Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Mobile Homer

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

"These are my new friends! They like me for me... and my plumbing and gas hookups." - Homer Simpson When Marge forces the family to scrimp and save beyond reason, a resentful Homer drops the family's entire nest egg on an RV. Will their marriage withstand the fallout from this major purchase? Listen in, and try to contain yourself over the long-awaited return of Cowboy Bob. 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. Hoy, ho, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons where we feast on Oriental Mustards. I'm one of your host, the loveless, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Sitting around Googling my own name until lunch, Henry Gilbert. And this week's episode is Mobile Homer.

Did you spend our savings on a motor home? No. I spend our savings on the down payment for a motor home. I need a castle where I can be king. Well, I hope you enjoy it, your majesty. Because I'm not speaking to you. This episode originally aired on March 20th, 2005. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

The Ring 2 tops the box. Office, the PlayStation Portable is released in the United States, and the Greg Daniels developed United States version of The Office debuts on NBC. Oh, how nice. Well, one of these things is notable. And, yes, The Office. I watched a lot of it during the pandemic for the first time because my wife does enjoy the office.

And she is or was a listener to Office Ladies, a podcast that's stealing our bit. Yes. I kid, I kid. It was so big that, like, didn't Kevin from the Office also start his own? own competing, well, not competing, but... Oh, it's like Mr. Plow and Plow King. He's taking shots at them. Yes, the office, an American workplace.

I did watch it when he was brand new because I was a fan of the office, the UK original, and remain a fan of Ricky Jervais, to this day. What a genius. This is how things change. I, like many people, I was resistant to this because I thought,

well, this will have none of the charm of the Ricky Jervase original. He is a genius, a singular comedy genius. And then that all fell off a cliff after extras. I do like extras. He had some juice in him. And I think it was mostly Stephen Merchant who was providing the juice. I read a recent accounting of an interview

Trace just did where he's talking about the office and people know merchant isn't mentioned once in it. And it seems like I think if they had a falling out, I definitely think Jervais has noticed that people are crediting merchants. They're like, oh, once you stopped writing with merchants, you

became like really shitty and not funny. It turns out his real personality bled through and all of his work to follow. And hey, he's got his own Simpsons episode coming up, folks. So we're going to talk all about Mr. Jervase. Those first six episodes of the American office were a little rough, as I remember. The first episode, if I've rewatched old offices, they are season two onwards. So, but I remember the first episode is almost like beat for beats, like 80% the same as the first episode of the UK office. Yeah, people, so I didn't watch the first season. People seem to be very dismissive of it,

but I did watch the famously bad for a season of Parks and Rec. And I thought that was fine. People or treating that like it was my mother the car or something. And it's just like, well, not everything worked, but it was still a very pleasant, funny sitcom. I never watched the entire run of that show. But I think the first season of Parks and Rec at least is a bit underrated. The funny thing in Parks and Rec season, too, is that they have to spend the entire season actively making characters different

than they were established to be in the first season. Like, almost every character changes where they were as their character game by the middle of the second season. It's very straight. And then they just write out, one guy who just can't work anymore in the world they built. Yeah, and yet they never gave Rashida Jones character a personality or any traits. She is Leslie Knope's friend.

That's her personality. The American Office, though, it was funny in the first season, but I think it grows to be a great show that I heard this statistic of somebody point this out that if you think the UK office is better, the American Office, just through sheer volume of great episodes, there are more great episodes of the Office U.S. version than the UK version, thus like making it the better option to. watch or something, that it's competition. And Greg Daniels is also working on King of the Hill in some capacity during these years. I'm sure he might be just checking in with them, but King of the

Hill has like five years left when the office begins. That's how long King of the Hill ran. And watch King of the Hill closely like we do. You notice in the pre-office years, it is full of office people as writers and actors on it, like all throughout it, especially like Toby's actor is one of the main writers for the series. Yeah, Paul Lieberstein, correct? Yes. Oh, and also there is a Simpsons connection, of course, too, in it that he, in the very first episode, they replace a joke that's about a stuffed toy that was some viral

UK character thing. And it's a stuffed Homer that is in the office that, you know, is approved by Gracie and Disney to be there. And so throughout the whole series, you will see a stuffed Homer in there. It's there in the first episode as a Greg Daniels self-reference to his own

work on the Simpsons. It's a nice little tribute. So we have the Ring 2. I've never seen the Ring 2. I feel like this is not a popular film. Here's the thing. I did see the ring one and I saw Ringu and I think the ring, the American remake, is a better film, more effective. But maybe that's because I am not steeped in the culture where Ringu came out first. By the way, you can just call it ring. It's fine. Ringu, it's psychic stuff is a little like, it wants you to buy into, I remember having a problem a little bit with it too comparatively narrative wise because it's like buy into the magic ring and then also on top of that like psychics are real too and psychic powers are. reel, which is also just like the shining. It's psychics versus magic, pretty much. But Japan at the time, and possibly still today, they're like really into things like ESP and telekinesis. There was just a new age psychic bubble and that infested so much anime and TV shows and

movies and books and manga. So I think this was the tail end of it when this came out in Japan, the original. But yeah, it's fine. But man, the Gore Vibinsky Ring is amazing. I need to watch it again. It's been very, very long time for me. What is an interesting conceptually about the ring, too, though I haven't seen. seen the American Ring 2 either, is that it is directed by Hadeo Nakata, the director of Ringu one and two. So it's like the creator of the series then gets to make the American sequel to the remake of his own series, which that as a concept is interesting. You know what? This was a popular film. I'm looking at the box office and it made like three times, more than three times a small budget.

So that's a good, and like people are coming back like Naomi Watts came back for this one. I barely knew this even existed, so maybe I'll watch the Ring 2 one day. And the film at beat at the box office was Ice Princess. What the hell is this? It's a Michelle Tractenberg Disney film about competitive ice skating. Kim Katrall is her coach. I believe Joan Kusack is her, like, mom in it, I think. Yeah.

Hey, RAPE.P. Mm-hmm. Michelle Tractonberg. It was her probably biggest, like, solo film. She was, well, maybe Harriet the Spy. Maybe that. And yes, the PlayStation Portable launched with the Luminous, Metal Gear Acid and Ape Escape on the loose.

And so I put together a episode of Retronauts about the PSP, maybe like a little over a decade ago. And like with the GameCube, it astounded me to learn how much of a failure this platform was. I thought, like, oh, some people liked it. No, it turns out it had basically one Christmas and then the DS completely knocked it out of the water. But the PSP hung on with its claws until like 2012.

There were still releases coming out for it that late. I suppose I should have looked up. What were the launch UMD? of movies with it too, but maybe they didn't have launched at UMDs. No Spider-Man 2 yet. Or Jackass 1.5. Also, this overshadowed it in the game releases, but this same week,

God of War for the PS2 came out, the very first Cretus video game, too. Oh, wow, okay. So we're making that into a TV series that's just been put on hiatus because Cretus tore his bicep in Vancouver. It can happen to the best of us. It's hard to be the actual Cratos in real life

without tearing a bicep. I know when it happens to pro wrestlers, it takes months and months. So instead of delaying their film, Sony is just recasting the guy, and I guess they're just going to refilm everything they already filmed with the first Cretos. And I will say that I have a tiny story about the PSP, because I ended up getting one like five years later, because I was freelancing for OneUp.com, a website I'd eventually work for,

and they asked me, do you want to review Metal Gear Snake Eater? It's a new Metal Gear game. And I said, well, I don't have a PSP, but I'm self-destructing, so I'll buy one and barely make any profit on writing this review. It just was an excuse to write a review of a Metal Gear game. I order my PSP. I get an email back from my editor the next day. Oh, Jeremy Parrish says he wants to review this one.

We'll give you something else. Jeremy, you son of a bitch. Well, guess what? Together we've made more than that review cost with Retronaut, so I've forgiven him. But still, he scooped me. Wow, he got scooped by Jeremy. Oh, boy.

And knowing Jeremy and his voluminous amount of work that he did then in reviews, I feel like he probably took that on top of a DM. game he was also reviewing that week. It was probably one of, like one portion of 200,000 words he was writing that week. But hey, I love Snake Eater. I bought it anyways. And I love Metal Gear 5, which is really based on the sort of Snake Eater format. Or sorry, not Snake Eater, Peace Walker.

I might have said Snake Eater earlier and I apologize. Peace Walker is the PSP game. And now this summer, the Metal Gear Solid 2, Volume 2 collections coming out and Peace Walker will be playable again on modern platforms. I love that game. And Metal Gear 4, with all of its PlayStation 3 references, will also be playable on non-Playstation 3s.

Yes, will I be able to listen to the Metal Gear Solid 3 podcast? Or sorry, four podcasts. There's too many of these games, and they all have complicated names I can't remember anymore. Sorry. But that's all the fun stuff that was happening in the week. This episode of The Simpsons aired. And hey, speaking of fun stuff, we have a director's corner before we get to this very hateful episode about spouses who can't stand each other. And director of this episode is Raymond S. Percy.

Let's talk about him. Well, I will say his claim to fame is something that we've covered very recently on this network, because he is the voice of Flash, the lovable sloth from the Zootopia series. It's a movie he didn't work on as an artist, but he was in the studio. He had worked on Recit Ralph and a few other things. He's also the voice of Gene and Recit Ralph,

and if you listen to the commentary track with Raymond on it, he has a funny voice. So it makes sense. And he does a great job as Gene and Flash in those respective films. When we covered Recit Ralph, I've noticed just like how many people jumped from Simpsons to Disney

to work on Recit Ralph because it just like Rich Moore, he got hired. He hires Jim Reardon and his friends. And they also, because of just by working with Simpsons and Futurama people, they know all of the best people there who would love to work on their first feature film in a lot of their cases. And Lauren McMullen was another one who joined up and many others. But Raymond has become quite a superstar since his first Simpsons directing gig. It's true.

Let's go over his Simpsons work. He had been on The Simpsons for a very long time before he directed this episode. because he joined the show as a storyboard artist on Bart the Fink way back in season seven. And from there, he moved on to being a character layout artist and eventually assistant director under Lauren McMullen. So I have to assume he got into Disney because of his Lauren McMullen connection. He's a talented artist in his own right. But I'm sure these people know each other.

They want to keep working with each other. And that's the connection. I mean, he would become a top AD under Lauren McMullen. I would think because she trusts his ability and likes working with him the most. and so obviously would want to hire him as an artist working with him again on Reckett Ralph. It also sounded to me on the commentary when they brought up McMullen. It made me think that perhaps a reason Percy got his big break, nine years in on The Simpsons to direct,

was that McMullen exits at season 15. And so it opened up a new slot, and they went with her, perhaps, her best, distant director. Yeah, yeah, that sounds very likely. And so this is one of 10 episodes he directs through season 21, meaning he spent about 15 years on the show. So a very long time. I mean, that doesn't seem like a long time when the show runs for 40 years.

But, yes, spending 15 years on one television show should be considered a very long time to work on one series, period. It is funny that it seems short to me because so many Simpsons director corners you pull together, like, started as assistant character layout artist on the first episode. And then in season 12 got their first directing job. And apparently his season 17 episode will get to it in about a year or so, the seemingly never-ending story, that won an Emmy. So he worked on it. I think I remember it being a good one from that era, but we're going to find out again very soon. For that era, I remember it being a good one.

It is very complicated, tons of reconding of backstories. The main thing I remember from it is that it officially made Snake's name like Snake S. Jailbird, that is first and last name were Snake and Jailbert officially. We'll definitely grumble about that when the time comes. So his earliest work seems to be The Simpsons, but I'll pull out a few more notable things he's worked on. So he is the co-director of the 1999 music video for the Squirrel Nuts Zipper song, Ghost of Stephen Foster. So if you don't remember what that is, that is a cartoon music video that is done in the style of a Fleischer cartoon. It's amazing.

It's very, very well done. He co-directs that with future Simpsons director Matthew Nastic. So it's two Simpsons guys doing crazy Fleischer animation to a pretty fun song by a band whose name has not been mentioned in probably close to 26 years. I have to think I enjoyed them back in 1999 as a teen. I have to think I saw that music video, but it's not ringing any bells for me. I need to look this up now. I'm checking this out. So just to be clear, Squirrel Nut Zippers, they are not the Cherry Poppin Daddies or Big Bad Voodoo Daddy or Real Big Fish.

They're a different thing. Rising Tide of that musical era, let them all rise. And I'll say that, they were a fun band. They were a fun band. Yeah, yeah. Hey, my mom was something I can listen to with my mom happily together. So notably, Raymond Percy is also the co-director of the 2021 film Extinct, and the other director is David Silverman. So in case you're forgetting what this is, it is a Chinese co-production that's also written by Simpsons writers.

So it possibly could be worth checking out. Every time I've heard it, it goes right back out of my brain. But yeah, it sounded like it was just a giant pile of Chinese money that were like, hey, if you worked on a big American thing, make a thing with us. And then it just kind of got forgotten. I have to think with a 2021 release date, it must have been impacted by the COVID outbreak. I don't know if it went to theaters, but I have friends who've watched it and they said it's okay. So, I mean, you've got Silverman, you've got Percy, you've got a bunch of Simpsons guys. It could be a fun time, if not necessarily a notable time.

