant in Berkeley. It just closed last year. It was called Gellmann Kitzel. It was very good. It was not upscaled by any means, I guess it was kind of pricey because it was a Bay Area restaurant, but it was still had kind of like a humble setup in terms of the interior. I went there a bunch and then one day I saw a sign that says, no children are permitted to enter the restaurant. And I really wonder what happened. Something had to happen,

there had to be a scalding or a knifing or a falling down on a fork or something happened. And I was never able to find out. But I'm like, wow, this is the first time I've seen even like breweries and bars. I've seen people there with their kids and whatever. There's a whole discourse about that. I don't want to get into, but this is the only place I saw that said no kids outside of like a 21 plus show or an 18 plus show or whatever. There is a movie theater near the Cinemark. They have a second smaller theater nearby here and it is a, you know, a wannabe Alamo, but it is like a 21 and up deal. Like it is specifically a sign says like only 21 and up allowed.

And it even like paraphrases in another castle like it says sorry kids your movie theater is in another building. Oh yeah we got one of those 19 plus theater with alcohol and you know burgers and pizza and stuff. Well that's the thing it's like you know there's plenty of places that are kid friendly that you can take your child there's no lack of places so you shouldn't be like attempting to knock down the doors of an adults-only space. But hey, if Bob Mackie is drunk in front of your kid and you're in a brewery, you have no one to blame but yourself. So the dinner is Marge is trying to fundraise at it after presenting

Papasacat- a Papasacateg. Papasca-tag. I've been saying Papasca-tag in my head a lot since watching this. And what does that one stand for? Proud Parents Against Single Seniors, Childless Couples, and Teens and Gays. See that again. She's against gays. Like 2004, that's a real pronouncement there. Though Marge is like the more homophobic member of the family at this time of the show. Yes, it's Saskatagap and PAPASCA TAG.

Which I should remember because it's a disease of the brainstem. That's a challenge. Which also is nice. Like they get to bring back Hibbert's kids, his little scene family, though not all of them. Yeah, yeah, like his collection of Huxtables shrinks and grows depending on the scene. I wonder too if like Hibbert choosing not to pay for it, is that because he's on the Council of Republicans in Springfield along with Mr. Burns and Dracula, so I wonder if it, oh, we don't want to choose a side in this. That's why he doesn't want to give money to it. And it's a good series of jokes of characters teleporting away. Here we learned Luigi's full name. Oh yeah. Luigi risotto. I don't think they

gave us a last name for him. I was trying to look like I don't think it had been said before. I do believe this is the pronouncement of Luigi Rizzotto. There were no other results on Frinkex, so I think it barely comes up after this that his last name is Rizzotto, at least on the show. But the important thing is Wikis could be updated with his full name. I love his teleporting joke the most because he looks down at the bill to say that Marge needs to pay and he breaks eye contact with her, so that could at least explain how he missed her leave. But they zoom in on the guy from immigration.

He is looking directly at Luigi the entire time, but Luigi is gone when he pulls back out again. Well, he put on the invisibility cap for Mario 64. Yeah. That's how it works. He got it from his brother Mario Rosoto. Yep. And see, hey, we did a whole bunch of Luigi jokes here

without referencing another Luigi. Well, you just did. You risotto. Yep. And see, hey, we did a whole bunch of Luigi jokes here without referencing another Luigi. Well, you just did. You just did. Sorry. Good job. Well, I'm talking about Luigi Mario, of course. Obliquely, yes. So yes, Marge is looking for petitions and money,

and she gets offers for both in our next clip here. Save our families! Sign our petition! The only petitions that I sign are to bring back cancelled sitcoms. Thank you. America needs the wisdom of Herman's head now more than ever. Well, howdy, ma'am. I represent the tobacco lobby. And, Franklin, no politics gets done in this country without a little help from us. Oh! Now we own you!

But I haven't endorsed it yet! Football injury. Now why don't you just sign the check? Here, use my pen. Forget it. Ah! I guess no one gives a damn about the American family anymore. I'll sign your petition.

Mr. Burns? You care about children? Yes, particularly the supple young organs. Oh, unfenced backyard pools. Where would I be without you? Hey, if Burns is signing that petition, maybe we should too. Yeah, rich guys always want what's best for everyone. That Burns line, incredibly dark.

