Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

We are nearing the end of John Swartzwelder's time writing for the show, and he's turned in a quality script as the show gets political again in 2003. Krusty is a celebrity running for public office (can you believe it) and has the support of The Simpsons and Republicans. But is it possible to make a difference without Walter Mondale's help? We explain that, references to Joe Millionaire, Ronald Reagan, and more 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. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that pleases everyone from ducks and trees to yous and me's. I'm your host, the average Joe Six-Tooth, Bob Mackey, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today as always Henry Gilbert and if they hear about this back in Modesto I'm ruined And this week's episode is Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington

Mmm, promo You fucks This episode originally aired on March 9th, 2003 and as always Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy Bobby Dixie Chick's lead singer Natalie Maines makes news with anti-Bush statement bringing down the house tops the box office and people are still

celebrating the life of fred rogers whose death i forgot to mention a couple weeks ago oh still could never watch that documentary about his life feel like i just die afterwards is it called won't you be my neighbor or is that the tom hanks oh man i can't remember i think the doc was called that but i didn't see the tom hanks movie but yeah the documentary it was very very powerful and we grew up in the tail end of fred rogers so fred rogers was still very active in the 80s like he was making new episodes we watched him in our childhoods right after or before sesame street yes i was a fred rogers fan i didn't much care for the land of make-believe even Even when I was a kid, I thought,

these puppets look cheap, and I'm pretty sure it's just him doing all the voices. Yes. You know, I turned off a little bit in those moments. I'd rather see them either seeing somebody, you know, who's doing their job of, like, being a mailman or a swim instructor or whatever, or, honestly, I liked watching him change his shoes and jacket.

There was something just comforting about, like, Mr. Rogers is home. He has changed his shoes and jackets. And now I can relax. Now it's time to be spoken to in a very gentle tone and learn how crayons are made. Why not? Oh, God. That one really. Yes.

The crayon making one. Something about seeing all the wax just shoved together like really stuck with me too yeah yeah there were a lot of mean-spirited jokes made about him like right after he went off the air but i feel like we all have come to embrace mr rogers now and of course there was the super super popular eddie murphy sketch mr robinson's neighborhood on snl he was just such a pure entity. It's easy jokes to be like, oh, but what if he did something dirty? Like to quote Felix Biederman of Chopper Trap House, it was very much the like,

I'm going to kill Barney era of comedy. And Fred Rogers fit in that same genre. And as for bringing down the house, I've got four words for you, Henry. You straight trippin', boo. Is that what Queen Latifah says to Steve Martin in that movie? Yes, yes. And we were living through you straight trippin' boo mania in the spring of 2003.

I remember cleaning the theaters when this was being shown, but I did not see this movie. But yeah, it was definitely after, this has been a thing in movies for a very long time, but I definitely feel like after Rush Hour, there were more of these, you know, famous white person with famous black person, culture clash kind of movies, too. Oh, sorry, I got the quote wrong. It's, you got me straight tripping, boo.

So I apologize. All of you bringing down the house, super fans, please delete your comments. I cannot take any more criticism right now. And yes, the Dixie Chicks quote, it was said in London, was, we do not want this war, we do not want this violence, and we are ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas. You know, we are living through a very similar thing right now

that's happening with people speaking out about Israel and the war crimes happening and America's support of it. And it's really disgusting to see it happening again 20 plus years later. Yes, it's strikingly similar and same with like the rampant Islamophobia as well. And just like straight up racist bullshit about the victims of these war crimes. And it's just like it's horrible to see the same people getting silenced we're also the same people who or many people who acted like oh we really learned something from the culture of fear that was against like speaking out against the war 20 years ago it's like no we didn't it's all the same like new york times cnn all the same institutions that supported that war support this one too like you gotta bomb something it seems to

be the feeling i don't like yeah we're bringing back the feel bad times of the era this episode aired in and i am again it i don't like what's happening right now and this dixie chick statement would then lead to their appearance on the simpsons would poke fun at this in the episode reed harrison wrote papa don't leech the late reed harrison wrote that we talked with him about in our old interview with him in 2017, where he said that that was a third act rewrite that he did not originally pitch. That happens a lot with these freelance writers. They sit down to watch the episode and the third act is completely new to them. I think on this commentary, they even say like, oh yeah, the third act, the big difference or came in late,

I think is their usual code word. Something tells me they thought they could get Walter Mondale. I think they did. But maybe he didn't have a sense of humor about his constant losses in politics. But that's what happened when this episode aired in a very fraught political times. It's true. Yeah, this episode, Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington, on the record, let me say, I think it's a funny episode of season 14. I think the next one is funny as well. This, though, I wanted to point out, we haven't had a John Schwarzwalder episode in a while. His last one was The Frying Game, the previous season. And unfortunately, after this, he'll only write one more episode and a Treehouse of Horror segment. So we are quickly running out of Schwarzwalders. But there's a definite Schwarzwalder spice in

this episode. You can definitely tell he is behind the wheel for a lot of this plot. And just his general outlook on politics as well is present in this episode you can definitely tell he is behind the wheel for a lot of this plot and just his general outlook on politics as well is present in this episode yeah this has a lot of the extremeness you see in swartz welder things a lot of for some reason this happens or a crazy thing happens we've been seeing a lot of episodes that have moments that feel like somebody's trying to you know take in the influence of swartz welder or imitate Schwarzwalder but this has like having a plane drive through the front of the house out of nowhere you know that's yes it's a very Schwarzwalder type moment and yeah like you said to his political outlook especially but yeah we have to treasure

every Schwarzwalder last one he'll be doing is I believe the Regina monologues which is this production season but the beginning of the next broadcast season and then it's just straight to writing books from then on you know it's crazy though that they title this one as a parody of mr smith goes to washington when their previous you know 11 seasons earlier they do mr lisa goes to washington that follows several of these similar beats we're in the era in which we're reusing titles you know we had a star is burns a star is born again we've had i think three the old man in the sea title parodies at this point so there are only so many to go around and i want to like one day i want to go through all like 800 episodes and see like how many of these all borrowed the same reference for the title also

i thought it was interesting to measure like in the 11 years since they did mr lisa goes to washington like not to say that there wasn't political comedy or even like cynical satire in american political comedy in the 90s because there definitely was but you compare how the simpsons did it in 92 to how they're doing it in 2003 by 2003 like there was the daily show there was south park there was The Daily Show, there was South Park. There were so much more cynical, satirical looks at American politics that The Simpsons doesn't stand out as much when they do it this time around. Also, The Onion as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Onion makes a big difference.

They really don't. I mean, I guess they're throwing shade at Walter Mondale, but they're not sending up any kind of current political issue. And there's a lot of behind the scenes things happening on this episode we'll talk about where Fox was pushing back against any criticism of, you know, the Bush administration and their own news network. Plus, it definitely seemed like they were slow to do anything about George W. Bush. They have a whole little roundtable during the commentary of, oh, this was in the first Obama term, I believe, when they were recording it. So they're like, oh, yeah, I guess we were pretty light on Bush, but here's why. And they also even say, Al Jean mentions that he thinks that they were too mean to Bill Clinton back in the day. Specifically him hitting on Marge, I think, is what Al Jean's like, oh, I wouldn't have done that.

I think he forgets, though, in that scene where he hits on Marge, he also says that he has sex with actual pigs. No fooling, pigs. He's not using that euphemistically. He means he has had sex with the farm animal, a pig so yeah they have regrets and i think they use the trump administration to make up for it but we've gone over this what they did you know they meant well but it was very embarrassing for the most part their little shorts they made and yes i am being dismissive of them because i just didn't like to see it no no it was uh it makes you instead of going oh i think it was better they didn't make fun of george w bush or get get more direct with him i mean though this was the time where like there was a culture of fear of like well can you say anything like same with right now seeing a lot of people who talk about you know things that are important and all that uh politics in my timeline and then they have not

been saying anything about the horrible stuff that's happening to the people in gaza right now because it's complicated. Same thing back then. You didn't want to come out too strong against the president. I mean, we'll talk about the news stories that came out of this, which based on the commentary, the news stories seem to be misreporting, but definitely they were afraid to say anything too strongly against what was happening because I believe when this episode was written, probably, we had not even gone to war yet, nine or 10 months before this. You know, it's March. It basically is about to happen, but Bush hasn't done his announcement yet. It pretty much is like,

that's why I included the Dixie Chicks thing. Cause I was like, everybody knows this is going to happen. And mainstream thought was, you know, you can't go against the troops. And it's why virtually every Democrat voted for the war as well. Why everybody supported it like so. It just shows how powerful that sentiment was that even the Simpsons fell victim to it, which is a real shame. I'm just guessing the time it was written. I'm guessing it was like early 2002, mid 2002. There are references to like the fact finding mission to find the WMDs and things like that.

So they made it at least that far in the war timeline. It's a really interesting timeline. Also, I did look up, they have a discussion on the commentary of, has Schwarzwalder written the most episodes? And this is going by the official Wikipedia this is not a Simpsons fan wiki this is on real Wikipedia the list of all Simpsons writers though like listeners I did not count myself every single episode by these writers so I'm just going by the number on the wiki but I believe it to be true Swartz Welder is still number one they guess that Selman is second but he is not and I think it's just because he pulled back from writing, taking on things.