And so after leaving The Simpsons in 2010, he worked at Disney on films like Rickett Ralph, its sequel, Frozen, and a handful of shorts from the era, including, of course, get a horse because that's a McMullen directed short. Why wouldn't Percy work on it? It makes sense. And Silverman and Percy also, they have really fun chemistry on the commentary. They haven't only seem like he really looks up to and learned a lot from Silverman. Silverman seems like to be a fan of Percy's as well. Oh, yeah. So after spending some time in Minions World with the show Saturday morning Minions, it looks like his most recent role was directing a handful of peanut specials for Apple TV.

So it looks like he's out of Disney World, not the theme park, but the actual studio. and trying to do other things outside of that system. So, yeah, he's had a very long career dating back to, I guess, 1996, so 30 years in the animation industry. You know what? If his character, Flash the Sloth appears in any theme parks, then he might be forever living in Disney World or at least his voices. It's true, it's true.

And, yeah, that is the career of Raymond Percy, whose voice, if you're listening to this, you've heard his voice because you probably saw Zootopia and Zutopia, too. He seems like a cool dude and giving him a position like this, also at the time he was like a young gun given that slot. We have noted many times that it takes a while to move up the ladder to a directing position at the Simpsons. Like you have to wait a long time because they only have so many director positions per year and people stick around for a really long time at the Simpsons. But some people leave after only 15 years. Shame on you, Raymond.

Yes. Wanting to work in film instead at Disney. Boo. Well, this episode though, man, you're right, Bob. This is a dark time of The Simpsons. Like, this is where it feels like every writer was in a bad marriage. Yeah, there's a lot of divorced energy in this episode. In fact, it extends to the commentary where one writer, I won't say who it is, complains about his wife. Because in this episode, Marge wants the family to save money.

One writer on the commentary won't name him. He's still married to the woman he was married to back then, by the way. He says, boy, we all wish we had this problem, don't we folks? Our wives not wanting to spend money? I connected that with that writer as well in another episode, complained about his wife opening some new business. I remember too. To paraphrase him, I think he said,

I have to plug my wife's stupid store. Yes, they seem to be in happier place now when they do interviews, but it is almost the annual ritual that they do an episode of like Homer and Marge almost get divorced. But this one really does feel like Marge and Homer, even more so than like War of the Simpsons, these are personally mean. And like, it's hard to imagine a relationship coming back from the things they say and do to each other. in this. Yes. I guess they find a lot of humor in Marge and Homer like screaming at each other with these back and forth arguments that don't have a lot of context, but they return to that well a lot and I feel like every time it just gets uglier and uglier and I don't like to see them literally at each other's throats like this. Just like vicious with each other. And while I think Homer's reasonings and actions are realistic in that there are a lot of toxic men who act this way and I felt like he was saying things my father has said a couple times. I remember.

growing up. But while it could be realistic, to me, it is very hard to see this balance to, well, they're both wrong kind of thing. Like, Marge doesn't even go to any extremes because Homer goes to such insane extremes for jokes in every other episode that Marge is supposed to seem so extremely thrifty just doesn't read as extreme enough to match what Homer does.

Yeah, they're lucky this ends with an insane car chase and kidnapping because otherwise they'd have to resolve this in a more natural way. And I'm not sure how they would do that. To hear how it was pitched over time, and then Tim Long wrote it was that they said it was like a George Meyer pitch that had been sitting around of like for some reason, Homer gets a mobile home and lives in the backyard with it. But they also bring up the things they've joked about many times is Mike Reese, who was like a one day a week a guy at that point on the Simpsons being like notoriously cheap. Yeah. I'm not sure if I had extends this far, but I just was thinking of the Gilbert Godfrey documentary. and it might extend to that level.

Yes, yeah. And we mean that in no like cultural, stereotypical ways about Mike Reese. To paraphrase Mr. Berksstrom, some Jewish comedy writers spend money freely. Yes, exactly. Not Mike Reese, though. Even he jokes about it,

though it's funny to hear them tell the story on the commentary of when they joked about it more than Mike Reese liked and he got upset by it. Well, they tell one story that might not be true, but it sounds likely in that Mike Reese would be boxing up leftover rice from Chinese takeout. they would order and I was like well I could see him doing that but then like a false story was

spread about Mike Reese and that he and his wife they either found or they received a big bag of popcorn and they weren't allowed to bring it on the flight because it was too big so they decided to eat enough popcorn so it would fit onto the flight that's how cheap he and his wife supposedly are but Mike Reese found out about this I guess Tim Long was spreading this rumor and he was mad about it because he's not that cheap I guess he'll throw away surplus popcorn well it's funny too because he does a whole blog about it now and he's talked extensively about it. Mike Rees travels the world.

Sounds like he has been to almost every country, which sounds the joking premise of when he writes about it is his wife drags him to all these places he never wants to go to. So it sounds like she can spend all of this money and he's a very well-paid, rich writer, but that she gets to spend all this money on them going on trips together and then he tries to save money

in all other aspects of life. Yes. I don't know. I mean, I would walk back the rich writer thing because he retired before he was 40. And yes, he's done stuff after that, and I'm sure it's paid well. But the residuals he gets on his golden era Simpsons, I'm sure those are pre-union negotiations. I'm sure they are down to like pennies on the dollar now. That's true. I bet he gets paid very well for one day a week of Simpsons. Also, though, too, his usually uncredited storywriting stuff for, you know, minions films and Ice Ages. That's got to pay pretty good, too. But maybe that is what accounts for the frugality. Like he doesn't really make up for all the international travels. So he's got to eat the ramen every day between the trips with his wife that he writes about and podcasts about.

Well, speaking of a podcast, it was. We've heard a funny story that Mike Reese asked someone to buy him dinner after a podcast. And that it's like, I had to buy dinner for a millionaire. Yes. Hey, he might have one million. But who doesn't these days? I mean, come on, folks. Check your bank accounts.

It's fine. So it's born out of Mike Reese. Like Marge is doing Mike Reese things, basically. The cheapness that Marge is acting, and I guess is supposed to be related to Mike Reese, which also makes it like not as gendered as this episode does of like, oh, the woman tries to save money and the man wants to have fun.

I guess we're talking about like old comedy stereotypes. Like the Burns and Gracie or that type of thing is flighty dumb dames waste all the money while their smart husband make sure they don't spend the money. Yeah, I mean, that's like the Flintstones, right? Right? Because, and the opening of the Jetsons has George basically having his wallet stolen by his wife. Right. Which extends to the married with children opening where Al is giving money to everybody as they leave.

When we covered the Flintstones, I feel like the Great Gazoo episode we did, one of the opening scenes is like, Wilma is asking him to buy something. And he like literally looks to the audience and like, women, am I right? I mean, Betty and Wilma had a duo catchphrase. It was, da, da, da, da, da, charge it. Right. Because they're spending their husband's money. So hey, you know what? Maybe it's progressive on The Simpsons that Homer's the wasteful one and Marge is the one who is balancing the budget.

Sure, we can say that. But yes, it is a weird, they write themselves into a corner that they can only get out through Wackytown. And it's a problem, I think. There are lots of facts about the country of Turkey, though. Oh, and it's also funny, too, to hear that Al Jean said that, like, during movie production, that James L. Brooks, like, came to him and said, oh, these three episodes were really great.

As Gene remembers, it was this one, Googgyy Pan, and one other, which, and if it's on either side of it, then it means either the seven beer snitch or on a clear day I can't see my sister. And I have to think he means on a clear day. I don't want to think it's seven beer snitch. Yeah, I think his praise was even as high as it's some of the best you've ever done. That's wild. And I have to wonder if he fell down the stairs that month or hit his head or had a fever because they're not the worst things ever, but surely James L. Brooks. These are the best things ever. He was in his early 70s then, too, so a relatively spryed by James O'Brook standards.

So the opening of the episode, The Couchag, is Sideshow Bob's first appearance since Season 14's The Great Laos detective. And it's crazy because this Simpsons has the return of two notable Bob's from the past. Both who debuted in season one, folks, hold on your hats. Cowboy Bob is coming. Don't worry. It's a double Bob episode. This feels to me like they're revving back up the engines for the Italian Bob. next season because maybe the biggest Bob break in the series of like no Bob episodes for three years

basically between 14 and 17. Yeah, I guess Frazier wrapped up in 2004, so maybe that was keeping him busy. Yeah, he could still fit in some Frasers from time to time, but he definitely would have been wrapping up Frazier at that point. And who knows what was going on in his personal life? Also, something else was keeping him busy. I'm making a certain motion with my hand. It's the reason why no one came back for the reboot.

We start the episode with a fun Sunday drive. Is there anything more fun than a nice Sunday drive? Oh, yeah, it's great. Why don't we top it off by reading to old people? Well, I think in these days of petro-terrorists and ozone-nobletion, a Sunday drive reeks of bio-humorice. Hey, hey, it's Krusty the clown. What do you say, Krusty?

What? Can I get a cup of coffee without doing a monkey dance for you, freaks? The fishing hat means leave me alone. Oh, he's nice to see him. How did Dad get out of this snooze cruise? He's cleaning out the garage. I can picture it now. I cleaned out the garage and lost 50 pounds.

Yes, and in her fantasy, Homer has a thick, full head of hair. He's muscular and he has a shirt that says hunk or the hat says hunk. Yeah, and that the garage is entirely clean, which makes it even funnier when it cuts to how it really is. This next bit that's coming up, this garage cleaning bit, is something that Al Green would take with him as part of like a clip package he would take on the road. He's that proud of the garage cleaning. But it shows you how Al Jean, like many creators, they're haunted by the naysayers because there's one joke in the spider cleaning or the garage cleaning set piece that never got any laughs. And he's like, oh, I know I should have taken that out. So Al Jean, when you get a negative comment, don't take it out on yourself instead.

Imagine that person has been chopped up and fed to pigs. That's what I always do. It's so much more helpful. It stops from replaying. It's a fun sequence that Percy, even when this episode does make me laugh, even as I can complain about conceptually, like I think Percy is a great director who did find the funniest ways to execute jokes, which is your job as a Simpsons writer or animator. I like this set piece as a Homer hurts himself, Fatty Fall Down kind of joke festival. And I do like the joke, Spider Poison is People Poison? Yes.

There's a lot of fun in it. I like a boring marge opening that she thinks a Sunday drive is fun and she's just like doing the marge humming as she's driving around. Like though, of course, they have to like, I guess nobody tells her she's wrong so I don't feel justified in playing the jingle. But to make Lisa such a scold of biohubris right at the front, like they're bringing her down here. Yeah, I'm not sure what gas prices were like in 2005. Maybe they had recovered, but we don't see as many Sunday drives in 2026. I do also like the posing or laying out of how Bart and Lisa, when they trade lines like they're shoving Maggie off of, well, not shoving, but like removing Maggie from their shoulder to the others. That's a good, like, visual indicator of the dialogue switching between them.

And you know what? I have a fishing hat with the Krusty brand on it. The bucket hat. Do you wear it out when you don't want podcast listeners to bother you? Yes. When I go to conventions. The fishing hat, that is funny. It's like that just is a usually, at least in fiction, a visual indicator of like, leave me alone.

I don't want to be. In real life, it's like, I think, or at least based on like paparazzi photos are sunglasses plus a hat on a hot person. If a sexy person with sunglasses and a hat, leave them alone. And they're wearing their, I'm doing my laundry clothes. Yes. In Ben Affleck's case, walking around with Dunkin' Donuts also. Yeah. The hard cut to Homer in his.

I like all the details in the ugly garage, though. This is one of those things I think about how, like, God, if this was a season 30 onward episode, it would be cursed by HD detail. It's kind of busy here, but it would have to be, like, so much denser to current day. And everything would have a joke written on it, and I think they would tone down some of these crazy expressions, because I'm, like, I'm just going frame by frame on Frinkiac through this sequence. And Raymond Percy said he was inspired by the work from the early seasons, and he wanted to bring that to the show.

and I think he does succeed in some cases. In many cases, institutionally, he's not allowed to make things pop like they used to. But I think he manages to achieve within the boundaries of the art style in season 16. I think if he was trying to at least be more creative and break the rules to make funnier expressions, it is a smart in-road to do that when your supervising director is David Silverman. I want to be like, you guys. Hey, remember how great you guys were? But it's also a truthful statement.

He wants Homer to have bulging eyes or make facial expressions he normally is not allowed to do. I mean, when the garage door comes down on his neck, he turns purple, which is also a big Simpsons no-no. Don't make their faces change colors. They say that also it's funny, too, that he breaks all these rules. And then they say that Matt Graining loved the spider section too, which, like, it seems like it's full of things Mac Graining on a list doesn't like. Well, at least the spiders aren't acting like people. And no spider is harmed. That is a general macraining rule of like that if somebody tries to hurt an animal, they get hurt and the animal is fine.

That even goes for spiders. That's another good writing bit I like is that after Homer goes through all of this terror of spiders and spraying himself with spider poison, then after he falls down and sees another spider, he goes like, oh, a spider. Yes. I think at that point they've already been all over his face. And inside his throat, we see later too. So, yeah, and a very painful Homer fall. Like he loses oxygen to his brain, but his seemingly broken knee or torn ACL is fine after he's resuscitated.

And I guess a lot of this is also based on a Simpsons writer because John Frank apparently would injure himself in his own home in multiple ways. And at one point, his garage door came down on his foot and he couldn't free himself and he had to wait for someone to get home to retract the door. That's wild. Apparently they say at least it wasn't like horribly painful. But yes, that sounds terrible. to be trapped like that. I love it how Homer even they get away with almost like a Tom and Jerry

or Wiley Coyote like tiptoeing towards the thing a little bit. There's so many fun cartoony moments that Percy's getting away with maybe also Percy learned from McMullen of like, no, no, these are fun things.