They're really sticking it to kids. This time a joke about children accidentally drowning in pools. I know. Being a rich source of organs for Mr. Burns. Making you imagine a drowned child, and then right after that, another great line that feels realer than ever,

like rich guys always want what's best for everyone so good believe it I also like that they make Hank Azaria say Herman's head to remind everyone he was on Herman said he played Jay a Herman's friend at work and Hank Azaria not a fan of his time on that show but I will quote him at least I'm not one of the guys in the head that's what he said to get through his time on Herman said another commentaries he said to get through his time on Herman's head. Okay. I think another commentaries he said that when somebody comes up to him and says like,

oh man, I love you, like on the Simpsons and Herman's head, the two greatest shows ever, like he then realized he thinks like, oh, I had to throw away your entire opinion on my career. I didn't expect that to be the end of that one-liner from Comic Book Guy. The only petitions I sign are, I mean, I could think of so many other, you know, places that that could go for petitions that Comic Book Guy would sign that are maybe more relevant to his own field of interest. But I guess in 2000, I feel like 20 years later, it would be written as a different joke. Yeah, it feels like a roundabout reference to Star Trek, the original series.

There was a big fan write-in movement to get the show renewed for a third season. I think that's kind of like an oblique reference to that, but they wanted to kind of poke fun at Hank's areas, his sordid past. It was a relatively fresh thing too, in that at the time I remember this too, because when we covered the Eltingville Club cartoon on an older podcast, they have a joke in it about a writing campaign to get a Sulu Star Trek show made because he got a pilot. There was that letter writing campaign. Also around this time for Fox, there would have been the letter writing campaign and online letter writing campaign to bring back Firefly

as well. And then in a few years, the rest of development. Exactly, yeah. That was the era in general of like, Fox creates a bunch of shows that are like, take chances and very well reviewed. And then basically you spend years as a fan of those shows, begging them to return. And now every show returns all of the time,

except for Herman's Head. Yeah, meanwhile, Herman's Head, no home media release, not streaming anywhere. Like the star power of Yardley Smith and Hank Kazari cannot get that show anywhere. Maybe they're personally burying it, who knows. Right, right, right. So maybe it was a Herman's head joke,

because I almost feel like even given the timeframe, like canceled science fiction programs, you know? It's mainly to mess with him, I think. I was also reminded of this because like, this month was the 15th anniversary of the whole Conan loses the tonight show thing. And I remember I cared very much about that. Like I'm sure we all were back then.

It was that in community. I was worried both of those things wouldn't have TV shows anymore. I know Conan is the king of podcasts. And yeah, see if we supported him and now he's our direct competition. And meanwhile, we just pity Jay Leno for all of his falling down and getting set on fire. Yeah, he is indestructible. Have you heard that theory that these are not accidents and it's about outstanding gambling debts of his? Have you heard of this?

I've heard it. I refuse to believe it because he's famously cheap. He famously has never touched his tonight show money. That's the story anyways. It's a fun conspiracy at least. Oh, and also I have to, as much as we love John Beatty, I do have to say this is kind of copying a joke from an episode of The Critic he wrote.

He wrote a Siskel and Ebert episode of it, a great episode of The Critic, and in that there is a reviewer who applies to Siskel to replace Ebert, and he transforms into the devil as after he's complimenting Disney films. That's right. You're Satan, aren't you? Yes. Good tobacco lobbyist joke. That's good for the time. That's, again, very of the time.

I would guess the tobacco industry still has lobbyists. They've been hobbled a bit. The AI lobbyists. I'm sure they've got their foot on the neck of government now. Well, the tobacco lobbyists are, yeah, I mean, I think they're still there. They're lobbying against a flavored right. Oh yeah. Oh, that's true.

Though actually I would guess the best tobacco lobby is probably to switch teams to be those AI lobbyists now if they haven't already died of lung cancer. Of course we get a spinning headline and another great headline gag to it here. Second headline, less important study show. Yeah. I mean, it's getting harder and harder to write these, but I do like a joke about the actual headline. And for the third time we check in with Kent as this also feels very 2004

because it's the news just playing an ad, a political ad, as I saw for like the swift boat veterans for truth would have us just get ads played on the news as a news story later in that year. But in this case is's anti-Marge propaganda. Coming up later, what your dog can tell you about your prostate. But first, Marge Simpson's Families Come First initiative seems to be gaining steam, leading her opponents to counter with this commercial. As a mother, I love my family. That's why I'm against the Families Come First initiative.

