Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Mountain Of Madness With Luke Savage

Episode Date: October 3, 2018

We're going hiking this week and we're joined by Luke Savage, cohost of the great podcast Michael And Us! We reminisce about our own corporate retreat nightmares, our fears of cabin fever, learning about WHO prevents forest fires, and the continual budget cuts to our national parks! Now put on your heaviest jackets, grab your map (you haven't been given a map yet), and enjoy this week's podcast!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! If you're near Portland, OR, be sure to see our live shows on October 20! Ticket details at tinyurl.com/talkingsimpsonshalloween! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

Ahoy, ahoy, Talking Simpsons listeners. Do not skip this important message because Talking Simpsons is going on tour. Isn't that right, Henry? That's right. We are finally doing our first live shows outside of the Bay Area. And it's all happening in Portland on October 20th, 2018.

That is a Saturday. We'll be performing at Kelly's Olympian at 2 o'clock p.m. and 5 o'clock p.m. And we have a very special guest for our 5 o'clock p.m. show. Henry, spill the beans. It's Bill Oakley. Yes.

Food reviewer slash co-executive producer of The Simpsons slash co-showrunner of season seven and eight. Bill Oakley will be doing a live show with us at 5 p.m. at Kelly's Olympian in Portland. And at both of these shows, we'll be going over our favorite Treehouse of Horror segments with live video clips. And again, at the 5 o'clock p.m show bill oakley will be there and to get tickets go to tinyurl.com slash talking simpsons halloween and it is very important that you get tickets if you want to go because we've heard from the venue they are going super fast especially the 5 p.m

bill oakley show tinyurl.com slash talking simpsons halloween we'll give you all the extra details of location place time all that for our 2 p.m and the 5 p.m show that will be with bill oakley yes you can find all the details to buy the tickets ahead of time at tinyurl.com slash talking simpsons halloween for the details on our 2 p.m show and our 5 p.m show don't risk it by buying tickets at the venue both for the 2 p.m show and the 5 p.m. show. Don't risk it by buying tickets at the venue. Both for the 2 p.m. show and the 5 p.m. show with Bill Oakley, the tickets are going fast. And that is not all. A week later on Saturday, October 27th, 2018,

we'll be doing a show at our local haunt, Piano Fight in San Francisco, and admission for that one is free. Ooh, it's all gonna be a big, scary, Simpsony time at all those shows as we celebrate the best segments in Treehouse of Horror history. We hope to see you there, boils and ghouls alike. This week's Talking Simpsons

is brought to you by Verve! Do you like streaming classic cartoons like Doug? Anime like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Dragon Ball Super? Original cartoons like Bee and Puppycat? Even classics like Freakazoid that you won't find anywhere else? Those are all being carried by Verve. And you can get a 30-day free trial and service on Talking Simpsons

if you just head to vrv.co slash wac. Check it out. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simps, brought to you by Corpse Handling Gloves. I'm your host, bloated Museum of Treachery Bob Mackey, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today. I'm Henry Gilbert, and you've won more than you bargained for. And who do we have on the line? Luke Savage, just here sipping moderately-priced champagne, in my finery how are you guys doing i hope you have sandwiches and today's episode is

mountain of madness roots are treacherous so use your maps i lost my map you haven't been issued a map yet today's episode aired on february 2nd 1997 and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God! Oh boy, Bobby. Legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner passes away. The video game Final Fantasy VII introduces the world to the terror of Sephiroth. And the special edition of Star Wars

shows everyone what Jabba was supposed to look like and that Han shot first. That was the Japanese release date for Final Fantasy VII. No, it still counts. It still counts. It was the first release date. We would get it on 9-7-97, a very important number in terms of calendars.

Well, a few dates were more important to me at the time in 97 as the release of the special edition of star wars that was advertised to hell and back i could not wait for it i'd never to get to see the original star wars or episode four a new hope uh to see that in theaters was a big deal and i was when i saw the first time i was just dazzled by all those then new special effects now i'm i'm a little ashamed of how excited i got about it or just how impressed i was with the special effect now i think we're eagerly awaiting like are they not coming out

with just like they're re-releasing the original trilogy so we can see it without all the corrupt special effects and like extra heads and extra lightsaber blades it's been the rumor for years that they were going to do it. It's not been announced yet. I think that's their like emergency lever they pull if they feel like people are becoming disengaged with the brand that is Star Wars. Yeah, it's their one emergency like trump card.

But my history with the Star Wars series would probably aggravate some of you out there where I never watched it ever as a kid because this was a time where Lucas was taking time off of Star Wars and it wasn't being shown around as much anymore it was and it was considered just for like uber nerds and I was one but I wasn't that kind of uber nerd so the re-airing or re-showing of the Empire Strikes Back was my first Star Wars movie I ever saw wow and because of that I rented the first Star Wars movie A New Hope and I was like oh yeah Star Wars is pretty cool and I still have never seen Return of the Jedi

two Christmases ago I watched A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back and I was like I don't feel like watching Return of the Jedi so I've never honestly I think in like this age where like basically everything is branded like Star Wars like I got a banana at the supermarket a while ago and I had a Star Wars

sticker on it I think like given that your like Return of the Jedi aestheticism is pretty admirable the and I had a Star Wars sticker on it. I think, like, given that your, like, Return of the Jedi aestheticism is pretty admirable. The official banana of the Star Wars universe. Well, I mean, you grew up as a child named Luke in Star Wars, right? What was that like? Oh, man, if I had a dime for

every time, you know, I even have Luke Skywalker's initials. Oh, gosh. I had a rough time as a kid. Oh, my gosh. How many men have claimed to be your father luke uh more than i could count so luke can you tell us your history with the simpsons uh especially as as a canadian yeah okay well so in my in my days of uh you know getting luke i am your father uh all the time you know i was as a country boy i grew up in uh rural ontario

about two and a half hours i guess southwest of toronto and believe it or not the simpsons was actually on our national public broadcaster um at 5 p.m so i would get home uh on the school bus and i'd have like a snack and then at 5 p.m i'd always sit down and watch the simpsons and i guess these would have been reruns but in the process of watch the simpsons and i guess these would have been reruns but in the process of watching the simpsons like pretty much five days a week um i i just like absorbed all the classic simpsons stuff but of course i had i had that thing like you know i don't know how old you guys were in the 90s but for me like i kind of have lived the simpsons through twice because you know you watch them when you're a kid you

don't really understand like all the irony and like all the kind of cultural references go right over your head and then about like five or six years ago I sat down and watched the Simpsons again and it was so strange because like I remembered everything from it but it was like even funnier than I than I remembered yeah the when the DVDs were coming out in the early 2000s, that's when I was first entering college. And that's when it was my real like adult reviewing of The Simpsons. But so next week we'll have Will Sloan on,

who was also one of your podcast peers, Luke. Yep, podcast comrade in arms. Yes, and I'll let you talk about your podcast in one second. But we all have the similar experience in that at the time period in which our brains were the most elastic or had the most plasticity, rather, we were living in a world where The Simpsons was on like 10 times a day. So that is what was etched into our brains, and now it's a sort of sickness. And we've turned that sickness into a career.

But, Luke, I do want you to talk about your podcast, Michael and Us. Henry and I have both you and Will coming on the show because we're big fans of the show. But can you explain a bit about what that is? Yeah, sure. So, I mean, in the same way that The Simpsons was, I guess, like the deep text of like all of our childhoods, when I turned like 13 or 14 and I started getting into politics, you know, one of my entry points into politics, this was like kind of in the early like Bush era, you know, post 9-11. You know, my sort of guide to that whole era was Michael Moore. And for me, Michael Moore represented, you know, I think for

Will too, kind of the, you know, the limits of politics. Like I remember going to see Fahrenheit 9-11 in Stratford, Ontario with a couple of my friends and us just coming out of the theater, like we just experienced this kind of earth shattering, like truth telling event. Fast forward to adulthood and, you know, we're living through kind of the early years of another Republican presidency. And, you know, there's a lot of really ineffectual liberal politics around again. And so I guess it was before, it was during the 2016 election, Will and I had this idea,

like, let's just watch all of Michael Moore's films, you know, all your favorites from Slacker Uprising to Canadian Bacon and some of those other ones. We will kind of watch them basically in order.

