Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Mr. Plow With Will Menaker

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

We've reached what some consider the best episode of Simpsons ever, so we welcome back one of our best guests ever, Will Menaker from Chapo Trap House! We have so much to say about this triumph of writing and animation, from the show's love for Adam West and Linda Rondstadt to the jingle still stuck in our heads decades later, and even exploring the realities of freezing to death. All that, plus an exploration of William Friedkin's movie mindset in this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get over 150 bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking futurama talk king of the hill the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. customer Bob Mackey and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today as always? It's Henry Gilbert and tell a big baby sent ya. And who is our special guest on the line? Will Meneker. I was buying pornography. And this week's episode is Mr.

Plow. Hi homie. It's really starting to snow. I think you should come home. What more? Jalen think he's throwing knives at Ricardo Magelbon. Ow. Sorry, Ricardo. This episode originally aired on November 19th, 1992, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

Oh my God! Happy almost Thanksgiving, Bobby. How Do You Talk to an Angel tops the charts. Home 2 is above malcolm x at the box office and next week is sonic tuesday as the game is released to wide acclaim wow so the height is uh is that the simpsons not not the sister show more like the stepdad show because it's after martin right 30 minutes after this yeah so how do you talk to an angel is the theme song from the heights sung by the fictional band The Heights. I'm sorry, I thought everybody knew that.

I apologize. And yeah, so on this very night of television, it was The Simpsons, Mr. Plow, a Martin episode, and then the penultimately aired episode of The Heights. It had a hit song on the radio, and yet it gets canceled two weeks after this episode airs like it's it's shocking that it didn't do uh that didn't lead to success for the heights for a second there i i i thought the number one uh chart chopping song of the era was lou reeds how to speak to an angel from the growing up in public album but no no i mean breathy how do you talk that's the current moment in time there's basically a five percent chance that you'll hear this song if you're getting a haircut that's about the the over under on that i mean what a day to be a 10 year old boy uh or near that because yes home alone 2 and sonic the hedgehog 2 back

to back like that's that's a great time to be a 10-year-old boy. I mean, we're all buying our Talk Boys for Christmas as well, getting that with Sonic 2. The Halcyon days, and for me personally, this, of course, was marked by coming into Monday from the weekend and just doing all of the gags from this episode to my friends in the cafeteria during lunch period. So, really, it was the best of times.

Yeah, I mean, so Home Alone 2, we had Sonic Tuesday. As we're all 10, we're putting Malcolm X on the back burner for a little bit. Let that stew. And then next year, we have Mortal Monday. And then we kind of stopped naming days after video games. It was a real shame. Yeah. We never got, like, Wario Wednesday or anything like that.

In case you don't know this about video game history, folks, that back then, video games just It was a real shame. Yeah. We never got like Wario Wednesday. Or anything like that. In case you don't know. It's about video game history folks. That back then. Video games just kind of released gradually. It was like. Mario 3 is out. Sort of this week. Check. Check your Walmart.

But Sega of America. Made it a big marketing push. Of like. Sonic 2 is out. This day. Like. We're going to treat this like. A big movie release.

And they treated it as sonic two day because it was released on the following tuesday after that we had to get out we had to get all our gaming news from nintendo power magazine that was that was that was what's up yeah the heated rival sega visions that's who was doing the sonic 2 coverage nintendo power was like that that game does not exist what What's Sega? It's an industry rag. We've never heard of it. Propaganda. Don't trust it.

And Malcolm X at the time, I just knew it as like, oh, that's like a cool hat people wear, right? Like the hat with the X on it. It meant you're a cool guy. Ooh, the hat movie's out. But later on, I came to really like that movie. I like that movie more than Home Alone 2. I think most people would say that as well uh donald trump does not have a cameo in malcolm x unfortunately oh geez uh not

in sonic 2 either i mean he is has a robotnic body type but he's not in sonic 2 but yes that's what happened uh as this classic episode of the simpsons aired uh you heard him up front everybody joining us today once again is will Meneker of Chapo Trap House and the new podcast miniseries they're doing, Movie Mindset. Welcome back to the show, Will. A pleasure to be here talking about what I think after re-watching it for this episode. I think I would have to rate Mr. Plow

as maybe my favorite episode of The Simpsons of all time. It's really high up there for me, too. God, I really love some of the... The Poochie show is also so high up there for me too. I, God, I really love some of the, like the Poochie show is also so high up there for me, but it was like, I would say it's like a pure vision of like a Homer gets a job episode, which is one of the most standard traditional episodes of the show. There isn't a better one than this one.

I mean like Homer, the astronaut might would come close, but for me it's, it's gotta be Mr. Plow all the way. I mean, season four of the Simpsons, I, you know, I would, I would quote John Dolan, the war nerd here,

as saying The Simpsons are probably the finest thing American culture has ever produced. And season four of The Simpsons is the finest era of The Simpsons. To me, every episode in season four is an absolute masterpiece. And Mr. Plow, no exception. There's just, God, there's just so much good stuff

in this episode. Yeah, season four is a mix of really good old show writers getting very tired and just trying anything. And then new people like Conan O'Brien and Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein coming on board and really mixing things up with their new ideas. So it's like the perfect blend of old and new. Old being people who are like 32 at this point. The aged 32-year-olds on staff. Who also think the show's about done and so they're like we can just do any dumb shit we want we're gonna get canceled next month like

that's what all of them were thinking well and also like this is some of the best animation too because the the korean studio on it rough draft we've talked a ton about them before but they are really killing it on this one some of my favorite just wacky drawings of homer are in this one like his especially when he he has so many like silly things he does with his mouth that i'm just like oh that that's not the rules for homer but it's so damn funny i was gonna say in this episode uh is directed by jim reardon oscar winner for uh not for directing but for the screenplay for wally so he is one of the best he would go on to be supervising director of the show for a bit his episodes from this era are

typically some of the funniest along with David Silverman as well yeah it's worth noting as well when we talk about how great the writers were then like the directors who have to storyboard it and come up with ideas and angles and everything that is writing as well like and so him being an oscar-winning writer i think really drills down like no they had great writers like on every level not just in the the harvard graduate uh writer's room of the and this is also written by one of the the best writer like under i would say underrated as the best writer on the show like swartzweather is so great but if you just look at the list of what john vitti wrote like I think he has the best batting average of anybody who has a name attached as writer well well also you know speaking of your you just you would have just had your most recent season of the

movie Mindset and I was curious like especially this episode is full of movie references what what did Simpsons do to create your movie mindset? Oh, like it created it. Like it is movie mindset. I mean, like that's a very common thing to say about The Simpsons is that like this episode had me in stitches when I, you know, probably sixth grade when this came out. I didn't get, I didn't even get the,

like the Godfather reference in this. I didn't get the William Friedkin sorcerer reference in this, but it was just like The Simpsons were so good and the jokes hit on so many levels. like the like the Alex Clockwork Orange reference when Lisa like programs Bart like a hamster it was just like I I knew it was funny but it was like it instilled that curiosity to find out more about why it was funny because like the references I did get all all slayed so like yeah like the Simpsons by like being written by people who were so informed by the popular culture of their era, it was really like a sort of a transmission vector for the great films and art of a previous generation for me.

These episodes we do end up being so long because we have to, we choose to, we don't have to, we love to, explain all the movie references that might be totally lost and definitely most of these were lost on me as a kid honestly even by the end of my 20s i had watched most of the major films that gets gift reference in this because they were the big deal films and i was a i was a wannabe uh video store clerk uh movie expert but even i hadn't did not watch uh sorcerer actually until this week i had not oh wow yeah i'm embarrassed to say great movie and apparently friedkin was a fan of the simpsons and that's why the sorcerer reference was in there like the writers of this episode were like they heard through the grapevine that friedkin liked the show and so like yeah they threw in

the uh the truck crossing that rickety bridge reference for him and then in this the very funny visual gag of him realizing that there is a concrete and steel modern suspension bridge right across from where he tries to cross the ravine i definitely started watching classic movies to just get the jokes in the simpsons and the critic and that's how i became a classic movie fan and even today when we do research we finally get around to watching certain things that are referenced like the 1980 movie coal miner's daughter which is the basis for uh the lurley and lumpkin episode which is a great movie that i never would have seen if not for the simpsons referencing now like a very obscure film and then you know of course like the uh the troy mcclure movie titles are always slaying me and then in this one two of the best the erotic adventures

of hercules and dial m for murderousness and like i don't even know i just say like perfect example i didn't even know dial m for murder was like what was was a very classic classic movie there's something about the time got the word murderousness just killed me every time still to this day dial m for murderousness i also as a regular choppo trap house listener i love any time you guys can bring in a Simpsons reference to explain something in what's going on in politics. I mean, it's mostly it's mostly how I understand the world. It's like the constellation of references that form the kind of, I don't know, foundation of my worldview or just how I relate to things. I'm like, oh, you know, we just did a story on the show about educating kids in charter schools with VR goggles so they never have to leave their house.

And that was literally eat who I eat. You know, the Genghis Khan one. Well, this episode came at an interesting time for Simpsons because, yeah, they were feeling very stretched thin. There was a lot of feeling like, is season four going to be the end of it? Most of the writers are getting tired of the long hours and not the best pay and i think most had left by maybe a third of the way through the season is that correct henry yeah like for instance john viti by the way who's a cool guy who we've interviewed and has been very nice to us um he he tweeted about how when they did the table read for this episode it

was the last week of jay kogan and wally walidarski two of the best writers from the first years they like quit halfway through the season because they got offered huge deals to make something somewhere else and not have to stay up all night thinking of uh sign gags for the simpsons which yeah i i understand but the sign gags are always so good they're always so generous with the sign gags like salute to the. They're always so generous with the sign gags. Like, salute to the American worker, and now 61% drug-free. They work so hard on those. Yeah, I know.