Families Come First will hurt families. And I love my family too much for that. I'm March Simpson, and even I'm against Families Come First. Now it's time to do some coke off the blade of a knife. That hand makes me look like a criminal. Why did you appear in it? That wasn't me. Maybe she was you and you're not. How many kids do we have? Three. Wrong lady. Oh wait, the baby. One of many times Homer forgets that Maggie exists when he's counting his children.

The dog isn't a baby. It's great Homer calls her lady. Wrong lady. Any Marge impression is funny. This sounds like Nancy Cartwright doing a Marge voice. The design of the fake Marge looks so specific as to be somebody. Like they hired, I don't know, Tom Arnold or something. Though these ads, they still are happening. These types of ads are, I'm the person

this law seemingly is for, and I don't want it. And it's usually like the one I just saw that were all around Washington last year were actors or even maybe somebody who really is a nurse saying, I am a nurse and I don't want this law that helps nurses. I don't think you should pass it. Well, you got to find that person. It's like the one out of five dentists that prefer their patients to sugar gum. They're out there somewhere. The joke about like what your dog can tell you

about your prostate is not funny, except it is funny because of the line read, you know what I mean? Like because of the performance and the, what your dog can tell you about your prostate. Yeah, I like the little thoughtful noise he makes afterwards. Yes, yeah, exactly.

And that really like sells the whole thing. It's a very strange episode. I don't know if this is that you guys have been, you know, obviously you're watching every episode in order. So it's like, contextually, is this weirder than the ones that is surrounding it? Are we just going to that place with the Simpsons right now? But it's so full of this constant string of non sequiturs with plot sort of barely holding it all together.

It's very funny, but it's just it's very loose. It's very loose and unexpected in a lot of ways. I think there is a good through line in this episode and a lot of this era has a hastily rewritten third act with a very crazy set piece and although this episode ends in a strange way it does kind of naturally follow from the beginning and I think it was all just there in John Vede's pitch and they didn't wanna alter that. So I like that it feels consistent throughout, at least whatever they're trying to do here.

I think that Vede said the biggest stuff that Gene cut from it that he complimented out, Gene, for doing was that he said that there was even more complaining about children in adult spaces stuff, even more grousing about it. And then also in very traditional Simpsons form, we reset back in the bedroom, Marge and Homer talking about the problem in bed.

Though this also is like the, basically the trade off to Captain Wacky. Like this has been Marge's plan, and now it's like, well, what could Homer give to this here? Like, let's see Homer do something. I do remember when I watched this new, these political ad parodies that I do think are funny, they don't hit so good because I was watching

so much Daily Show at this time. Like, I had seen so many political ad parodies that like, Simpsons getting to it felt, if not late to the party, at least like, repetitive. Like, I see it every day on Daily Show. It's a hard format to innovate within. You have to it felt, if not late to the party, at least like repetitive. Like I see it every day on the Daily Show. It's a hard format to innovate within. You have to be very, very good. And this is still pretty funny.

There's a few things I like about it, but yeah, it doesn't really elevate the format. I do like what we're talking about. Like I promise this rock will weigh you down the rest of your life. Like just, they're describing a bad relationship, but they love it. Also is like no one messes with my missus.

I like that. That's good wordplay. Yeah, yeah. Nice punmanship, or... And also, the responsibility of the bigger spouse to finish the meal of the smaller spouse. That's important in every relationship. So, Homer decides he's going to do the political ad, which I guess he's going to spend all of Mr. Burns' donation money on it. That's where they got the budget for it. I assume so. This seems very low budget.

Let's hear the start of Homer's great commercial. Here comes my commercial in six, five, four... I probably should have watched it first. You've probably heard a lot of bad things about families come first, but newspaper writers are a bunch of jerks. Who really opposes families come first? Many childless advocates are like Ben Affleck, famous successful people from... out of state!

They live in fancy houses in other places. Families come first is supported by lifelong Springfieldians you know and trust. Like me, Milhouse's dad, Bumblebee Man, Surly Duff, and that jerk that goes, yes! For more information, visit our website, www.aljazeera.com. We're not affiliated, we're just piggybacking on their message board.

I am Rudy Giuliani. Do as I command you. There's a lot. A lot has changed. Although that there may music should be just playing whenever Rudy Giuliani appears. Yes. In any situation. That should remain the same.