McMullen got to break these rules. I need to push against these instead of coloring inside the lines too much. I just think it's great they found the most painful way to hurt Homer. And when the garage door keeps coming down

on him, it doesn't just come down and stay down. It just repeatedly just comes down on his neck over and over again. With his legs flopping in new directions each time. Also another mark of Al Jean's era is the constant use of Alf, a show he wrote for. How do you indicate something as old? Alf is on the cover?

Yes. And just like, is it Barkett's an elephant where Homer keeps the old TV guides? Yes, with the calendars too. Yeah. And yeah, there's a TV guide he picks up to swat a spider with. Alpha's on the cover. It says why Alf hates Victoria Principal. And by the way, Victoria Principal was, she still, she's alive, by the

way, but she was an actor on Dallas. She's like one of those people who was only famous in the 80s. So you never hear about what she's done before or after. But I checked her wiki. I was like, she must have been in stuff, right? No, she's like an entrepreneur who stopped. She became just like regular rich, like her character on Dallas and doesn't act anymore. Though from her personal life section, I did want to copy paste this one because it was

such a funny thing. With a citation, with multiple citations, during the filming of the life and times of Judge Roy Bean, 1972, she dated actor Anthony Perkins for whom it was his first heterosexual experience. Hey, good for him. Yeah. And then apparently in mid-70s, she also dated Steven Spielberg. If you were curious what Anthony Perkins' first heterosexual experience was, it was with Victoria Principal. Yeah, we'll have to ask her about that at some point before she passes. What was it like? Yeah, what was... Did he throw you down on those decorative throw pillows like Peggy Hill? Did you make Steven Sondheim jealous? I will say, if you like seeing Alf on a TV guide on the

Simpsons. You have to jump ahead 18 years to season 34's The Many Saints of Springfield because there's a couch gag where Homer falls through the couch. He becomes stop motion animated and he meets various things that have fallen inside of the couch. Alf is there on a TV guide cover and he is voiced by Paul Fuscoe who voiced in, I guess, performed Alth in the original series. And there's a great Alf joke where I think Homer says, oh, they canceled you at the worst time. And Alph says, no, Homer. They canceled me at the exact right time. Yes. That is a great line. I, God, man. And to know that they did get Fusco for that after, you know, that they had called,

when they did the Springfield files like almost 30 years earlier, and they had an Alf joke of him just saying, yo, that it wasn't Fusco and that he called them to say, hey, I would have done Alf, call me to do out. Yeah, and they joked how they would not be doing that. But hey, I guess time heals all wounds. And Al Jean has always praised the Alf Writers' Room as one that they got him in, they got him out, they got to have dinner at home.

And that's why Alf is so funny. Hey, when we interviewed the very giving with his time and nice man, Mike Reese, we even asked him about what was it like working on Alf. And he said they were making sure everybody left at five because they had become famous as a place where people didn't get to leave at five and stayed too late. Fox tonight, it's all new episodes of The Simpsons and Arrested Development. Then it's a bonus Simpsons, followed by the premiere of Kelsey Grammar presents the sketch show.

Fox Sunday starts now. Welcome to the break, everybody. Hope you're enjoying this as you're sitting around, Googling your own name until lunch. And it's Henry here saying thanks again from both me and Bob to listening to this week's podcast. We could only cover a season 16 episode like Mobile Homer with our full-time jobs because of the support of people like you

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And so yes, Homer is choking to death for a while until the family gets home. Go! Time to open the envelope I gave you. I guess lack of oxygen and spider venom has sent Homer into a daze that he'll be in until we got to the bedroom scene

where he's still kind of rambling to himself. Martin is right to be worried that he has been in that brain damage mania for, I would guess, eight hours at least. Yes. She calls it a near-fatal boo-boo. Bart randomly having dead zone powers also is, I laughed at the randomness of it. That's a good joke. It's either Bart is psychic or Bart predicted this just from knowing Homer.

You don't need psychic powers to know Homer will end up in cartoonish danger. Yeah. Marge is also correct that she says later, like Homer nearly dies a lot of times because he's a cartoon character in a cartoon and horrible things happen. to him all the time for jokes. The Lisa saves his life, and Homer is not very thankful for that, I got to say. No, again, I think it's the venom and the lack of oxygen in his brain.

Speaking of Gene and Brooks, like, if Al Jean, when he came back on as showrunner, had a meeting with Brooks, and Brooks told him, like, and seriously, remember, you reorient story in the bedroom, Al Jean remembered that because it happens like every episode, it feels like,

at least every couple. Yeah, I think it's just a technique that he personally likes to use to refocus the story. You have your wacky town antics and then you get them in bed to say, what are the stakes, Marge? What's the story about? So Marge learns that Homer's life insurance plan or equivalent to it is that she's either going to be marrying Lenny or Mo based on a card game that he wrote down up here in his head. Yes. So the rules are unobtainable when he dies. Which like for Marge, it seems like she wouldn't mind marrying Lenny. I'm assuming she's the one who's baking those cakes for Lenny or sewing and of course not Lenny. Marge would never

well you know what she did get friendly with Mo recently but I don't think she'd want to marry Mo yeah and coming up next is the first of what I think is at least four different needle drops and I feel like these are often added to sweeten an episode that's not doing very well in this case it's part of the writing it's part of the joke so I can excuse that but I frown upon it no I'm just kidding but we grumble about this but yes there's way too many licensed songs but we do like that Disney is forced to pay for them every time people stream this it's great Yeah, that they had to fully renegotiated for streaming on top of whatever Fox had paid for DVD, because I don't think they would have paid for the streaming rights.

And that I agree, Bob, that we grouse about it so much, but Algin does it too much. And that it would actually, if this was the one needle drop in the episode, I would just welcome this because using the go-go's song Vacation is a mega-clay. Yeah. But making that the joke that Margie. is live playing it off of a tape deck and then hit stop once she's done showing the vacation photos. That's funny.

I like that. I like its use here because using the most obvious song makes sense because it's Marge doing it. I just had to hear that song again used. It's the credit song for Spider-Man Far from Home, the European Vacation Spider-Man movie. Yeah, some songs I don't need to hear ever again. And they were fine songs to begin with, but they're just so overused. My biggest issue with the Sam Ramee film Sent Help, which I loved, is the use

of Blondie's one way or another. I'm thinking of bank commercials when I hear this. I'm not thinking of Blondie being like a hot rocker. Yeah, that use speaks to the age of Sam Ramey that he thinks, you know, when he's wanting to tell a story about, you know, female empowerment or an empowered woman who's going to find you and going to get you, get you, get you.

He thinks of that is like a recent song that is not overplayed or musty. And yes, I do think, the lead singer Blondie is called Blondie. I will accept no other options here. In the photos, I've seen the Homer being beaten up by Goofy and Mickey won a number of times since the merger. I've forgotten it was this episode. Yeah, the running joke throughout all of these Homer injuring himself on vacation jokes is Bart is

always laughing in the background. Taking an extra photo because he's taking a photo from his ankle with a camera when it's assumably Marge taking the photos that we're seeing. Also, was somehow impaled by a baguette in a French vacation we never saw. So Marge wants to get life insurance. Now, we have life insurance through my husband's job. So we have not had to go through like an interviewing process through this. So how much tension is there in the house knowing that your death could make the other one profit?

I know. Do you look at your husband sometimes and just see a bunch of magic cards floating around that could be yours? I mean, I think about with my own death, too, it's just like, well, honey, you're going to have to sort through all these criterion disks and sell them on eBay. That's your new job. You're going to have to quit your job and sell my DVD. Well, the good news is after he sells all your DVDs, he's set for life. They'll go straight back into magic cards, though. It's a vicious cycle.

The Mary Widow insurance company, I was like, oh, this seems familiar, or they're just redoing it. But it's the name of the company, even. It is the same joke as in Homer's Triple Bypass. Yes, except the joke is not as funny because in Homer's Triple Bypass, the neon sign depicts like a woman dancing on her husband's grave. And in this case, they have just a text joke on the neon sign. So they do change the joke. To a lesser joke.

Denial anger acceptance cash is not bad, but, you know, a two-panel comic basically as a neon sign of a sad widow in front of a grave and then her waving around her insurance form and dancing on her husband's grave. That's a great joke. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, like, doesn't Homer have a heart attack while trying to get the insurance? He's like fighting the man for the for the. form. Yeah, it's like, oh, I thought you meant brain hemorrhages. Yes. Yeah, I'm sorry. It sucks to

compare these to older episodes, but there's already a scene like this in season four, and it's so great. Yeah. It's the exact same format, like Homer lying about his condition while suffering from medical problems. And unlike in this one, him putting his hand in the shredder is, you know, a whole lot of blood, but it's not as good as Homer going like, it's an age. It looks like an S and with like a crazy camera pan around it like Silverman's going wild with the animation in that one. It could be unfair to compare them like 12 years apart, but they did a redundant scene. Yeah, they made us think about it. Though I will credit that I like the joke that Homer, the one thing he could actually sound not unhealthy about, he lies that he's a smoker because he wants

there to think he's cool. Yeah, getting his hand caught in the paper shredder is especially painful. I think the folly is what really sells it. And then he says, oh, my hemophilius, he's revealing even more medical problems we're not even aware of at this point in the show's history. There's so much blood, but when he pulls his hand out, it's not like tree house mangled. It's just like there's some like hexes on it or whatever.

Also, isn't it weird, it's not Lindsay Nagel, but it's like Lindsay Nagel's cousin or something? Yeah, I don't know why they didn't just slot Lindsay Nagel in here. I was confused, too. Hey, speaking of Tris McNeil, this is my favorite bit in the episode, I think, and she rules in it. I mean, also, women are in the

Crosshairs on this episode of The Simpsons. You watch crappy Lifetime movies, ladies, and we're sick of it. In this next clip, take that Lifetime movies. I'm going to worry just because Homer doesn't have insurance. A lot of people don't. Wifetime TV presents from Homemaker to Homeless. Oh, Roger. I just love our present lifestyle. Don't think me.

Think are many debts and obligations. Gah! Gah! Honey, stop kidding around. Honey? I'm afraid your husband had no insurance. Well, how will I feed my family? You should have thought of that before you had children with a dead man.

Oh, this is only based on a story. A true story. Brenda, where's your wealth? Gone, along with my sanity. But I'm still pretty, right? Right? The real Brenda later went to Harvard Medical School. school as a cadaver.

We need to start saving. Go easy on that. It's got to last till you're five. Yeah, Truss does a great job with that scream especially. I mean, technically, she's really peaking in terms of audio levels, but I can see why they didn't have her do that again, because it is an ear-shattering scream. And I guess this parody was inspired by the 2003 Lifetime Original movie

from Homeless to Harvard, the Liz Murray story, starring Thorough Birch. Yes, they did it. in reverse. It's Harvard. Well, actually, she does go from homeless to Harvard in the post script, they say, as a cadaver. I was looking at it like, that came at a weird time for Thorpe Birch because it's like four years after American Beauty. Then she does the revile Dungeons and Dragons movie, a bad movie podcast staple. Then she does Ghost World. And this was like her last thing for a while. Now she's back in movies and doing stuff. But she's actually in Kristen Stewart's a directorial debut, the chronology of water. Oh, interesting. So she's making a comeback. I had also forgotten

her crazy upbringing that her parents, both parents, are adult film actors who both appear, I believe in deep throat. That's also why her parents agreed to sign a waiver that she could do a nude scene at 16 in American Beauty, which is also crazy. Best picture. Best picture winner yet. And that statement I made there, that is not even the fourth problematic thing about going back to American beauty. Has not age well. But yeah, this Lifetime movie, like, although the lie or Wifetime, that

genders it even more, doesn't it? Yes. Also, like, again, this is what my wife watches. This is probably a dumb shit she watches in between good TV that I pick. The lines of like, honey, stop joking her, like, what happened to your wealth? Like, all of these terrible lines.

And also, I love hearing Percy say that they intentionally designed her kids to have, like, proportionally barred and Lisa looks while not just being like parodies of Bart and Lisa. Yeah, the Lifetime thing, I kind of am on board with making fun of those movies, but now I think they're really Shark Natoing it and they're making trash on purpose. Before they were like probably thinking, well, you know, we have a lower budget in a certain

kind of audience. We're trying to make nice movies for the nice people, but now they are on Stock by Doctor Nine and they don't care anymore. Right. Those are still a lot of fun, but I feel like it's not as fun because they know what it is and then they're really leaning into it. You're right. It's like when Shark Nato realized why people watch their movies or same with Bird Demic, it's like, you're too in on the joke now.

Or like, it's similar with that though. Yeah, they always have to, they get more murdery. We talked about that with experts of Lifetime films, Andrew Jupin from Wii A movies. Because like I mentioned that Steve Gutenberg, one of his most recent films, is a lifetime movie about like kidnapped by a serial killer or something. And that I feel like they get more into the murder genre because they see how big. The date line shows are about like, my husband murdered me stories that they get more into death instead of just, you know, running out of money or cancer. Oh, yeah, women really love true crime. I've heard it brought up many times just like, well, yeah, we're all women in America are worried that, like, a man could easily kill them or do other horrible things to them and get away with it.