We also watched, you know, there's a whole kind of market of like straight to DVD conservative, I don't know, counterattacks against Michael Moore, like really low rent, bargain basement type stuff. We called it movies. They're not movies. Somehow the Neshtah Sousa gets in the movie theaters and that's troubling. Yeah, it's very troubling.

But, you know, eventually, you know, all good things must come to an end. So, you know, mercifully, we of michael moore films to watch but people were listening so we kind of turned it into a you know more general podcast about um you know political cinema tv and kind of agitprop um with you know a focus but not an exclusive focus on sort of the cultural products from, I guess, the early 2000s. So we recently did Idiocracy, which was that Luke Wilson film from the mid 2000s that Mike Judge, I guess, wrote and directed. So it's a lot of things like that. So it's like a bit of culture, a bit of politics. And I would be remiss if I didn't point out that we have a Patreon so uh please give

us your money i do and the bonus episodes are great but yes i had a very similar background to you and henry too where i was a very uh i'm much more to the left now but when i saw a 9-11 when i was 22 in some nothing ohio town i was like can they show this exactly yeah it felt like illegal seeing the movie no and i saw it in jacksonville florida and it was a major thing to even get my mom to watch it like i was like i'm i'm gonna see this again i'm taking my mom to it she'll know the truth and it just now it feels so silly it almost feels like i'm making me my mom watch like a youtube video on stuff on a bunch of uh conspiracy theories about saudi arabia which is why i was also like by TV Nation and Politically Incorrect, both those shows.

That's what I thought politics was because I grew up in a rather conservative suburb. So that seemed so outside the bounds of real politics to me then. And yeah, as I've grown up, it's – well, especially Bill Maher is just an utter contemptible disappointment to me. I yeah as i've grown up it's well especially bill maher is just an utter like contemptible disappointment to me i i used to believe in him 15 years ago maybe watch his new stand-up special for a recent episode i can't remember if that was a bonus episode or i think it was a regular episode um so people can listen to that on soundcloud but yeah i mean he's his shtick is like it's still exactly the same as it's been for 10 or 15 years. And it's like, I don't know, he just complains about political correctness. And sort of similar to the Ricky Gervais, you lot of complaining about mean tweets and that people you know mean replies that he gets on twitter or whatever and uh lots of jokes that just like

how does anyone find this funny like i swear to god bill maher's opener in his new stand-up special the setup is something like you know so we're here in oklahoma i'm not going to try to do bill marm but yeah it's like we're here in oklahoma and uh where you know your governor has warned uh that legalizing weed could lead to recreational use and then there's a long pause and he's like well we very much hope so mr governor and the crowd just like hoots and hollers like who is this brave truth teller who you know he smokes pot and he doesn't believe in god that's as far as uh as far left as it goes and uh before you think we're going too far off topic the simpsons has made fun of bill maher by

saying he's too ugly to appear on tv before midnight and that was like 15 years ago he's only gotten uglier no i actually uh that andy kindler had a great joke about bill maher that he thinks he's the only comedian who still says like I kid the president folks he's like how old are you like how fucking old are you to say that watching it I guess there's like a certain generation for whom like just having like a late night host who sort of makes jokes about the president like there's still novelty in that they still think it's really funny it's the same thing that enables some people like certainly not me or anybody i associate with uh to find annie borowitz funny oh my god

the idea that um it's the novelty of seeing like a fake news headline and it's like the format of a newspaper which is this like somber thing that you know your your dad reads in the morning before going to work at the factory but then the headlines like you know donald trump to kim jong-un what's your secret or you know whatever he takes a normal headline and makes it like 1.3 percent weirder and then he walks away so yeah i i love michael and us for not only how you take the starch out of what was left-wing commentary a while ago, but also the conservative ones. I love the multiple anti-Fahrenheit 9-11 ones you did. And you just keep saying, like, it's the same guy over and over again.

His whole job was to appear in Michael Moore documentaries. There was a whole, like, mini-economy. There was just people making these really crappy videos with their like dv cameras and what was so funny about that was like you know all these people that hate michael moore so much were also so threatened by his very tepid innocuous like critiques of you know george bush or whatever but they you know he was also like their introduction to filmmaking in a lot of cases so a lot of these films like they just copied his style exactly like they have all the same kind of earnest aw shucks you know personal narration and like needlessly inserting themselves into the film and the sort of like you know that phony

like naivete that michael moore does where he'll talk to somebody and he sort of like is is talking about ideas as if he's thought about them for the first time, even though the whole thing is just like a stunt. They all do that. Yeah, so Michael and us will tell you more about it at the end of the show. We fully endorse it. We heartily endorse it, rather. So this episode, Mountain of Madness,

yes, it is an HP Lovecraft reference, but that's where it stops. Yeah. Written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Mark Kirkland. Apparently, this was like the one John Swartzwelder script of note that was heavily rewritten. And they don't give too many details on the commentary track, but it's sort of implied

that it was a mistake to do so much rewriting because they got into more trouble because Josh Weinstein said a John Swartzwelder script is like a piece of Swiss machinery. Like only he can tinker with it. It's too complicated for anyone else to touch. So apparently this story was much crazier originally. Didn't have a lot of the Park Ranger stuff in it originally. So that's like sort of the boring kind of humor that I don't associate with Schwarzwelder. Yeah, that seems like the infusion of the boringness into it, not the wacky 1940s libertarian views of John Schwarzwelder instead. I was surprised to hear it had such a troubled rewrite i think they have that about what once in each season in seven and eight like for seven it was sideshow bob's last gleaming and then for this one it's just massive rewrites they have to do to it but i sometimes

you can feel like oh you overwrote this it's not as funny now but this was still a very good episode you know if they reanimated it or did they just like, like did they actually, as it were, shoot it and then have to do it again? Or did they just like have to rewrite the script? I believe all the most substantial rewrites were done before the animation process.

One thing they added in animation was the ending of Burns and Homer staring at each other and that little exchange they have. That was one thing added after the full color animation came back. They must have thought Lenny's fall was like,

oh, that's enough. That was originally the planned ending. They're like, no, no, no, we need a little more. And Lenny apparently does not die. We'll get to that, though. It's a second major plummet down a hole caused by burns. I thought it was fun to go back to the nuclear power plant. We haven't been there in a few episodes. I think this almost feels like a sequel to Homer the Smithers because you have a very independent Burns compared to the previous unself-reliant Burns in other years. What is with Mr. Burns in this one? He's so cheerful and he doesn't really go off the rails until he gets cabin fever. It's true. He's very proactive in this episode. And I love him just strolling into the office, whistling, and I'm sure we'll get to it when he gets his coffee that animation after he takes one sip it is an amazing frame of Burns

his hands spread open and his eyes are wide open his mouth is open I use that for a lot of uh a lot of gifs and a lot of memes now he's he's bouncing into work here let's let's hear that first clip good morning sir care for some coffee, the promise of a new day is more than enough exhilaration for me. Smithers... Coffee... Ah! We need some excitement around here. Chinese checkers or domestic checkers are domestic sir no no something fun

something the men will enjoy like a safety drill but what kind uh meltdown alert mad dog drill blimp attack ah i think a good old-fashioned fire drill today and he sets off the fire drill which everyone reacts to as a real one and i love the sound of the the popcorn kernels hitting that bowl like it's very well observed it really is just everybody freaking out and the animation on the guy grabbing the fire extinguisher just beat everyone with it that's one of my favorite jokes in this too it's great i like i like how they they're all running out of like the staff room or whatever and then Lenny's just standing there by the cocoa machine, and he's like, ah, ah.