There's a lot of back there, but yeah, I guess let's start with the old Rudy. You have to remember. Yeah, okay. I'll let you start at the beginning. No, I mean, yeah, you have to remember like it may be younger listeners might not remember this. There was a time America in a bipartisan way loved Rudy Giuliani and greatly respected him and thought he would be the next president. Like this is written when they're like, well, he's going to be the president. He'll be the guy to follow Bush as the next Republican. And now he's actively leaking black goo.

We're worried about him. Well not really but in a general sense. Every news story when I tried to look for recent headlines there's a new news story every day of a new degradation of him in one of his many lawsuits of either defamation or election tampering or him losing his homes or being told get out of this condo because you lost it to this person you lost a lawsuit to. Also I just read that apparently, this was a good headline, that the other day he just got a very rare double contempt,

as in he was found in contempt in two separate lawsuits in the same week. Oh a combo, nice. Those stack. But at this time they thought, oh yeah, everybody loves Rudy Giuliani. But at this time they thought, oh yeah, everybody loves Rudy Giuliani. And then like three years later,

he's on the show as well. He appears in the episode, Stop or My Dog Will Shoot. That's gonna be a fun one to cover. Where will Giuliani be at when we cover that one in like 2028? I'm pointing down, I'm pointing down. Yes, he'll be in Florida, Bob, yes.

In 2004, I think most Americans would view Al Jazeera as, oh, that's the terrorist news company, that they make terrorism news. And I should remind people that in 2001 when we invaded Afghanistan, we did a little whoopsie with a missile and blew up their headquarters. I don't think anyone was there at the time, but a lot of baggage to Al Jazeera stuff. I want to think people have been more enlightened about the company since then or the organization since then. I want to think people have been more enlightened about the company since then or the organization since then. I feel like people view it as a more legitimate, certainly online where, well, in my bubble, it feels like, especially in the last year

and a half, that Al Jazeera has been treated as more of a legitimate news source that is reporting on things from the ground level that you're not seeing from other venues and in places like Gaza or but in other parts of the world too. But at the time Al Jazeera was like there's a great documentary from then called The Control Room about Al Jazeera and interviewing a lot of the people and also interviewing Donald Rumsfeld about how much he hated Al Jazeera then. Yeah, just to let people know you didn't want to hear the words Al Jazeera with a thing you were trying to sell as a proposition you should vote for. That's the joke that's happening there. Also I love a reference to Surly Duff. Great to hear his name come up in the show.

Also in-universe, Homer does a perfect impersonation of the Yes Guy. I think only setting him up so you're not wondering who he is when he appears because he has not made too many appearances over the years. And him Homer walking and talking, it's laid out very funny. It is a good capturing of a certain type of political ad back then. However, I have to say that in season two of Family Guy airing in April 11th, 2000, they did this same joke with Peter Griffin with the jacket over his shoulder and then walking and stopping In his own political ad hmm. I guess it's just a very common move in a political ad I would be making fun of family guy in a reverse situation. So just like Marge. I must respect my opponents and play fair here

Henry do you have Homer's statement about firefighters? I think it'd be even more shocking in this current time period. Yes, so this is the ironically timed deleted scene from this. Here's a scene they cut then for taste reasons. Now, any questions? Haven't Springfield's firefighters come out against the Families Come First initiative? That's right. Firefighters. The thievingest cowards of them all. If you hate firefighters as much as I do, vote for families come first. Now look, the irony of the joke is then, everybody is after 9-11, everybody loves firefighters

and Homer doesn't realize that coming out against firefighters is very bad for him politically. And I guess going back to Giuliani real quick, his picture would appear after a lot of political ads with him saying, I'm Rudy Giuliani and I support this as just like a kind of jump scare. Yes. Yeah. As a stamp of approval, political jump scare. But now of course, especially at the time we are recording this in January of 2025, jokes about firefighters, especially in a, by a bunch of Los Angeles comedy writers, like has a different feeling to it, unfortunately, of irony for, you know, there's a very bad blaze that has affected even some Simpsons writers right now.

So sadly ironic at this time. I do love the image from the deleted scene of Homer shaking his fist at the camera to like, you know, like he really hates firefighters and calls them thieves, but they chose to cut it because they feared the irony might not be understood by viewers back then. So after that, barge reflects on what a bad commercial this was, though, as she admits, she should have watched it at any point. Yeah.