So Joel Cohen and John Frank are tied, but they're still 20 episodes behind. Wow. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I never would have guessed who would be number two. I didn't either. And actually, I think Al Jean is getting close to third place just because he still writes like one or two episodes a year himself, like he did this year with the Fat Tony episode.

Schwarzwalder was 58, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's on the cover of every book he writes from the writer of 58 Simpsons episodes. But yeah, he did all those in 14 years. Some of these guys have been on the show for 20 or more years i say work harder work like a chain-smoking libertarian and maybe you'll beat john swartzwald he just had a good tweet this last weekend and which will be a couple weeks ago and you listen to this but him sharing an old piece he did about ai comedy that he wrote for the playboy the year we were

born my favorite bit with that was that he said he was reminded by his friend Dave Shutton. It was like, oh, the second I saw that, I was like, that's the guy you named the reporter after in Three Eyes on Every Fish. Yeah, it was great to have confirmation Dave Shutton still alive. I don't know who he is, but the namesake of the reporter we saw a few times. I love that Schwarzwalder tweets for real and it's really him and he doesn't have an avatar picture or anything. It's just just Schwarzwalder tweeting it real and it's really him and he doesn't have an avatar picture or anything. It's just just Schwarzwalder tweeting it up. But yes, the episode begins with something that's not at all surprising for John Schwarzwalder, though. A Three Stooges parody.

And this is getting into deep stooge lore because there are different phases of the Three Stooges, different groupings. And then they're making fun of the ladder shorts, where they're all very old and tired. And they call this Curly, Curly Four. Technically, there were only three Curly-style figures. This should be a Curly Joe Dorita. I believe Joe Besser was the Curly before Joe Dorita. Now, I know Thad Komorowski and or Will Sloan will be in the comments immediately to correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my knowledge of the Stooges. So for this parody of the Stooges, they're making up that there is now a fourth Curly in this who dies while they're filming the scene. Yes, who is more like the first Curly than the other

people they hired to replace Curly. And I should mention a fun fact about a minor celebrity. Curly Joe Besser, a distant relative of his, is Matt Besser from the Upright Citizens Brigade. So there you have it. Nepo, distant relative. And if you never watched the Joe Besser Stooges, which I haven't either, but if you did watch a ton of crappy old Hanna-Barbera cartoons,

the genie Babu goes like why you like the sassy effeminate genie that is voiced by joe besser in his later years yes the first gay stooge well he was heterosexual but he was playing a horrible stereotype of a gay person in the 40s or 50s i can't remember but yes this definitely follows the feeling of like say if you watched it's a mad mad mad mad world when we watched it it was 30 years old and i only watched it because the simpsons parodied it in the cat burger episode but in that movie the three stooges appear for like a cameo and they are just like it feels like they are trembling in their firefighter outfits they are so elderly are

there firefighters or are they gas station attendants i can't remember they're fine i think they're firefighters on the runway i feel like they're late in the movie at the airport scene i think i mean we did the king of the hill episode of firefighting we will go and we revisited some stew shorts and we thought they were funny there's a certain period you want to lock yourself into for the stooges this is not it and i will put in a plug for friend of the show will Will Sloan's fanzine. It's called The Journal of Stoogological Studies, an unauthorized Three Stooges fanzine available through Amazon. So like not to call out friends of the show who've been on the show before, but Will Sloan and Thad Komorowski, they're like about 10 years younger than us,

but they're into media that is kind of too old for us. Their Stooge love, it's surprising. It's out of time and out of step which i love you know i said it on our when we did the king of the hill about the the three stooges i was never a big stooge head as a kid i thought i liked the marks brothers a lot more i liked their comedy stylings that was more cerebral than the stooges but the more i watched the stooges as an adult i definitely appreciate the artistry of the Stooges yeah it's just fun to see how that was the style of comedy at the time it's the same style as old Warner Brothers shorts so they're essentially a bunch of middle-aged men in the same cartoon Bugs Bunny

would be in or the same kind of story Bugs Bunny would be in or Daffy Duck and Dan Kesslin had it as a good Larry Fine but of course you know it's not fair to compare him to the perfection of a Billy West Larry Fine, which is his voice for Stimpy. Yeah, that's why Dan played Stimpy in the Ren and Stimpy parody and brother from St. Planet. And also, yeah, the director is Jules White III, which is a joke because Jules White was the director of many Stooges shorts. So they're saying his grandson is now directing them.

How old the Stooges are at this point. Yeah, the three Stooges impressions don't're saying his grandson is now directing them how old the Stooges are at this point yeah the three Stooges impressions don't get a lot of traffic these days but in this they're all very good it's like Hank is Moe and Dan is both Curly and Larry yeah yeah yeah yeah Curly is more just like like he doesn't say much but and of course Billy West can do all the Stooges but again there's not a big market for that anymore. But that's one of the many reasons we love Billy West, that he can just pull that all out of his head. He is the same cartoon-addicted freak that we are. That's what we love about Billy.

So after we watch a bunch of old men act very realistically, confused and elderly, then we see homer say how droll and that's when a commercial for joe millionaire runs across the screen which homer then eats which definitely was parodying how intrusive fox ads were back then during the programming yeah if you were watching fox around this time you would see these bugs or crawls or whatever you call them just kind of take over the bottom of the screen and be very distracting and this is basically identical to what you would see is it joe millionaire is that the parody they're doing yeah it's joe millionaire is the one they're bringing up here yes one of the many horrible reality shows i remember i looked this up to confirm it which was funny because it's even more to it but that the arrested development in its second season

also parodied this because they had an episode where during the ending during a heartfelt speech between job and michael a family guy ad just runs across the screen and like stewie shoots a laser and lois and peter are dancing across the screen and so then like about 10 episodes later they joke that oh, this website failed because it had annoying pop-up ads. And it's the family guy, same ad, dancing across the screen, distracting him, pop-up ads. Yeah, when I saw this joke, I was thinking of Rest of Development. I wasn't sure if they did this during Rest of Development or if Rest of Development did a parody, but they did the parody. Because they suffered from it the first time.

And if you look up the episode that they did the parody in, Dan Castellet is the guest star in that episode he plays the doctor in it oh so this is fun trivia for all of you out there because i just saw the 25 year old movie ghost dog way of the samurai and in that movie very distractingly so characters are always watching like public domain cartoons in that movie but a few times in the movie they watch itchy and scratchy cartoons and in the credits as voice of scratchy it is harry shearer credited i assume that is a harry shearer role like if you show scratchy i get a royalty check so you know good on him but that's just a very funny thing to see in the credits of ghost dog a voice of scratchy harry shearer man i wonder if that's a jim jarmusch movie correct

yes and he was on the simpsons like 15 years ago in a very funny little role when that's a sundance episode that i watched like a couple years ago it's very funny maybe i could see graining being like hey jim jarmusch you're cool yeah you can use a clip from the simpsons in your movie i'll get it done for you but give harry shearer at least three thousand dollars sorry i haven't seen ghost dog in a very long time but i remember the funniest bit to me being one of the mafia guys the mafia guys are all like racist when they hear about ghost dog except for one guy who's like i love flava flav though and then like later in the movie he's listening to flava flav at home yes yes and to tie it back to the simpsons I'll say how about ghost mutt

we kept calling him uh ghost mutt when we were watching it last night then Homer spits out the Fox logo which is far meaner than they would ever be to anything revolving around Disney today I tell you that much yes they Homer would like polish the logo gently set it down and then the family would talk about the great programming available on disney plus did you hear that billy eilish has a new special coming out guys marge be quiet ahsoka is on then their viewing experience gets interrupted by some loud noises i like that you briefly see on tv seemingly moe slapping the corpse of Curly Four on the ground. I wonder if that was an animator gag or if that was in the script. The whole house is shaking.

There's a swear jar that gets knocked over, which apparently has been there since Homer built the doghouse in season three. It's the only thing holding back the filth. I do love the invented March swear of nutty fudgekins. It's cute. Also cute. invented March swear of nutty fudgekins it's cute also cute when that squirrel comes in and destroys Lisa's room I love that it's like a season one squirrel it's not how they draw a squirrel at that time they just it's got the little dot eyes I love it yeah we're digging back to early seasons we have the swear jar we have the first reference to Malibu Stacy in a while

oh yeah yeah I feel like the last time I heard her even mention Malibu Stacy was in that episode with Kathy Griffin playing her bully. And that was just a very quick one, too. It did feel like they kind of remember sometimes Lisa likes Malibu Stacy, even though I preferred the era of the, like, yeah, after the Lisa Lionheart doll, she gave up on Malibu Stacy. They occasionally try to make her like an eight-year-old girl instead of writing her like a 35-year-old woman. Though a lot of this episode is her being a 35-year-old woman i'd say yes there's a cute little bit of maggie getting toys dropped on her head it's a real like silent comedy kind of acting she has as she's getting sick of things falling directly on her head over and over again then this is going to be a hard episode or a hard first act to play clips in because it's just loud noises the entire time. But this is when they figure out what this noise is. If I stop pedaling, I'll die. But it still beats U.S. Air.