Well, and VD, too, was feeling the tiredness, and he would basically leave, though Fox would, like, fuck him over his deal. Like, no, you still owe us three scripts, and he'd have to write clip shows. But he was very into the... He was a big pusher of the Mr. Plow idea, and he just thought it'd be

good to have uh episode set it the winter that you can easily put on a friend versus friend story and biggest of all he wanted an excuse to hang out with adam west like he's like i want to hang out with adam west i'll write him into the show and he will have to hang out with me i think that's why it stands out uh visually is because you normally only see the simpsons in winter clothes and snow when it's a holiday episode but here they just acknowledge yeah they live in the midwest probably or they live in some place with winter it's winter here's how they deal with it it's there's no christmas tree up or anything like that you get to see maggie and her starfish parka always enjoy vd mentions that once you move to la you forget

that there's winter and also it's you know harder to if you're writing for a live action thing you're like oh this is the winter episode that makes it a more expensive thing and it's harder to just go into uh winter animation in a cartoon too but though rough draft had just animated homer the heretic another wintry episode or at least act one is the last bit of preamble beforehand is that they did submit this episode for primetime outstanding comedy series in the emmys that year this was a rough time for simpsons because they basically for the last 25 years have dominated the primetime animated category they tried to go outside of that and go into comedy series but they would never be considered as a cartoon so they were like oh well they're the they're the big fish in the prime time animated ponds and they kind of win it once i'd say 25

percent of the time when they try to be in the comedy series nobody cares about animation and so they they lost to seinfeld who won that year okay i know they submitted uh this episode in streetcar named marge yeah or this year so they lost to seinfeld this year right yeah seinfeld beat him and the other nominees cheers home improvement larry sanders and murphy brown so again if you think of why they wrote jokes about like this has none of the wit and sparkle of murphy brown that's why they did that joke because they were sick of losing to murphy brown but but for this episode dan dan castaneda did win outstanding voiceover performance in the emmy so he this is an emmy winning episode just just for the acting but yeah the episode begins

with circus of the stars and i gotta play this clip because i prize excuse me henry it's carnival of the stars legally distinct legally distinct parody i fucked up i wrote down the real one instead of the joke one damn it okay yes well, yes. Well, I mean, this was event television in my home when I was a kid because you could turn it on and see maybe like Bronson Pinchot do a tumbling act. And he's not doing that as much on Perfect Strangers, but

sorry, please set up the clip, Henry, because we found a really good guest of this long-running program. Well, yes. Let's hear Troy McClure take us to Carnival of the Stars. Live from Hawaii's beautiful Molokai Island, we're not just for lepers anymore. It's Carnival of the Stars.

I'm your host, Troy McClure. You may remember me from such films as The Erotic Adventures of Hercules and Dial M for Murderousness. Tonight we'll see Angela Lansbury walk on hot coals. Excitement, she wrote. Who could someone abuse their body that way? Moe, don't throw out that brine.

But first, a man whose inspiring battle with Percodan addiction is soon to be a movie of the week. Krusty the Clown! I'll be played by Jimmy Smits. Jimmy Smits at the time, he was not yet a movie star. He was on L.A. Law and he was doing two different TV movies around this time. He did one called The Broken Chord and another one called The Cisco Kid. So he was not above a TV movie back then.

Not yet a Jedi. I would love to see a movie based on the life of Krusty the Clown starring Jimmy Smits as Krusty. That's great casting. Also, I always confuse this Percodan joke with the other Percodan joke with Miss No Means No. And it's not my fault. It was Percodan.

Well, much later, we'll see they made a made-for-TV movie with Fibish Finkel within the Simpsons universe as Krusty. Fibish Finkel is closer to actual Krusty the Krab. Yes. But it's a Circus of the Stars parody. This was an annual event on CBS from the late 70s to the early 90s. I think they so thoroughly had been spoofed by this that they just reeled it in. But I think after this, towards the end, they were like, oh, okay, it's for charity. All right?

You can't make fun of us anymore. This is all for charity. But we do have a special clip, right, Henry? Oh, yes. Of a very interesting guest star of Circus of the Stars doing what he'd do later in life. Here's the man whose smile is more dazzling than all his golden awards. Sportsman, actor, all around wonderful Mr. O.J. Simpson. O.J., how did you play football all those years against those big guys and didn't get hurt?

I said, simple. I never let them hit me. Well, let me show you what i mean let's pretend this is this is me all right i'll give him a little shimmy then i'll just come right by well if he can do it i certainly can learn how to do it really okay yes he's performing magic using football metaphors and then you know i don't know, five, six years later, the ultimate magic trick, getting away with double homicide, making two heads disappear. And that was Bea Arthur introducing him there, by the way, in case you couldn't tell. But yeah, that was the kind of thing. I don't know if you ever witnessed Circus of the Stars, Will, in your home when it was aired annually.

I never saw it. Yeah, this has really lost the time, this parody, because again, by 94, they were done with this. But it was event TV for about 20 years. Yeah, yeah, it was. It went from 77 up to 94. I did pull up. Bob directed me to the many that were online, just fully on YouTube. I watched a little of the 1993 one, which started with Alfonso Rivera, you know, Carlton, doing a pretty impressive, I wouldn't call it exactly acrobatics, but it's like where that big wheel spins around in a circle

and you walk on the wheel as it's moving in a, you know, not a fast spin. But it was still pretty impressive. He even did a blindfold. Wow. Just another example of the fact that I was not aware of Circus of the Stars until you guys just told me about it right now but i mean like the jokes just it's amazing how well the jokes work even when you have no idea that they're actually referencing something specific because like this just seemed to me like oh like a parody of something network tv would do in the 70s you know i would rather watch oj sim Simpson slowly and poorly do magic tricks than see Masked Singer dancing with the stars.

I feel like those are just so focused. But with a circus of stars, you don't know what circus act you're going to see. But don't worry. These circuses still include animal abuse. If you scan through the footage, they're still abusing animals in every special. So you still get that. America just needs O.J. Simpson back on TV. they're still abusing animals in every special so you still get that we just need uh america just needs oj simpson back on tv you know like i think i'm just an nfl analyst i mean he had a

great line about you know the giants getting blown out 40 to nothing and aaron rogers getting injured he said 9-11 just isn't good to new york oh that's right that was he he should you know he he paid his debt to society he's you know he's he's a he's a free man let him be on tv i think he's thriving on tiktok these days i'm not even kidding here yeah no he he seems to be living a fun life uh no i so actually the other stuff with the live tigers as well that was on the 93 one he was not torn to pieces but the man doing what Krusty does in the episode was of the Weekended Bernie's Bernie star, Terry Kaiser, the original. Though he looks nothing like Bernie, so he had to come out in a fake mustache and sunglasses, and then they're like, that's right, it's Bernie, and then he takes it off and like, Terry Kaiser!

Best known for playing a corpse yes so if you want to see him being very lively ordering around tigers then uh you'll and you know if it wasn't for the later in season five where the literal Siegfried and Roy stand-ins get torn apart by tigers this scene would be the Simpsons predicted it for Siegfried and Roy being torn apart by tigers. Yeah, we were all waiting for it to happen. And it took about 10 years. Once again, like with the Genghis Khan VR goggles, it's a lengthy process of me growing older for the reality catching up to Simpsons jokes

and references from my childhood. I also love the callousness of like, well, I'll be chewing on him for a while. Bart doesn't even care he's watching Krusty dying on screen and i think we we just had the debut of bumblebee man and he's back immediately same with uh captain mccallister in this episode right yes yeah both of them just appeared in like basically they had been written in this in the office like two weeks earlier and they're like you know what let's this guy we don't even have to see him animated we love these characters we're getting mccallister and bubblebee man straight away in here and uh yeah then homer gets a phone call he's told to head home that's uh that was the

opening clip and i have a quick little thing here i love i wish we got a little more of the animosity between bill and marty like in in this little clip take it easy folks it's snow picnic out there i know what you mean you're dead weight marty he's like yeah he doesn't support him with a new thing he's just like he just does snow and know the same way and then later he would be uh he would be praising the mature the machine the the DJ Tron 6000. I mean, that to me was oppression. That's the Simpsons predicted moment because at what point am I just going to get replaced by AI?

Where they're like, ha ha, Ron DeSantis has done it again, folks. Ha ha. There's too much of our voices on recordings at this point. They recreated Roger Ebert's voice using two commentary tracks. We're cooked. It's over. Yeah, that recordings at this point. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They recreated Roger Ebert's voice using two commentary tracks. We're cooked. It's over. Yeah, that's true. I forgot.

That was like that was when he was in his last days. Right. So at first, yeah, he could talk. Yeah. Oh, boy. When I'm 70, then I can just I can tell the machine what I think of like Simpsons episodes that for season 100 or I guess season 70 or whatever. Homer then crashes into his own car.

That, I mean, when I was a kid, that was one of my big like shock laughs at it of just the realization that Homer crashed into his own car and totaled both his cars. And then look on the whole family's face. Yeah. The reveal of the entire family watching from the doorway is a great extra punch line also like the uh the classic like homer shithead moment of initially just like getting in a car accident and then like laughing to himself because he like hey i gave it as good as i got it like the other car is just as totaled yeah in a car accident that's his fault too yeah and also all this winter stuff it does scare me because I now live in, this is the first time I've moved away from California. In my adult years, I've never lived anywhere with snow.

And I'm scared of my first snowy winter in that, which, you know, Seattle doesn't snow that bad. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen to you. Don't worry too much. The only places that get snow in America anymore are like the upper Midwest. Yeah. I mean, I grew up in Northeast Ohio, and I almost worshiped snow as a pagan deity. It brought all the joy to my life.

It was the closer of schools, the maker of nice areas to play in. It was just magical, and I loved whenever I saw it in The Simpsons and in any other entertainment. And, see, Homer's car gets crushed. The Repo Depot takes it away. And uh this is talk about also sequel jokes total disaster insurance is the same insurance company that was doing his claim after the fire and homer the heretics so this guy almost became a recurring character the total disaster insurance man but uh again here's a brief clip another like i it was hard not to just clip out like 70 clips from this episode because every line is amazing. But this is a go-to excuse for any of us.

Now, before I give you the check, one more question. This place Moe's you left just before the accident. This is a business of some kind? Don't tell him you were at a bar. But what else is open at night? It's a pornography store. I was buying pornography. I would have never thought of that.

Okay, like, I honestly think that's my favorite Simpsons joke of all time. Like, him struggling for an answer and going, it's a pornography store. I was buying pornography. It's just because like like pornography like saying the whole word is so funny to me and just like the how satisfied he is when he says i was buying pornography and then he's like i never would have thought of that because the funniest thing is like that actually is a very good excuse yeah homer has to stupidly say it to himself that he's like oh this is almost too smart for me to come up with this but also like his the blank way that he proclaims i was buying pornography like yeah

yeah exactly i always forget that his brain congratulates him yeah on wherever whatever summon that phrase whatever organ summon that phrase uh and it must have worked because he gets uh you know obviously this is a silly cartoon show. You shouldn't need to track this stuff. But so I'm guessing he gets a big check for the damage of totaling both his cars. And that can cover the cost. That almost covers the cost of the plow, but then he still has to pay for it. Though I'm still curious when the plow is getting ahead of ourselves. But when the repo depot comes back and takes the plow back, how do they have cars the next episode?