The commercial was going okay for a while. He demonized their opponents as being out of touch, rich people from out of state, which I thought was a great line, which is hilarious because it's literally just the goings on of this like one ridiculous small town. Then of course he loses it in the back half basically, right? He almost had it for a second.

Marge lets Homer know all of the things he did wrong in this. It says yes on 232. We want no on 232. Yes on 242. Either way, the important thing is the system works. And the bumper stickers misspelled on. They all say yes, no, 242. And it's the night before the election, and you haven't handed them out. Ha ha. Hm. I need to be alone right now.

Marge, wait! I am Rudy Giuliani. You must forgive Homer. I am Rudy Giuliani. You must forgive Homer. I am... Bart, we're gonna lose. We have to do something.

Lise, kids are the problem. Maybe kids can be the solution. OK, but how? Hey, I'm the visionary. You come up with the nuts and bolts. Hmm. Oh, my god! I just had my most brilliant idea ever!

Don't you mean my most brilliant idea ever? You don't even know what the idea is. I know you have an ugly face. Bart, why are we fighting? Because we're kids. Kids, maybe that's the answer. Ugh. Love the circular nature of that argument.

Bart forgetting and then just stumbling upon the same idea again and not really explaining it. He has his aha moment twice. And this also feels like a great throwback to like season three where Bart and Lisa brainstorm things and they're gonna solve the problem but it's really just Lisa doing all the work and Bart taking the credit for it. It's nice. Sometimes I complain that like oh this was Marge's story and now she's leaving her own story but I do kind of like all the family has a role to play in the

resolution too. And the kids decide election tampering is the way to solve this problem. Now, I mean, this joke worked then and now post 2020, like I'm more scared of germ filled children than ever before. Al Jean says this was the same bit in the script. This actually seems pretty rare at this time of like, oh, Al Jean didn't, he especially gets nervous on those third acts and he would

change those third acts so much. So I think this is a outlier for the time of not changing the ending of the episode. You know, in the commentary they don't say it, but like this is the ending of the War of the Worlds, right? Like, yeah. The 1953 version, which is why Lisa invokes the name of God, which she normally wouldn't as a Buddhist. But yeah, God's lowliest creatures, that's a reference to what happens at the end of that movie where the aliens are killed by germs or whatever. The coda to that movie has been erased from my mind because when I was trying to find, like, okay, what's Lisa quoting here? My first thought was like, oh yeah, from the Spielberg

one where I think it's Morgan Freeman who gives the big speech at the end about, you know, oh, isn't it ironic kind of thing. But that's a year away from this is the Spielberg one where I think it's Morgan Freeman who gives the big speech at the end about you know Oh, isn't it ironic kind of thing? But that's a year away from this is the Spielberg War of the Worlds which also is very 9-eleven era II You go on the Universal Studios tour in California. You can see the downed plane from that movie Chris Have you've seen this plane? I have yes. I have seen that. It's pretty neat You need to remind me of it, but it's like, we're on the tour, oh yeah, okay, down plane, okay, yep. Yeah, so here the kids launch into their plan as we get a happy ending that also kind of says, who cares?

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love glue! I love you! Aw, glue! I love you!

Aw, such a sweet little thing. Time to destroy your future. Feeling... ...fluish. Fever... ...nausea... ...child germs... No! Must!

Participate in! Democratic! Pro! ...cess. Ooh. Ah! I'm afraid the polls have closed. And on Prop 242, the winner is... Yes! Oh!

For all their disposable income, for all their leisure time, they had no immunity against God's lolliest creatures, children. Looks like everything's back the way it was, which is the only way it should ever be. Great, let's dump these kids in an R-rated movie while we go someplace nice. Can I bring my laser pointer? Why do I care?

I should be saying that one more. It looks like everything's back to the way it was, which is the only way it should ever be. March fears change and also they're in a sitcom that has to reset constantly. So it makes sense. And those crazy Springfield polls closing in the mid afternoon, seemingly. All 10 voters were downed. I know some random person inside announces the results in person having observed all the ballots. I don't know, yeah. Do you still vote in elementary school?