Why? The people there don't know how to make a flight. They must have moved the flight paths over our house. This is a private jet why do we gotta watch the divine secrets of the yaya sisterhood the boss he's got a thing for the yaya's why was i born a man he blows his nose into pizza that's pretty great that feels like a swartzwalder direction. Yeah. When I was looking at the Wikipedia for this before I sat down to watch it, I was like,

oh, Joe Bontania's Fat Tony. I forgot there's a Fat Tony side plot in this, but there's not. All he says is, why was I born a man and blows his nose in pizza? This very much was in the era where Al Jean was saying, like, if Fat Tony shows up to burp, I'm getting Joe in to do the line. And so this is one of those times he's like, no, I'm getting Joe to do this line. But him blowing his nose into pizza is such a silly thing. The U.S. Air slam.

I wonder who had an axe to grind there because U.S. Air merged with American Airlines in 2015. And I think at this point, like every airline has burned me. So I have no safe bet anymore. It's like Air Canada, Alaska Air, Delta, they've all screwed me over in some way. So I don't know. There's no safe place for me to go anymore. There needs to be a new airline. You know what?

I was having good luck with Virgin. I did a lot of work trips through Virgin, and now they're not a thing anymore. Oh, right. Yeah, they got bought by somebody else, didn't they? And now it's just JetBlue or something, right? I forget. I mean, I was sick of watching that Virgin flight safety video and the making up with every flight,

but they were kind of above board and, you know, classy and not a lot of delays. But yeah, US Air, they had the same problem every airline did after 9-11. There was nothing like standout for them when I was looking into like the history of them. But yeah, they merged with American Airlines in 2015. See, this is why I always fly Southwest

because it's base level crappiness the whole way it's like the biggest complaints i have on southwest are just like they do the same joke yet the funny announcer who goes like hey did somebody lose this now that i've got your attention let me tell you about how to put on a seat belt like they do this i've seen that joke five times on Southwest flights. That must be part of orientation. Like here is a good singer to start off your speech with. And hey, we're talking about old references. I spotted another one. So the Mafia Jet is trailing a banner that says Mafia Staff Jet, keep you hands off. And this is a callback to bootleg merch that was emerging around the time of The Godfather Part 3. And it's why Homer wears the Maf mafia staff apron in the beginning of bad

dream house in triosicore one so they remembered that brief bootleg merch fad from 1991 or 1990 i think it's 1990 yeah wow that's great the way johnny tightlips says the boss he got a thing for the it's a delivery like paulie walnuts his character would say on soprano well also it's weird that it's not Legs and Louie. It's Louie and Johnny Tight Lips. Like, Legs is not hanging around for some reason. And, you know, within like a couple of years of each other, we had The Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood

and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, two dangerous cults. It's, yeah, the Yaya Sisterhood. It's a 2002 film starring sandra bullock written and directed by callie corey who wrote thelma and louise and i've never seen this movie but i had to put its dvd on blockbuster shelves many many times so i know its dvd box very well okay yeah that director callie corey that's thelma and louise was like the dream of any like aspiring screenwriter like you write it on your coffee breaks at your crappy job and

then it gets made into a ridley scott movie that wins a ton of oscars oh that's cool that's cool and what's she been up to these days i i wonder but i would figure not getting to direct too much but also that they really love giving professor frank chitty chitty bang bang car like i feel like now it's just part of the opening is his chitty chitty bang bang car flies over the screen in the hd era yeah and he's saying something or he's he's pulling a banner or something that's what his joke usually is and so yes the house is shaking a lot lance kramer talking about how it's much harder than you think to make everything in the house shake. You're not just shaking the camera like items all through the screen have to shake. And I really appreciate the skill of how the table shakes to get like the food doesn't cross in like straight lines.

It's like an X across the thing for how the food moves around. And plankton kebabs definitely feels like a swartz welder joke about vegetarians all non-meat is disgusting but maggie does get drunk so that's always fun also i love homer's childish like ooh marge germs that's a good line too and so yes then homer is swinging his rake at an airplane when lisa convinces him to go off and complain to somebody when he falls off the house he seemingly lands on a cat dog and then a cow which also feels very sweltering of that sound effect joke and the delta hub joke would assume she is referring to atlanta with futurama did a similar joke it's more than just a delta hub sure it is sure i love atlanta by the way it is more than a delta hub. It's a beautiful, beautiful city.

Never been, but always wanted to go. So maybe in the future. I've truly never been to the South. My hubby and I are talking about we want to go to the Orlando parks, the Universal and Disney. And we're like, do we really want to do it after the election? And we're like, I feel like that's a gamble. No matter what the outcome, I think it's a gamble. I was thinking, would it be better if Biden or Trump won? But I thought, either way, there's going to be resentment. Florida will be a worse state either way. People drunk on power, the power of getting their guy back in.

I mean, Florida just gets worse every year. And I say this as a Floridian. So Homer and Marge head over to the airport. This is where they see a sign for sarcastic grief counselors on duty. And they try to talk to the government. Go up to room 915 and ask for form 1790. We've already been to room 915. We've already filled out form 1790.

It was an application to open a Cinnabon stand. Look, can you please just tell us why you've changed the flight paths? Look, they were changed because it disturbed local wildlife and their mating rituals. Vote Quimby, vote Quimby, vote Quimby, vote Quimby! Without those noisy planes, I can finally hear my kitten purr. Thanks a million, Joe! You're the swellest. That's your voice? Now I regret building you that opera house.

There has to be a solution that pleases everyone. From ducks and trees to ewes and mays. Are you threatening a government official? No. Good. Because we're the government. We make the laws. We print the money.

And we breed the super soldiers. So go home, learn to live with it, pay your taxes, and remember, you didn't hear anything about super soldiers. Apparently the super soldier thing was a real John Schwarzwalder topic. I mean, this whole speech of like, we're the government, do what we say, we make everything, learn to live with it. Like, that feels like pure swartzwalder for sure yeah i had one of these experiences at an airport i have this thing called a nexus card and you use it to make travel between the u.s and canada border easier and they forgot to put the junior on my name i'm a junior by the way it's like it makes everything so much

more complicated and i needed the junior on my card and when i went to the office and said you know oh you guys forgot the junior i need this because my card doesn't work. And the response I got was we don't make mistakes you anymore so you have to like keep the most even temper possible and like talk through like a fake smile like oh well let me explain the the circumstances behind this and then you're just you know simmering underneath all of that they're like to playing chicken with you to see if you like if you like explode then they can just shut it down and move on with their day yeah and you're thinking at the same time like, this person can never give me the benefit of the doubt because they deal with the worst people every day.

So why should they think I'm not one of them? So in a way I understand, but you also just want to get the thing done that you came there for. Yeah, no, I mean, because I saw this recently too when traveling as well of like that you, there was a person in front of me

who was saying like, well, no, i didn't know this let me through i it wasn't explained to me all these things like it was all these excuses that to me sounded like well no they're just lying to be able to like uh get this thing through but then i thought well this is why they don't believe you when it actually is a thing like no i know this sounds like i'm lying but really this did happen because everybody lies to get through these things. Like, so they don't believe anybody. That's why every customer service experience should be hooked up to a polygraph test.

There should be the citizen credit thing or whatever they have in China. Yeah, we should have that. Hey, we have that, but just called a credit rating. We don't give it like a sinister name well that's what they are doing in this scene here where the guy gives them needless busy work on a form that he hopes that they never fill out because then he'll just have to name a different form i mean yes all these fears of forms like definitely i've been told well you need this form or you need that form but usually now it is just like no you just gotta wait or you pay a lot more money like that's the the ups and downs of it yeah it's usually like how much are you willing to pay to make this go faster?

Sort of like a free to play game almost. Yeah. And when I've gone through TSA PreCheck now that I've got it, I'm like, man, it's insane that this is just how it should be. But it's only if you spend money. Like it's only if you pay more. It's such an American thing. And honestly, it's not even that much money for what you get out of it.

This is me advertising for the pre-check status. Definitely worth it. If you fly more than once a year, I'd say it's worth it. For sure. Pace for itself. And we have Tress McNeil doing a real Lena Lamont voice, although I'm sure most people will hear this

and think Harley Quinn. That's what Harley Quinn's voice actor was doing. Her name totally just blanked on me. What is the name of Harley Quinn's voice actor? The late Arlene Sorkin. Arlene Sorkin. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I am recovering from like a five-day-long mega cold. And I currently hopped up on poop balls, by the way. The Simpsons will be right back. Fox Tonight on Joe Millionaire. The stakes go up for the final four women, and they'll do anything to get Joe's attention. Wow. But how far will they go to win the man they think is rich?

I'll make this easy. I'm feeling guilty now. I can't go back. Joe Millionaire. The reality sensation continues next on Fox. 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? Si vous faites vos achats tout en travaillant, en mangeant ou même en écoutant ce balado, alors vous connaissez et aimez l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce

frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal? Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés, comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent. C'est facile à utiliser et vous obtenez vos remises par PayPal ou par chèque. L'idée est simple. Les magasins paient Rakuten pour leur envoyer des gens magasinés. Et Rakuten partage l'argent avec

vous sous forme de remise. Téléchargez l'application gratuite Rakuten et ne manquez jamais un bon deal. Ou allez sur rakuten.ca pour en avoir plus pour votre argent. C'est R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Bienvenue à la pause, tout le monde. C'est Henry Gilbert et je vous jure, je ne me sens que comme Walter Mondale.