He can't leave without his hot cocoa. And just one guy saying, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire. And when Homer makes his way out of there, he, for no reason, blocks the door to keep everyone else in there. He doesn't really understand the purpose of a fire drill. It's sort of more like a race for him. This is like when my elementary school, my rural elementary school,

we had a fire drill, but then we also had a tornado drill. And unfortunately, the alarms sounded very similar. So sometimes when we had a tornado drill, everyone would just run outside. The only fun drills in in my school growing up were the ones where you jumped out of the back of the bus oh man twice a year you'd have to like okay yeah i was like wow this is this is the door i never go

out of i remember that yeah uh i had a fire drill once as a kid where i was in high school and i blew it off and just went to like it was it was like, okay, leave this room. And then we all meet up at the football field. And then I simply didn't go. I just hung out with a friend who was like, yeah, blow it off. And then I came back to the classroom. The teacher was like, what did you do? I got sent to the principal because, like, they couldn't put down my name as present during it. And so she got in trouble.

You were fake dead. I was. When they come outside, you also hear that it was only, it goes up to 15 minutes that time or two, which was pretty funny, that everybody had to break out through walls and windows because nobody moved the thing after they knew it wasn't a drill. Yeah, they're just giant holes in the walls and busted windows. Then Lenny and Carl fist fighting.

Yeah, I like that Homer, he's on both of their sides. He's rooting for both of them. He just wants to see a fight. I like how a fight breaks out and everybody just like, it's like so kind of just calm and everybody just instantly starts cheering. Like no one is even the slightest bit shaken by it.

I really like the tension between Lenny and Carl, but it also upsets me. They're like, what's wrong? No, why does Carl, why was Carl so resentful of Lenny all of a sudden? Carl really hates Lenny in this one. Yeah. It's pretty good.

There's that great moment later when they get paired together, Lenny and Carl, and then Carl's just like, oh, nuts. And then he looks at Lenny, who's just like heartbroken. And then he's like, I mean, and he just kind of gives up being polite and he just repeats himself like, oh, nuts. And then he looks at Lenny, who's just heartbroken. And then he's like, I mean, and he just kind of gives up being polite.

And he just repeats himself like, oh, nuts. I feel like the gods of this universe, Lenny and Carl are fated to be together by their design. Yeah, they will never be free from each other, though. This is when you get to find out that Lenny's cool with them being constant chums, but Carl, not so much. Also, as a kid, I didn't know the Ritz brothers were a thing. I did not get that reference. I thought Burns was misremembering the Marx brothers. Yeah, no, me too.

But it's an older group of comedic brothers, right? Even less memorable. I only know the Ritz brothers because I worked at a mom and pop video store that stocked up on these keno dvds that have public no one wants to see like there's a public domain classics collection pretty much yeah i and then i got to see the rich brothers in a uh one of those classic cartoons of the 40s where or the 30s were like donald duck goes to the movies and he meets all these famous people including the rich brothers and i was like that's when i realized oh the rich brothers are a thing i assume they would have walked out of like a magazine cover and tormented like daffy duck or something actually they sing to donald

he wants an autograph he wants a famous song i know it everyone remembers it i also the animation team mark kirkland directed this one and they reuse every design they've ever had before of a plant employee. Like I spotted, for example, the woman with the thousand-yard stare who just is drinking and Marge gets a job. She's there. Later wearing the moose attler cap. Yeah. And Fong and Zutroy are there.

Mindy Simmons can even be spotted in the background there. They're hitting all of the plant worker designs they have. It's a super efficient use of the plant workers. It also explains why when they actually go on the picnic, the power plant only seems to have like 10 or 15 employees. Yeah. Like this giant nuclear power station is just like has the most efficiently sized workforce in the country.

Yeah. Outside of like Lenny and Carl and Zutroy, I don't see a lot of other memorable characters like charlie that guy charlie yeah no charlie got sent off to india remember he's come back right not yet and soon you'll be arrested for uh questioning hd television and the expansion of that but the i've been in the corporate work world i've been on a couple corporate retreats. One I just didn't go to because I was like, ah, fuck this.

But the two I went to, I wish it was on a fancy mountain with like an outdoor hike. Instead, we had to go to this park in San Francisco and do stuff with this basically an improv troupe and do a scavenger hunt there. And I actually felt really bad for the improv troupe because they were in a public park in a major city. So they had to hang around to wait for employees to come up to them and ask for scavenger hunt clues. But meanwhile, they were being bothered by homeless people all day. I felt really bad for the improv people. I have a company retreat story. So I used to work in the games press, games media, writing about video games. And I was working on a website. And I'd been there for probably 18 months.

And they were just round after round of layoffs. And morality was at an all-time low. And they were like, let's have a company retreat two weeks before we lay everyone else off. So that happened. And it was miserable. And no teams were built. No teamwork was founded. And one of the major presentations was basically,

here's how we're going to get people to do your job for free. And I'm like, why are you doing this? Why did you bring us to this remote location to tell us you're replacing us? And it was IGN, by the way. It's like the sort of corporate equivalent of when a couple reinstates date night to try to save the relationship and then breaks up two weeks later. Yes, exactly. It was sort of like breaking up with you on vacation or something like that. But

my only experience with retreats has been extremely negative. And I just think companies can't afford them anymore. I mean, it's a treat in some way for the worker, but it's also money that they don't want to spend. I think just like forced camaraderie is really annoying. Like, I don't think I've ever been on something like this. But, you know, I remember starting university and like, I don't know if they refer to it as frosh week in the United States, you know, kind of arrived to, you know, in my case, it was like, Oh, yeah, I'm starting my adult life. And then it turns out my adult life had to begin with sort of like, three legged races and like carrying an egg on a spoon and stuff. You're like like this fucking sucks whenever i

was on those retreats i was just wondering how much did this cost and couldn't you have just given us all a uh a bonus instead i that would help my morale much more actually there was an open bar at this retreat and then the presentation about how we're being replaced champagne uh it was free champagne but it was it was probably still bad but uh it was the day after the open bar that they gave that presentation and everyone was just hung over as hell. So it was the worst possible audience to receive that information. There's a darker side to these things. And I mean, to Mr. Burns' credit, I don't think he really puts them through this in Mountain of Madness. There's a lot of company team building exercises now where basically they're just about getting you to be like loyal to your corporate overlords and like get they get you to like chant you know the whatever the brand

name is or whatever that shit's really creepy to me yeah yeah and actually on another of those on the one i skipped i got to hear that part of it was coming up with ideas to like pitch a new website for the company like hey if we were to expand what would your pitch be it's like wait no this is this is a lot of extra work on this trip like so they're just like they're just like getting you to do extra work pretending and then they're going to use like they're going to use it later but they're just pretending that it's like a fun game yeah it's just like when when parents like trying to get like their kids to eat or something, like make it into a game. But Homer seems to think that the family is supposed to come with him, and I love that he makes that assumption.

As he's talking about it, Bart's speech here is really great. It just sounds like something John Schwarzwalder would say in his average daily life. Teamwork is overrated. Think about it. I mean, what team was Babe Ruth on? Who knows? Yankees.

Sharing is a bunch of bull, too. And helping others. And what's all this crap I've been hearing about tolerance? Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. But I think we have to go on a retreat anyway. What was that one rant by Homer that is sort of a non sequitur about, about like what have the homeless ever done for us nothing oh yeah what's the point of charity who's even helped nobody who cares nobody and then no one responds anyway him and turn around yeah it's well this came up in mike reese's book when he talks about john schwartzwelder but he

said that they would often just put his rants in there about how he'd say like, I'm healthier than ever from smoking five packs a day. Or, you know, I read somewhere that there's more rainforests than ever in the world, not less. In fact, so Jennifer Crittenden, who was a writer on the show at this time, she would go to Seinfeld and she would pitch ideas for Kramer that were things John Schwarzwalder either said or did and they'd be like, that's too crazy. So John Schwarzwalder is a crazier version of Kramer. Jal Jean told the story that he said that when Clinton got elected,

he said that he'd be lynched within a year by the people. I was like, Jesus. He's your Republican dad is what Mike Reese, or your dad's friend. That's how Mike Reese describes him. The Simpsons will be right back. Only who can support this podcast on Patreon? You picked you, referring to me.