I've never voted in an elementary school. I remember in my childhood, my elementary school sometimes was home to voting. It was used for election day. When I last voted in Berkeley, I voted in a former elementary school that was now like an adult learning center. So it was very elementary school coded

It did feel like I was back in kindergarten or whatever See in the Berkeley where I used to vote. It was like a hollowed-out old male I think a post office like the old no way No, maybe it was a there is an old government building but whatever it was It was hollowed out and empty a thing that used to be part of a working government that no longer exists They lose instantly from it just because they were all felled by children. But I get, it's a fun position of like, okay, how are parents stronger than people without children? And it is that they have an immunity to children germs while meanwhile singles,

the childless are brought down by them instantly. I do love Moe's, like almost Shatner level acting of like must get to like that's good. That's almost like Batman 66 it is Batman like you have to get to utility belt that kind of thing. You're right Yeah, I feel like it is VD channeling his love for Adam West Batman VD has said in the past that he like It's just so much in his writing mind that he'll make a Batman reference without thinking about it It just is how he does it and hey if you got your DVDs listen that commentary if you want to hear It's just so much in his writing mind that he'll make a Batman reference without thinking about it. It just is how he does it. Hey, if you got your DVDs, listen to that commentary.

If you want to hear John Vede imitate the Riddler's laugh, he does a good job of it. It's good. It's good. I approve. Also, hey, laser pointers in movie theaters. That seems like it's a thing. Kids don't have laser pointers anymore, right? Kids don't have laser pointers anymore.

I think I would take that over everyone checking their phones to see what time it is during the movie. Like yeah, you're at a movie, stop looking at your damn phone, just think that you're going to be here until the credits start rolling. I feel like it's not even people actively talking to someone. It's like, what time is it? Okay. The kids in the movie theaters aren't even the problem anymore. It's the adults in the movie theaters. I guess also if you're pointing a laser dot on the screen, you're at least looking at the screen. So you're engaged in that way.

Yeah. Maybe they're trying to point out things the director wants me to see. Like, hey, check out the blocking here. Though. The mise en scene. Yeah, I think the last time, you know, I haven't had a bad movie experience

that lasts like five or six times, but last year when I saw the newest Kong versus Godzilla movie, that was where a guy guy behind me not only did his phone ring, but he did answer it and talk for about two minutes I cannot believe that Yeah, I'm trying to hear King Kong King Kong's in trouble. He might not be Godzilla this time if we don't pay attention. I Guess we're doing final thoughts I want to say that the raffy parody is incredibly dated but there are so many elements of this that feel like old Simpsons

To me and that's probably because John VD is at the helm and I do respect what he does and not just because he talked To us for an hour a couple years ago I think he's a great writer and this has a lot of the hallmarks of what he does best So I feel like this is a standout season 15 episode. I think it comes from a good place of satire. It's very steeped in its time, though not in a bad way, I don't think really. I think the animation is all right, not the best of the season. The next episode is my favorite animated of the season, really. But this one, it's all right animation.

My lowest points in it were just the things I've been whining about this whole season is just too many music montages that have diminishing returns. And you know, the whole Altamont baby thing and dated roofy stuff is a little like it would have worked in 1992. And maybe John Vee had been sitting on this roofy character since 1992 and now can finally use it. But the satire I think holds up pretty well. The endless war of the childless versus families. There's parents out there who are appreciative of the fact we understand that our children might be a bother in public spaces, but we do it anyway because we, please, we're just desperate to get out of the house.

Like we need to feel like we're part of a functioning society. And really, you know, I mean, in post pandemic, I think a lot of young people aren't really leaving their house anymore at all. Right. I mean, they're not dating. They just sort young people aren't really leaving their house anymore at all, right? I mean, they're not dating. They just sort of stay in the house and order DoorDash. So it's really just a playground for those of us with kids now.

So I think that ultimately I feel like we've won. We're out there with our kids, we're trashing the place and you're not even really there to see us do it. But it's like, we have to get out of the house. We have to take these kids out of the house because otherwise we're stuck in here with them and you don't want that either that's a pressure cooker that you don't want to be around when that explodes I'm trying to enjoy my smoked porter and there's a baby next to me that's what I say at the brewery thank you so much for coming

back to the show Chris let us know where we can find you online and more about what's Always a pleasure. Love hanging out with you guys virtually. TGF – Let us know where we can find you online and more about what's going on with Digital Eclipse. I know you guys have a lot of great releases. Tetris Forever, especially one of the newer ones. Jeff Minter – I mean, we just had a crazy year. We released so much stuff over the course of the year that looking back at the beginning of the year, it's like, oh right, we released Llamasoft, the Jeff Minter story, our total remake of First Wizardry.