Et merci d'avoir écouté cette semaine ce magnifique épisode sur l'époque de la politique de 2003. Un temps horrible, horrible. Mais nous avons eu un bon moment en parlant de ça. politics a horrible horrible time but we had a great time talking about it and if you enjoy me and bob talking about episodes like mr spritz goes to washington or next week's episode from season four selma's choice and you want to listen to that right now with our big guest on it you need to head over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons supporters there help me and bob do this as our full-time jobs. And for just five bucks a month,

you get every episode of this without ads like this one on TalkingSimpsons and a week ahead of time. Plus, the same for our podcast, What a Cartoon. Every month, a new episode of that. And many exclusive podcasts only for Patreon subscribers. Like, every month, a new episode of Talking Futurama. A new episode of Talk Futurama, a new episode of King of the Hill, us covering both of those shows, just like we do an episode of The Simpsons,

and our over 150 previously released exclusive to Patreon podcasts, us covering all the previous episodes of Futurama, all the previous episodes of King of the Hill, every episode of The Critic, every episode of Mission Hill, and many of our favorite episodes of batman the animated series head over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to see what you're missing out on but if you want something even nicer than permission to open a cinnabon you should really be checking out the premium level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons because in addition to all those $5 things, for $10 a month, you get as well

our monthly What a Cartoon movie podcast, us talking about an animated feature film crazy in depth like an episode of The Simpsons for four, five, or even six hours long. Last month, we talked about the 1942 classic Bambi from Walt Disney. This month, we're gonna be covering Hayao Miyazaki's classic tribute to aviation, Porco Rosso.

There is a ton of interesting information on that one behind the scenes. It went through a very difficult production process and you're gonna hear about that and all the amazing, amazing moments in that film as we go through it piece by piece. And that's just our two most recent ones in our long history of over five years

of What a Cartoon movies, over 60 episodes we've done so far. We've covered tons of Disney films, Pixar films, Warner Brothers films, classics, also lots of anime, including tons from Studio Ghibli as well. This is, Porco rosso is just gonna be our most recent one you can hear all of those from akira to a goofy movie if you are a patreon

subscriber for 10 bucks a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you'll even get to hear our longest podcast ever six and a half hours about who framed roger rabbit we love to do in that one that was so much fun please one more time check it out patreon.com slash talking simpsons you know it was a surprisingly lewd joke that definitely feels like it came in late that vote quimby is said until his climax seemingly an implied climax fox did not push back on hearing the mayor come but they were mad about other things i think i was like ah like it's you know we all know what happened here though they also stick in with a seemingly citizen kane reference of building her an opera house though the citizen kane reference is apparently based on chicago magnate samuel Insull doing that for his own spouse who was spurned by New York

opera houses. You know, I love Citizen Kane, but when they get to that opera scene, well, it's very funny when they pan up and the stagehands are like making the PU motions with their hands. But also whenever I see that, I'm like, is this bad opera? I can't tell. Because in Singing in the Rain, when Lena Lamont is doing bad acting, you like well this is awful but i don't know bad opera from good opera so that that's where i just i'll take the stage hands word for it they're more cultured than me that's how i liked it in citizen kane too how they constantly have to have other characters like her teacher as well go like no she sucked she's a fine singer like you know as a regular person but she can't project she just can't do it and that poor girl like she is really hurt by old man kane but that's a whole other podcast so yes but

then i also like that marge tried some homespun wisdom of ducks and trees to use amaze and that is now taken as like she's going to be shipped off to guantanamo for threatening a government official yes people were very touchy back then weren't they the family i love the design of the family just completely exhausted and torn apart i feel so bad for santa's little helper with all of his hair gone i've known dogs like that tearing off their furs like oh you poor little baby feel so bad for nervous animals like that but also lisa's being driven insane and i swear the joke where the tv and fridge go out the door and homer says i will find you i know that's a movie quote but i cannot place it in friggin google fails me on this because if you search i will find you in quotes movie quote it's just taken which that is not taken five years after

this i mean it could just be a funny line homer saying but it also could be like the last of the mohicans because that line was in the trail like whatever may occur i will find you oh yeah i think maybe that is it bob thank you thanks comment if yourself if you think you have a reference that this would be in for an episode that aired in early 2003 so it's not taking guys which that created a whole genre of that's still being made to this day of like oh are you in action or a famous guy over 50 make a fantasy about murdering foreigners to save your daughter was that bob odenkirk movie like that nobody or whatever yeah yeah okay yep it's basically he just made a john wick movie but it's

pretty good it's pretty good though i would blame it for his heart attack. I think he over-trained for the movie and pushed his body too hard to get in like peak physical fitness. And that's why he had the heart attack. Comedians can only be so strong before they stop being funny. One of the weirdest things is watching his training regiment video. I watched, he did like a GQ, like how does Bob Odenkirk work out and it was like wow he's doing like real CrossFit stuff like he's in very good shape for a man in his 50s but you read his memoir he mentioned too that he wanted to do nobody partially because like his house got robbed and he you know had a fantasy about like how he'd deal with it so I mean it came from a very real regular like dad defending his home

kind of fantasy. Instead of buying a gun, he got a movie studio to finance his fantasy, which I think is a healthier way to do things. It is impressive to watch him do a five-minute, no edits, no stuntman replacing him action scene in the movie. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Though it's weird to watch if you're a Mr. Show fan, of course. Yeah, I mean, there's not a lot of action. There's some action in Better Call Saul. And they decide that they're going to sell the house, which just lets them have a little aside with Cookie Kwan.

Let's hear a little bit of old Cookie here. Now, Cookie, do you think you can sell this house? Well, it'll be tough, but I can do it. Cookie's number one on the west side. But this is the east side. Who is this lady? Hmm? Why are you selling your house?

Occasionally, you might hear a faint roar. See? It all works out. I'll give you three crayons and my milk. It's a good offer. I advise you to take it. Make that a chocolate milk and you got a deal. I'm walking away. We can't sell the house. We can't live here.

What are we going to do? Why don't we go to our congressman? That's a great idea. Why didn't you say something before? I've been saying it for three weeks, but every time I open my mouth... What? What?

And this really is the rise of Cookie kwan in the simpsons universe because after realty bites she was not seen again till she of little faith when her ad was on a bench and then she makes a big comeback in large marge and here she's just like well now this is a regular character where gil and cookie both come from realty bites and cookie will sort of be as recurring as gil from this point onwards it's crazy to see cookie and apu in the same scene which you would not see now on the show they have a thing for cookie i mean she's fun and all we've mentioned before of course that trask mcneil does all of the asian women on the show of for a distressing amount of time. She is the intense

stereotype of a workaholic Asian woman. That's the comedy of her as far as that goes. But I feel like she is drawn from the rich guy lives of the Simpsons writers who have had to deal with intense must-close realtors. Yeah, like super aggressive real estate agents. Yeah, and I was looking. She has appeared in recent years, but I can't find out who voices her now. Maybe her appearances were non-speaking, but I don't know if she has been recast.

Like, Tress played Kumiko, comic book guy's wife, and now that character has been recast with an Asian actor. I think Cookie, not yet. Yeah, I've been on Cookie Watch. Normally I am, but hey, no, no. But Cookie Kwan, anytime she's appeared in the last two seasons,

I am really racking my brain to think of a time where she spoke. I feel like I have seen her on screen, but not speaking. Hey, just get Lauren Tom in there to do her main voice. It's kind of the same character in a way. Yeah, that she would have done 20 years ago when they did this episode it's also a very good Schwarzwalder style gag of the airplane blasting them away and then blasting them back to where they stood and Homer saying ah see it all works out that's some great Schwarzwalder comedy a faint roar also another great bit is the

way Ralph has his blank expression as he wipes his hands clean and walks away from the deal like that's what makes it funny that he's like i'm walking away from this deal with just no look on his face no change in expression that makes it twice as funny to me when we bought our condo recently we had no contact with the owners of it it was just like working through a real estate agent it's like well here you've been outbid how much do you want to bid now this much it's like oh now you have a condo and a huge mortgage okay so less personal i guess well and also i wasn't living here yet so it was all being done remotely well this is in the post-covid era too when i was looking at rental stuff in the seattle area too i like, only one place did I actually get to talk

to a person. Otherwise they just say, just walk in with this code and go to this apartment and walk around on your own time and then leave. We trust you. We trust you. You should be able to stay the night in your new place before you buy, just to make sure it's not haunted, but we didn't get that chance. Haunted by the highway being too close as well. It's a ghost car. Doesn't also feel like a missed opportunity, though, that we don't see how this is affecting Ned and his kids. You see them for one joke, but not for a joke about how they hear the airplanes.

Seems localized to the Simpsons' house entirely. Then we get to another joke that, I guess I titled this clip as Homer and Marge kill a congressman. The shaking's so bad, all my omelets have become frittatas. That's the saddest story I've heard in my 75 years of public service. It makes my blood boil and my left arm feel numb. Also, I taste copper.

Quack, someone perform CPR. I see a bad moon rising. That's CCR. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. Congressman Wilcox was laid to rest today. A special election will be held next month to fill his vacant seat. I guess there's only one way out of our problems. A murder-suicide pact.