Like this didn't replace the car uh let's say mo let's say yeah you're right yeah that's so so yeah homer gets a ride from a watermelon salesman and the the drawing of the pig judging homer is a pretty great drawing too yeah yeah where he likes the window like rolls down the pigs just like giving him the old stink guy and i love the uh god there's just giving him the old stink eye. And I love the... God, there's just so much good voice acting work on this episode. You know, like Hank Azaria

as the sort of Soviet satellite state car dealer. Also the line, put it in H always kills me. But I love the voice work by the farmer doing that kind of like mid-Atlantic accent where he's like, can't trust a pig with watermelons, you know? It feels like Hank Azaria is playing everybody Homer talks to in this episode.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so great to like, because that comes, the Pet Sematary movie would have just been a couple of years before this. Yeah. I feel like it's, yeah. What's his name? Fred Gwynn.

Yeah. Yeah. Fred Gwynn. Yeah. Well, actually, you know, this crazy Václav scene has led to many people. This is another of those. I'm a Viking. I'm wearing a towel. One of those ones people talk about, which I think it's safe to say that we despise this, or at least I do. Well, so I didn't even realize this until this year when Josh Weinstein, who was a writer during this season, though, didn't write the joke he talked about how when he shared this line on twitter he learned that for some people put it in h is an unintentionally deeper reference

because quote people are pointing out that the letter h in cyrillic is n so he's telling homer to put it in neutral which uh i did not know that was uh and weinstein thinks that's a totally unintentional move by them. Yes, we know the writers. There was probably a three-hour meeting about what letter was funniest, and it went on until four in the morning. I'm surprised it didn't go with the comedy Ks. For people who know Cyrillic, which Chopper Trap House has the stance that that's a terrible language. I don't know nothing about that.

Don't want to know nothing. Backwards letters? What are we doing? I also really love the visual gag of the hood ornament of the shitty car he's buying is a house fly. And by the way, when they wrote these jokes, the Soviet Union was recently over. They wrote this in the spring of 92. Yeah. the union was recently over like they wrote this yeah like you know the spring of 92 like yeah and if you go to disneyland as an adult this is what the autopia spirit experience is like if you try to get into one of those cars i don't recommend it also i'm not going to give you the full play

by play but if if you want an interesting article that tries to deconstruct the actual model and origin of this car of what it could be there's a dense 2018 jalopnik article that figures out if this is probably a croatian slash then yugoslavian car which would make it a country that no longer exists and the saying he says at the end apparently is girls from zagreb will think you're a goldsmith that's what that's what he says, apparently. It's really good. Whoa, okay. She'll go 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene. What country is this

car from? It no longer exists, but take her for a test drive and you'll agree. Zagreb, Ebrems, Lotyk, Diev. Put it in so yeah I credit to Jelovnik in the 2018 article

for really deep like they dug into this 20 seconds of Simpsons the Simpsons will be right back. Thursday, Homer raps.

I'm Mr. Plow, and I'm here to say I'm the plowingest guy in the USA. Promise you'll never do that again. An all-new Simpsons, Thursday. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care.

Did I mention that we care? Welcome to the break, everybody. It's the plowingest guy in the USA, Henry Gilbert. And I want to say a huge thank you to Will Miniker for coming back on the show me and Bob are of course big big fans of Chapo Trap House and it's always a total honor when we can have on Will or any of the other guys from the show on here and we loved having Will back on to talk about such a big episode of Mr. Plow if somehow you are not aware of Chapo Trap House or on their awesome Patreon the Will Miniker co-hosted movie mindset podcast mini series on there. Head over to the Chapo Trap House Patreon to check that out too.

Thanks again, Will. And if you enjoy Talking Simpsons, you should know that this podcast is only possible thanks to the support of patrons at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Subscribers there make it possible for me and Bob to do Talking Simpsons as our full-time real jobs. And for $5 a month, you not only get to know you're helping us, but also you get a ton of exclusive stuff. Every month, a new episode of Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill, Patreon-exclusive podcast where we talk about those TV series just as in-depth

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a whole swath of Ghibli films, so many of the Pixar films, and our longest podcast ever, six and a half hours, six and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit. All of that is there for you if you are a $10 subscriber at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons so please head on over there today so then they head to the car show and that was really what john vd loved because he knew a car show was probably he multiple times had gone to car shows to see the original batmobile and adam

west is there signing autographs so he's like i don't give a shit about cars but if i can see adam west i'm going to a car show and this is about 18 months after the pilot for Look Well premiered on TV. And we covered that on our podcast, if you guys are interested, if you haven't heard that one yet. But I assume that there was some Conan O'Brien, Adam West connection that got him on the show. Yeah, yeah. I'm surprised that it was John Vitti who was, you know, plugging the Adam West cameo in this so much. Because I always thought it was Conan O'Brien that was like the big Adam West that was like the big it's hard to they all love adam west so very much like john vini said that uh he's been guilty of overriding comedy his whole career because he was just such a huge fan of the 1966

batman show and that in multiple episodes like in his critic episode the one with duke phillips disease and there's the dr krivorkian a stand-in dr krikorian his death mobile is also the batmobile startup uh parody just like you missed too and adam west would be on the critic as well i don't think he was as happy with the jokes about him there though but also when we interviewed john viti he had this thing i i just re-listened to it just uh he had this such a clever thing he said that they thought their show they thought simpsons was going to be just like batman where it had a huge first two seasons and then the third season they'd be struggling to stay on tv they thought they'd be the exact same kind of like flash in the pan like adam west was and i also i did meet adam

west at a convention once too i've said a million times but I was as starstruck as Homer was in this episode. He's so handsome. And then is, like, weirdly alienated and off-put as Bart and Lisa when he starts, you know, doing the Batusi. Oh, but right before that, though, there is the Fourth Reich Motors joke. I am shocked at that every time I see it.

Oh, God. I think only now... Oh, sorry, Will. Go ahead shocked at that every time. Oh, God. I think only now. Sorry, Will. Go ahead. It's such a dark joke. But I mean, I remember that, like seeing that on TV. That had me in tears. That had me in absolute tears.

Because it's like, it's one of the more violent and disturbing jokes that the Simpsons have ever done. And we know that Matt Groening hates Hitler jokes. And this is like a roundabout Hitler joke. And I think only now did the darkness of it really sink in and that Lisa is the only witness to a new mass death program that's happening because they say they conduct thousands of these tests every year and we see like oh

it's just to kill people this is just a new way to like execute people basically slow motion of the steering column piercing the chest is like Jesus Christ yeah like and and yes the sign forthright motors established 1946 like that's so jesus christ yeah yeah i i couldn't believe they got away with that one but uh but yes we do i have a quick scene here of uh adam west Adam West being insane. Adam West! Hey, kids, Batman!

Dad, that's not the real Batman. Of course I'm Batman. See, here's a picture of me with Robin. Who the hell's Robin? Oh, I guess you're only familiar with the new Batman movies. Michelle Pfeiffer? Ha! The only true Catwoman is Julie Newmar, Lee Merriweather, or Eartha Kitt.

And I didn't need molded plastic to improve my physique. Pure West. And how come Batman doesn't dance anymore? Remember the Bat to see? Nice meeting you. Just keep moving. Don't make eye contact. His caricature kind of breaks the rules of The Simpsons, but it looks so great.

It's such a funny drawing of, I guess, 60-year-old Adam West, right? 64. 64, okay, yeah. And I think it must be referencing, I mean, is it referencing the original Batman series that whenever Adam West is talking, they do these weird Dutch angles zooming in on his face?

Yeah, any time a villain spoke on the show, it would have a Dutch angle. So they're saying Adam West is the villain now. He's not good Batman who the camera's always straight on. He's now gone insane. I mean, the way he says, when he says, oh, you must like those new Batman movies, the way he crumples up his own

eight by ten of him and Robin it's just like he's so angry I think modern kids are asking who the hell is Robin though because uh there's a there's a lack of Robin lately and I guess the past uh this entire 21st century I guess there's I believe Joseph Gordon Levitt in Dark Knight Rises is like uh it's like heavily implied that he will become Robin because at the end of the movie, it's revealed that his first name is Robin or something like that. It's a very cute moment. It was a half-hearted stab at making Joseph Gordon-Levitt Robin in the Dark Knight Rises. But, you know, he was never gotten the tides. Around this time, I think Marlon Wayans was going to be Robin in the Burton world.

He was almost cast as Robin and they changed their mind. Yeah. In fact, they made toys of him and they had to pay him a lot of money. And then Chris O'Donnell got to be Robin. Yes. After that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think they needed to hire a gay director to truly find the Robin for the 90s. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Also, we in our in our newly recurring segment, Scary Math. Adam West was 64 when this aired. Michael Keaton today is 72. So he is eight years older than Adam West, the old Batman, was in this show.

I think the current showrunner is almost 64. Well, and also, too, the joke here is like, oh, Adam West, he thinks he's still Batman, but he's a crazy old man. Michael Keaton was Batman in a movie this year. This year. God. Wow. I mean, you know, we love Michael Keaton. I feel bad for him in that movie.

I feel like he got sold a bill of goods acting in that movie. It sucks. If you just watch the Michael Keaton scenes you just feel bad for him. I also feel like today would they be this kind of like I mean it's done with love but they are being kind of mean to this guest star like they're saying like you're a crazy washed up loser. I don't know they'd be this mean now. Well I remember on the critic we covered that series a while ago when they had him on they were a little more insulting to the point where he was saying hey guys wait a minute because there's a joke on the episode in which um they want to get lauren

green instead of him and someone says lauren green is dead and adam west says god i wish i had his agent so you have adam west as himself wishing he was dead on the show so he was a little annoyed by that and uh and also some bat to see facts here that is that's done in the very first episode of batman he does the dance to distract the the king tut when battling the pharaoh he does the dance uh it's something people often forget about the dances because they see you see john travolta do it in pulp fiction but he does it wrong he does palms out you gotta do palms, fingers over the eyes. And then you also have to point upwards to indicate the bat ears.