And then at the end of this year, yeah, we had Tetris Forever, we had Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Rita's Rewind, which we're still, you know, tweaking and, you know, making some updates to that you're going to see in the near-ish future as well. So that's still kind of happening. And again, talking about children's entertainment of the 1990s, that was a fun one to work on. Then we're just getting stuff ramped up for 20 25 and projects are starting and you know things are happening It's good to have work. It's good to have contracts coming in. It's good to have things actually happening. Yep I'm excited for whatever comes next from digital eclipse like you guys have been doing so so much great work Yes, you can play old games and learn about them and I support both things. Thank you very much. I appreciate that

I love doing it I love being able to get that game history into the interactive format of a game is something that I think people have been sort of thinking about for a really long time, like how do we, we're doing it and we're, you know, hopefully, you know, in the next year we're gonna be experimenting with like even more interesting ways, you know,

to possibly do that. The future is, the future is looking bright and I'm very excited. So thank you for, thanks for the compliments. Thank you so much, Chris. And for putting up with all of our, my especially like annoying questions about being an ad. No, no problem.

Again, I realize why I'm here. I'm happy to play that role and bring that perspective to these discussions for sure. Thanks again to Chris Kohler for being on the show. Please check out all he's doing over at Digital Eclipse. They do great work. As for us, if you want to support the show, get these episodes ad free one week at a time, and then access over 200 full-length miniseries

episodes, head on over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Sign up for five bucks a month, you get just that. Again, ad-free episodes one week ahead of time and then access to our vast, vast back catalog of miniseries episodes. We've covered things like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman the Animated Series, and The and the critic and signing up for five bucks a month also gets you new monthly episode of Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill and the second you sign up for five bucks a month you get access to everything we made behind that paywall for the past seven and a half years if you like hearing us talk about cartoons there is so much going on at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and

there is a $10 a month level when you sign up for that you'll only $5 stuff but also access to one super super large podcast once a month only for patrons at that level. What's going on there Henry? Bob's talking about the what a cartoon movie podcast which if you're a listener on our feeds You just got to hear an example of that in full our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 podcast where we talked for nearly six hours in an in-depth super history and Dissection of that film and each month you get a brand new one of those is basically a triple-length podcast On top of all the other ad-free stuff you get from Talking Simpsons

And if you sign up this month, you're gonna get to hear us talk about the first animated feature film asterisks That's a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bob pulled together an amazing history for that. Last month we talked about Frozen, the huge Disney film that started a whole new era for the company and we have covered so many films including not just Disney stuff but also things like Eight Crazy Nights or Space Jam or Shrek or a lot of Studio Ghibli films or all of the Toy Story movies There's so many there six whole years worth I can't list them all but you gotta check it all out at patreon.com Slash Talking Simpsons today to get that ad free in addition to all of the great five dollar things

Bob just mentioned too. And yes, I've been one of your hosts Bob Mackie You can find me on twitter as Bob Serbo and and also Blue Sky as Bob Servo, and hell, everywhere else as Bob Servo. It's probably me. And if you wanna hear other podcasts I do, I also do the podcast RetroNauts. That's a classic gaming podcast about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts, or go to patreon.com slash RetroNauts,

and sign up there for an additional two bonus episodes every month that are also full length. Henry, how about you? I remain H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter, but of course on Blue Sky and Instagram, I'm Talking Henry. You'll see me posting up a lot in all of those places, sharing my thoughts and promoting the stuff we're doing.

But if you want to stay in the loop about everything that me and Bob do, you should be following at Talk Simpsons Pod on all of those places, because at Talk Simpsons Pod keeps you in the loop with Patreon releases, with free feed releases releases if we've got a live show if new merch comes out to public thing any of that you stay up to date if you follow at talk Simpsons pod on blue sky Twitter or Instagram and of course head over to talking Simpsons calm for all the free podcasts we've released thanks so much for joining. We'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast, Talk to the Audience, and we will see you then. One, two, tie your shoe.

Three, four, pick up C floor. Five, six, don't play tricks. Seven, eight, clean your plate. Nine, 10, it over again! From now on, children acting up in public places will be lightly tased. Mommy, pick me up! I wasn't kidding. And in downtown Springfield, a statue is being erected to America's most misunderstood hero, the Deadbeat Dad. That's all?

Just a statue? This country makes me sick.