How can you say that? It's just an expression, Marge. You're watching Channel 6, Springfield's home of Krusty the Clown. Now on three times a day. Because at Channel 6, we got nothing else. Hey, Krusty should run for Congress. He could help us with the airplanes. Yeah, and entertainers are always winning elections. Jesse the Body Ventura, Sonny Bono, Gopher from Love Boat, Horace Wilcox is definitely a Strom Thurman style character.

The only other one could be is Robert Byrd. I mean, Strom Thurman was almost 100 when they did this joke. Though Robert Byrd, also quite old. Both of them mega racist. They were both elderly and super racist. Yeah. And I was looking at Horace Wilcox, your man of tomorrow since 1933. Strom Thurmond did not get into politics until the 50s, but he's old enough to have gotten into politics in 1933. So definitely, let's say a kinder Thurmond. Yeah, no, I mean, Wilcox seems like he's an average guy,

though the joke about an elderly representative who would die if they had to actually do something and talk to a normal person, that is realer than ever right now. Can we get a president like in their 50s again, please? We had a few in our 40s for a while, for like, I dare say, almost 20 years. Yeah. That's when they started. They started in our 40s for a while for like i dare say almost 20 years yeah they that's

when they started they started in their 40s we got spoiled by the youthful presidents of our own youth and now instead it's like the guys who were older than the old presidents are now our president it's looking to be a real old off in the coming year which really sucks yeah but hey there's got to be some good jokes to come out of it the only silver lining is to just watch gonna be like abe simpson and chester lampwick having a debate on stage of corn muffins and chicken coop painting and so on so i mean that's all we can get out of it just an old man smackdown if we're going to be a decrepit failing empire we should at least be funny at least give us some chuckles. We've now done like the old doddering king. Let's have a child king. Let's do that. That's fun. Do both kinds of Falling Empires. Right now, nobody's as old as Strom Thurmond, but Chuck Grassley is 90

and Dianne Feinstein was 90. Oh, what happened? I guess she will forever be 90, won't she? Yeah, she's locked in. She's locked in. I think Chuck Grassley is the one that has one of the best Twitter accounts. Just an old man flapping his phone and just seeing what happens. And every other word is abbreviated for some reason. It's very bizarre. I don't get his Twitter at all.

And then I had looked up, there was Alabama's Richard Shelby, who was the oldest senator. He was 89. In 2022, he got replaced by a different shitty younger Republican. So it's like, oh, he was in the Senate in January 1987. So he had been in the Senate longer than the Simpsons had been on television. Old politicians. Huge laugh out of me when I was watching this with, there's only one way out of a murder suicide pact that we're going to call out dana gould if it's a joke is that dark it's got dana gould all over it in this time period also at selman cops too frittatas aren't

because they're shaken it's because they're baked and he apologizes for that blunder on the commentary inaccurate egg joke most congress people will sadly in the real world like they have been confronted by real people let's say their restaurants or whatever and then the very elderly are just like more like me go away this is rude they don't have a stroke and die or if you're nancy pelosi you'll be like well go back to china tell your bosses in china this isn't working so you get some bizarre things said to protesters, these very old politicians. Yeah. You see why Nancy Pelosi was very sensitive to all the statements about Dianne Feinstein,

because she knows she's next for being called out for being elderly and out of touch. I mean, I'm pro-Palestine. In China, not one check has shown up for me yet. Not yet. Or Putin, I guess. Yeah. Putin instead, Bob. That's what she said.

I mean, I changed my address recently, so maybe it's lost in the system. I'm expecting two big checks. Still haven't shown up. So this is 2003. Well, like six months later, let's say, eight months later, that's when Schwarzenegger becomes governor of California, right? They're not ready for this yet on the show. And now, of course, Trump was president for four years. So this is a bit silly. But yes, gopher from the love boat, Fred Grandy, he represented Iowa's fifth and then sixth congressional district in the U.S. House of

Representatives from 1987 to 1995. And it was there he won eight Watchdog of the Treasury Awards. So congrats to you, Fred Grandy. i didn't know this actually mary bono is sunny bono's wife who took over his position when he was you know tragically killed in a skiing accident in 1998 that is such a dark joke that i realized like much darker i realized like when she says mary bono and then the scene just ends it just like yeah she's famous for being elected only because of the tragic death of Sonny Bono and she went on to serve for like 15 years she had a political career after that I don't believe she was a politician before that I could be incorrect though I think you're right just last year I went to Palm Springs for the first time which was

a lovely place to be in November because their November is an 89 degree, like nice summer day. Well, meanwhile, I don't think I ever want to be in Palm Springs in the actual summer, but there was one very fun Sonny Bono statue. He's a celebrated Palm Springs fixture. Sonny Bono was. Oh, I didn't know that. Was he mayor of Palm Springs at a certain point?

I want to. Yeah, I think so. He definitely has Was he mayor of Palm Springs at a certain point? I want to, yeah, I think so. He definitely has had political roots in Palm Springs. I know that. Also, the joke with Krusty and the Channel 6 logo, it very much is, I know this because I try to pull up classic Simpsons commercials that I put in the break on our podcast. These are how the Fox advertised at the time they would have just you know bart and homer and march just floating in not white space more like blue space just around the logo so these three crusties around the channel six logo these were the fox ad marketing at the time for simpson okay yeah i

recall like they would do that with other characters on other shows. They'd just be kind of like goofing around the Fox logo. Yep, yeah. You see Bryan Cranston bouncing off the Fox logo like, oh, whoa, like in shock at it. Yeah. And we get that scene where they get the idea to have Krusty run for Congress. And then we get the brief return of Miss Penny Candy, no longer with purple hair. This is her second to last appearance. If you don't count the movie, and I don't because i just assume she's one of the many

character designs in the giant mob me too yeah yeah i wouldn't count that at first i didn't recognize i would guess they pulled out her model pack for this shot and then somebody said the rules are against blue hair now you can't have her have blue hair so they just make her blonde yeah her hair was like lavender before it's sort of like how miss hoover's hair changed from blue or whatever to a normal color and i like the crusty thing so bart is a make-a-wish kid and that he's so cheap that he wants bart's mother to send back the hat after he you know yeah he's like i'm not dying that's the spirit never give up took them a year but they finally get their big punch back at Brazil in this episode because they say that immigration is on Krusty. And that's because Mr. Teeny is a monkey from Brazil.

Was it his uncle is the head of tourism there, which that is the guy who specifically was against the episode Blame It on Lisa. Yeah, he's head monkey at the bureau of tourism i forgot it was actually i guess it would be that department to get mad at the simpsons for saying it's a monkey ridden hellhole yes yeah go back to blame it on lisa did lots of research of reading multiple articles from the time about it but yeah it wasn't like the head of state of brazil or a politician in brazil specifically it was the head of state of Brazil or a politician in Brazil specifically was the head of tourism in Brazil who was making the headlines for it. So that's why they specifically call out the head of tourism in this. And it aired almost a year to the day before this one.

So this is when they finally got their revenge. Then there's also a joke about an updated list of the seven words you can't say on TV. It's like it's up to 13. That's how filthy America has gotten. Krusty just gleefully hands us over to Bart, this 10-year-old. He's like, I've never even heard of some of these. No, yeah. Well, this was the time of like made-up sex positions online, right?

That's what I figure your number nine is. I mean, I'll say a few, and I apologize just to give context. It's like the rusty trombone or the filthy Sanchez, all these stupid things that no one ever did. Donkey Punch. The Venture Brothers in the prom episode, they have an extended long scene of explaining these ridiculous sex acts of which one is called a rusty Venture. Oh, yeah.

Apparently number nine is doing 13 while she's 11 in your five. That immediately makes me think of a rusty trombone because I had heard it's like that a person is on the anus while on the front is using the penis. Yes. Henry's making hand motions. Yes. Think of how a trombone is played. Now I'm thinking of all of these stupid, mainly via like Kevin Smith, I think is where I heard this. Like, oh, she gave me a blumpkin the other day it's oral sex on the toilet people i'm sorry if your children are listening to this but they need to learn about blumpkins from us and not on the streets yeah when like stern was always talking about it and

these were the things that like you know people who have never had sex like us when we were teenagers heard about these things like oh is that what sex is you do these ridiculous things like yeah and follow homer's rule there are two sex positions on top and underneath right don't need to know any more than that so yes then he convinces crusty to run this is when we take it to the republican party by the way i think there are some funny crusty drawings in here that to me feel like him around the logo i can't say for sure but they definitely feel like david silverman's back helping them draw crusties there's a few crusty faces in this that feel specific enough to be a david silverman kind of influence than just your regular crusty face yeah when he's in an episode silverman sends over

like here's five sketches here's some funny crusty faces throw these in here but yeah he is supervising director at this point yes yeah yeah because they've brought him back they brought him back last year to try to build up for the movie like they're starting to ramp up for the movie at this point and he's done at pixar after dreamworks but yeah so this is when we return to the republican party last scene in sideshowideshow Bob Roberts. Sorry, last seen in Brawl in the Family. Right. That's right. It was the return of this because you might not even like, why were they in this? It's their policies that lead to acid rain, that lead to the family staying inside, that

lead to them fighting each other, that lead to them having to get a social worker. So that's where they have their mean-spirited Nader joke as well. But they brought it back from Sideshow Bob Roberts. or somebody must have liked this to make it a recurring thing we said it back then i still like it though i get the republican party is an evil party that dracula is a member of i like that it's mean but also like i'd say the biggest change between this and then is the feeling of like the gop was on the ropes in 95 when they wrote that episode but at this point the republicans are triumphant and they're just like evil winners who are just like dancing on

the graves of the loser democrats yes it felt like the right time to bring this back i think although like by 95 they had that whole contract with america thing and they had control over like a huge portion of the government like 94 is when they swept everything the republicans yeah but now they're even more i mean this was like the strongest the republican party's been in our whole lives was at this time a bad bad time this is when they decide to get behind crusty now to the matter at hand whom will we put up for young wilcox's congressional seat gentlemen i am your candidate. Maybe Bob Dole should run. Bob Dole thinks Bob Dole should.