So proper Batusi is over the eyes, palms towards you, point up for the ears. So, yes, if you want to do it right, don't copy the Travolta in Pulp Fiction one. Tarantino is a huge phony. I'm going to say it right now. I thought he was supposed to be a movie expert. It's okay. The new Blu-ray 4K release of Pulp Fiction will digitally alter John Travolta's hands. AI will correctly demonstrate the Bat-2C, so no one has to be misinformed.

I want AI to eliminate Julia Sweeney from that movie. Just distracting. Why is Pat here? Her then husband was the Gimp in that movie. That's right, yes. Hibbert? Yes. That's why, yeah, well, I don't know if you know this bit of Simpsons trivia.

Dr. Hibbert was named after Julia Sweeney's real name, Julia Hibbert. Oh, really? Yes, yeah. It was an in-joke about their friend. And Julia Sweeney's husband was the Gimpbert oh really yes yeah it was an in joke about their friend and Julia Sweeney's husband was the gimp in Pulp Fiction yeah yeah so this is when Homer after backing away uncomfortably he spots the plow and he has a vision of what he wants to do which this feels like a Schwarzwalderian vision of him oh a trampling yeah I mean we're talking about uh reality catching up with satire.

This is what Americans want to do most run over protesters under direct orders from the president. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, absolutely. Is this the first George H.W. Bush appearance? No, it'd be the second one, because in Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, there's the scene of him signing the bill. He's like, this will make my bosses very happy. This is his second appearance.

Those young people are about to have a dose of reality. Is he stealing art from the White House, George Bush? That's what it sounds like. By the way, Will, I have to thank you guys. Your poppy series on choppo trap house has made me realize like he might be the the super villain of our lifetimes in america hw like he's the real cigarette smoking man from x-files no he he definitely is he's like uh sort

of a strangely a zeleg figure to like all of the major events in america's dark political history in the latter half of the 20th in America's dark political history in the latter half of the 20th century um but yeah I mean nothing he did was more evil than talking shit about the Simpsons that was his biggest fuck that is when he lost that's like oh you lost America there buddy Homer envisions running over people who have signs uh pay me not to work and forget so but this uh this is when Homer has sexism used against him to talk him into buying it, which, I mean, as a white man, this happens all the time walking around. When you meet other white guys who are just like, hey, I can pressure you through sexist language, right? Like, you'll do this because you want to prove to your wife you're a man, right?

And I'm like, no, I'm good. Well, it's the same with the taxi driver assumes you're racist kind of moment. Oh, yes, of course. Yeah. But here, Homer cracks under it. Just hearing the whip sound twice, it breaks him. Also, I think of Homer as almost like a podcaster in that he buys expensive equipment to then start a second business

on top of his regular except in this case it's a plow not microphones homer buys his stuff this is when his fight a next scene his fight with marge the way he just turns around and smashes his face into the car and has to pretend to die like i've been in these moments with with my own husband of just like oh well then fine i won't do anything stupid. And you just have to pretend like that didn't hurt. No, I'm fine. I can't believe you bought that plow.

We can't afford it. If you're going to get mad at me every time I do something stupid, then I guess I'll just have to stop doing stupid things. Good. Fine. I'll never, ever do another stupid thing. Good night. Oh, homie, didn't that hurt? No.

Now, I remember, so as a kid, my friend's dad was very much a Barney Gumbel Plow King figure in that he was not fully bonded and licensed by the state, and I'm making the drinky-drinky motion right now. A little bit of, he liked the sauce, everyone, and I was probably in great danger when I went with him and my friend on snowplow

missions but the fabled blizzard of 93 which happened a few months after that it was a lot of fun like just tooling around a parking lot in this crazy snowplow uh with no cars in it just having fun with a drunk that sounds awesome yeah that's that's that's midwest hours right there that's midwest absolutely also if you want to know the dangers of snowplows, just look at what happened to Jeremy Renner, man. Oh, man. He accidentally backed over himself. I believe he got out to help somebody and then thought he put it in H, I guess, but it backed up over him. I thought it was one of those things that the guy in The Shining rides to the Overlook Hotel.

You're right. The snowcat. to the Overlook Hotel. Yeah. You're right. The snowcat. Yeah, Scatman Crothers. I forget his name in the movie. No, not Doc. That's the boy. Homer decides he's going to spread out flyers.

That's going to work. And which, by the way, folks, Bob has seen these before because I've worn them on special occasions. But, Will, check it out. I have the Vans Limited Edition Mr. Plowshoe, which has the flyer on it even. was a very nice gift for my husband they're they're out of print now but if you see on this vans you fucked up they put the wrong phone number it's three two three not three two two six henry what happened to the laces though yeah well these are the collector

ones that i don't lace up like i think think Henry went to prison and he's not telling us. I mean, you got to have two pairs. One to wear out and one to keep in the collection. You can lick the soul of it. It's still fresh. My husband bought them for me. Yes, he did buy me two pairs for that exact reason. But yeah, you can see they got the flyer wrong which is unfortunate but it's

because in the episode you can see the windshield wiper obscures the six so you might mistake it for a three but uh yeah it's like a real they almost got it perfect vans unfortunately but yes this is when barney comes into the story and vd revealed on the commentary many years ago that originally it was going to be lenny in the original script it's Lenny not Barney is his rival he compares that to to Buddy Epson being the tin man he can't he can't imagine it now I think they would use Barney less and less like Lenny and Carl became very dominant this is really Barney's time to shine in this part of the show in this portion of the Simpsons and uh yes this is when when Big Baby is another favorite moment of mine. I have the clip here too. Forget it, Homer. People don't read these things. Watch. 20% off at Lullabies. Just

tell them Big Baby sent you. I know you can hear me. I'm talking to you. You sicken me. I guess guys like us just can't get a break. Well, at least I can't sink any lower. Come back, diaper! Come back! Hi, ma! Yeah, so the just-stamped-the-ticket man, that's the character's name, him saying, you sicken me.

That just rolls around in my head so much. It's not even clever. It's brutal. It's brutal. There's no joke to it's it's brutal it's brutal yeah there's there's no joke to it there's no cleverness just he he's just saying like just seeing you like you sicken me like just oh and yeah i mean also just is how you are treated as i mean i i have treated people with flyers as non-persons as well who probably are thinking like i know you can hear me i know you can hear me i'm talking to you just i think maybe i've kept flyers in the most guilt ridden times of like oh yeah yeah sure and then i i put it in my pocket to be thrown away as soon

as i get home yeah it is the mitch hedberg joke here you throw this away no i don't like to laugh no i don't have a minute for the homeless or the environment i i hate the environment and the homeless fuck off you second i never faced that until uh my first trip to manhattan for for work was the do you like comedy do you like to laugh like those were those were the flyers i'd never seen before until then i haven't seen uh somebody doing this in a while but definitely back in Berkeley, California, I got a lot of like, you like hip hop? And it wasn't a flyer.

It was, you know, a personal pressed CD. Oh, it was the mix CD scan. Yeah. Also, the way his diaper blows off, I can't not think of it in the context of the hardcore nudity montage. I mean, just his big bare ass on screen and then he's exposed to his mother and he doesn't care like he's like hi ma homer now is he takes to advertising on the pulpit which i like that

they're so the writers are so in love with goons that even love joy has the church has security guards i was just thinking about that really they just usher him off stage. But yeah, I love Homer flogging Mr. Plow from the pulpit. He goes, Homer, this is pretty low. Not as low as my low, low prices. The way he's advertising, like literally any of us can do this stuff on social media any day we want. To advertise anything. We all have our own Channel 92. So also, Lisa's suggestion here this was used

this scene and the mr plow commercial that comes later this was used for youtube commercials like real youtube commercials google in 2015 paid fox at the time not disney to use these clips to be like basically lisa they recontextualize and to make it sound like Lisa convinces Homer to advertise on YouTube. And yeah, well, like like like public access, the 317 in the morning. The Internet is the you know, it is the preserve of alcoholics, the unemployable and angry loners, which I call podcast listeners. Yeah, we thank them for subscribing. That's called the dark triangle of my listener demographics. But yeah, Bob, you mentioned Captain McAllister.

They're so in love with him, they basically write just like a small SNL sketch of his sea shanties alpha. Oh, I'm gonna lose my plow. Dad, have you considered buying cheap commercial time on Channel 92? Check it out. Arr! 90 sea sh chanties on three compact discs

blow the man down babies blow the man down roll roll roll your boat in the navy come on and join your fellow man act now and get a bonus cd hornpipe fever are I love the party like the the time-life record collections where it's just like you know in the name one of the songs is in the Navy and he's singing but get shimmery timbers and I love it it's just like the the ad is like a couple like by

a fireplace clinking like wine glasses together listening to Captain McAllister's we really lost these where you would learn you would only know about certain songs based on the five seconds that would play on these compilation commercials so you would associate a song with a song that followed it on the commercial yeah for me it was Jim Croce's time in a

bottle a song I had never heard before before or since but I would just hear it on those like all your favorites are here time in a bottle by Jim Croce and then I would shoot like the plaintive you know warblings of his voice i think they still make now that's what i call music but i bet they don't advertise it in that that's the most recent thing i can think of as advertising in that way but yeah i mean anytime i watch regular like terrestrial cable television like it really is the the ad it's it's eugenics pills. Or there's also a really weird recurring ad campaign that's just like for small business owners to pay somebody to clean up their Google results to not have bad reviews show up anymore.

That's like it feels like an ad for 10 people. I mean, whenever I watch like actual television during the day, like I'm just watching like Law and Order reruns. And I guess I just watch the channels that are only for the infirm and dying. I mean, it's like the TV channels I watch are like what they played Edward G. Robinson before they killed him in Soylent Green. Just sort of like something pleasant to think about while you shuffle off this mortal coil. Because yeah, all the ads are for horrible chronic medical conditions. Like the thyroid condition that makes your eyes bug out of your skull.