The correct answer is you. Only you can support this podcast at patreon.com slash talking simpsons, where every week we do brand new content just for you folks on the Patreon. Not only will $5 a month help me and Bob do this full time, which allows us to get cool guests. You get access to every episode of talking simpsons a week ahead of time and ad free you can be listening to the sherry bobbin spectacular right now also you'd get a week ahead of time and ad free every episode of what a cartoon our sister podcast where we go through a different cartoon each week in the talking simpsons style not to mention you'll get access to over a dozen exclusive

interviews that are only on the Patreon with tons of Simpsons experts, including most recently Mark Kirkland, who has directed more episodes of the Simpsons than anybody else, and Mike Reese, who wrote an entire book about his 30 years on the show. Plus on Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, you get access to our exclusive limited series, like me and Bob going through every episode of The Critic with Talking Critic, and the entire first season of Futurama with Talking Futurama.

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Learn so much right there, all at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Also, I'd like to tell you folks that Talking simpsons is going on the road that's right we have two count them two live shows coming up in portland oregon if you live in the pacific northwest there's no reason not to come by and see me and bob do one of two live shows in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, October 20th. That's Saturday, October 20th at Kelly's Olympian, the 2 p.m. show. We'll see me and Bob going through some of our favorite Treehouse of Horror segments. Meanwhile, at the 5 o'clock show, we have our special, special, special guest,

Bill Oakley, former executive producer of The simpsons and co-showrunner during this year of the show bill oakley is one of our favorite guests we have always loved talking to him and now we're going to be chatting with him live about treehouse of horror classics in portland oregon you can find links to get your own tickets and more details on it at patreon.com slash talking simpsons or head over to tinyurl.com slash talking simpsons live for links to the Portland, Oregon tickets. That's again, October 20th, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. only is the Bill Oakley show. Check out tickets now. Kelly's Olympian talking Simpsons live in Portland. But when they head up to the mountains,

it is kind of Oakley and Weinstein stuff, this celebration of public parks. And it's kind of like New Deal or the remnants of New Deal style expansion of public works. I like that. It's cute. And then the park is suffering. Like there's less entertainment because of cutbacks. Although later you find out that there's like the ranger tells them there's like a community music festival. So I don't know who to believe.

I'm guessing you paid to attend attend that festival yeah true i figure that's why he brought it up to be like we've tickets still available guys yeah so it's actually that the park has been sort of quasi privatized and like no longer can depend on like uh property taxes or whatever that sounds true and i love their visit to mount useful because uh i love seeing the simpsons in different outfits, in different settings and they rarely do a snow setting. It's like maybe three or four times in the history of the show to this point. So it's nice to see them all in their snow gear. I love Homer's

outfit. His purple jacket with red hat on his stout frame is so funny looking. It's clowny. And their arrival of just like bouncing the car off of the other cars is so hilarious too it's almost like sort of a rake gag scene in which it goes on way longer than you would expect and it doesn't really resolve the car just comes to a stop in the middle of all the

other cars there are a bunch of different bits like that in this episode like uh i don't know the uh the writing staff as well as you guys but uh there's a bunch of things where the pacing is just like the bit goes on longer than you think. Like the part at the end where Lenny falls down the hole, and it takes longer than it should, just to let you know how far he's falling before you hear that dull thud. Or when Homer

and Burns are staring at each other, or when the ranger tells them that they've had to make cutbacks, and so there's no fun of any kind. And there's just like a long pause before he walks away or whatever. There's, there's a lot of taking of time in this episode, which is a lot of fun,

especially with the like 17 avalanches that happen. Yes. Yeah. Well, actually let's hear from that ranger. All right. Let me start off by telling you, this will not be a walk in the park.

This will be the most arduous and back-breaking weekend of your life. I cannot overemphasize the dangers which... Did you bring your family, Simpson? Uh, yes, sir. I thought I was supposed to. Duh! Imbecile! Simpson, your family will have to remain here. Oh, man. Don't worry, kids. This is a national park. We can have lots of fun.

I'm afraid that's no longer true, ma'am. Budget cutbacks have forced us to eliminate anything the least bit entertaining. Well, see ya. I love how he just appears to deliver that exposition and then leaves. How did you appear? Why are you saying this to us? His only job is to tell people it's not fun. You're not going to have fun.

And on the commentary, they say he's based on Al Gore. I think just the design is based on Al Gore. Hank Azaria is giving a very Adam West-y, like a low-key Adam West. It's the return of the beekeeper from Lisa's Rivals. He's not quite as dramatic yes uh but he is kind of in that mode on the commentary mac reigning is very defensive when they say oh al gore didn't want to do the show he's like he'd do it now he just did futurama he'd do it like

he's uh mac reigning has a brand new friend in al gore and he's not gonna let them talk bad about al gore the quick michael and us the praise again. I love the continued use of President Gore. Yeah, guys, Al Gore won the popular vote. Don't forget it. Nothing but respect for my President Gore. Yes, yeah. I mean, he did. But anyway, also Homer's reaction to,

I have had that on company things as well. Just like, I forgot my map, but you haven't been given a map yet. In that entire scene, it's almost like a Jim Reardon drawing from The Simpsons where Homer is just so plump and so stupid looking, just in this really funny pose with his goofy snow outfit on. I just love it. He looks like a little kid.

Yeah, yeah. It's so cute. Does he call Smithers Mr. Smithers in this episode? Yes. Okay. Lisa even calls him Mr. Smithers. Here's when everybody's getting partnered off with some more fun Homer-Smithers interactions.

I've placed all your names in this hat. Thank you. Now pair off as I draw your names. Lenny and Carl. Ah, nuts. I mean, um... Ah, nuts. Fong and Zutroy.

Kimball and Dawson. Aimee and Drucker. Simpson and Burns. Oh, quiet, you fool. You're on to one team that can't possibly be fired. Sir, this can't be right. You assured me this drawing was rigged so we'd be teammates. Yes, well, frankly, you've been a bit of a pill lately.

Why do we always fight on vacation? Well, there's only one name left. Whoever it is will be paired with me and that person is waylon smithers perfect that's just perfect uh smithers is so great in this episode i'm glad he finally gets time to shine away from burns and by shine i mean be miserable i've never had a fight on a vacation with a with a partner so i feel i feel extra bad for smithers here that the the once again on a vacation they they just can't have any fun burns is being a dick to them and the names that are being called here

so uh haney and drucker that's a green acres reference those are two green acres characters i looked as hard as i could and i could not find uh what kimball and dawson is a reference to and it can't not be a reference it has to be something so old-timey that it's hard to Google. So if you're out there and you know what Kimball and Dawson is a reference to, it's not a reference to The Fugitive, by the way. That was the first thing that popped into my head.

He's not Dr. Richard Kimball. So yes, Kimball and Dawson, solve the mystery, listeners. Now, if we wanted to be really pedantic about this scene, we might point out that when Mr. Smithers reads the names, Lenny and Carl get their first names read and then the other names sound like last names.

Yeah, wait a minute. At this point, we didn't know their names were Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson. So that would be a later discovery in like season 14 or something like that. And Fong and Troy, those are the immigrant laborers from Muchapoo About Nothing,

but only in a deleted scenes. The guys tasked with eating nuclear waste. We never saw Tibor. No, no sign of Tibor. Sorry, when Burns shoots the starting pistol, then it throws him into the ground, and then he just very calmly like, no, I'll just shoot myself back out of it.