So, yeah. Be prepared for it by learning about it. They're just watching true crime for tips. Yes. To be ready, though, boy, in the Patreon ranks, I can't be too mean to the true crime. ones because our Patreon brothers are all the people who make soy faces while talking about decapitated body. It is crazy that the number one Patreon podcast is a true crime show, right?

And it's not even one I've ever heard anyone talk about. It feels like, how is this popular? It feels like it bounces between. I miss the days when it was just our friends at Chopo were number one. Now they're like number 11 or something, I feel, I think, at this point. Enough canceled comedians by canceled, I mean, perfectly doing fine and are very rich have gone to Patreon now. So, yeah, now I'm looking at it.

I'm just doing tangents here because I'm just doing tangents here because I'm I don't like this episode very much. Number one podcast on Patreon is something called Madden Chain's secret podcast. I guess it is a secret because I don't know what this is. I sadly am aware of it. It's the Shane Gillis guy. It's his podcast. Oh, okay.

So that's what you're talking about. And somebody that was canceled in quotes and then went on to become wealthy beyond his wildest dreams because of listeners like you. Yeah. But if you believe in supporting the Patreon, do what that will. Yes. By not getting his job on Saturday Night Live, he probably ended up much richer and still getting to host Saturday Night Live in between making wiki,

racist jokes on television. He got to have it all. So after Marge is now broken by this Lifetime movie, which there are many things on TV that want to make you scared and worried about your life. And Lifetime movies are one of those things.

I think that's fair too. But we cut to the breakfast table the next morning and Marge has replaced all of their breakfast cereals with very cheap things, starting with budgetos, where the mascot is a clown promoting great frugal taste. I think it's Percy who says that it's based on a Filipino co-worker of them and that it's like it's specifically a Filipino

clown. He says, yes, Silverman says we have to cut that out now. Graney hates when animators work themselves into the show. Oh, that's right. That's why Percy felt free to say that. Graining's not there to get mad. They're like, hey, I knew it. You drew an animator into the show. You're out of here. It's an inspired joke, though, that the serial does not come in pieces. You have to punch them out of this little framework like you're building a model airplane or something. I was thinking this is just like gunplay, the gunpow. model sets too.

Yes, they were definitely thinking of gunplah. No, I know they're not. It's more that the Gundam models were made similar to how model planes were made in the same like you printed, you printed in a sheet of plastic and you detach it yourself, which is even funnier than that Homer when they cut to him, he's just eating the rectangle just like fighting through it as he goes. It's a nice drawing. And hey, if we're doing all these callbacks in this episode, why don't we put the nest egg jar

in Marge's hair? like in the first aired episode. That would have been great. Yeah, I guess it needs to be laid out so Homer can steal it better later in it. But after taking a look at the budget owes, we learn why Marge is trying to save so much money. Mom, why are you so worried about money?

Oh, we're just saving for a very rainy day. You mean when the big tuna goes belly up? Oh. Well, I just think we should be building a nest egg. Way ahead of you, Marge. I just ordered a series of tapes on saving money. They should get here soon. I paid a bundle for overnight delivery.

I have a book from the library with the same information. Okay, I'll just hire a haulage firm to cart them away. At my expense? Directory assistance? No more directory assistance. It's not free. Well, I'll get a lawyer on that. No, a whole team of lawyers.

Who will dine on mustard flown in from the Orient. No more Oriental mustard. This feels like a comedy act from the 20th. I've just viewed both of them on stage for citing. jokes back and forth to each other. It's so hokey. Maybe the use of the word directory assistance really makes it like it's like 1953. No one never says, now cut that out or anything like that. But it does feel like they're intentionally going for a more dated style of joke exchange here. And Kavner's screaming, no more Oriental mustard is funny. But this gets down to it of like,

is Marge being too cheap to save money, perhaps? But then Homer's jokes are way more wasteful and wasting every dollar March is trying to save with every choice he makes. Also, that home are paying extra for overnight delivery that just reminds me of how, like, if I buy anything online and it's not free delivery, I just go like, what? What am I living in 2006?

It even feels just retro to go to some websites that have it be like, well, you got to spend $70 to get free delivery. Like, what? You win this round. All right, I'll buy $70. So we cut to the kids wearing dead people's clothes. I did have to look up the ERA now thing and the Equal Rights Amendment. Okay, yeah, I thought ERA stands for a lot of things, but it has to be equal rights amendment.

The last time anyone really raised us think about this in a big way was, I guess, 1982. So that is what they're dating the shirts as. Yeah, which would have been the year Lisa was born when the show premiered. But you know what? It could still be passed at any point now. It's just three short of the necessary. 38 states for ratification. I see. Well, what Bart and Lisa don't know is that wearing old junkie shirts from Goodwill is actually very, very cool, especially if it references things from the past that

cannot be accessed anymore. Marge is giving them a leg up in the looking cool zone. And why is Nelson laughing at them? He's poorer than they are. And they don't make that the joke either. Yeah. I mean, if you go to a thrift store and there's a t-shirt from a movie that came out 25 years ago, it will be $90. Oh, but if you want any fun shirts, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I thought that was only in Japan that had cool vintage t-shirts that were $200. But you go to anyone in a cool city now, like in Seattle. You want to get a Terminator 2 shirt from 1991. It's cost in $200.

But I will say there is a very nice thrift store by us. It's more of like a hipstery theft store called Funhouse. And I have been pilfering their Simpsons section lately because the Simpson stuff, it is still very expensive, but not as much as you think it would be. So I've mostly been grabbing signage for the podcast room. No, I've noticed you've had some great Simpsons editions there. Your Simpson Street sign is a pretty great one. I think both of your recent editions are marked by like the telltale. This was approved in season one look of the licensed darts.

Like, that's great too. Yes. Did I pay $28 Canadian for a little plastic sign that would have cost, I don't know, $150 in 1990? Yes. But still, it could have been $100. Compare that if you were trying to collect like a copy of Fantasy Star 4 today. And it's original just cart alone. Well, we're talking thousands.

of dollars. But yes, I am writing all of this off on my taxes because it's accentuating the podcast. It's making the experience better for Henry and all of our guests. Anybody who we record with sees that and they know, they know we mean business. Now I'm looking at Henry's room. I'm trying to find a visible Simpsons object and I'm drawing a blank. Okay, wait, it's little toys, but right there, like the shelf of them, there's like poochy, you can see the start of Poochie, Bartman and Radioacted Man. I think the problem here, you have load-bearing chairs blocking the view of all of your wonderful things.

I don't want to get rid of this second chair, but yes. Well, you can at least see my most recent edition of like the signed Spider-Man poster I got at the convention recently. That's a very tall stack next to you. Yes, I suppose. I'll work on this. Our third co-host is a chair full of things. If I put enough shirts on it, it'll become a third voice. I want you to put like a Halloween mask on top to complete the look.

Just like Homer, I'm going to clean up this place. I'll do it. It's not full of spiders, though, I promise. It's not. Make sure you throw away all the old crime. crutches. Actually, I did have to put away crutches recently because I hurt my foot doing yoga. My foot's fine now. And I actually was hobbling around on our crutches. I had to put them back away. They were useful to have. Those are technically crutches that can still be used. Yes. I'm not taking in old crutches like Homer does. So we cut to Homer as well. He's saving money with a thermos of beer. In other episodes, Mo would just shoot him with a shotgun for doing that. Yes. It's weird that there's no other joke here. Mo just says no outside suds or. or whatever, and that's kind of it.

And it ends so fast. The design of Homer's $4 bill is funny, but it does feel like something got cut. I should say, even secretly, there is no deleted scenes for this episode. Like, even I thought there has to be like a secret one that's in the menu buttons. No, not even that.

So no deleted scenes. This joke is not a callback, but it reminds me of another joke where Mo says, oh, Homa, your money's no good here. Wait a minute, this is real money. You're right. That's a better joke than this is that one. too. A funny design of his $4 bill. And then Marge, we see that she's putting it all in a jar that's just honestly begging to be stolen, though it's her fault for trusting her husband, I suppose, to not steal the money.

And we see that she's bought 400 cans of budget soup. Do you think that's something that Mike Reese had done to buying like the cheapest soups and cans that'll last forever? It could be, but I think you're just giving your whole family kidney stones or something with all the sodium in those bad boys. then it turns into a big angry argument about money, which I've heard Al Jean say this. I think he even probably says that on commentary is recorded around when they'd be writing this, but how one of the main reasons couples fight is over money and who wants to spend money one way or the other.

And that's what makes this realistic. But again, Homer, I'll just play the clip here. But Homer is such an asshole here, I feel like. You can't enjoy money when you're dead, so why not have fun now? Don't you think you've had enough fun? Last year you spent $5,000 on donuts, 2,000 on scout massages, 500 on body glitter. Hey, I earned that money.

While you launch around here doing laundry and putting up drywall, I'm at work, busting my hump! Oh, please! From what I hear, you waltz in there at 10.30. Take a nap on the toilet, then sit around Googling your own name until lunch. Who told you that? You shouted it while we were making love! Now look here, mister. I pay the bills. I do the budget, and I'm in charge of the money.

Hmm. Are you going to let her push you around? Yeah, show that skirt whose boss, see? Give us our independence, Homer. Yes, President Franklin. I was never president. I invented some kind of stove. Well, I invented a popsicle made of Mountain Dew.

Sweet. Yeah, yeah, that's swell. James Cagney. Which precedent is this, says James Cagney. I think it's Jefferson. I think that's Jefferson. I wish there was another joke where there's a gas leak or something, and that's why Homer is hallucinating the money speaking to him.

That softens this scene, but this is, perhaps I'm just speaking of too much personal experience here, but like this is shitty dads. They don't treat the relationship as a partnership, and that if they are the breadwinner of the family or the sole income or the majority income, that then if it comes down to like an argument over, how money is spent, then it becomes the family income is my money. And you don't get to choose how my money is spent is how the fights break down into. Yeah, it sounds very common, unfortunately.

This didn't happen in my family. I'm more thinking of friends who were like really irresponsible, like in my 20s, where they're trying to get their money in order and trying to save money. But then they'd be like, you know what, I'm going to treat myself. And I would just think you always treat yourself. This is the problem. Hey, and look, I struggle with this too. It's hard. Saving money's hard. I can think like Homer sometimes or have of like, I can't enjoy it when you're dead. But yes, I have also told myself like, well, but eventually the vacation ends or the trips are over and you need to. I have been working on this again too. And I think, I mean, it is connected to, I think, to money issues in my own family. Even when it's like my parents were a joint income house. But my dad like statistically. made more than my mom and made sure to let us all know this. And it was used as like, well, then I

spend the money how I want because it's mine. And it just, that's not a healthy relationship. And Homer's pulling that card here. It makes me really dislike Homer in this moment. Yeah, it sucks. I mean, I guess this doesn't reveal too much, but I've lived with partners before. I'm married, of course. And never in any case have we ever had a joint bank accounts. It seems like a bad idea. It seems like the fighting will stop. We split bills evenly. We invoice each other for certain things. That may sound like very bureaucratic and professional. but it's just like PayPal or whatever. So like that works for me and there's no argument.

Like you spent the pool of money that's ours. Like we don't keep track of each other's purchases. We just expect each other to be responsible. Yeah. Like that same with us that it is, you know, well, it's rent or it's like, okay, I take care of this cable bill. The power is in your name. But we just figure out like, well, monthly I pay this for that.

You pay that for this. We pay each other the difference. And it just works out equally as our dual income. And if there's things we want to own, together like we save or go on vacations together we save up for that together and it does not turn into just

pulling the card of like Homer saying I earn the money and they give Homer lines to make it clear of like Marge is actually making sure this money is invested into a home that can actually be used by the family and budgets it she is doing a ton of unpaid labor which is

what happens to housewives as a term or homemakers all of the time but I thought they'd want us to think, oh, they're both wrong here. When Homer calls her like a penny-pinching, like, jerk later in the episode, I'm sorry, like, she does not do anything crazier. When Homer, when she says to him, don't you think you've had enough fun, she makes up jokes, but you can easily think of like Homer waste money every single episode.

Yeah, yeah, it stinks. And again, I'm just lucky they had this crazy Turkish plot to make them forget about all of Homer's sins in the first couple of acts. Also, I don't like knowing what Homer brags about while. at the peak of sex as he's reaching climax what he's screaming about. When I Google my own name, I am now number two in search results for Bob Mackey, of course. We're all waiting for him to die, of course, the fashion legend Bob Mackey, then I can be number one. God, I hope he doesn't die before this goes live.

I haven't checked myself in a little while. I was usually in competition with my search results I would see. They're a famous English writer who wrote one of the more famous versions of Robin Hood. His name is Henry Gilbert. and this is now like 15 years ago, so I don't even think this is the case anymore. But when I lived in Berkeley, California, it was like I had paid the guy to do this

to make me look cool to my mom who was visiting. I was waiting in line for brunch with my mom, and we're talking, and my name comes up, or I think I say my own name and telling a story to her. I don't know why. Then a guy comes up to me, a professorial-looking man in his 40s,

and he says, are you Henry Gilbert? And I was like, yes, because how would he know me? you would know me from podcasts or video games. It turns out he is also named Henry Gilbert and works is a teacher at Berkeley College and said that I had pushed down his name in Henry Gilbert, Berkeley, California in the search results. Wow, wow.