They keep me tv in business uh you know the uh this captain mcallister thing too is funny because this shows like they've already decided the sea captain can kind of do anything like he's in the first episode he's just the owner of an all-you-can-eat restaurant like he's not he's not just an all-purpose captain but by the second episode he's like he just can do anything that a sea captain can do after the first episode they forget he has a name yes sorry well i mean that is like the true genius of the simpsons in that like the cast itself is only about five people but like that you know the voice acting range of like three of them accounts for like dozens of characters that like bumblebee

man that can be a one-off joke in an episode and then just become a staple on the series like gill or captain mcallister it's just like these characters that are just these weird like stereotypes of an old sea captain or uh what telemundo is like and then they've been like for for decades now they're just staples standbys of like the of just every time they show up in an episode it's always gold sea captain is the one accent hey kazaria is still allowed to do yeah exactly you can do a you can do a crude semi-ethnic stereotype of of like a yeah captain ahab or something this clip too i remember watching it out of context waiting in line for the simpsons ride like and feeling

i in general when i stand and ride a line for that ride at universal when i've gone there i get mad when the other people in the line aren't eyes glued to the screen that is just showing classic Simpsons clip over and over like you guys come on it's not they're disrespecting they're disrespecting the ride exactly the oh and love theme from Das Boot that's I think my favorite of the listed things but yeah so they get the commercial and homer says it may be on a lousy channel but the simpsons are on tv another great job i love all the big fox all the all the all the pot shots they took at the fox network over the course of the simpsons is so funny never happening at disney i can guarantee you there are two big fox oh my god

they have this and the bigfoot special that's coming to Fox. It's clearly just fraud. It's all fraudulent. Now it seems like the Simpsons as an institution is just begging Disney can we put the Millennium Falcon in a Simpsons episode? They're like sure of course but they're never going at the mouse. Disney will not allow that for a second. They're being told you have two weeks to promote Loki. Get it together. Make us a short. And you know what? for all the evil he's done in the world like that was sort of the brilliance of rupert murdoch and fox and like why the simpsons could have only happened on fox is because it was a disreputable disreputable scum pit and he didn't and he

didn't care about his reputation or like if people like liked him or not or people like i had a affectionate feelings towards the fox network they were just like no no america this is what you want you may not like it but this is america this is you i hate to compliment rupert murdoch but yeah that his that he approved like people when they did jokes like him being in prison with sideshow bob that people within fox were scared of like oh no what'st going to think? But he laughed at it and was like, oh, that's fun. And then meanwhile, like Bob Iger, I cannot imagine him ever doing that. No, the joke would be like, isn't it so funny that he's powerful and we're afraid of him? Yeah. Like that's the closest they can get to that joke of just like a joke about their fear.

It's not about fearlessness of mocking their boss. It's more like, we are afraid of you, sir, because you're so great. We love you. But yes, the commercial is another of the all-time best moments in the series. Let's give it a listen. Mr. Plow! Get out, you lousy. Season? All right, I'm going.

My head hurts. I have to lie down for a while. Yay! Hello, I'm going. My head hurts. I have to lie down for a while. Yay! Hello, I'm Mr. Plow. Are you tired of having your hands cut off by snowblowers and the inevitable heart attacks that come with shoveling snow? Uh-huh. Then call Klondike 5-3226.

Call now and receive a free T-shirt. He could still surprise you. But I'm a real tightwad. Can I afford this remarkable system? Absolutely. My prices are so low, you'll think I've suffered brain damage. You are fully bonded and licensed by the city, aren't you,

Mr. Plow? Shut up, boy. So remember, call Mr. Plow. That's my name. That name again is Mr. Plow. That song. I mean, let's talk about that jingle first, because Bob, you found a great supporting clip here. John Vitti almost reveals where it came from,

but Matt Groening shuts him up on the commentary because it was just the placeholder that they never cleared, and it's based on an existing jingle. We have the clip for that. When Roto-Rooter comes, that's when your troubles go. When Roto-Rooter's here, that's when your troubles disappear. Call Roto-Rooter, that's the name. And the way your troubles down the drain.

Roto-Rooter, super service. Roto-Rooter. So just that little chunk of the Roto-Rooter jingle, and I guess John Vidi wrote the Call Mr. Plow, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Plow, as a way to say, I don't know how to write a jingle, Jeff Martin can do this for me. And they thought it was so stupid that they did just like, this is perfectly for

Homer, this is saying nothing. This song says nothing and we're going to keep it in the show. I love hearing Grady interrupt Vitti as he's like, so I think I stole it from you. He's like, no, no, no, it's similar to it's like saying on a podcast, parody, parody, parody. Yeah, in Minecraft.

Yes. I mean, this jingle has been trapped in our heads for all time. It is a successful jingle because we never forgot. Also that Homer was a big booster for Perrault and Jim Stockdale as well. Yeah. 1990, this coming in 1992 the Stockdale Veep debate was like the end of the Ross Perot campaign because it was widely considered to be one of the one of the greatest embarrassments for anyone running a national political campaign of all time I can only hear

Phil Hartman going who am I why am I here whenever I think of Stockdale I mean yeah that he also like he needed to turn on his hearing aid. And it's like, you know what? You don't want to be messing with your hearing aid. Now, I bet if I were to look it up, I bet Jim Stockdale then was like six years younger than Joe Biden is now or something like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Biden doesn't need a fucking hearing aid. And yeah, Homer. Also, I love there's so many amazing poses in this the way homer says short boy like his side mouth is so funny the way the way he looks in back at the camera while he's pointing at his jacket is so great actually henry looked it up he had a good uh 10 years uh sorry biden has a good 10 years on stockdale in 92 wow stockdale was uh 69 holy hell good lord well also he would he was a vietnam vet in a p the pow that was that was the effect i saw some it was dennis miller saying like you know we should have respected him more he was a

unlike bill clinton he was a veteran of vietnam shut the fuck up but uh but yeah i also just love lisa's like i'm a real tight one can i afford this remarkable system like calling hiring a mr plow as a system like it's like dianetics so apparently the phone call actually works also whenever i have to play the waiting game i think of playing hungry hungry hippos that that is yes but but yes apparently it works even this even though it aired at 317 because the next scene is homer is just a series of homer doing great everybody's hiring mr plow to plow the place including we get to see apu about to be held up by um okay uh the anonymous assistant the the apu gag here where he was just like you know like he

plows the the the entrance to the quickie mart and then he's like finally like now my business can like remain open and then like a snake and his accomplice just pull up with like a fucking uh with um pantyhose over their face and racks a shotgun he goes let's do this that is a joke that like conjures like a deep sense memory for me of like rehearsing that bit with my friends. Like I said, in the school cafeteria, it was just like deep, deep memory. It's great how they find four jokes that were Homer's plowing makes everyone's life actually worse. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the cocking the shot. I mean, that's just cool to do. Or it seems cool. So, yeah. Nothing funner. But we haven't seen snakes accomplice since i think it's hard to tell he's not one of the other regulars there and

well also it's funny like normally snake doesn't care to be anonymous he just is like yeah i'm snake i shoot yeah talk about things i identify with now i i'm more is the older I get, the more I'm like, I'm cold and frightened. Also the fear of teenagers. Oh, yes. Yeah. I don't like the look of this. I'm really happy I no longer live near a high school anymore like I used to because I was like, I don't like the look of these teenagers as I'm walking down the street here. They might tease me.

Speaking of school, we also get to see that Homer forces the the school open which makes bart's life much worse too i did not get this joke as a kid at all it is the reference to the assassination of sonny corleone in uh in the godfather which was seen as extremely violent back then now now it just seems pretty normal to me the uh the show and uh they even include the little like uh the coup de grace is like in the godfather they like strafe after he gets riddled with like 600 bullets he's like his body is just piled up on the ground they just strafe him one more time and i love in this that they also include the one kid just throwing one more extra snowball at bart as his body lays on the floor they really get a good of like the way bart like kind of shakes like he's being shot

a ton of times just like the tommy gun yeah yes cut to homer being given the key to the city it's the same kind of setup as in treehouse three where they uh quimby announces that the zombies are merely corpses riding in our streets and also i do think most politicians celebrate when people don't use public transportation. They really want that. They then cut to Barney. Barney wants in on this, too. He wants to know how he can do it. And I just love that he's still in his baby.

Like, he just lives his big baby all of the time, apparently. He's on his break. Just a drunken man in his giant baby costume. Here you go, Mr. Plow. A beer on the house. Wow, Moe. You didn't even give a beer to those freed Iranian hostages. Ah, they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

But Homer is a real hero. I wish I was a hero. Well, wishing won't make it so. You gotta pull up your diaper, get out there, and be the best damn party you can be. Here I come, world! How do you think he'll do, Moe? I think he'll do just fine. Also, as a kid, I did not realize how brutal a joke it was to say that the Iranian hostages

shouldn't have been there in the first place. Yeah, I agree. I agree with Moe on the Iranian hostages shouldn't have been there in the first place yeah I agree I agree with Mo on that one they shouldn't have been there he refused to give them a free drink they're like no you got you pay for your drinks here hostages and this is when uh we we then cut to Marge I love that Marge is so into Homer and that how like how she goes like for fun just for fun like she she wants that as an accessory to their lovemaking the erotic adventures of Mr. Plow by the way that erotic adventures of Hercules that it that comes back in Selma's Choice later in the season yes we actually get to see clips from that movie yeah which I like that it was a very 70s thing that like not that you know a pornography still exists in so many ways today but the feeling in the 70s of like no you can get a somewhat famous person to star in

like a cheeky porno back then if it was like had some level of jokes to it what malcolm mcdowell is in ah what was that fancy porno that uh that was made by the caligula caligula yeah fancy porno uh uh, I think you will find it was Bob Guccione Jr. of Penthouse Magazine, not Hustler. It's Penthouse, not Hustler. Yeah, yeah.

See? You need to go to the pornography store, my friend. It wasn't Larry Flint. Also, the way when Homer says, like, that he doesn't normally

brush his teeth or cut his nails. It's just... Yeah, yeah. And the March doesn't want him to do these things. She's like, no, no, don't do that before we have sex. The erotic power of the jacket is just too strong.

I was wrong about you buying that truck. I'm very proud of you, Mr. Plow. This might sound silly, but just for a change, would you mind... Cutting my nails? Brushing my teeth? No, no. Could you wear the Mr. Plow jacket?

Just, uh, for fun. Oh. He-he-he-he. oh mr plow that's my name that name again is mr plow and he does keep that jacket around and we we've joked about it when it appears later in seasons of just like that it must it must be a very musky jacket i would say i don't think homer's getting it dry cleaned we come to the the commercial break and this is when homer finds out things aren't going so well hi homer say hello to the plow king barney you stole my idea don't worry homer there's nothing wrong with a little healthy competition he's a true small businessman yeah god uh and then uh barney shooting shooting out Homer's tires after saying there's nothing wrong with a little healthy competition

was another one of those gags from when I originally watched this episode that had me hurting from laughing so hard. The way he laughs. Yeah. The way he squares up with his revolver and he shoots both tires. One's enough, but he's like, no, I got to really send the message here uh will is this how it feels when when previous guests start their own podcast is this absolutely i love just how barney just dove right into it i assume barney must have gotten a very high interest loan to be able to get this super plow that's so much bigger. Well, I mean, no, he'd been right.