That's so funny. This has happened before, I think. Yeah, he's used to that. If he wasn't on snow, it would have just broken his legs, I guess. So as they leave the rest of the family in the museum, I also really love how specific it is in the references of what a boring natural history museum is like with presentations that haven't changed since 1965.

And especially the Smokey the Bear. The Smokey the Bear is one of my favorite lines ever. It really reminded me of how just Spartan and depressing the intery the bear the smoky the bear is one of my favorite lines ever it really reminded me of how just spartan and depressing the interiors of nature centers were when i was growing up just like one old volunteer working uh everything was from the 70s or the 60s dusty old taxidermy things like just not fun for me it was like uh pioneer villages and like uh grown adults who i guess as part of their jobs weren't allowed to break character but it was like pioneer villages And like grown adults Who I guess as part of their jobs

Weren't allowed to break character But it was like extremely annoying And there would just be like a small hut And the whole takeaway was like They didn't have the modern conveniences That we have or whatever That was like every school trip for me growing up And though you didn't get to have

A Smokey the Bear where you grew up, I bet. No, sadly not. Only who can prevent forest fires? You pressed you, referring to me. That is incorrect. The correct answer is you. Mom, can Lisa and I play outside, away from the bear? Okay, but when you start getting apple-cheeked, it's time to come in.

Away from the bear. That's a fun linguistic joke that really feels like a Futurama writer joke to me. Yes, yeah. But Luke was talking about visiting the Pioneer Villages, and we did a bit of that in my school. And I think the intent was to guilt children. It would always be framed in the way like, they didn't have Nintendo. They couldn't watch cartoons and what i took away from that was not oh i should i should value these things

my takeaway was boy it sucked to be them yeah the 19th century or whatever is so boring why would i want to learn about it yeah the closest i had to do with that i did go to saint augustine uh america's first city where nothing happened and it was just like a boondoggle by Ponce de Leon, but technically America's first city. And you'd get to drink from a tourist trap called the Fountain of Youth there too. Now it's kind of just the Fountain of Trichinosis, I'm guessing. Hey, I mean, I haven't died yet. It could be a Fountain of Youth, you never know. We'll test that after the show. We also get a fun, this episode really opens up not just the pairing of homer and burns together but also smithers with the kids which as a bachelor smithers they

never really do stuff with him with kids so this is a side of him we've never get to experience before how could you do this to me mr burns after all i've done for you. Why, if you were here, I'd kick you right in your bony old behind. Bony old behind. Bony old behind. Bony old behind. Bony old behind. Why, thank you, Simpson. I have been watching my figure.

Lise, Lise, come here. I found two snowflakes that are exactly alike. Really? Let me see. Ow. Oops. Sorry. Really? Let me see. Ow! Oops. Sorry. Hi, Mr. Smithers. Oh, great. It's the Bobsey twins.

We'll take your prying eyes elsewhere. I'm sorry. It hasn't been a good day. If I don't get to the top of the mountain real soon, I could get fired. We'll help you. I have a watch with a minute hand. All right, you can come. What time is it? 1280. No, wait.

Wait, what comes after 12? One. No, after 12. You're right, Henry. And I think a lot of the intent with this episode was let's pair up characters that we normally don't see together. So, I mean, we've seen Homer and Burns, but never on these good terms they're on briefly in the show, you know, when they sort of become friends, odd friends.

And I love Bart's pronouncement of no after 12, which it reminds me of when you're trying to ask someone for help and they're getting it all wrong, and when you try to correct them, they're just like, no, come on. They get more insistent about the thing they're wrong about. And the Bobsy Twins, by the way, folks, if you don't know, was a children's novel series that started in 1904 and they published dozens and dozens of them for nine decades until it finally ended. Thank God. I mean, I didn't really know the, I mean, I knew it was a reference to a book series,

but I had assumed that they solved mysteries, but they don't. No. It's just regular kids in their lives. Yeah, it's sort of like, just here's a story about regular kids, read it. At least the Babysitter's Club starts a business. Yeah, I'm sure there's at least three mysteries

involving babies. What, the boxcar children, they went on adventures at least. In a boxcar? They were in a boxcar in one book, and at the end boxcar children, they went on adventures at least. In a boxcar? They were in a boxcar in one book. And at the end of that book, they get adopted. And then they're just like rich kids, rich orphans who go back to their boxcar occasionally. That's a bait and switch.

I paid for a boxcar child story. Did the Bobsy twins, like, did they get up to hijinks and like goings on? Or what was their, what did they do? They were fraternal twins on hijinks and like goings on or what was their what was their what did they do they were fraternal twins on hijinks yeah it was sort of like uh low-level hijinks what i read about it i guess the appeal was there weren't a lot of books written about like there were stories about kids with gumption on adventures and things like that but there were never there weren't a lot of like domestic stories about the lives of children and that was sort sort of a novel concept because we were entering the age when these books were being published in which, oh yeah,

kids are not like tiny slaves, they're people that we can't force to work in mines anymore. So what are their lives like? And meanwhile, Homer and Burns are talking about cheating. Tell me, Simpson, if an opportunity arose for taking a small shortcut, you wouldn't be averse to taking it, would you?

Not as such. Neither would I. I've always felt that there's far too much hysteria these days about so-called cheating. Yeah, it's a lot of hysteria. Mm-hmm. If you can take advantage of a situation in some way, it's your duty as an American to do it. Why should the race always be to the swift, or the jumble to the quick-witted? Should they be allowed to win merely because of the gifts God gave them? Well, I say, cheating

is the gift man gives himself. Mr. Burns, I insist that we cheat. Excellent. And to do so, I propose we travel by hostlessly. Wow. You sure know how to cheat, Mr. Burns. Yes, well, I'm

older than you. You know, Simpson, you're not as objectionable as you seemed when we first met. No, sir, I am not. I just love their relationship in this episode, especially when they start bonding, but these uncomfortable scenes at first where Homer's like, I don't know what to say to this man. I'm terrified of him. I can't say the wrong wrong thing i have to homer is being so guarded in his speech though burns is

too because burns is it's kind of like somebody floating the idea of like half jokingly committing a crime with you or or uh joking not joking asking you something sexual but instead he's just like hey cheating hey i mean what do you think of it i like that burns is both sort of competent enough and he's like thought enough through the cheating that he's got a you know like a snowmobile for them to drive away on but then he still calls it like a horseless slave he doesn't know the common terminology but yeah i i like burns that he's being more personable and floating that idea past Homer. He's not like, Simpson, we're cheating now. Or you're fired.

Help me cheat. He's just like, you're a new chum. What would you think of this idea? And we get a nice callback to Burns' love of the junior jumble. That's true. From Homer the Smithers. The jumble to the quick-witted. The jumble to the quick-witted.

And then we flash back to marge and i really like this from a writing standpoint because they need to tie up marge in some way while homer is in one place and the kids are in another place marge needs to end up at the final destination but in a different way too and they really find a clever way of doing that i don't want to take credit away from john schwartzwelder and say he didn't come up with that but again mike reese was pretty clear of like john schwartzwelder would often just write a sims script and for some reason leave out lisa and marge entirely so i i'm wondering if they had that afterwards but it's really what first she sees the thing with john mirror which he was the like he's called the father of the national parks in America.

Yeah, and he actually died in 1914, so I don't believe there's any recorded audio of him. So Dan Castaneda is doing an imitation of a John Muir impersonator he heard at Yosemite Park. Yes, yeah. Well, if you can't count on that, an imitator, then for authenticity, then who can? It's a great crazy voice, and I like how Marge sort of backs out of the room. She just backs away like, okay, getting out of here. It's the same. We've seen that back away joke many times with Simpsons,

but it's for a person who's acting strange. In this case, it's like, I gotta get away from this video. It's so boring. It'll kill me. To borrow a Marge line from a previous episode, she was disappointed and terrified. But Marge finds some more help with the ranger here. Excuse me, sir.