I've never met the other Bob Mackie's. There would be a vicious battle and I would probably lose. I definitely checked. I was beating him at one point. I need to check in what's going on with him now. He'd be in his late 50s now. We're all listening to this now and we're all. checking in on Henry's rank, among other Henry Gilbert.

So I can tell you based on my Google results here. Number one is that children's author, Henry Gilbert. And he is the Robin Hood guy. And in the series of pictures of him, there's a picture of you. Is it the one with the zappar gun in it? No, it's the one at my like wedding reception ceremony thingy. So you got a very good photographer there. I use that picture as like Facebook or LinkedIn pictures for a good while there.

So we also have number two, Henry F. Gilbert, American composer. Number three, Henry Gilbert, the ad. actor. All these men are dead, by the way. Number four, Henry Gilbert, media producer and podcaster, born 1982. Hey, all right. Of the Living Gilbert's, I'm number one. He is widely recognized as the co-creator and co-host of the popular fan podcast, Talking Simpsons, and what a cartoon? Well, that's accurate. Yay, that's good. You know what? If that's what Google AI is saying, then they're right. I'll give them credit there. That just drained four lakes. Oh, also that joke, that is true. It's the Franklin stove, a metal-lined fireplace invented in 17,

And yeah, Homer, I love his invention of the Mountain Dew Popsicle. It's what every kid does. Like, I'm going to freeze orange juice and make a shitty popsicle. Yes. I did it because Peewee Herman told me I could. I'm sure I did it too. Like get the ice cube tray. It's a life hack.

It doesn't really work out very well in the end. Though now, like, there must be dozens of actual Mountain Dew branded popsicles out there. Like Mountain Dew gets its brand out everywhere. In freak sodas or Seltzers bought recently out of curiosity, you know, I'm a big fan of the Liquid Death brand. They have a new one that is Liquid Death Cross, like the X, Liquid Death Cross Pop-Tarts. And it is tea that tastes like that's 20 calories a can, strawberry Pop-Tarts. It tastes like, I won't be buying it again, but it was an interesting taste. So they're backing away from the agro name flavors and just joining with Pop-Tarts. You know, man, I'll go look it up,

but I believe it actually does still have a murdered name in it here. Stage 4 Cancer Cherry. Yummy. No, you see, I'm looking at Mountain Dew. As far as I know, there's no official Mountain Dew popsicles, but there is a Mountain Dew flavor called Summer Freeze that's meant to taste like a bomb pop, like a rocket pop, the red, white, and blue rocket pops. I have seen those on the shelves, too.

And you know what? It's actually, and now I've looked up this, it's Liquid Death Pop Tarts Carnage. That's the name of it. Still death-related. Again, it makes me feel toxicly masculine enough. I can drink something that is essentially La Croy, but not with a French gay name. I drink bubbly and kiss my wife.

I bought some bubbly recently. They had a fun summer flavor of, it was like kiwi strawberry. It was, and it didn't have a silly name. Speaking of silly named drinks, we see that Marge has been making Columbia's shame. Is Columbia's pride a coffee brand, or is that like the name of other coffees? I think it's a joke about whatever coffee brand has that Juan Valdez character. Oh, right. Okay.

He's the guy with a donkey, and he is the mascot for the coffee grows of Columbia. So you'll see him. Well, I guess you used to see him in commercials, but he's proudly looking up with a donkey behind him. There's a mountain. In this case, he's hiding his face. Right. I forget Juan Veldez. Again, we were, I almost never have coffee, but we were a Folgers family growing up, so we did not have it in the house.

That explains why you didn't have, you're not a coffee guy, because Folgers is rancid. Yes, we had the brick of Folgers in the house. That was how it was. The same coffee that's sipped on by astronauts. And Marge is checking out all of her savings, but then boom, it's all gone. Her scrimpings. I really love that. I were saying that.

Yeah. Hey, you know what? If you're making Julie Kavanaugh say funny words, I'm on board. But Homer, we heard Homer's justification earlier that he doesn't think this is stealing because it's his money. but he stole the money from Marge and spent it without talking to her to buy an RV. Like, this is so wrong. Yeah, and I've seen this episode before, but I forgot what happened. So in my notes, I asked, did he buy this from Cowboy Bob?

Yes, he did. That would have been a fun scene. Hey, yeah. I guess just to share in Marge's shock at it. And then I guess Homer thought he'd get to go back into the house. But to me, it does read like, this was Homer's choice. to move out first. March tells him not to come into the house, but this is like, no, I bought the place I'm living after breaking up with you. I'm living in my mobile home. It seems like it's over.

Al Jean brings up that his dad was a proud RV owner who even packed up that RV to drive him to Harvard. When Al Jean went to Harvard at like 15 or something, right? He was a very young Harvard student. Yeah, I think it was 16. But yeah, I guess he had a very large RV that he helped Al Jean moved to Harvard with. And David Silverman says he goes, he drives in one every year to Burning Man. I hope Silverman still go into Burning Man every year. I think he is. I like how it has classy crib written on the back of it.

That's a fun design thing. And they lets us know, too, they're like, no, it's a down payment on it. There's no way they saved enough to buy a whole mobile home. My stepdad does have an RV2. I've only stepped in it once. It's about the size of this one. It lives on their front lawn for most of the year. but they do use it at least once a year or twice a year to go on like a month long,

almost a camping trip with friends. Oh, very nice. Yeah, I've never actually slept in an RV or really been in them very often, but I went camping with a friend for a few years when I was a kid, and they had a camper, which is not quite an RV. It's sort of like a thing that you tow that you can then, like, go inside and sleep. But, I mean, it had a TV, it had a fridge, it had beds in it. So it was almost an RV, but something had to pull it. They always looked cool to me as a kid.

When The Simpsons had it, I was like, whoa, it's like a house. the moves. Or I loved as a kid the, they forget the name of the short, but it was the Mickey Donald Goofy Short that had the camper behind them that's like careening down the mountain side. That was one of my favorites too, just like, wow, they could like eat breakfast and drive. It's still a fun idea. So Marge and Homer basically break up like she says, I'm not speaking to you. And then boom, at the start of Act 2 in the next clip, they are fully just a separated family arguing about their children. Yeah, yeah.

The kids are kind of like dealing with a divorce, it seems. Kids, your mother and I have decided to take a little break from each other. While we deal with our issues, I plan to go on Motor Home Makeover and trick this thing out like a palace. Not like that dump you live in. All I need is for someone to start a show called Motor Home Makeover. I see. You are mad enough to leave our house, but not mad enough to leave our property. That's my half-ass dad.

Hey, I couldn't leave you, kids. You like my own family. Now check this place out. Neat. When I sleep at Dad's, I call this bed. You can have it. This one's way better. That's a bread compartment. You're a bread compartment.

Kids, come back in the house. Aw, do we have to. I melted string cheese over some corn chips. Oh, boy! I got Game Boys and Carmel apples. I'll let you sass me. I'll let you punch me. You can wear swimsuits instead of underwear.

We'll have Christmas. Jamaro! Yay! So that's needle drop number two, right? Yes, and that one is just, what would be funny to see them dancing to, an old, 15-year-old, Guns and Roses song at that point. That sounds accurate, yeah.

This is realistic in that, like, the dad gets to be, if a father in a separation wants to engage with the kids, then he gets to be the fun one and overrule the mom of just like, I'll let you get away with more stuff, and then you'll like me more. Oh, yeah, I mean, one of my friends was also, of a child of divorced parents. And his dad stuck around.

And we would often have some fun weekends at weekend dad's place where there were no rules. It was great. Staying up late watching Renan Stimpy and Tales from the Crips and playing video games all night. See, dads of that generation, they can commit the energy to be a weekend dad. More than two days a week, though, too much. Though here we are, the week that the PSP is coming out. We're getting a joke about just a, Homer holds up like a 1989 brick game boy. Yes.

Boy, yeah, Homer. Wait, the DS came out in like December of the previous year, right? Yeah, yeah. Game Boy's plenty old at this point in 2005. Original Game Boys, they are being cannibalized by the many chip tune musicians out there for all of their hot songs. And like, we'll have Christmas tomorrow. Good stuff, but the kids all give up on it and decide they want to be with the most fun. Now, here's another credit I'll give to Percy and his team. They didn't just do straight silhouettes to the kids and Homer.

Homer's head is like a tube. It, like, has less features on it than usual, which I like. Yeah, it's funnier. And, hey, I will say that Marge's nachos are a step above cottage cheese and cucumber slices. Yeah, string cheese. And honestly, my mom would put shredded cheese over, like, bags of nacho. We called them chips and cheese. I loved it.

It was one of my favorite, like, childhood, safe foods. Your mom invented nachos, white people nachos. Yes, yeah. As long as they were a $2 bag of not exactly Doritos with craft shredded. Well, actually, you know, later, later is. In time, we would get the pre-sreaded cheese. But I think at first, she would just get the block and shredded herself, I think, too. And again, very cheap cheese.

The only seasoning would be the salt that already was on the chips or the cheese. I don't want to see a tomato or an onion anywhere near that plate. No way. We have thrown it back in her face. And mom, don't be stupid. What is this shit? Yeah. She learned our safe foods very quickly, I think.

As a mom, hey, look, mom, I love you. You're great. You put up with a lot. I'm sorry. Are there dangerous foods? I mean, honestly, I remember like I had like a McDonald's breakfast sandwich once where they accidentally like had a chunk of onion in it that I was not expecting to bite into. There is nothing wrong with eating an onion but that or having a piece of onion in something like eggs and cheese. But biting into it without expecting it, it ruined like my whole day.

Like I spit out the food and like threw it away. I was like, oh, this is ruined it. It ruined it for the whole day. Fiber. And I still remember. It just, it was an unexpected taste in a safe food. It really did upset me. Well, you know, now that I'm getting older, I'm leaning into the danger foods because we're mentioning Oriental

Mustards early on. I am leaning into all the old man stuff except for liver and onion. So I love mustard and pickles and various types of coffee. Anything like bitter I'm way into. I have over time, I have relaxed a bit more with foods and trying new foods. And also I really, obviously, like I had an inversion to vegetables that I've really lightened up on lately. but same with just

it was something about the mix of flavors like if I have a hot dog I wanted to taste like a hot dog not like a hot dog with relish and ketchup on it like it was just I had trouble I think just thinking about more than two flavors conceptualizing yes until I learned you could order burgers

it was like a breakthrough for me at like 15 of like wait you just have only catch up on a burger because I thought I didn't like burgers because my mom or dad would have burgers with like pickles onions lettuce mustard tomato. It was just so many flavors at once. It overwhelmed me when I tried to bite and I did not like burgers.

It's like taking a ride through a burger mountain. I get that's what is exciting about burgers for other people's, but it did upset me. This is why I stick with chicken tenders, I thought, as a kid. This is why the movie Ratatatoui is so important. It teaches you about how the mix of flavors Yes. That is why

I identify more with Ratatoui's chunky brother in that one. And yet, you don't like single flavor ice cream. Objection. That is true. It is a flaw in my There, yes. I guess in that case, everything sweet is like, oh, my brain approves pretty much any sweet, sugary flavor. So that can mix. That can mix. Savory or vegetable-e, like, that needs to be in very specific terms. These are things I'm talking through with a therapist. I'm working on this. We're going to get you a hot dog with three things on it. Then you can graduate from therapy. I've had that in Chicago. I've had a Seattle dog recently, though I still prefer a plainer hot dog. I have. But I can eat it. I can eat it. I used to be able to like, I will gag if I taste like a pickle in something. I don't do that anymore. So Henry said no pickles, but now you say maybe pickles. It's like I won't get my fingers dirty and shake a pickle off of something at the table with strangers. I won't do that. So this has to be like 10 times the problem now of like getting gas to put into an RV. Right.

Yeah. I mean, there's a joke here where Homer goes to the gas station and it's got like the numbers that roll over. It's an analog. display and it rolls over to, it goes from 999 to zero, so he thinks he gets free gas. I guess, I don't know why he's gassing this up because he's not taking it anywhere. I assume Homer just drove off and did not pay for the gas after this scene ends, right? He just assumes it was free. It seems like it. And this is when he falls in with the other RV owners and good Lord, I wish any of these characters had names.

Yeah, yeah. That is also an algae thing of like new characters who aren't called anything and don't have names, right? There's at least two characters here who should have names, at least for the sake of note writing. Instead, I just have like, yeah, it's Walter Brennan voice and Catherine Hepburn voice who got married to each other. I like at least that it's them just counting on, well, they know it's funny to Castellaneta and Tress McNeil have good impressions that are funny. And I like that they are burying their emotions about their dead son by doing this, too. That's funny as well.

Yeah, their hostility is just a game that helps them forget. Now, Bob, if I came to town with regional beers recently, would you be welcoming me as well? Perhaps, but there's just so much beer around me in Vancouver that, frankly, it's a problem. I'm just surrounded by too many choices. You're not living in a boring beer town like Springfield, I guess. Yeah, you probably get like three kinds of beers in Springfield. The most exciting thing is Blue Moon. I also would think, I guess, regional beers of Seattle can't be that different from regional beers of Vancouver.