I mean, shit, he was in the bar dressed as the big baby. So, I mean, I think he's been grafting so hard in the nappies, handing out flyers on the streets. I think he socked enough away to buy a $50,000 pick-up. I just love him with Act 3 when it opens, just him going sicko mode on this Mr. Plow standee. Oh, my God. That's another of my all-time favorite things.

It's like, if it isn't Mr. Plow, he hits them, he has to be pulled away, and then he still fights them off and still has to bash it into an unrecognizable pile of... It's incredible. incredible god the animation and homer's right like he should i think as we learn from a later later in the episode with that flashback i think barney has a lot of repressed anger towards homer that he's never expressed until now yeah that's why i think it would like the like plow king wouldn't have worked as well

if it were lenny because like lenny and and Homer don't have the same kind of relationship. They're sort of equals, whereas because Barney's a smokehound and a rummy and a drunk and doesn't have a family. I don't know. I guess we see Lenny when he says, don't tell me when I live like this. Lenny lives, you know, he's not living in a nice house with his family either. So maybe, you know, it's like the the hank grimes thing maybe like all of homer's friends secretly hate him because he's such like a you know such an ignorant boo but yet he has acquired for himself you know the american dream they haven't lowered lenny enough yet to be as desperate as barney yeah they haven't no i will also do i think the lenny inclusion we talked with john vini about this too in our old 2020 interview where he said like he created

lenny is like nothing he was just like it was just a name on a page he had no thoughts about lenny he thinks it's funny that he's technically the creator of lenny when and carl right and carl yeah and he's like when lenny became something after me i would just put lenny in scripts because i'm like it's lenny you know everybody loves lenny and now everybody does love len. This is where we get the other big guest star of the episode in our next clip. Hey, Plow King, save some for me. Wow, Linda Ronstadt.

Linda Ronstadt? How'd you get her? We've been looking for a project to do together for a while. When the snow starts a-falling, there's a man you should be calling. That's K.L. 54796. Let it ring. Mr. Plow is a loser, and I think he is a boozer.

So you better make that call to the Plow King. Right in her face, Belch is right. Yeah, I mean, credit to Dan Castellaneta for harmonizing as Barney with Linda Ronstadt. Yes. Yeah, amazing. And again, just such a perfect Simpsons guest star, Linda Ronstadt playing herself. Just so random, so perfect. To hear her angelic voice do the Plow King jingle and the line, Mr. Plow is a loser and I hear he is a boozer.

It's so good. And I think anyone under 45 knows Linda Ronstadt from this and maybe The Muppet Show. Maybe. Yeah. I still don't really know who she is or what she's done. I mean, she's a great chanteuse. She's a, I mean, she is, she's not much of a songwriter. She's just a great, she sings other people's songs.

I mean, she just. She gave Warren Zevon his big break as a songwriter with the song Haste and Down the Wind. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. And also she was to the TikTok kids. I was seeing a lot of her because they use a song of hers to good effect in the first season of The Last of Us on HBO. And so that song was being used a lot. And I mean, that song, it's a beautiful song. It's honestly a cheat code for your TV show to get emotionality

out of it by just having like a beautiful Linda Ronstadt ballad playing. Is the song about zombies? No, no. It's about uh it's about loving someone after they're gone I don't see it working I'm sorry but yeah I also speaking of Muppet Show it also like the way Barney says wow Linda Ronstadt like feels like it's Kermit saying it almost and it's on a stage with a red curtain behind him too by the way I did not realize until looking this up that like Linda Ronstadt she has quite a an impressive dating history like she's dated a lot of famous guys i knew about george lucas so that's what made me want to look up other ones she dated she did george lucas aaron neville albert brooks jim carrey when jim carrey was like in his 20s and

governor jerry brown i believe when he in his first term as governor in california so she's had a lot of famous bows sadly though she in 2013 she had retire from singing uh because of health issues she does not sing anymore unfortunately yeah i would highly recommend the series of albums that she did with dolly parton and emilu harris some some beautiful music on those albums and i also did did pull up the Spanish language album, or the first one she did, Canción de mi Padre. Look, I failed Spanish in high school. Is the Mr. Plow Spanish jingle on that one, Henry?

No, it is not. Because that was 88, so the Spanish language version is a joke about that. But actually, here's a bit of Simpsons deep cuts here. If you wondered what the original demo sounded like when Jeff Martin wrote it, I've got a little clip here. When the snow starts falling, there's a man you should be calling. That's KL-54796, let it ring. Mr. Plow is a loser and I think he is a boozer.

So you better make that call to the Plow King. Yeah, Jeff Martin is from Texas. I don't think he was asked to write a country ditty until now for The Simpsons. Yeah, I think you're right. Maybe the, I don't think the Yahoo song was him. Well, I guess he wrote all the, did he write the Learny larley lincoln songs i don't think so uh he helped write one of them okay it's been a while since we covered that one but uh yeah no it's funny he tells the jeff martin shared that online and told the story that he wrote it in that key and when linda ronstadt

heard it she's like well that's not the right key for me to sing it in can i change the key and he he said he joked that i'm just like no you can't change it i quit he's like no no of course linda ronstadt can change the thing so also uh aljean jokes that uh well homer should have just sued linda ronstadt for libel over that which uh which well you you know the dangers of spurious libel lawsuits yeah it's uh well homer is watching it in a bar sorry well yeah yeah no you gotta be careful i'll just say you know careful what you say about linda linda ronstadt let's put it that way yeah we then see that homer thinks it's a happy memory that he gave barney his first beer but actually uh it destroyed his life which i love this is a huge moment of finding out that

barney was like most of the writers including John Beatty who was like a Harvard striver like a guy who spent his high school years going like Harvard here I come like these these are Harvard guys Harvard graduates and in some cases Harvard valedictorians who who wrote on the Simpsons and so that's what Barney was going to be until he has his Lon Chaney Jr. style transformation. Did they admit that they plagiarized this from Taxi where the Reverend Jim character was not the way he currently is, but he had basically one tab of acid or one joint or something and it just completely warped him? That's right. I forgot. No, I didn't see that anywhere. But you're right that it is similar to that which was also a brooks and sam simon show i think they confessed to it later like we just thought it was a funny joke from taxi and nobody cares about taxi no one remembers that show homer is sad and he's seeing

that he's losing everything ned pities him but homer just takes his money and won't plow his driveway anyway it's important to know that like homer's actually a jerk and you should not feel bad for him we get another quick adam west scene which i mean the talk about another line the way he said i got the clip but the way he says 45 minutes ago 45 minutes ago yeah mr west you said there was a job for me. There was when I called you 45 minutes ago. Go on, Superman. Your secret identity is safe with me. And he drives away.

You know what? The so long Superman was echoing in my brain because Barney says that to Sherry Bobbins when she leaves, when she flies away. He thinks a lot of people are Superman, doesn't he? But yeah, just is like 45 minutes ago like he's so uh he's so angry it's so great and yeah the the batmobile they love when they put in the batman theme because fox owns it so they don't they basically just pay themselves to use it so it's a money saver as well talked about how the the shoes got the number wrong they get this number right traditionally though not always the batmobile on the 1966 batman show was 2f3567 which is the one on this batmobile here too though it normally says gotham 1966 on it not springfield city he's seeing everything's falling

apart this is when he gets a call that also made them fear libel lawsuits coming in as well. Yep. Mr. Plow, that name again is Mr. Plow. Hello, I'm calling from delinquent accounts at Kumatsu Motors. Oh, you want the Mr. Plow who plows driveways. This is Tony Plow, you know, from beaver to beaver. Get ready for Las Vegas style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games,

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So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Yeah, they were gay. Oh, what am I going to do?

I think you should do a new ad. One that's fresh and original. I know. I'll do a rap. Boom-cha-cha-boom-cha-cha-boom-cha-boom. I'm Mr. Plow, and I'm here to say, I'm the plowingest guy in the U.S.A. I got a big plow, and I move a lot of things.

Stop. It's like your cow if you have one. Stop it right now. and I'll move a lot of things. Stop. Strike your call if you have one. Stop it right now. Promise you'll never do that again. All right. It does sound like this is the era, which wouldn't last very long, where they're still recording together. It feels like they were given direction, but it does feel a little ad-libbed, which is nice. It's nice to hear that.

Stop it right now. I love that, too. But, yes, the Tony Plow Bob, you know what that's from. Well, yeah, it's Tony Dow. It's Wally from Leave it to hear that. Stop it right now. I love that, too. But yes, the Tony Plow, Bob, you know what that's from. Well, yeah, it's Tony Dow. It's Wally from Leave it to Beaver, which we should all know these things to get the jokes. But you were showing me, Henry, this is how the episode was promoted. Yes, yeah. The only commercial they played, or at least the only archival commercial that anybody saved is this Thursday on The Simpsons.

Homer raps. And it's just that clip. That's how they sold Mr. Plow. Like Homer raps. Give it a watch. I thought you were going to say that they promoted this episode with a clip of him saying, yeah, they were gay. But yes, also asking, meeting anybody from Hollywood is asking like, hey, you've been to Hollywood. Is this person gay?