I can't find my children. Have you checked the woods? No. Follow me. We'll take the chairlift. It'll give us an eagle-eye view of the area directly beneath the chairlift. It'll give us an eagle-eye view of the area directly beneath the chairlift. Well, I won't lie to you, ma'am.

Our chances of finding your children are slim to nil. Hi, Mom. There they are! Let me down here. Sorry, there's no way off until we get to the top. And even then, it's sort of tricky. All right, kids, we'll meet you at the top. Just be careful.

Yeah, I'm actually a little more concerned about us. Do you know how to weld? It really is the perfect escalation of jokes in which the problems of the chairlift really escalate in a perfect way because number one, it provides no great view that you need. Number two, it's impossible to get off of it. Number three, it's actively falling apart and it might kill you so that's a great such a great like i think an

escalation of the humor there and it was useless in the first place because it would only show them a very small amount of the forest anyway it was it was it was entirely dangerous and useless for the for him to suggest it so i i also just love his statement of like, even then, it's sort of tricky. Meanwhile, Homer and Burns arrive at the cabin way early, and they need to set up that the propane tank is there so it can become the rocket house. But the way Burns just says like, and with this lever, turn, and it's over explanation to the nth degree. I think they're really hanging a

lantern on it because then he's explaining how the door works yes yeah and then homer's really delighting he's like uh no window no going in the window for us yeah we're expected he'd have to smash through the window otherwise he's acting as if the the idea of a door is as clever as the idea of heating a cabin we come back to bart with smithers and lisa and it was the first time i caught that it's kind of almost a family circus style gag but you see the straight line of steps took and then the line of steps that bart is taking going from tree to tree and by the way the outdoor scenes in this are just gorgeous especially that that uh last shot in the first act of everyone leaving and splitting up and that big scene of just the wilderness it's very pretty well not

these like naturalistic designs they don't just come out of nowhere like mark kirkland his team had to work really hard to draw a bunch of new areas they go to you don't you think like the elves draw it it just gets taken care of but when you go to new places animation it's really difficult it's you're asking they can't just reuse the same places they've always gone to these are all new cabins and uh when they arrive to burns burns and homer start like immediately bonding i just this this bonding scene between them is so cute to me more champagne you know mr burns you're the richest guy me. peasant who doesn't enjoy a good sit oh man you are so right did you ever sit like this yes yes that's it oh I could go for one of those right now

so despite them coming from very different walks of life sitting is the great equalizer it's what they have in common that's basically the only thing well then Homer dispenses some proletarian wisdom because he knows how, once you've slouched down, how to get the ball over just by aggressively kicking the table.

And then Burns is like, Sir, I am in your debt. I mean, yeah, Mr. Burns is used to having smithers or a servant get him whatever he needs, but Homer has to rely on himself, so he's developed all of these life hacks i also love that burns immediately feeds into it with when homer says see that bowl of dip over there i i have to get it like why you'd have to get up it feels almost

like an infomercial yeah exactly uh i i also wonder though too like uh swartz welder is famously anti-environmentalist, too, so I wonder if all these gags about Lisa with trying to help her troos and caring about animals, is him going like, why should you even care about any of these things? Nature's stupid. Lisa is extra annoying in this episode.

I didn't get it as a joke at first, but that Homer smashing on the coffee table, for all the things that cause avalanches. That does not. It's only when they tink the glasses together is what happens. Then when the avalanche happens, all the food seems to have like disappeared from the table. I guess maybe they ate it all in between shots.

Homer just eats all of it. It's all gone now. They, uh, uh, well, and letting Carl's exchange here is another of my just, oh, God, favorites. Like, Carl is such a dick to Lenny

here. Sir, I am in your debt. Use it wisely, my friend. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Did you hear something? No. Hmm. Did I? I don't know. That's a great reading of I don't know. Yeah. It's great. And I think so.

In the episode, Mr. Plow, we saw God actively changing the weather despite the Simpsons, Homer and Barney. In this episode, i really feel like the like the fates are conspiring to keep burns and homer enemies so the first major avalanche happens when they clink glasses the second happens when they give high fives so i feel like any sort of any sort of friendship between burns and homer is frowned upon by the fates it cannot happen in this universe i buy that right after that is when we get the bit that luke was talking about the the opening of the door twice and i'm like oh but maybe yeah it kills a lot

of time but it's really funny they there's multiple in this that if it wasn't so funny you would complain that it's like uh filler just to kill 30 seconds by repeating a joke twice but it's so it's so great that Homer thinks, if I open this door a second time, snow won't come out. And then Burns tries to telegraph, and I sort of just got this for the first time, where it's a funny reveal where you follow the telegraph line, it shows it's actually in a museum and no one can respond to it.

It's like, dun-dun-dun. And then it cuts to Samuel Morse, who is a mannequin, and he gets a scary sting too it's like that's not even a person it's a mannequin where it's like well yeah it's a museum but i like how he gets the same amount of drama yeah that reveals i like when you look around him like in the museum there's like a dinosaur skeleton and i'm pretty sure there's like a mummy or something too and it's like what the hell kind of exhibit is it it's a real grab bag of history but i do like the crappy mannequin the beard is falling off and there are cobwebs on it nobody

cares about samuel morse i also really like that like it's such a it's such a good character point with mr burns the fact that he just knows how to work a telegraph machine like he has this old world competence yeah you're right he may have to like you know write himself physically by firing a gun at the ground but he just like knows how to send a message using morse code i mean in homer the smithers he had to learn how to use the telephone so he's mostly used to the telegraph yeah he only would know i mean he has a real stock ticker as well in his closet so he's used to he's very technologically advanced for like 1921 but other than that is he's just kind of

lost on him i don't know if you have the clip of lenny and carl arriving at the cabin area no i do okay uh but first they they try to get out and i love we were just whining about management just a bit ago but this is this is a great play on how useless managers are simpson i have a confession i'm not quite the tunnel digger I made myself out to be. You can supervise me. All right, good. Let's dig. That's right, dig some more. Oh, we make quite a duo, Burns and Associate.

No, no, what am I thinking? Burns and Team Mate. Get in! We made it, old friend. We sure did. Huzzah! Woo-hoo! Ah! It's a good little slapstick-y act break.

I love his dough causes another avalanche yeah uh but the lenny and carl thing i was thinking of was uh it must be one of those metaphorical things oh yeah like yes a metaphor yeah but then no there'd be sandwiches the sandwiches aren't a metaphor when they come back they kill a lot of time of just accidentally causing avalanches over and over this is what i was really re-examining during this viewing because upon watching this before, I'm like, oh yeah, it's funny. The scene is very funny because the avalanches won't stop. But if you look at what any other sitcom would do, in a sitcom premise, it'd be like, there'd be one avalanche. It'd be like, we're snowed in.

One avalanche happens in the episode and the characters have to find a way out or survive together. In this one, there are like 17 avalanches it's so it's so crazy and i never thought about that uh that take on the reality of an avalanche like there's not that many avalanches ever but in this episode there are like almost like over a dozen which no one even notices until they look at a seismometer later yeah oh yes i also love this exchange as avalanches are being caused you're causing more avalanches i think they stopped let's go Dave, stop.

Let's go. Oh, those last three avalanches were your fault, Simpson. So what? So buttons. Burns is getting snippy. And it puts out their fires so you know that they're freezing as well. And that's when he says to entertain himself and he picks up a Bazooka Joe comic. I also like he points out that Bazooka Joe hasn't changed a joke since 75 years.