Actually, Bob Dole just likes to hear Bob Dole talk about Bob Dole. Bob Dole! We want Krusty! We want Krusty! Just one thing. Are you guys any good at covering up youthful and middle-aged indiscretions? Are these indiscretions romantic, financial, or treasonous? Russian hooker, you tell me. Oh, no problem.

We'll say you're on a fact-finding mission. I did find out one fact. She was a guy. Well, if any Murphy can go on to do Dr. Dolittle, I suppose we could make this work. Congratulations, Krusty. You're running for Congress. You know, why don't you pound

that sign into your own lawn? Eh, I'm still undecided. So we see Bob Dole here, the recently departed Bob Dole. At the time of this episode, Bob Dole was younger than Joe Biden is now. Oh, God.

Just to let you guys know. Yes. That's how old our current roster of politicians is. Jesus Christ, man. I like Burns calling him young wilcox by the way that's a good joke yeah transphobia here although it doesn't come out of nowhere because they are referencing this whole eddie murphy thing they reference this i believe

in beyond blunderdome where they're giving a tour of hollywood and they reference this thing that happened where on may 2nd 1997 eddie murphy was stopped by the police because he had picked up a trans woman who was also a sex worker. And he claimed he was giving her a ride home. No charges were filed, though reporting at the time probably said, oh, he picked up a cross dresser because the language wasn't there yet. But that is something that weirdly did not haunt his career like some jokes were made about it but he was able to have a successful career despite the implications that in 1997 by all means should have destroyed him yeah he was a big family film star after this like disney was working with him which hey i mean i personally think sex work should be decriminalized to a large extent i don't feel like it should be like a consensual thing so

but the woman in question like it's really weird she died in a weird accident not too long afterwards it's very strange she was killed by that giant eddie murphy head car what a dot act what's that movie meet dave or something or yeah that's right meet dave that bill corbett wrote yes bill corbett's i hope he at least bought a house out of that money when he i hope they let bill corbett drive the eddie murphy head mobile i mean i was surprised in all the simpsons predicted it junk we sluiced through last year that this one didn't come up during the Trump era of, you know, quote unquote Russian hooker with a celebrity who's running for office. Oh, yes. Are we talking about the pee tape?

Which feels like eight billion things ago with Trump. But yeah. We were also foolish to believe it was real. I guess Tom Arnold claims to have seen it. But yeah, unless that thing hits Vimeo, I'm going to say it doesn't exist. Tom Arnold said he had seen video that was cut from Apprentice Filming's Where Trump Says the N-Word. Like, I swear I had heard Tom Arnold say he had seen these things. I kept thinking, like, OK, let's get to it.

Let's see these clips of him singing the N-Word. I don't think that would stop him from being president again in any way, even if it did come out. But I was like, where is it? I feel like Tom Arnold might be an untrustworthy narrator. think that would stop him from being president again in any way even if it did come out but i was like where is it i feel like tom arnold might be an untrustworthy narrator we learned the hard lesson that these secret recordings don't do anything anymore and fiction taught us the opposite where that's like the plot twist of so many things where it's like i've got this secret recording it was in batman returns for christ's sake i just saw that a few months ago he records the penguin saying things like the scum of gotham i hate them so much and then he plays it when the penguin is giving his speech yeah nothing really changes things these days

but yeah i can't believe that didn't come up as a simpsons predictive moment i'm happy honestly also the changing of everything to ronald reagan i feel like you're not seeing as much of the reagan worship i mean definitely there's still a celebration reagan though i feel like the last time i really saw it was friggin democrats saying this used to be the party of reagan or whatever about how far the republicans have fallen does honestly feel that reagan is too far to the left for the modern GOP right now. And yeah, he is looked back kindly from elderly Democrats as like, now there was a man with class. Even though, no, he was not.

Both him and Trump are the same guy. Reagan had horrible politics. He changed so many laws in his time that made America worse to this day. And he was also just as racist like this shitty asshole. And his brain was literally cottage cheese for half of his presidency. Their brains are the same, too. Like, they're the same guy. But changing the Mississippi River to the Mississippi Reagan instead of the Reagan River, that's a great joke. This is like a year before he passed away.

He passed away in 2004. Oh, right. So for a second I thought, like, are they making fun of the rush to rename everything reagan after he passes away but no this is just like the gop mad with power in this current time period and we're very worshipful of ronald reagan because it's all the reaganites who are like in charge at this point now meanwhile it's those guys are fucking bill crystal who's technically a democrat every time i see bill crystal in my feed, I'm like, how dare I follow somebody who actually retweets this guy earnestly? I hate it. Speaking of 2000s era politics, definitely

there was an interest in Hispanic voters before that, but did it really feel like in 2000 that that's when Hispanic outreach to voters felt like a real thing? Yeah. Because we covered it for something, some George W. Bush related thing, but before 9-11, George W w bush was running as the compassionate

conservative that was his whole thing and he would go to speak to latino voters he would speak to them in spanish some things in spanish but yeah he was like you know forget what you thought about republicans i'm the compassionate conservative and i care about you and everything and it did work then his persona changed dramatically after 9-11 the republican party has an interesting history i think with hispanic outreach because they are obscenely like racist about any hispanic person who they view as a border crosser or whatever they are horribly racist but they keep trying to appeal to the good hispan because they're like, hey, you are statistically go to church a lot more. You would agree with us, right?

But I feel like they're just too racist to really get the Hispanic vote. Yeah, I don't know, because I think they fool a lot of voters in the demographic to think like, oh, you did things the right way. But these people, well, we have to keep them out of here. You know, unfortunately, it works a little too well. By the way, this is an extra political podcast for us. But like just this week when we're recording this, like Biden already is, you know, there's a new bill going through to like fund the border more. And Biden is trying to get tougher on the border, too, which means like more cruelty

there as well. Those cages better have at least PS3s in them. Otherwise, like, I don't know what my tax money is paying for. The child cages are good now, Bob. If you thought that they were they were going away like aren't you foolish but you wanted a free pony too didn't you yes canada all the ponies are free uh sometimes i feel bad about being too political on these podcasts but this episode is asking for it folks because all of these early 2000s things again they're all back now and i hate them so much we can never learn we're back to having the same goddamn discussions and except everything is somehow worse yeah i think of what matt christmas said once when we had him on when homer says did we lose a war and then matt christmas says yes like

four of them like we lost all these wars yeah i'm also thinking of felix biederman saying like just everything it just is always a little worse and a little stupider as time goes on. That's the trend. The stupidest thing is the most likely thing to happen. So I live in fear sometimes. Why? Then I would guess the stupidest thing would be Trump is reelected and then Biden is reelected after him, like 87 or whatever. Our first 85-year-old president.

Oh, boy. Get out there and vote, guys. They then cut to a women's voting league, which Krusty also is failing to impress at because he's a very sexist guy. Marge tries to say, oh, he's making fun of how sexist men can be. A classic cover for sexist comedy, if ever there was one. Krusty's old-timey sexist slang is very adorable, calling Marge the tomato with the melons. You know, when we did Large Marge, I kept waiting for him to say the line in that episode because I was like, doesn't he refer to Marge's boobs as the tomato with the

melons? But no, he's saying it in this episode. I misremembered. He refrained from saying magumbos. We go to dinner where Milhouse is uninvited from it this is where i feel like crusty's joke isn't when he says i could get somebody whacked i guess it's far enough that it would make people like look aghast this also felt like another dana gould line to me when you give me that look it's a joke i swear i've heard him say that on stage yeah when he says something extremely offensive that goes over poorly yes yeah guys it was a joke when you give me that look it's a joke uh and speaking of shock comedy i'm not the biggest fan of kent just saying penis i was living at home again when this was airing and my mom was not watching the simpsons with me but

maybe she was like in the hallway while i was watching this and she did laugh at like, how can I prove we're alive? Penis. That could be the last time she laughed at The Simpsons was that joke. Well, the way Shearer says it is funny. I did chuckle at that. But yeah, so then we get to see his opponent,

the Democrat running, Mr. Armstrong. There's not many jokes about him. He's just your usual, I guess he is like a whiny Democrat in that he's trying to like, this feels Schwarzwalder-y, like, oh, how would a Democrat fight back against Krusty? He would say, look how insulting this is. I mean, this isn't that different from saying, look at Trump's Twitter account. Can you believe this? Like we heard on stage. I mean, they couldn't have predicted this. And I don't think this is their commentary, but a lot of this John Armstrong character's shtick feels like Hillary Clinton's

shtick from 2016, where it's like, come on, this guy, are you serious? And then people chose that guy, unfortunately. Or also reminded me of how in 2020, Kamala Harris, one of her big talking points when she was running for the Democratic seat, was saying like, we have to get Trump banned from Twitter. Like that was one of her major things. Well, now he's welcome back, but he won't take the bait. I love that. I hope he never comes back. Then he knows that Elon wants it too much and he won't do it.