Like, I was just doing this with a Hollywood friend recently and they answered yes, that that person is gay. But they're not out. I think we're just down to the beef now. I think Jerry Mathers, unless Eddie Haskell's actor is still alive. That'd be just like Eddie Haskell to still stick around. Not when he's not wanted. But yes, you're right. You're saying it before, Bob. alive that'd be just like eddie haskell to still stick around not when he's not wanted but but yes you're right uh you're saying it before bob by saying they were gay and not even using like he

was gay or whatever it really protected them from like ah you know we could say anybody's gay here nobody can say we're calling him gay it could be anyone from liver to beaver kumatsu motors that was also a runner that's the company that bought her powell's car company as well so more continuity here so then we cut to mcmahon and tate parody of mcmahon in tate the uh the advertising company from bewitched so and this scene like whenever i hear the radio i always think of this scene because these commercials still persist the two people with annoying voices yammering back and forth to each other they should have they should have stopped doing those ads in 1993 they were called out they must work they must work if people are like so you're telling me that they do this

that's right like yes the the back and forth but also like i don't listen to terrestrial radio all that much anymore either in the car car even when the lift driver's driving if i'm if i'm because i don't drive myself and so if i'm in a rideshare driver there they have just a spotify playlist or or they say is it cool if i listen to rogan i also i've gotten that a couple times as well well i can tell you i put on the radio for my bird when i leave the house to give him something to do and i still hear these things in 2023 the approach has not changed though i've listened to some of that npr it's that's depressing your your pet parrot bob like he's having to hear the sad npr stuff every day oh no we moved over to the top 50 now that we're in canada

ah okay that's good nothing but gordon lightfoot for him after homer punches that guy in the face which he's totally fine with a lot of just casual violence at this time in the simpsons yeah a lot of the jokes in this episode are very violent it was it was making us endure to violence just like bart at the start of the episode i i get the point i get the like the idea that the guy takes a certain amount of pride in getting punched like somebody recognizes what i did and i'm happy about this it worked and yeah it worked the commercial they do make for homer is a parody of like i think it was the calvin klein's obsession and yeah it worked the commercial they do make for homer is a parody of like i think it was the calvin klein's obsession and yeah calvin klein obsession which i just associate with the snl parody version of it which was it was calvin klein's obsession but uh for cleaning products

and jan hooks was a woman who could not stop cleaning and that was the obsession i think it was compulsion oh you're right yeah it was compulsion yeah Oh, you're right. Yeah, it was Compulsion. Yeah. They use a Soviet version of Bellini's Norma musical because apparently they say that if they use Soviet versions, they just could ignore copyright back then, apparently. I don't know how legally true that is. Try enforcing your copyright now, comrade and the uh the they also have a kawana squazzy style shot of uh the new york skyline which that has to be slow motion is or fast motion is very hard to animate so uh that was a lot of extra work for them and also i just always i love when homer helplessly just says i don't know he's just like i don't know uh but homer loses everything to plow king even his beloved key that he thought was uh chocolate on the inside and cut his gums up pretty bad by not it so then we we

hear about forbidding widow's peak in the next scene as it's really coming down arty pie seemingly dies on screen which uh kid brockman just laughs off what about the ski conditions arty which uh which yes when homer hears about it and he keeps repeating his forbidding widow's peak which also again it's everything is such a joke in here that it's easy to miss things or joke widow's peak is a like you wouldn't call a mountain widow's peak because that's the name of a hairline like that's a widow's peak yeah but so homer does basically almost kill barney like it is his fault like he should which if you think of this in how current television works homer would apologize to barney and admit it's his fault but barney

never even knows that homer almost killed him by doing this hardest hit by the blizzard is springfield's forbidding windows peak our own arnie pie is on the scene everything snowed in all i can see is white. Arnie, please, the ski conditions. Mayday, mayday. I think I'm flying into a mountain. Tell my wife I love... That's great, Arnie. Hello, Plow King. I was wondering if you could plow my driveway on top of Forbidding Widow's Peak.

I don't know. I'd be up there all day. I wouldn't be able to plow any other driveways. There's a $10,000 bill in it for you. Oh, yeah? Which president's on it? Uh, all of them. They're having a party. Jimmy Carter's passed out on the couch. Wow! I'll be right there!

Barney, I'd like to put a Spanish version of your jingle on my next album. Señor Plao no es macho, es solamente un borracho. Yeah, you do that. But I love the look, the way Homer's mouth moves when he's saying, like, they're having a party. Like, his mouth movements are so wacky. It's like lying Homer lip sync.

They made a new lip sync chart for him just for this scene it's very weird but i like it and uh some some american history here the ten thousand dollar bill was real at one time it existed from 1918 to 1969 it had salmon p chase on it who is the governor and senator of ohio and the secretary of the treasury for abraham lincoln and uh technically it still is legal tender, but there's not many authentic copies sitting around anymore. I mean, I feel like we should introduce new currency that does feature the president's having a party

or the dogs playing poker or those posters of a Republican president or a Democratic president. They're at a car table chopping it up. I think we need that on our money. We need a Democrat bill and a Republican bill know they could be the same denomination don't need to give preference to one side over another but yeah i think i think a party scene is sort of a fictional party scene like in heaven of all our presidents would be would be good for our currency

only the dead presidents just to be safe yeah i agree yeah which uh you know at the time we're recording this uh jimmy carter still could be passed out on a couch. Who knows? Yes. Hey, this goes live in about two months. So who's to say? Who's to say? Though Homer's description is much more fun than the real back of the $10,000 bill, which is just the embarkation of the pilgrims.

Like, whoop-dee-doo. Like, come on. Who cares? So, again, another line reading that that stuck in my head ever since like the dismissive yeah you do that i'm just like that clearly that linda ronstadt is more into barney than she he is with her like he's just like yeah whatever yeah and i guess uh john vd said the most beautiful sound he ever heard was linda ronstadt singing the spanish plow king jingle because he was right next to her as it was happening. Yeah, in our interview, he mentioned how nice it was back then

before they had remote recordings like this one that he got to fly up to San Francisco to record or he'd get to fly to New York to record with New York guest stars. Like, it was pretty nice back then. I would think Disney is not paying for those flights anymore. Like, you get it from Fox, but no, they make you set up your own Skype account to get guest stars. If you're a writer,

you have to, you have to work from like a, you're the, the panic room in your house and never leave. You could never be on set. Well, they then after a quick joke of Homer doing a bad comedy of kiss my asphalt and saying it twice and nobody cares.

We then have have we talk about how like oh how tasteful are 9-11 jokes or whatever now and that's like this is only 30 years afterwards they are parodying how walter cronkite announced that jfk had been shot like this is the same posing and glasses off and everything which uh i guess it was they they snuck those things we're about as far away from 9-11 as that episode of The Simpsons was from the Kennedy assassination. And I think they have the cheat code of like, no, it's referencing the movie, the just year old JFK movie that had just come out. Yeah. That's how they get away with it.

But also they show that Barney has been giving charity to dance theater, which fits with his six years of modern dance and five years of tap that we know as we learn about him they're really filling out the barney lore this episode we see his backstory his uh devotion to the world of dance and so uh we see the the bigfoot footage as well the fake bigfoot footage which did you guys ever believe that when you were kids i wanted to believe seeing that the the the classic shaky cam bigfoot footage yeah i've never i've never been a never been a cryptid guy never been a cryptid believer but you know i want to believe i was never into bigfoot i frankly i think it's disgusting and i don't want it to be real there's nothing fun about it just a big disgusting thing aliens ghosts uh other creatures yeah

yeah bob i was way i was way into like, cooler shit like aliens and ghosts and stuff like that. Although Bigfoot, it's just some big ape in the forest. Gorillas are cooler than Bigfoot and they're real. You know, I can see much better video of them hanging out in the jungle. Well, I guess I watched too much Harry and the Hendersons as a kid and I wanted to believe. Although if you look up on, I just saw this recently, somebody like artificially steadied the footage of it. And so you just see the guy. It's just a person in a suit walking in a straight line. It demystifies the entire video when you see the camera steady.

Yeah, like one orangutan is more impressive to me than a thousand yetis or Bigfoots. And we see that it was barney's belch that doomed him it's one of the weirdest but i still laugh at it because such a weird picture they just pause homer jumping up and just recycle his mouth movement so he can quickly say this is all my fault i gotta save him like that feels like them checking a box like the audience needs to know that homer feels guilty about this and this is why he's doing it. So he says it so fast and awkwardly. They head to Widow's Peak. Its elevation is 13,613.

A couple of unlucky numbers in there. If that was real, Widow's Peak would be the 71st highest mountain in the U.S. So, you know, a tall mountain, but not like crazy tall like the one Homer scales with power sauce bars. Oh, the murder horn. The murder horn, yes, yeah. It's not as tall as the murder horn.er scales uh with power sauce bars oh the murder horn the murder horn yes yeah it's not as tall as the murder horn uh will you mention this earlier i i want to

source it here executive producer on the show mike reese who's not on the commentary when director william friedkin passed away just a couple months ago mike reese said quote when working on the mr plow show we had heard that william friedkin was a fan of The Simpsons, so we put in a parody of his film Sorcerer just for him. Years later, he visited the show, charmed everyone, and he wound up as a guest star. RIP to a great guy. And so, yeah, he plays a random character in Treehouse of Horror 28 from season 2017. So they gave him a nice guest appearance as well, which that's good. Yeah, and I think I'm the odd man out here because I am the the sorcerer non-liker now let me explain myself please will don't hang

up uh i i got the movie on netflix i don't know wages of fear fan yes actually so i i got the movie just because of this 20 second reference and i decided i'll watch the wages of fear first so i did and i watched sorcerer right after and i thought like oh i like the wages of fear more but maybe now it's time to return to sorcererer. That's a totally credible opinion no hang up. Okay good good we didn't lose Will. You know yeah I've let go of that dichotomy I feel like I also well so yes I never I didn't watch Sorcerer until this week because I foolishly believed all of the critics from back then and the perceived wisdom like when they referenced this on the show Sorcerer was kind of a punchline like it was seen as like oh what a flop because it went up against Star Wars yeah he got killed

by Star Wars and also I believe you know as as a movie dork I read easy riders raging bulls by peter biskin derby's kind i but in it he tears apart sorcerer like he hates sorcerer and he he doesn't have any quotes from friedkin about how he he only has quotes from friedkin from at the time where he's like i shouldn't have remade wages of fear the movie sucked which is not friedkin maybe felt that way at one point but just a few years after he's like no i think we were wrong to something. We did our own movie. But now that I watched it, I was like,

no, this rules. I shouldn't listen to that book and all these other reviewers. Though the Cisco and Ebert did like it at the time. They were some of the few that didn't give it negative reviews back in 77. But I mean, the, the one thing it has,

well, unlike wages of fear, it also has a tangerine tangerine dream soundtrack, which is really good too. I mean, the one thing it has, well, unlike Wages of Fear, it also has a Tangerine Dream soundtrack, which is really good, too. I mean, I love both movies. I think they're both great. But Sorcerer would have the inside track for me now just simply because of William Friedkin and I guess the afterglow of his recent passing, R.I.P. ip but i i in this episode like the other kind of sorcerer gag in it aside from going across the bridge that's like not in the movie sorcerer but i still think is a a credible parody of the movie is when like uh homer almost falls off like the side of that road and then like writes the car

back onto the road by like uh turning the radio dial over to the like the other side of the car and it's just like the weight of that just writes the the car on the on this like treacherous mountain path now that is a conan o'brien joke yeah it's funny john vd whenever anyone tells him about the episode they mention that joke and he has to tell them i didn't write that that was conan o'brien yeah but sorcerer is full of scenes of guys almost driving off the edge of the road i mean it's the film is so intense, the slowness, like it never will slow trucks feel more intense. And also that like so I'd seen this scene. I knew this treacherous bridge scene for so long. And I thought it was, you know, typical Simpsons heightening it.