Yeah, even Mr. Burns thinks Bazooka Joe has bad humor. He's heard that one before. They arrive at the cabin for the ranger squad and then burning the moose head is also so funny. They're all just freezing even with a fire just to let you know how cold it is i also do love when birds is like i'll manage you burns and associate as he does nothing and just tells homer to dig on his behalf so homer and burns lose it so quickly they bring this up on the commentary but within three hours they have cabin fever and are trying to kill each other yeah Yeah, it doesn't take long, does it? No, I mean, you could say that they, I guess, are always on edge and are ready to destroy each other.

And they're such opposites in terms of who they are that I think the cabin fever would only accelerate. Yeah, that's true. Maybe someone laced the moderately prized champagne. Ooh, or it's gone bad and it's getting to them. I like that reading. Bad sandwiches too. 206 bones, 50 miles of small intestine,

full pouting lips, where this fellow is less a snowman than a god. Well, we've managed to stave off cabin fever for a few hours. I think we should dress the snowmen. Agreed.

Look at them. Smug and secure in their finery. Mocking us. Uh, they're just snowmen, Mr. Burns. Uh, snowmen have peepers. Peepers to watch. To watch for our moment of weakness and then comes the knock on the head and we're down what do we do oh wouldn't you like to know

can that be a line of the show that's my favorite scene in the whole episode yeah all right i'm gonna play to watch here's the jingle that's the joke oh it's so good yes i i love how how quickly he goes insane where it's like okay yes we built the snowman beat i think we should dress the snowman because it's like what do we do now we've already done the thing that the only thing we can do they can't build more snowmen so they instead when they're already freezing they're like well let's just strip to our underwear and burns us like these snowmen think they're better than us with their clothing uh and also yeah all of that like wouldn't you like to know wouldn't you like to know then buff comes a knock on the head and then they also both are drawn with like the bags under their eyes and they kind of have like the

disheveled the half-lidded look of like jack nicholson and the shining i definitely get some shining vibes off of the way they go uh nuts in this as well it's even better that they put a mustache comb on the on the snowman too that's extra i don't really get why like when they sort of call their respective like imaginary armies mr burns is kind of like his his army is sort of like a bunch of like world war one like german soldiers like as snowmen with with like comb mustaches and then homer's just like i have powers political powers and then it's like gandhi and abe lincoln and stuff it's all of the political people that homer would know

all the ones he would think like i believe a pharaoh was there too yeah i i really like burns's army because it's what homer imagines his old-timey army would be. But I just see that Homer's political powers are the ones Burns imagines too, which is why in that group is Mao. This is the first time I thought that Mao has a hammer and sickle in his hands. Oh, you're right. That's great. That's his weapons. That's pretty. Abraham Lincoln would team up with Mao.

It's showtime! that's so great burns is afraid that his like workforce is gonna it's gonna do a revolution against them i mean burns has certainly employed the pinkertons to murder unions at some point when we go back to the ranger station what i really love is in the wide shot of marge and the ranger arriving you can actually see r see Ranger McFadden behind the drunk. So they set that line up. I don't know. He gets two lines in this episode. For some reason, as we go deeper into the show

and as I get more insane from doing this for so long, I kind of fall in love with characters that only have two lines of dialogue. And I'm a big Ranger McFadden fan. Right here, sorry, behind the trunk. Let's see. Hey, what is going on here? Who are you people? This is a lookout post.

Where is Ranger McFadden? I was just happy to see so many nice people. Quiet, you drunk. Where is Ranger McFadden? Right here, sir, right behind the trunk. Wait a minute. If this is a ranger station, we must be in the wrong place. The only other cabin is right over there.

Huh. Look at all these avalanches. Do you think they could have buried the cabin? I'll tell you one thing. They didn't come here for the Mountain Music Festival. March 14th to 18th. Both sides of that exchange are hilarious do you think all of those avalanches could have buried the cabin and then this guy taking a moment uh to be both dramatic and promotional yes yeah which i'll tell you one thing this aired in early february so the march dates fit with the uh the timeline of the air date still time to buy tickets in 1997 i went

to a mountain music festival or the equivalent of it speaking date. Still time to buy tickets in 1997. I went to a mountain music festival or the equivalent of it. Speaking of like childhood things that you realize are much worse than as you get older, I went to one of those when I lived in Northern Georgia. We lived in a suburb of Atlanta

called Marietta and then we went up to Stone Mountain. And as I would later find out, Stone Mountain is a favorite haunt of the KKK. So lots of chat about the war of northern aggression um well i at first thought of like oh that's an interesting monument on the side of this mountain and it is all of the generals of the confederacy put into the side of the mountain and it's actually incredibly controversial partially

paid for by the clan and it's just people say i many people in georgia now trying to say like blow that up and make it a monument to martin luther king we got to get rid of this shit i don't think they burn the crosses on the top of the stone mountain any longer but it was a regular it was it ended more recently than you would think wow but i have no mountain music festival stories i'm sorry. Yeah, same. I got to see a cool laser light show there, though. I will say that about Stone Mountain. So lasers and racism together.

Together. They start losing their minds, and we get to see them both summon their armies to fight each other. I also love the line Homer's saying. He's trying to hypnotize me in not in a fun Las Vegas-y way. But when they fight each other,

there's not any funny lines there. It's just like violent and scary that Burns fully intends to murder Homer Simpson. If he had hit him once, he would have killed him. He's summoning a lot of strength. Very situational Burns. That sitting really paid off. Yeah, that's true.

I forgot to mention it at the start of this act, when Homer and Burns start arguing, you can see right in the center of the screen, but in the background, is the propane tank. They're setting it up very heavily there for the rocket car. I wonder if the Chekhov's fire poker is hanging out in the background, too. Burns almost hits Homer, but hits the propane tank instead, and that turns the house into the rocket house.

And as it's flying through the air, it's just on top of all this other cool stuff in this episode, they have to draw a house flying via a rocket. Down a complicated mountain. Yes, yeah. And we cut back to Bart. Bart is a little too trusting of authority here, I would say. Okay, search party, before we set out, let's take a moment to humor the children. Kids,

your father's gonna be just fine. Okay, everybody, put on your corpse-handling gloves. We've got two frozen bodies buried somewhere in this mouth. Did you hear that, Lise? Dad's gonna be just fine. Look, what's that? What? Look, what's that?

I'll be dashed to pieces. Will Lloyd protect this rocket house and all who dwell within the rocket house? It's them, all right. We're over here, homie! Oh, something's wrong with its brakes, Gale. This struck me as very Schwarzwalder-y in that no one has ever seen a rocket cabin before. But the characters are acting as if, well, A, Lenny thinks it has brakes and or could possibly stop

of its own free will or the driver's free will. And Marge thinks they can steer it. Yeah, yeah. Like, over here, homie. No one's like, what the fuck is happening? Like, why is this house moving? This should not be happening. They're like, oh, right here, guys. Park it over here. You can see that the rocket house kind of turns slightly to not run into everybody, which shouldn't happen.

It's not controlled by anything, but it just runs out of gas just at the right point. And they drew a very Matt Groening-y squirrel that just gets smashed by the rocket house. I hope Lisa and Smithers heal that squirrel later. It happened right off screen. When they arrive, it's a happy ending. March, kid. Have you people forgotten our little competition? Last one in the cabin is fired.

You're fired, Lenny. Ah, nuts. So, how did we do? It's a new record, sir. Outstanding. Well, perhaps all of this has been worthwhile. Did you all learn about teamwork? Yes.