It's pretty much the same region. Yeah, I think this is like right before the brewery boom of the late Otts early 2010s, when everybody started having really good beer. And so Homer then agrees to let these people come into his backyard, an entire convoy of seniors. Like, Homer befriending seniors, that could also be a good episode. Also, yeah, actually, to say another thing I do like in this episode is a joke about how it could be a worse episode. When he pitches Mobile Home Makeover, you think that the episode is going to be about, like, that is a real show in the universe of the series and he's going to go on it. Yeah, it's like he's pitching a different third act, but then we find out the show doesn't exist.

yet. The first thing that has to happen is somebody has to make a version of basically Pimp My Ride, but for mobile homes. Though, if you watch the TV show Pimp My Ride, eventually they basically just turned every car into like, this has a PlayStation and a bed and a fridge in it. Like, they make it as close to a mobile home as they can when pimping a ride. I'm like vaguely remembering this, but then I never watched the show, but then later I found out it was a big scam, and it turns out that people had to pay for all of this stuff. Oh, damn. I didn't know that. But does the meme still live as much as it used to?

Or do people, no child would get the meme of seeing a exhibit saying, I heard you like blank, so we put a blank in your blank that meme. I feel like it's been a long time since I've seen that one. Yeah, I'm looking at this on Wikipedia, and there are claims of deception by participants. And MTV can't just afford to, like, pay for, like, tops $10,000 to put all the, like, neon and bullshit inside somebody's shitty old beetle or whatever. Yeah, apparently exhibit. was the target of backlash.

Dang, man. You can't trust Exhibit. Who can you trust? Yeah, but yes, I have not heard the, I heard you like blank, so we put your blank in your blank. I think it was replaced with turduckin jokes, which are also very old and stale.

It's the turduckin of blank. And then Inception came along. So whenever a thing was about another thing or a thing inside of a thing, it's like, oh, it's the inception of blank. So where are we now with bad jokes everyone's overusing? I don't know.

I guess Simpsons took it all over then, didn't it? Yes. So this is where they're in the backyard, and we also get to see that they're spreading a lot of carbon dioxide that's being enjoyed by the neighbors. Well, now, Roddy, the Lord wouldn't let us die this way. That's right, Ned. Now, you three take a little nap while I make some hot chocolate. Yay!

I've been everywhere, man, I've been everywhere. A travel I'd done my share, man, I've been everywhere. I've been to Springfield, Shelberville, Ogdenville, Cap City, Ogdenberg, Shelbur Town, Spring City, Capfield, West Springfield, Paris, Roman, Shelberville adjacent. Dang it, baby! Woo, that's a lot of places. Oh, yeah. I know another place you can go.

To sleep. Sorry, Marge. We've got the power now, and you can't turn us off. Usually it's Homer who goes blank A when he's concocting a plan. I kept that in it. I guess like, man, it is funny to hear it. Marge say, A. Yes. I should do that more often, like, turn people's words around on them and add A.

Well, read the same in Canada, though, to add A in that way. You know what? I've never heard anyone say A in Vancouver. It is such an Eastern Canada thing. All my Eastern Kennedy jokes don't work the same. When I visited and made a bag milk joke, the joke was on me that never has happened in. Never in my life have I seen a bag of milk here, and I've been to many grocery stores. Well, this is number three in terms of needle drops. Although, I guess we can count it again when it plays over the credits and it's the actual Johnny Cash version. This is, I've been everywhere. Not a Johnny Cash song, popularized by him. Apparently, this started as an Australian novelty song,

and all of the towns that were named were crazy-sounding Australian town names, and that was the joke. And then Johnny Cash just turned it into, like, a song about how he's a real road warrior, how he'd go to everywhere. And then in this one, I'll give them credit that they had three towns they could name, but they run out of them, like after Cap City is Capital City, so that counts as a previously established town, but then they have to basically just switch out different vowels in it

to make Shelby Town adjacent. Yeah, they're mixing up different chunks of the words for different towns. So we have Shelby Town in Spring City. I guess North Haverbrook is too much of a mouthful to include in this song. But the guy also has been to Roman Paris, and then back to Shelby Village Jason's. Good animation on the, like, camera move on him playing. But, yeah, let's move that to three now for needle drops in the episode.

And Marge does cut to the power A as she unplugs everybody. And that poor man's Monte Cristo, it couldn't get brown at all and tosses it on the ground. And Snowball, too, and San Jose Little Huppers seem annoyed that they can't dance together anymore. Oh, man, I guess that's also a sign that Matt Graney's not around to stop things, isn't it? So everybody's pissed off and leaves. And Marge and Homer tried to reconnect inside while Homer is mad that she chased off all of his friends who were stealing all the power. And like, again, Homer's at fault here.

Like, he brought a bunch of people there to steal power, waste more money, have endless parties in the backyard and seemingly killed men and his children, too. Oh, yeah, we didn't comment on that joke. Like, Jesus is plotting their deaths. The malevolent look of his, yeah, I think Jesus is even rubbing his hands to me. Yeah. Yeah. He's waiting for them to join him in heaven.

Now, we mentioned this earlier, but a lot of the episode, they're finding a lot of humor, the writers at least. and Marjor and Homer just shouting in each other, very hateful things. And I don't think they're funny. Like, I can see Lois and Peter on Family Guy. They can get away with this because, I mean, they have their loving moments, but they've never been really established as actual people who care about each other. In this case, I hit pause and my wife came over and I was telling her about the episode.

I recited this line to her when Homer calls their bed a loveless slab of bossiness. I just was like, oh, that is so mean. Yes, yes. Actually, I have that to start this clip here. Because I was like, man, yes, that is shockingly like, this is not funny. It's just me. That's no marriage bed. It's a loveless slab of bossiness.

Well, you're not perfect either. Name one way I'm not. You hide food of my hair? You think brushing your teeth is foreplay? I'll have you know I could have married sideshow Mel. They're really going at it. Do you think they're going to get divorced? No.

I don't see Dad doing all that paperwork. What? I seem to recall you asked me to get this fat. Oh, boy, let's get out of here before dad does a bad impression of mom. Ooh! I'm Aunt Simpson. Don't eat off the floor. I am so sick of that story about finding an onion ring on your French fries. It was 20 years ago. That was my woodstock.

You know what started all this trouble? This motor home. How can a vehicle this cool destroy marriage that crap? Hey, I know this is a crazy idea, but hear me out. What if we... Take this back to the dealer? Well, I was going to say call Reverend Lovejoy, but I guess this could work. Oh, yeah, Marge!

What about my womanly needs? Well, you know, I don't like them screaming at each other, but it is funny when anyone on the show imitates Marge. It is very good. Especially when it starts off with... I'm Marge. Yeah. I also like...

Imagine that Marge at one point was dating sideshow Mel, or, Like she was before things became too official with Homer, like she was kind of dabbling with Sightchomel. Their hair is so similar. Maybe that's where they started the relationship. Because it's not targeted at Marge, I do like Homer saying, I recall you asking me to get this fat. I also laughed at his name one way I'm not that Homer thinks he is perfect. When the jokes are about themselves, which is only in Homer's case, I do like it when they're targeted at each other. It just, it's a little too mean for me. That first one he says, like the preceding line,

Marge is, it's the shift in energy, too, that makes it so mean, because Marge is actually trying to reconcile. She says, you don't belong on the lawn. You belong in the bed with your wife. She wants him back, even though it's basically her trying to take the blame or being the bigger person here. And then Homer says that the bed is a slab of bossiness. Like, she's trying, like, you asshole. Well, we can forget all about this because we have entered Wacky Town, Population Us. and this plot is going in a wildly different direction.

It's not about a couple reconciling. It's about the kids on a madcap journey across a highway that ends on a Turkish boat. Yes, this is act three goofery that Al Jean really enjoys. I'll also credit this show too many times or a season 16 thing sticks in my brain or occurs to me as lines in life. But this extends beyond even the example they give here. but like if I buy French fries at a place, they're the regular straight or crinkle, and then a curly fry is among them,

I think this is my woodstock. Like I have thought fries getting a thing that isn't a French fry in them does make me think of this. But if it was an onion ring, it would ruin your week. I have lightened up on onion rings now, but yes, I was not a fan of onion rings as a kid too. Even though like I didn't want to eat like a bloom and onion, even though they are just as much a receptacle of salty fried garbage that I loved eating and other things,

but for some reason, an onion inside of it was disgusting. They found a way to make a vegetable as unhealthy as meat. Worse even. I like onions now. I like them now. When I order onion rings over fried mozzarella sticks and applebees, no, I would not. But will I say, hey, you're going to finish that onion ring? I would say that now, which I would not have said in my youth.

It's just a good expression of, oh, that's funny, there's a French fry in my onion rings at Burger King or something. Yeah, yeah, we've all had that experience where it's just a little bonus. And the womanly needs line about Homer throwing that back at her, I assume this means Homer is not attending to the downstairs on March that often. Oh, yeah, I guess that's it. And Homer has, we don't know what his womanly needs are, but they're also not being met. Again, I would assume womanly needs, in this case, means like, for that generation of writer, oral says, for your female partner was the bridge too far for men. At least in fictional tales, I recall.

Frankly, it's gay. That's the bit in the Sopranos where there's an entire season one episode about a character is ready to kill another character because it is spread that he enjoys giving oral to his female partners, which makes him gay, which is female partners. But that's like the least gay thing. And it's like, well, no, if you'll do put that in your mouth, then you'll put a dick in your mouth too is how the way of thinking works. It's like thinking a camera takes your soul. It's just such a weird alien belief. I've never understood that. And I've never had sex, so maybe one day I'll figure it out.

This is why I have to call back to the Sopranos for this, because I don't know. I can only say, well, the Sopranos told me this. I've never seen a woman naked, and, you know, I'm hoping it happens someday. Bob, if you watch the Sopranos, you'll finally get to. I close my eyes when that happens in the movies. Bart and Lisa are trying to find the RV salesman, and it is another. well-observed thing that they have giant inflatable gorillas at them? Are they used to? You see as much now? I don't know. I'm not sure if they still do the giant inflatable thing to attract attention from the surroundings. But we do have the return of Cowboy Bob, who made his first and only appearance in Call of the Simpsons in Season 1. An episode's so popular, they made Burger

King toys based on it. There is a level in the Simpsons arcade game based on it. And of course, this character is not voiced by James L. Brooks. No, not James L. Brooks. Sorry. A. A. Brooks. Yes. They Thank you. I don't know why the name was so foggy to me. But he had not appeared on the show since you only move twice. He will be back this season, but not in this episode, obviously. So he took a long time off from being a guest character on The Simpsons. I wonder what happened if there was a falling out between James L. Brooks and Albert Brooks, not related, that they then came back together.

Like they've been great buddies again for like 15 years. He has been a regular, Albert Brooks has appeared regularly on The Simpsons since his return coming soon. our timeline of it. He was just in an episode, not that great episode in the last season. Yeah. And who knows if he'll be in the movie. But yes, Albert Brooks, he did not appear a lot until around this time. Then he starts coming back a lot more often. And by the way, we have to put this out every time his real name, Albert Einstein. It is a great secret. Yeah. Brother of Super Dave Osborne. RIP. That one stunt, it pushed him too far. I mean, and Albert Brooks was a key part of James L. Brooks's perhaps final film, El Miquay. He's the governor of the state in which

Ella McKay was born as show goes. It's insane and I saw this movie in theaters, folks. The curiosity got me. They refused to name the state that the movie is set in. No one will say the name of the state. It's very Simpsons of them. That's where there's a ridiculous line in it where Jamie Lee Curtis is congratulating Ella McKay on being named the new governor by the exiting Albert Brooks in 2008. And Jamie Lee Curtis's character says, you're going to be the governor of the state. You were born in race.

in. Yes, I've heard that quote a lot without any context. But hey, it seems like Clint Eastwood has retired at 95. So James L. Brooks, he seems to be 86. That could be a lie. But if he makes movies for another nine years, he can tie Clint. Can he make something as good as juror number two, an actual good movie? I wonder. I don't think so. Yeah. Ella McKay has its moments, but it also has a lot of not good moments. And a whole lot of moments that feel like he filmed the equivalent of three movies. and cut it together as best he could. But yeah, Cowboy Bob, they had to reformat him a bit because he's a crazy season one claskey chupo guy. If you were to look at a screenshot of him, he breaks like five rules of Simpsons every moment.

Like he barely looks like a Simpsons character, and I really wish they would have retained his design. Just to acknowledge, remember what these characters used to look like and maybe other characters could comment on like, what's wrong with Bob's face? What's wrong with his ears? But he famously had very large ears. And I think they really tone that down in this design,

which is strange. In season one, I think his episode is the most famous season one episode. I mean, the most famous moment in season one,

if he didn't live through it, was, I think, the family's shock therapy section. Like, that was the one that got replayed the most. But as a full episode, the call of the Simpsons, like that probably was the most,

like, well-known first episode of season one. And I guess, I'm looking at his ears now on this redesign. They're kind of maybe like 60% bigger than your average Simpson's character year,

but still, they were so prominent on that old design. I'm a little sad. They couldn't incorporate that into a more refreshed design to meet the standards of season 16. And when I think of today's, you know, used car lots or places like that, if it's not the giant inflatable gorilla, which I feel like I haven't seen as much, now it just feels like it is the giant flag. Like it's a huge American flag is what you see when driving by. Yes, yeah. I've said this before. There was a street in my hometown that was nothing but used car lots or car lots in general. And one of them just wanted to have the biggest flag,

but because it was so big, the wind could never fully unfurl it. So it was always like a saggy flag. Saggy flag. Old saggy flaggy. Here's also funny timing too, and I was thinking timing of when they did this joke. The King Kong parody that they have here, this comes five months after the release of Stewie Griffin, the Untold Story DVD in 2004,

which that is the origin of wacky waving inflable arm flailing tube man joke from Family Guy, which is an agent. Jason's joke about attention-grabbing inflatable things at used car lots. Yeah, I guess we're all noticing these things at the same time. Wacky waving, inflatable arm-flailing tube man has stuck around a little longer as a beam, I think. I think so. More than Camper Kong. So this is where Marge and Homer learn of their family's trouble.