I hope he does. No matter how much white nationalism Elon Musk does these days, Trump, he's not answering that siren song. I like that about Trump. He can tell when somebody's thirsty for it and he won't do it. I mean't take that out of context and be saying i like that about trump don't do that what i like about trump is that he was the basis of a great parody and back to the future too and that should have been the last time people parodied him they should have never done it again i feel like i'm starting to see some again like showing up in my feed like making fun of his hair or whatever i'm like no no no no saw some small hands humor when he lost that defamation trial

i saw hair humor as well of his like oh look at his ridiculous hair i'm like guys i can't it's been eight years since 2016 i can't do this again we know he's a dang cheeto, okay? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Though, I mean, this is also right after Nikki Haley appeared on SNL, which is just like, Jesus Christ. What the hell? Yeah. I only caught a slight wind of that. That was the past weekend, correct?

This past weekend when we recorded this, yeah, it was like two days ago. I mean, I could believe it, but it's just like, we're doing this again, huh? We're just like, yeah, babe, let's laugh along with these people. Isn't it fun? Like, fucking stop. Stop with this shit. It's like when Pete Davidson had to apologize to that, like, eyepatch man. Ugh, God, yes, yeah. To Dan Crenshaw.

Fuck him. Oh, that's his name. I call him a racist snake. They paid to put him in, like, a five-star hotel and everything for that. Just yuck. Yeah. But this is when Krusty's old comedy comes to bite him in the butt. San Francisco. Hello there, Thaler.

I'm here. And fabulous. Now I'd like to make a motion. Ooh, you can't judge me by that sketch. It was a different time. 1998. Those jets keep going lower and lower.

Sorry. Krusty, we're desperate here. We need you to turn your campaign around. Is it the Jewish thing? Because I can change that. I'm Carlton Witherspoon III. Where's my five iron? Krusty, I don't usually give advice to Republicans, but it would be nice to be on the winning side for once. You have to start making an honest connection with the voters. Talk about how you can help regular families like ours.

Help regular families. Make an honest connection. Questy, why did you just strap your pants? I needed a joke to go out on. I feel like they should go to commercial on that. Yeah, I assume that would be the act break. Well, it is a funny joke in 2003 to say that was a different time 1998 but there are so many jokes that are verboten from both 98 and 2003

and hell even five years ago from today so like it felt like an exaggeration at the time but now it's just like that's just accurately observed the way humor changes so quickly and the way we learn so much about different groups of people and how it's not cool to demean them. It's funny, in this very episode, they have a transphobic joke. And then less than five minutes later, they're saying like, oh, Krusty used to do a homophobic joke that has aged poorly of mocking gays. Yeah, it's funny. Krusty's homophobia is not as bad as the sincerely written transphobia that happened five minutes earlier.

I know. Yeah, the homophobia is still supporting gays. It's just like, and I'm fabulous. It's just a very broad caricature, but not saying they're disgusting or gross, as opposed to, say, the girl was a guy, bad kind of comedy. I feel like The Simpsons literally said this also about, say, Apu with, it was a different time, 1998. Yeah, 2018. It was a different time. They have to really cook up a real good excuse for Lisa to support a Republican and help a Republican.

Frankly, I don't buy it, especially in this era. So I feel like once Krusty gets into office, which is weird that he wins and it's never referenced again, he's not only going to stop the planes from flying over the house, he's also going to stop supporting reproductive rights in Springfield and he's going to do all the other Republican things. But Lisa, short-term thinking, Lisa, you shouldn't help Republicans. They're never on your side. It's funny too that she is saying like to win for once because the feeling was like, democrats are just total losers this is why obama felt like such a major moment for democrats of like wait we can win again like we can feel

like winners again thanks to this a barack obama guy who'd ever thought it was a real high being there in the moment unfortunately nothing was done with that momentum we're here where we are today yep ah yeah well at least guantanamo oh yeah uh also i really like crusty dan as crusty imitating a waspy voice like that was very funny acting to me too he actually being crusty to that voice he sounded a bit like megavolt from darkwing duck i love his enunciation on five iron. Like, it was very funny. Though the way Krusty is listening again, the faces he makes are very Silverman-y, I think.

Also, not so long after 9-11, they're doing a joke of a plane crashing into the house. I'm surprised they got away with that, too. Yeah, I mean, they did have to change things because we went over it in the past season. They have had to change things because of 9-11. That was not changed.

Maybe because the pilots were friendly and no one was hurt. Everybody was fine. Yeah, I mean, Futurama at the time, they changed their opening, I think, until they went back to the Comedy Central. They got rid of the crashing

into the screen opening after 9-11. Mm-hmm, yeah. Lisa gives him the tip, which does work often for republicans which is pretending to care about the little guy which is currently happening right now with like you know assholes like a jd vance who they're trying to i'm stealing this from previous guest of the show adam h johnson who has this great point but like every time guys like jd vance pretend to talk about like oh we should up welfare type programs but only for white people is the whispered part they always say that but they never actually side with

unions or any kind of guy it's just fake they don't believe in it even i finally have a non-petty reason to hate ron howard he basically whitewashed that guy's entire past and made him who he is today jd vance it's insane that was a real movie and people are like oh yeah he's well because and they still are and will be for forever but democrats are always out to find the good republican you can have a real conversation with they thought jd vance was one of those guys they uplifted him and now he's like one of the most like openly racist and hateful members of government there is, and who succeeded, much like Krusty, in being elected. It's always weird when these guys are younger than us. He's younger than us.

Yuck. Yuck. Yeah. That is weird. He seems old and racist beyond his years. Same with DeSantis. He feels much older than he is, too. Yeah.

He's like a Gen X-er. So, yes, they cut to the debate. And this is where the only deleted scene in the episode is. And it is actually pretty funny. I wish they'd kept it in. So they have the line of him saying, you know, that he turned down being offered $50,000 an episode and threw caviar in the face but he also has a speech of like and when i found bakos in my cob salad that's when i asked for the divorce and then mart says i don't know how he got on that from his previous point and then bart says the high point was when it fell off the stage

but yeah hey bakos no bacon in that so you can just sprinkle that onto your salad and feel safe and calm, knowing no piggies were harmed. He wanted real bacon in it. Meanwhile, by the way, somebody on that Simpsons wick that has the list of the deleted scenes, fix it. It says that Krusty says a cop salad had bacon in it. No, that's not the joke, guys. He's complaining Bako's were in a cob salad. Talk about misunderstanding a joke now i love seeing lisa in the audience go like no no like but the caviar thrown in face like this is rich

people and this includes jd vans and most nancy pelosi too they don't know what a real person's life is none of them do so when they try to talk about what real people go through they just tell stories like oh yeah i was at this expensive place you could never get into. And I talked to the celebrity and they said, yeah, it's sort of like when Krusty was trying to come up with a stand up act. He was talking about his butler. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or the caviar thrown in face is not unlike, say, when we got tours of, say, Nancy Pelosi's home at the start of COVID. Here's my ice cream freezer. You don't have one? We all got to relax with our Jenny's ice cream in our ice cream freezer, sent to us for free,

of course. They should have invested money in windows and doors that a hammer-wielding man couldn't get in through. Krusty pivots and does another thing politicians are famous for doing for saying, we have a family here tonight. And they point out the family and tell some story about how usually if it's the Democrats, they will say, this is how I did a program that helped this person. But Krusty's doing the Republican version of the government did something that hurt these people. And I'm going to stop the government from doing that.

Very Schwarzwalder stance. Yes. Also, Joe Sixtooth is a good joke. I like that. Where'd you get yourself another tooth? Sidewalk. And also, Krusty acting out the noises. It's funny, but the bellhop in Last Temptation of Homer did it funnier.

Basically doing Charlie Callis, who was in the Branson episode. I'm still alive and I'm making my sounds. Dan does better sounds than Charlie Callis could do, though. Again, I love how mean that song is where it's like, I'm not underground. So it's like all the celebrities telling you they're not dead. Unfortunately, most of them are now. I mean, the extra sadness is most of them said yes to doing it because they're like hey i get to be on tv they're not charlie callas poor bill saluga ray j johnson rip another person from your hometown yeah one of the few that anyone knows about

then we cut to crusty doing a railway campaign as well acts like it's a 60 years old and mo i like the little line that mo mad at the government for saying his sewer pipes all don't go anywhere meaning poop just goes into the ground i guess i like how crusty's not thinking this metaphor through and he's like elect me and those pipes will lead to a better tomorrow so it's like your shit and so this is the big news story from this episode even it has to do with the news crawls going across the screen yeah so the story i read in the guardian the story they tell in the commentary they're at odds with each other where on the commentary aljean is saying it was like an s&p thing where Fox internally was concerned that this was an

unpopular thing to do. A weighted political thing that the Simpsons shouldn't do is to make fun of their sister network with a parody like this. But then I guess the legal reasoning was people could be confused and think it's real, the news crawl. Gene in the commentary, so yeah, the two sources on this, Guardian Peace is quoting Matt Groening appearing on in October 2003. So seven months after this episode aired, Matt Groening is on Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR, a public radio show. And during the interview, he tells, after a bunch of very softball questions about like, how'd you come up with Patty and Selma?