Excellent. In that case, no one will be fired after all. That old goat can't fire me. I'm going to give him a piece of my mouth. So in the history of the show, Lenny has fallen down two giant holes, sort of caused by Mr. Burns. The last one was in Burns' air where Burns wanted Lenny to explain why he's a good worker without using the letter E

or why he shouldn't be fired without using the letter E. I'm a good work guy. But I didn't say E. Twice in a row, he gets fired by Burns and then falls to presumably his death. I like it as a running gag. It's before Lenny getting stuff in his eye running gag. Yeah, I prefer that to the getting stuff in his eye thing. The eye injury, it's it's before the lenny getting stuff in his eye running gag uh i yeah i prefer that to the getting stuff in his eye thing the eye injury it's like oh boy ouch it's too i know

that's the point of it but uh and uh that i think that probably was the uh the original ending but this this added on ending here it's it i i like any play off of everyone laughs at the end of a sitcom. And so this is a nice satire of that, I'd say. Well, Simpson, I must say, once you've been through something like that with the person, you never want to see that person again. You said it, you weirdo. it's a great little ending i mean either one is fine by me but i like the little tag at the end you know what i like about this episode is that if uh if this was like a season one or two episode there would be like uh the the ending would have some moral or something. There actually would be a lesson about team building,

and then they'd all come together at the end and share it. But in this one, there's only just an ironic deconstruction of that kind of ending. Yeah, it's sort of like an anti-sitcom in that no one learns a lesson, and teamwork made everyone miserable, and Burns and Homer only grew further apart by experiencing trauma together and they didn't even find their way to the cabin correctly because the cabin comes to them so they fail at their teamwork that is very true yeah you know in a preview in a season two episode it would have ended with like the classic like 30 seconds of heartwarmingness and in this this completely

throws that out the the rocket car a rocket house it would be like margin homer in bed together going over the events yeah exactly in this one they're just like no no one's happy people realize they would have murdered each other and they might still do it they might still hate each other and want to kill each other it is true so luke savage you're our special guest can you tell us your final thoughts on Mountain of Madness? Oh, boy. You know, I really liked it. You know, I think from what I what I gathered, like reading reviews of it online and stuff, it seems like opinions are pretty divided on it. Like I on the Simpsons Archive website, there are reviews that give it like an A plus, an A, an A minus. And there's a few that give it like a D or a C plus even, which is kind of

baffling to me because, you know, it's not the best Simpsons episode ever, but I watched it twice in the past week. And I don't know, like there's something funny every few seconds. Like there's so much, there's so much to laugh at and there's so many different kinds of gags. So I would definitely not give it a C or a D. Yeah, I totally agree with you. This actually reminds me of another kind of secret favorite of mine where I don't realize it's a C or a D. Yeah, I totally agree with you. This actually reminds me of another kind of secret favorite of mine where I don't realize it's a favorite until I watch it again, the PTA disbands. And there's no real high concept through line. There's nothing especially like mega clever, but it's a bunch of really, really great rapid fire gags in one setting. And I really,

really love this episode. It's so good. And again, the new setting is just fun to see them in new clothes and new elements outside of the home. It's just a fun little trip for the viewer to take, too. I love all the National Park jokes and just that they get as much out of the mountain-y setting as they can. I think there have been more, I guess, tightly plotted episodes of the show. But I like where this goes. And when you compare it kind of to the Sherry Bobbins episode that's next, I think this has a little more thought put into the gags and the density of jokes. It still has the same effort you see put into jokes as well. And so many great jokes on boring things, too.

Yeah, I think there's more thought put into the connective tissue between jokes, too. But Luke, can you tell us all about Michael and us, where to find it, how to support you? And again, Henry and I are huge fans of the show. Yeah. Oh, thanks guys. Yeah, that's awesome. We just record it in my apartment usually. And it's always so amazing to hear that people actually listen to it.

I guess the numbers tell us that, but most of our fans, I think, are down in the United States. So we rarely actually get to talk to them. So cheers for that. People can listen on SoundCloud. I listen to it when I kind of listen back to the episodes, as I sometimes do for some reason, on the iPhone podcast app. But we have a Patreon as well. So if you like the regular episodes, you can subscribe on SoundCloud.

And then we have little teasers that will link you to the Patreon episodes for the low, low price of $5 a month. You know, we hope you like this podcast. You'll give ours a listen. I got to say, I was so happy when you guys got a Patreon because I get very frustrated when I enjoy a podcast and they don't have a way for me to give them money. I'm just like, let me give you money. No, I and your exclusives have been so good the uh at the time of this recording the recent one you did with uh nate robinson was just so good this documentary made to celebrate the obama administration and instead you talk about like the the disappointment of the obama administration that then led to the handoff to the most

monstrous human being possible to be president. Yeah, that one was fun because, you know, the documentary is called Obama, the final year. And so you assume it's going to be about Obama, which like, I mean, you know, they're not, not the most exciting thing, but like mostly what it's about is actually these like unelected Obama staffers, people like Ben Rhodes and Samantha Powers. And it's just them kind of like going around the world, drinking lots of coffee and like working very, very hard and kind of, I don't know, speaking very loftily about things without actually doing very much. Yeah, that was fun. I wouldn't recommend watching the film unless you want to snooze fest. But definitely subscribe to Patreon and give a listen. Awesome. So again, that's Michael and us. Thank you so much, Luke, for being on the show.

Yeah, this was fun, guys. So yeah, thanks again to Luke Savage for being on the show. I think he was a great guest. But as for us, this entire network is supported by a Patreon. If you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons for $5 a month, you can get things like exclusive series. You'll get every episode of this podcast so we can head a time in at free. And also interviews and monthly community podcast and season wrap ups and deleted scene specials and so much going on there. If you sign up for $5 right now and you've never been on Patreon or never been a member of our Patreon, you'll have dozens and dozens and dozens of things that you've never heard before available to you. We've been doing this for over a year now. We've done so many things, so many limited series. And if you sign up, you'll get a nice little code.

You drop that code into whatever you use to listen to podcasts. You can integrate our bonus podcast into your podcasting lifestyle. Henry, would you mind telling the listeners at home, what are two Patreon exclusives that they can listen to if they sign up right now like two most recent really cool things we've done uh well i talked about mike reese interview quite a lot that was a really cool one we had been wanting to get him for so long he is one of the longest employed people on the simpsons and he gave us so much insight into the show including he explains to us the story of the caramel on the ceiling at long last. And we shocked him with our knowledge of that. And also Dan McGrath, who is a lesser known but no less important person who worked on The Simpsons.

He worked on seasons four, five, and six, as well as on Saturday Night Live in the 90s, Mission Hill, King of the Hill, and Gravity Falls. He tells us so many things that he has not talked about before. He's on no Simpsons commentaries. So we had lots of new information from our good buddy Dan McGrath. So check those out. And maybe when you're listening to this, we'll have also put out some other interviews that we're working on behind the scenes right now. Some really cool stuff is coming.

And it's always going to be on the Patreon for you patrons. One more thing about Dan McGrath. I want to point out how nice he was in that he actually phoned Henry after our interview to give him another anecdote. So he's like, I've got more for you guys. So boy, what a great interviewee. So yes, go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons to help us live. If you can't afford five bucks a month, even a buck a month would be great as a way of saying, hey, thanks guys for the podcast.

We would appreciate it. As for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I have another podcast. It is called Retro Knots. That is a classic gaming podcast. You can find that at retronauts.com or look for Retro Knots in your podcast device or app. It's a classic gaming podcast. It's been going on since 2006. I recommend you find a topic that interests you and download the corresponding episode and then subscribe if you like. There's also a Patreon for Retro Knots too if you want to check that out. and download the corresponding episode and then subscribe if you like. There's also a Patreon for RetroNuts2 if you want to check that out. It's got some bonuses, but

I'm here to shill for this Patreon because I make the most money off of it. Henry, how about you? Well, you can follow me on Twitter, H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. That's where I tweet about things that happen in the world of The Simpsons and when we post new stuff on the Patreon and on our sister show, What a Cartoon,

where we go through a different cartoon each week. And also, if you like the political talk in this, you'll get more than you bargained for when you start following me on Twitter, at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you next week for Simpson Califragilistic Expielidocious. See you then. Hey, maybe there is no cabin. Maybe it's one of them metaphorical things. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, maybe the cabin is the place inside each of us created by our goodwill and teamwork.

Oh. Ma, they said to be sandwiches.