The RV dealer is across town under that gorilla blimp. How do you know that's their blamp? Duh, it's camper Kong. Bob, word on the street is there's two kids trying to return an RV. Return an RV? Return an RV? Tie me to the Kong and cut its tethers. You don't take anything seriously. Not even your bankruptcy hearing.

Hey, that judge thought I rocked. Case closed. Although my case is still open. If you need me, I'll be in my trailer. My RV is gone. It was more than a motorhome. It was a car I could go to the bathroom in. Hey, a note.

Dear Mom and Dad, we don't want you guys to split up, so we're driving the RV back to the dealer. We've got to stop them. Oh, this is a parent's worst nightmare. They've stolen a car and their home alone. Great. Well, I guess this stops the Margin Homer arguing plot line, because now there's a bigger priority.

I forget if they even acknowledge the fact that they were fighting after this. Only when they're forced to kiss. Yes, that's it. Yeah. I mean, this is also a standard in sitcoms of parents have to stop fighting to then, you know, realize like, oh, the kids are more important. Though I think if you've gotten to fights this bad with your spouse, you're not doing your kids' favors by staying together. Yes. I imagine the fighting does not stop even if there's an apology between you, if it gets this intense.

It just becomes like more, you know, passive-aggressive, and it teaches your kids that talking passive-aggressively is a normal thing to do and get to screw them up. Then speaking of jokes that feel like, you know, this isn't so different from the map of all the Krusty Burgers, the Flintstone Fun Map. Yes, but I like Homer trying to put the pieces together about Dino the dinosaur on the Flintstones. Right.

Short for dinosaur. Remember to Ask Jeeves. Also, not only do they put in the Great Gazoo there, but I'll also give them credit, They drew in Hoppy, the often forgotten pet of the Rubble family. I thought, okay, so Dino obviously is dinosaur, but I thought Dino was named after Dean Martin because his first appearance, he was like a rap pack kind of talking guy. Yes, his first appearance, it's like, what if Dino, it's dinosaur plus Dean Martin,

and Dino is Dean Martin's nickname, yes. He acts like a rat pack guy. It's a very cartoon, well, it's all kind of cartooning. He's like a Bugs Buddy type figure who's like pranking Fred and Barney in his first episode and then he just gives up his personality and just becomes like, do you know, we know. And then Ask Jeeves recently became relevant again because it shut down this year. Can you believe Ask Jeeves was still around?

It shut down on May 1st, 2026, ending its 30-year run of people asking Jeeves things. And the big appeal of asking Jeeves is instead of having to know Google Fu, as they used to call it, you would just ask your question in plain English, which is now what every search engine has you do because it just spits out an AI response to you. So ask Jeeves was ahead of the curve and I guess being a little more environmentalist about, you know, asking a computer or question than everything else is these days.

I prefer the face of Jeeves over the unasked for AI. Yeah, see, instead of Ask Jeeves, it's unasked for AI. Is that a headline? Yeah, sure. I like it. I'm not telling AI to give me a response. It just does. Oh, God, I hate it.

You can't even, at least on Google, you can't even turn it off. I have used to duck, duck go a little bit more lately. I'm trying to. I do know, I know how to read Google results after I just force my brain, like, don't even look at the words that are in that zone of the AI thing. Just go to the actual results. It's so hard to find actual websites. I recently did at Retronauts on a subject. And somebody responded and they were like, oh, I'm disappointed you didn't find my blog on this. And I thought, it didn't come up. Like, nothing like that will ever come up in a search for me anymore. So I'm kind of,

out on my own, like, randomly trying out terms and phrases to try to find the real internet again. So, like, it used to be able to find things. And now it's just so hard to do. I've experienced, too, that, like, if you can even know what the specific headline and date would have been for something of, like, doing this, I think it was last month, the one before Google Guy Pan, with all the Walmart stuff in it. I was trying to look up, like, 2004, 2005 news about Walmart. And if it's not the New York Times, like, even if Google shows you a headline for, you. from a news story from 2004 about Walmart, you click on it and it is a dead page.

It takes you back to the home page of the newspaper. It's a dead page or it is a haywalled article that used to be free. So Wikipedia is nice and that's where I usually start because Wikipedia will often give you, almost always give you, the archive.org or the wayback machine link to the thing that used to be online. So you can actually find it. And of course, that's also sucking now that places like the New York Times or Washington Post are now trying to make their sites unway backable,

so you can't even do that, which, I mean, isn't it in an age where AI wants to just tell you lies, if you also make old truth unavailable, that sounds like a good thing for our future. Amazing thing. So we also cut to just a Wiggum waste of time story about egg cartons, which this season, I don't know, the last 18 months of this run of the Simpsons,

are just Wiggum kind of rambling on with stories that are pointless or like observations that nobody cares about it's a weird runner for him. I wonder how it came together in this way if it was Percy's team

thinking that it makes it a better misdirect but I really liked as a fresh version of that kind of wigom the joke they've been doing a ton this season.

It is framed that it's only him and Eddie in the car and he's like talking to Eddie and he was thinking like okay Eddie's gonna reply for once to these stories

but then when it cuts to the opposing angle, then you see Lou, and Lou, like in all the other scenes, goes like, I don't think that's true, Chief. I said, damn, Eddie is framed like he's going to reply, and he still doesn't reply. He's so silent. Maybe they wanted Eddie to speak, but Scherer was already out the door. You're right.

They laid it out for Eddie to be the one to say, like, I don't think that's true, Chief. And then Ari Shearer said, you get three Eddie lines a season for me. That's in my new contract. Then we also, in a joke they're doing a lot this season, Homer, well, he doesn't cause death, but we see a bunch of SUVs that are blocking them in this chase just crash and kill people. Yeah, I guess we're finally like the axe grinding about SUVs has begun. Kind of late for The Simpsons, I guess. But Canyon Arrow was the first shot across the bow, I guess, when it came to making fun of

SUVs. Yeah, yeah, they were doing it when SUVs were relatively new then. And also a very gendered episode about crazy women who drive around at SUVs and are evil. This time, we get to watch them fall off the road here. Percy credits Jeff Espinoza for the great animation or layout during the racing sequence, which I think is well done. Yeah, I guess SUV is famously not safe, famously easily flippable. So a gentle curve knocks them all off the highway. Not stocks myself too much, but again, I wonder if back when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area instead of the Seattle area,

if I would be seeing more or less of them. But I feel like there are like eight people in the Seattle area. There's at least a dozen people who own the cyber truck around here, and I hate seeing it every time. There's so many cyber trucks. Well, Henry, unfortunately, everyone knows where you live now. It's a city and there's a cyber truck there. It's the Seattle area. Bellevue and Redmond in Seattle, in Tuck Willa.

I just, there are too many. One cyber truck is too many, but I have now seen. There's a couple, like, custom painted cyber truck. Well, you live in the city where all the Seattle tech workers flee from when they're done with work. and obviously they're going to have cyber trucks. Yeah, yeah. And hey, if you're one of those cyber truck drivers, I'm that guy who flips you off

if I can make sure that you're the only one turning in that one so the person behind you won't think I'm flipping them off. Well, I will docks myself. I only see one cyber truck in my neighborhood and it really upsets me. I don't like to see it. Visit where I am for like a week. You'll see, you'll be thankful to know the only one cyber truck driver in your area.

Actually, no, there's a second one, and I'll docks them. Their license plate is literally cyber truck, and I'm like, oh, really? Thanks. I need a description of what this car is. I wasn't sure. Actionable things I would say about those cyber truck owners. So this is a challenge, listeners. Find Henry's, his apartment.

It's a city. Hundreds of thousands of people live there, and there are cars. Go get them. I live near a target. Oh, not you said too much. But okay, so as the chase continues down the road, this is where Marge and Homer can finally catch up with Barton. Lisa.

All right, pull over. We'll stop fighting. We promise. But we've opened up a dial. Get up, lover boy. I'm not a machine. I can't just turn it on. Oh, come here.

First raise my allowance. You let out. Good animation, but I don't like what it means, is that when Marge and Homer do, like, French it up and they kiss more seriously, there's a look on Marge's face of. softening on Homer that I'm like, oh, it's well done, but so undeserved. I don't like it. And this resolves the argument, just like being forced to French kiss by your son.

Yes. Hope no argument ever resolves in real life like this. The strangling of Bart while he is being like pulled by the neck to connect the RV and the car. Like, it's great insane animation. I'll credit that too. So they're pulled apart. And Lisa thinks they see a runaway truck lane for safety. But it's coming soon, so they're in trouble.

They fly off seemingly to their deaths, but they, I would think in real life, an RV doesn't just land safely without breaking any bones, but when it lands on a ship. Yeah, yeah. And this starts an extended sequence on this Turkish boat. And I feel like this is a crazy ending. And if it's going to go this far, we get two or three jokes and we're out. Fade the Black episode over. We are here for a long time.

There's a lot of jokes. Yes. Let's begin with our learning about the Turkish. Frater. Oh, thank God for that Turkish freighter. Now we'll just go get them and... My kids are on your boat. Turn back!

I see no kids, and we must get these season one Northern Exposure DVDs to Karaman Maras. Bring back our children, you Cyprus splitting jerks! Just for that, we keep your children. Will you raise them Christian? A cop dick, Christian. No. I have something here that might change your mind. What are you showing me?

Soup. 300 cans of budget club mushroom soup. If you have some noodles and tuna fish, you can make a casserole that's small on price but big on flavor. You are a wise woman. It is a shame you dress like a Lebanese prostitute. Return to the dogs. And that's accent master Hakezary. A Turkish voice works the same as any Eastern European, whatever.

And hey, we're kind of like at the peak of the DVD boom. And yeah, Northern Exposure on DVD was fairly new. And hey, it's a great show. I'll say people forget about it. It's basically like, what if Twin Peaks was just a comedy? And that's what Northern Exposure is. I've had the DVD rips on my hard drive for a very long time. I'm waiting to be inspired enough to get around to rewatching it

because I did like it when it was on. And the reruns that would be on Lifetime. That's when I watched most Lifetime was in the summer watching Northern Exposure every day at Lodging. My mom was a marginal viewer of Northern Exposure. I remembered she told me how disappointed she was that like the lead male actor on the show like leaves after a couple seasons or something, right? Yes, he leaves after a handful of seasons and he goes on to not have like a not very good

movie career like a lot of these people who leave their famous shows. Even if you think you'll be more successful leaving one of those popular shows, it appears that like Hollywood wants to punish you for trying to succeed on those terms. Yeah, the thing is, Rob Morrow was the lead actor on Northern Exposure. He's the one who left. He immediately is in the movie Quiz Show, which is a great movie, a great Robert Redford directed movie. The thing is, his character is insane because they want him to look like the real guy, and nobody even knows who the real guy is.

He's not like a famous person. So they essentially put him in monster makeup and make him do a bad JFK impression, and it is the most distracting part of the movie. And I'm thinking, you left Northern Exposure for this? And so he probably thought it was a big deal to get in the Redford film, And then they just, the makeup starts getting kicked on them. And you can't say no at that point, I would guess. Yeah.

And Janine Turner, who played the female lead, I had a huge crush on her. But unfortunately, she is a psycho conservative Christian now. Or maybe she even was back then. So you hate to see it. You hate to see it. I saw that, like, this was also ripped from the headlines because the DVDs had just come out in May 2004 in the United States. So it was within the last year, those season one DVDs. And apparently within the Northern Exposure community, they disloyal.

liked how expensive the first season was. It was a $60 box set, which was high for TV on DVD back then. But it was because they licensed all of the music. But then later seasons were cheaper, but had fake music in it. And it was bought less. The initial season releases of Northern Exposure came in these little like zip-up parkas. Oh, yeah. Because every DVD needed to have some kind of novelty to sell you on it.

But I will say, yeah, 60 bucks was expensive for a season of television. I think the Simpson sets were like 30, but now that is what one 4K cost you at retail, and there's nothing else on it. You get one movie, you might get a trailer, it might inherit extras that were on a DVD in the past. Yes, though apparently if you got the UK releases, those have all of the music intact.

So the wiki says most of the original music is in the streaming versions now, but if you want the full music of Northern Exposer, you got to get those UK releases. Or you don't download it. That too. You can steal it. It's fine. Actually, some 4Ks are incredibly cheap. Like, sometimes a movie that's very popular will be like $60 or $50. But on Amazon recently, I'm plugging Amazon, everybody.

It's a great website. Check it out. I got Rear Window, the Maltese Falcon, and Shadow of a Doubt, all three classic movies, for like 12 bucks each. They can have good sales now to get. I have now made a rule to myself. I never buy a new 4K, like as in just released. I buy them on sale. I recently was the criterion 50% off. And I was like, all right, there's five I've had on my list now.