And the heightening is that Homer missed. There was a perfectly fine bridge across from him. But in the movie, it is the same. It is driving on a rickety rope bridge very slowly just like oh it's the same scene which i couldn't believe like that scene and they do it and they do it twice in sorcerer it's two trucks go over that that bridge and the actors are like drenched like all these actors are just like being blasted with water this entire time it looks incredibly dangerous like that they even filmed that is amazing and like yeah apparently i did

read some reviews from the time too that another reason sorcerer was looked down on that people thought like the next movie from the exorcist guy is called sorcerer i can't wait to see all the magic in this movie he's a sorcerer of driving trucks it's all metaphor and also the first 20 minutes of it are very are intentionally disorienting in a way I really like. Foreign languages. Yeah. Yeah. English isn't even spoken until like, yeah, 30 minutes into the movie.

It's a really, it's a really great movie, but give it, give it a watch folks. It has a new like 4k. Actually, I don't know if you can buy it in 4k, but it's, it's definitely a restored version of it too. And Wages of Fear. I mean, definitely. That's great too. Not saying it's not great.

And if maybe it's better, but it also vd talks about how when he was in the writer's room like a few years later david murkin dunked on the idea of referencing sorcerer without knowing about this scene or forgetting about this and he's like why would we ever parody sorcerers nobody's ever heard of that movie and then john vd asked like why i did it in one of the most famous episodes of the show. But yeah, I'm hoping now people can give give Sorcerer a little more love after. In general, Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. Everybody was talking about that after he died

and people like it because there's a new 4K disc out recently too of it. Got a better car chase than the French Connection if you can believe that. It's not all cut up on digital storefronts like the french connection now is by disney yeah oh yeah they also say that uh that dial joke is a late edition that they had to bring into the animatic because it came up way late in there in it but i'm glad they put it in there it's it's so funny it's worth keeping barney then starts to think he's gonna die and uh he he's going to see his dad again,

which obviously they didn't know this when they wrote it. But later we find out that's the same dad who's a member of the Flying Hellfish and the Taunteen with Mr. Burns. And that's Arnie Gumbel, who's there as they are going to plan to be as rich as Nazis. Another of my favorite lines. Rich, rich as nazis another of my favorite lines rich rich as nazis so yes homer though saves him when he does this is uh when god himself will not let them uh have any fun like it won't it won't let them break the sitcom status quo of them being successful together instead god takes an active uh hand in the world

and melts all the snow and another reference that i think i did get as a kid because i had seen raiders of the lost ark the uh the melting snowmen are the the raiders yeah yeah for this to work the snowmen have to have like working skeletons inside them but i don't care it's funny so this also when we hear about i don't like the look of those teenagers which we all agree with and then just as we all love to do back in 1993 or 92 we laughed at the idea of climate change how funny it was and we welcomed it in this in this uh this sexy ending to the episode could this record-breaking heat wave be the result of the dreaded greenhouse effect? Well, if 70-degree days in the middle of winter are the price of car pollution, you'll forgive me if I keep my old Pontiac.

Yeah, hello? Hello, this is the Repo Depot. I'm just calling to distract you while we repossess your plow. Oh, yeah? How dumb do you think I... Oh, now, homie, you have your health, you have your best friend back, and you do have that certain special something.

You mean... Mm-hmm. Mr. Plow, that's my name. That name again is Mr. Plow. Our forecast calls for flurries of passion followed by extended periods of getting it on.

What a sweet ending. And you know, Mr. Plow, that could be used as a double entendre. Yes. Homer doing his little Barry White impression. Is Whacking Day before or after this episode in this season? Coming soon. We've got the real Barry White coming

up in a little bit. We've got Barry White on the brain. Yeah I just and again this the smugness of which like the Kent Brockman laughs and arches his eyebrows like it's it gets funnier every hottest summer ever. The hottest summer on record was this year and it'll be next year and every year after that.

But Henry, you're going to get some mild winters. Yeah, actually, you're right. I don't need to fear snow at all anymore. Now that I think about it. I also like that it is kind of a season two ending where it's just wrapped up in bed with Margin Homer, like a very traditional Simpsons ending of just them going like, you know, hey, it's not so bad. Everything's fine, though. Again, I question how did they replace their cars? Where did the money to get their cars back? Let's just say they were in the

shop and now they're out of the shop by the next episode. Yeah, let's say that. But this episode, some final thoughts. I mean, sometimes it seems obvious, like, oh, yeah, Mr. Plow, one of the best episodes ever, whatever. And then you watch it and you think, okay, it is. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I thought it was too obvious because it is that good. And so many things just come up in my memory from this episode, just seeing random objects and events around me in my everyday life. So, yeah, like in the top five, for sure. For sure.

Me too. Top five. It's so much of this was just going like, wasn't this the funniest thing? Wasn't this the funniest thing? Like, there's a little to even add to it sometimes but yeah and also it does it does something that sometimes i admonish later simpsons episodes for doing which is i prefer when they have guest stars play a character rather than themselves but this has two of the best guest star appearances ever playing themselves to perfect use yeah it's and it's gorgeous a gorgeous episode the funniest draw some of the funniest drawings of homer you're ever going to see some of the

funniest like violence and and moment like yeah it's just for the mr plow jingle alone it's uh it is top five episode for sure i mean it's like it's so hard to choose your your favorite simpsons episode but like you know this is one that's always in the conversation in my mind. And Bob, I think like just for me, when I think about this episode, I think about what you said at the beginning of the episode, that this is like the rare non-Christmas like winter episode. And there's something about that opening with like, you know, Marge, Bart and Lisa are watching TV, watching Carnival of the Stars. Homer's at the bar watching the same thing. And, you know, like the blizzards kicking up outside. And there's something

just, I don't know, I find very wholesome and kind of warm. There's a warmth about it. I'm thinking of like sort of the depiction of the whole town of Springfield

going through a weather event. A little glimpse in the life of Springfield that we don't normally see. So, Will Miniker, thanks for being back on the show. This is going live

in late November. So, can you tell us, is new movie mindset on the way? Has it already what's going on with movie mindset and of course chapo trap house well chapo trap house you know twice a week at your regularly scheduled patreon and free uh feeds uh by the time you are listening to this you will have already heard the uh five episodes of our movie mindset ghoul v scream Scream set horror spectacular for the month of October Hessa and I are coming back with a limited run of ten horror films

to keep you chilled and thrilled this spooky season Hessa do such great stuff I loved hearing I think my favorite of the previous season you did was the the Sunset Boulevard one I really loved that one that really love that one

that was a great one Heston I just recorded an episode Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre so we're going right in with the two of the strongest horror films ever made in my opinion just in time for Thanksgiving folks think about it revisit these films you have time now

watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre with your family when you're feeding your pop pop just like me You have time now. Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre with your family. Yes, exactly. When you're feeding your pop-pop, just like me. No, thank you so much. Well, we always love having you on. We're such big fans of your work, and we're honored to have you on. Oh, thank you so much, gentlemen.

Always a joy to talk Simpsons with Henry and Bob. Thanks again to Will Meneker for being on the show. Please check out Chapo Trap House. And their podcast miniseries Movie Mindset. I believe that's all on their Patreon. But as for us if you want to support our show. And get all these episodes one week ahead of time and ad free. Please go to Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

Sign up for five bucks a month. You get just that. But also access to our vast vast catalog. Of miniseries episodes. Over 150 full length episodes are waiting for you. Behind the Patreon paywall, and we cover stuff like Batman the Animated Series and The Critic and Mission Hill, Futurama and King of the Hill.

And for that five bucks a month, you'll also get regular monthly episodes of both Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill. And again, that's all happening behind that $5 paywall, only at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, and there is a ten dollar level as well when you sign up for that you can access all the five dollar stuff naturally but then you can also get one mega long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level or higher and what is that henry bob's talking about the what a cartoon movie podcast where we talk about an animated feature film super in-depth if you enjoy the sections like movie mindset i think you'll enjoy hearing

us talk about animated feature films, sometimes for over six hours even. So just last month, we covered Project Eiko, the highly influential Japanese animation movie. Before that, we did Corpse Bride, if you liked all this spooky season talk. And we've got tons more cool stuff coming your way. We've covered everything from Akira to a goofy movie, Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse to Beavis and Butthead to the universe.

We've done five whole years of it, and it's home to our longest podcast ever, six and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit, not a second wasted. All of that is at your fingertips if you sign up at the $10 level and you get all the $5 things Bob just mentioned. See what you are missing

when you head over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons and i've been one of your hosts bob mackie you can find me on twitter as bob servo and my other podcast by the way is retronauts it's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games you can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month and i have a book out by the way it is the boss fight books volume on day of the tentacle that is the classic lucasarts point and click adventure game from 1993 i put together a great oral history all about the making of that video game and you can find that boss fight books volume on the game wherever you find books or go to the boss fight books website and order it there both in digital and paperback form and henry how about you you can follow me on twitter at h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g and i'm also that on all you know

in i'm actually talking henry on instagram but also i'm that on blue sky uh you know i even have a threads thing going follow me in those places and of course if you're following us on social media you definitely need to follow the official Twitter account and other social media accounts at TalkSimpsonsPod. At TalkSimpsonsPod will keep you in the loop whenever new things happen on the Patreon, on the free feed. If we've got a live show coming, so many different things you need to follow at TalkSimpsonsPod to stay up to date. As well, if you're looking for an easy-to-follow list of all of our previously released free episodes head on over to talk kingsimsons.com thanks so much for listening folks and we'll see you next time for the season 14 episode barding over the 300th episode and we'll see you then Well, John Q. Driveway has our number. Now we play the waiting game.

Oh, the waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry, Hungry Hippos.