I can finally get them to get that eyes wide shut. And Alice doesn't live here anymore at half price because, yes, the last time I got burned by this, I pre-ordered that box set of the Turtles trilogy. I paid like 80 bucks to Arrow for it. It was like $36 this weekend, the exact same box set, not even like limited edition differences. And I felt the fool. Yeah, yeah. Hey, well, Criterion, they got my ass because that Peewee's Big Adventure disc came out,

right when we were covering Pee Wee's Christmas special on What a Cartoon movie. And I was like, well, I have to buy it. And I paid 50 bucks for it. And now it is half off. And I say, Criterion, more like Crime Tyrion, because they're running a racket. On the 4K Reddit's now, people are turning against Criterion of just saying, like, you know, the masters or transfers are usually better in an Arrow release or an umbrella one. Import the umbrella version of Barry Lyndon. Don't get the Criterion American one.

I'm more a fan of Arrow and Mr. Kino and Lorber. The KL do a good job. They do a good job. It's that criterion packaging. I also love the criterion discs starting in like one of my first video store jobs. So it's like a nostalgia thing for me now, honestly. Well, I heard that the spines don't even line up on that West Anderson collection. I'm shocked. I can't believe that somebody as detail-oriented as Wes Anderson allowed that to happen. It is true. It's why I keep it closed. I keep the box closed over there. It looks fine, closed. You're not getting that Kubrick set, are you? I promise I'm not. All the discs come in rugged paper sleeves.

Well, especially I own 4K versions, including the criterion ones, of almost every film in that. I mean, I don't own the criterion 4K of like full metal jacket or the shining. In previous sales, I bought the shining and full metal jackets. And it's like, and I have a 4K of Barry Linden and eyes wide shut now. It's like, I don't think I'll be paying the even $300 at 50% off. I don't think I'll be doing that. Everyone earmarked this conversation. I promise.

listeners, I will not buy, okay, here's the actionable words you can use in a lawsuit later with me. It's like, I will not buy the Stanley Kubrick Criterion box set that is releasing this year. And so the technicality is, I never said I wouldn't buy it on sale. No, no, okay, comma, I will not buy it on sale even. Okay. I will not buy it on 50% off sale. It has to be lower than that. Okay, so you will buy it.

If I see it for 80% off, I'm buying that. This is becoming green eggs and ham. You're like, I will not buy it on a plane. I will not buy it on a train. Now, Bob, had you ever heard of Coptic Christianity before? I had to look it up for the first time. I guess the joke, you don't really need to know what it is. The joke is that Homer is very familiar with this brand of Christianity,

and he's very upset that his children will be raised under it. But apparently it is a, like, Orthodox stripe of Christianity. Though not to be confused with, like, Roman Orthodox or whatever, or the Gregorian one. I had only slightly heard of it before because an old friend of mine in the Games Press, she had a funny background that she went to a women's college, and it was a mix of, like, lesbians who went there, and then conservative religious girls from internationally who gets sent to an all-girls school.

And so, like, she had one roommate who was, you know, muff diving all over the place, and the other roommate was an Egyptian, Coptic Christian, who was very religious. Wow. Am I reading like a 70s issue of Hustler with that terminology you used? I was trying to have a new term. I haven't used as much a fresh term. But yes, that it apparently mainly originates in Egypt and most Coptic Christians are in Egypt.

I see. Yeah. Yeah, we're learning a lot about Turkey with this episode, the religion and what is this? The Cypress split? Yeah, the Cypress splitting, that one I don't totally understand. But though this is before the new spelling of Turkey or Turquia, though when I mentioned then a previous episode, another person in the comments pointed out that that new spelling and pronunciation is being basically the Trump equivalent. That country is forcing it. Like,

it is a conservative movement to change it. So if you go along with it, then you're going along with like a hard right belief. So with like some people don't support it because they don't want to endorse that choice. I look, I don't understand Turkey's politics. I just think it's funny that there's a country called Turkey. While I respect its people. They're right next to Hungary. I mean, come on. They can solve each other's problems.

Come on. This is where they all become friends, and Bart is playing soccer with them, and Lisa is playing music with them. We're in immediate cultural exchange. We're doing the World Cup in these recent months, and I'm being just reminded of all these countries because a lot of it's happening in Vancouver, and you're seeing many flags, many shirts, many festive hats, and yeah, in Turkey, like in many other European countries and countries around the world except for America, they love soccer.

Yeah, we just went through a bit now of like briefly liking soccer when American men were doing well at soccer for a brief time. The American public doesn't care how many times women in America win a World Cup that they don't care about. Hey, I think Canada is weighing to soccer too because every time there's a game now, the bars are just full of people watching them. So it could just be people who are into the World Cup

or they could be soccer fans more than they are in America. That's just something I've noticed. This is where the episode wraps up with a, Another needle drop at the very end here, actually, too. But before that, a crime is done to March. Oh, March. Once again, your momly wisdom averted disaster. And I promise I will return this RV first thing in the morning.

Easy. Easy. Easy. Water damage. Can't be returned. I win again. Hey, it's only money. And it did make a cool splash.

March, you're taking this pretty well. Dude, she seemed 10%. So we put her little hashish in her meal. Cool. Which came first? Turkey, the bird, or turkey, the you guys? If you don't want to say it, just think it. Istanbul is Constantinople?

Now, Constantinople, been a long time gone. Constantinople. Now, it's Thursday, light, on a moonlit night. Istanbul Did you not like the episode? Here's two great songs. I kept that in there to be like, wow, you hear them back to back. It kills the impact of both to hear them at the same time.

So I guess the official count is four. If you want to count the parody of I've Been Everywhere or the variant on it, sure, we can say five. I was not expecting to hear they might be giants in the Simpsons. I love they might be Giants. Now, an experience of watching The Simpsons directly followed by Malcolm in the middle, You actually hear they might be giants right after the Simpsons for years. Yeah, it's always weird that they've done that song. Maybe I pointed this on the Malcolm in the Middle episode that we covered in Talking Simpsons,

but it sounds like they're doing a Blink 182 impression. Like they couldn't afford Blink 12, or Blink 12 agree to be the opening song. It doesn't really sound like them. Over time, as I recall, Malcolm in the middle, they would rarely play the whole song. They'd just be like, life is unfair, just five seconds of that straight to the episode. Istanbul was like, it was the first They Might Be Giants song I heard because it's the first one played in the

two songs that are played on Tiny Tunes. Yeah, yeah, that and Particle Man. So I'm sure that is responsible for creating most of their current fan base and I'm not even joking. I've said before when I went to They Might Be Giants show last year, their third of three nights in Seattle where they did three different

shows and I was really kicking myself. I should have gone to all three. Though I did get to hear them do, they made sure to play Istanbul each night as their encore just in case it was people like me who only went to one show. So I got to hear Istanbul live recently. But in the audience, it was people 10 years older than me who grew up on their 80s stuff than people my age who were 90s fans. And then people younger than me who love they might be giants from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse songs that they do.

I forgot about that. Yeah. I saw TMBG in Violent Films in Berkeley. And I consider them like different sides of the same coin in terms of like when they were popular, their audiences, although Violent Femmes, I don't think they ever did children's music, but the audiences were just like that at Violent Fems. And what was in common with each of those concerts, the room was absolutely choked with weed smoke. I was just like, I don't know if the kids should be breathing all this in with their developing brains right now. I don't know. That doesn't seem great for them, no. Was it Turkish hash there or not? I think it was just Berkeley, pure Berkeley marijuana. They might be Giants got a

payday with this thing though you and I were wondering like thinking on this beforehand could al jean have known this song or do you think he knew that this song was a cover of a novelty I think he probably knew the original because this song released when algyne was 30 and algin right I don't think he like in terms of pop culture I think for him it shuts off at like 1987 1988 the things he likes to reference based on how many episodes all have the same reference to like old man in the sea in it yeah basically when he started working on off is when he stopped paying attention to pop culture. I was soft selling it there, but seriously,

Homer is surprised by this too. The Turkish guys do it without being asked, but that Marge got drugged is the only way she can have a happy ending with Homer is dark as hell at the very least. Maybe the third, but absolutely the second time this has happened. The other one was, I guess, the single white female parody or whatever the hell that was,

with Parker Posey. And yeah, Marge is drugged by Homer or chloroformed by her, right? Oh, wait. It was a blow dart, wasn't it? Yes, yeah. Maybe she was chloroformed in another episode, but Matt Graining, not a fan. Maybe he was in some early Futurama DVD meetings when this episode is being produced. Oh, man.

So, yeah, he would have Homer's chloroformed her. That was, okay, at the Who concert he chloroforms her. When he is Mayor Quimby's guard, he nerve pinches her. In the usurper episode, it's a blow dart with the knockout stuff in it. And now, at least this time, Homer did not know. knowingly drug March. But he's okay with it. Yes, he's not like, you've poisoned my wife.

Let's stick around. It's done in like a, oh, this is like a brocoat thing. Like, dude, she was so intense. I got her high, so she'd chill out. It's like, that is wrong for many reasons. That is not good. I'm not going to forgive it, but it's a nice high logic thing where March has, you can just think it.

Look, I like stoner jokes. Those are fun. Sadly, the way they can get away with doing a character as high jokes is if they are unknowingly dosed because they're not breaking the law somebody else did. That's just how it works with the standards and practice folks. Oh, yes. And that's at the end of the commentary, that's when they tell the story of the like, Mike Reese being mad about it, the popcorn story,

because it happened like on the flight to Al Jean's wedding to Stephanie Gillis in Ireland. Okay. Yeah. For his destination wedding, that it was like, Tim Long told the story to Patrick Verone. and on the plane ride that Mike Reese was on to and that's when Mike Reese heard. He's like, hey, why he's telling the story?

I didn't steal that. There's a lot of time for Mike Reese to yell at you on an international flight. When he's probably complaining the whole time about how expensive Al Jean's wedding is. I remember when he watched his nice eulogy for a fellow Simpsons writer, the one who co-created Martin,

now his name is escaping me right now. I remember watching his eulogy, he joked about like that he wasn't getting... John Bowman, is that his name? That might be it. Maybe he wasn't even a Simpson writer. He was a colleague of theirs from Harvard. Mike Reese jokes that he's not being paid to write this eulogy too.

Yeah, I think it was John Bowman. Who never wrote for The Simpsons, they didn't hire him, but then he created Martin. That's right. It was a sweet. Jeff Martin gave a eulogy there, Conan O'Brien, and they uploaded it online for the public to see. It was not a creep looking for his... Hey, that guy wasn't invited. Yeah.

But anyway, yes, a crazy ending to get them out of a plot that could only end in divorce any other way. Yeah. Boy, this one. Well, you know, I'm happy when... to talk about Chinese politics or war crimes or even Dana Gould. So we avoided those landmines, but yish, this one is a mess. And a few funny things came out of it, like any Simpsons that's troubled, but this does feel like, not to repeat ourselves, but they're pulling the third act wacky switch when they don't know how to bring this plot to a proper ending or they're afraid

that the proper ending they wrote is underwhelming. And you'll just be kind of bored when you're rolling into Malcolm in the middle. We can't have that. I hope 20 plus years since. that these Simpsons writers have either, you know, are in new relationships or have really worked on their current relationships and are not as driven to have stories about their dumb wives who waste money and how that they're the only ones who earn any money. Yeah, I'm not seeing as much Wife in the Crosshairs content, and the recent Simpsons, I'll say.

I think it helps that more women write on the Simpsons now, too. If they're not listening more, then they're at least scared. In art being as hateful towards women. In any case, it does improve the writing of the show. show. But yeah, boy, crazy episodes. Yes. But hey, so thanks to all of you out there for listening to the show. We really appreciate it. And if you want to support us and get all these podcasts ad free, that is right, ad free podcasts. And also a whole bunch of bonus podcasts on top of that. Go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up at that $5 level.

And when you do, you'll access ad free podcasts, everything we've done on this network. And also a vast collection of full-length miniseries episodes covering shows you love. And even more importantly, you will get new episodes of our Futurama and King of the Hill podcast. every month when you're on that tier. So again, ad-free podcast, over 200 bonus podcasts and new exclusive podcasts every month, all at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons for five bucks. But what is happening at the $10 level, Henry? Bob is talking about our What a Cartoon movie podcast, which is our mega-sized bonus

podcast we do each month that is like three podcasts and one. When you're hearing this, we are deep into our summer of the Disney 2010s, which we just talked a lot about with the director of this episode, Raymond Percy, who is either a voice actor and or story artist on two of the films we've covered, Reckett Ralph and Zootopia. And this month we're wrapping it up, closing out August with our discussion of Big Hero 6. And we also covered Winnie the Pooh from 2011. These are all great, interesting films from Disney's 10s that we have a lot of fun talking about and giving history on.

And these are just our most recent ones. We've been doing eight years of it, hundreds of hours of what a cartoon movies of us covering Disney, Pixar, Warner Brothers, DreamWorks, Studio Ghibli, other anime, live action things like the Teen Teen Indian Ninja Turtles, and gigantic podcast, our longest ever six and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit. Sign up today, you have the entire back catalog plus a brand new one each month. That again, is like three extra podcasts. It's also ad-free, just like the $5 things too.

So sign up today at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And remember, if you sign up for a whole year in advance, to get 10% off too. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Blue Sky, Letterbox, many other places as Bob Servo and my other podcast. It's called Retronauts. That's a classic gaming podcast about old video games.

You can find that where you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of bonus stuff as well. And Henry, how about you? You can find me on Blue Sky and Instagram as Talking Henry. I'm always posting a lot of fun stuff there. And don't forget, if you're following me and Bob on social media, then you've got space in your social media. media docket to follow the official account at Talk Simpsons Pod.

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