Who's Krusty the Clown? Like things that are useless to ask Matt Groening in 2003. He then tells the story that the Guardian quotes, which he says that Fox News was threatening to sue over having that on screen and they didn't like it. Then Al Jean in the like eight years later commentary, he makes it sound like that it was Fox Broadcasting that didn't like it, but that he heard from Fox News employees that they thought it was funny. So he didn't think that it was a Fox News thing. I could see somebody in the Fox chain of command going like, ooh, Fox News isn't going to like that. We better just get rid of this. And they were at the height of their power too. But we can thank The Simpsons lawyer Anatole Klebanow for fighting for The Simpsons writing staff. And they were able to do it once. And they were told you can't ever do this again. And they folded like Superman on Laundry Day, to quote Bart. Well, also because like everybody was making fun of those news crawls at the time. But I guess doing it on Fox TV is a different feel than if you're making fun of it

on say the daily show which if you didn't live through this then it might seem weird to you but like before 9-11 i swear you would see the crawling text on like cnbc or the financial channels that my dad watched all the time to see the stock ticker but you didn't always see the headline ticker on the bottom of the screen on regular news. But then it started on 9-11 for seemingly good purpose of like, OK, here's the updates on 9-11 every second. But they just never went away. And it was part of the continuous feeling of intense anxiety you felt at all times after 9-11. No more news, please.

To quote a Mr. Show sketch, I have a quote from Matt Groening in The Guardian. He says, quote, Fox said they would sue the show and we called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. We got away with it.

But now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls at the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news. That was from that NPR Fresh Air segment. segment but yeah when i watched it at the time it did seem pretty cutting for the simpsons who you know even my thoughts at the time were they kind of fell behind in political commentary like south park picked up the torch and ran with it and this did

feel pretty you know biting but also a lot of people were making fun of Fox News. I believe, I want to say that fall, that was when Al Franken's books, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, that came out and it was like a big send up of Fox News and making fun of Bill O'Reilly and all of that. It was very popular for Democrats of any kind of stripe, like left, center, right Democrats to make fun of Fox News. But news but now unfortunately not to depress everybody we've gone far beyond fox news trump hates fox news people have left fox news to make things even further right like newsmax and one american news network and then we have things like moms for liberty and we have things like libs of tiktok where it's like hey here are teachers you can assassinate here's what they look like. Yep.

Yeah. Now people just receive direct assassination instructions from Twitter accounts. It's gotten much worse. Well, I mean, that's how time goes. But yeah, the Fox News has definitely I'll still see in my feed every now and then like, wow, this person on Fox News is pretty racist or whatever. But it is much more to the center. Also, I guess there was a slight cleaning of house

at fox news ever so slightly in the last like five years of some of the worst sexual predators in the building yeah yeah and they made a whole movie about that recently like within the past five years yes yeah where they wanted you to feel bad for megan kelly which i think was a mistake as a filmmaker and also things like we don't even need TV anymore. The Daily Wire is not television, but it's incredibly popular and incredibly poisonous. And then we have things like TikTok, which just gives you schizophrenia. It just puts every bad idea into your brain. And there's no oversight. There's no Rupert Murdoch pulling the strings. It's just the algorithm gives you the worst possible belief system.

And that's just how the machine is built. Fox News still gets good ratings for cable and all that. But yeah, the impact of a Bill O'Reilly or a Sean Hannity or a Tucker Carlson that they used to have back then, it really doesn't matter anymore. And then same with like, you know, I totally forget there's some new network that gets advertised in my timeline every now and then where Bill O'illy now has a show along with chris cuomo and i'm just like who watches this shit like nobody is he broadcasting from me too island or something i think so yes oh wow chris cuomo and bill o'reilly talking about things like yeah it's like well same with like

tucker carlson barely matters as much as he does anymore like he did an interview with kevin spacey nobody even cared yeah he made some deal with x formerly twitter for a new show and it just i don't know what happened but it seemed to be a massive failure so yeah like we are post fox news unfortunately even though it's still very popular if you go to an airport in certain states that's probably going to be the default news network that's on oh yeah i'm sure if you go to an airport or a bar in most middle america they'll still have a sign that like don't change the channel from fox news or whatever like you can't change it but i mean like yeah cable news the viewers of it are getting older and dying and like the 60 year olds now were more on facebook than fox news as well this is-social media. So you had to turn to a channel and watch programs and commercials, but now it's so much more efficient.

And I did write down all of the crawl jokes, which some are pretty funny. So these are all the jokes that are coming by in the crawl here. Pointless news crawls up 37%. Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com. Rupert Murdoch, terrific dancer. Dow down 5,000 points. Study, 92% of Democrats are gay. JFK posthumously joins Republican Party. That is a joke, but now some people think JFK Jr. has come back to life or never died and is a Republican now. Next crawl item, oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple.

And final one is Dan Quayle. Awesome. So those are, I mean, not as like biting as anything South Park would do at the time, but still like very political, naming people, being specific. And then the way that this is presented, it was the one-sided way, all of their news. And I mean, I think, I mean, the whole Al Franken book thing from 2003 was saying, it was kind of pointing out the obvious and being very smug about it, which is why those books only went so far with me, where it's like the Fox News slogan was, we report, you decide. Remember that? And then they were like, well, that was never true.

We're the right wing news channel. Yes, you found out we were hypocrites. Who cares? We're very powerful and we remain powerful. Yeah. We've gone through 20 years of making fun of fox news for so long and like i read that franken book cover to cover i watched daily show a ton i loved watching the clips of like well sean hannity said this but then doesn't

that mean this i like laughing at it the pointing out of hypocrisy does very little it's it makes it less fun to look back on these jokes now, for sure. I read every Al Franken book around this time, every Michael Moore book, all of the books NPR told me to read. We were talking about the crawl. I remember this is around the time when that Air America radio network started and didn't last very long. Marc Maron had a show. Al Franken had a show. show the idea of the crawl was such a popular thing that on his radio show al franken did an audio crawl where there would be like a very low level announcement happening throughout a certain part of the show and it was a very high concept joke that just made it very hard to listen to

but liberals were parroting this in other formats as well this news crawl i remember listening to air america and al franken live on election day 2004 that was a rough day rough rough few days and yet i would trade that feeling for the feeling i felt the day after the election of 2016 that was a worse feeling something oh yes yes much worse also yeah the last thing with fox news like now it's crazy to think simpsons and fox news are not the same corporate umbrella like rupert murdoch has kind of been pushed out of ownership of fox news when disney bought fox it was only the fictional things not the broadcast companies because legally they can't own them nor did disney want to own a news network let alone fox news at at all. So Fox News is completely separate from

the Simpsons parent company these days. And you know, I briefly was a Fox News Corps employee because in a very twisted, weird way, when I worked for 1up.com, they were under IGN and Fox News Corps had purchased like IGN and Photo Bucket and a bunch of things in the late aughts, early 2010. So very, very briefly, I was getting paychecks that were like bankrolled by Fox. Your money was coming from the same bank account that was paying Sean Hannity. Yes. And paying all of Bill O'Reilly's victims, I guess, too. Oh, geez.

Your salary paid for probably one-tenth of one NDA for an intern. Yeah, like a tenth of a percent of an NDA. Actually, yes. Yeah. It's Fox News interviewing the two of them. This does also reuse the joke from Sideshow Bob Roberts of drawing the devil horns around the head of the Democrat in it but i like they up the joke of they also put his picture upside down or they change the scaling so that crusty is much bigger than armstrong in the shots just loaded statements like you make a very adulterous point it says and now we're going to play a commercial and they just play a crusty commercial and i swear the guy singing this song is probably mark campbell the

same one who sang the taste like liberty from a couple episodes back with the McRib or the Rib Witch parody. And also, like you pointed out, Henry, the guy who sings Johnny B. Good in Back to the Future, who's not Michael J. Fox. Yep. Marty McFly is singing voice. Yes. And it's a parody of the Percy Sledge hit that was later covered by Michael Bolton, When a Man Loves a Woman. It's fun. It's a fun thing. I also love how Krusty describes his working schedule. This feels like another of their jabs at Johnny Carson of saying how little Johnny Carson

worked in his late years. Yes, I definitely read this as a Johnny Carson joke where he would always have guest hosts and would be gone most nights in the last, I don't know, 10 years of his talk show career a ton of fill-in hosts a ton of nights off but yes three of the 13 days 12 of the last 25 years that was really great and also crusty then pastes his face into a bunch of classic photos which mr burns did that in rosebud or actually technically smithers did that for mr burns in rosebud i should say his face is pasted over, I looked this up, Dallas homicide detective James R. Leavill, who was the guy handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby.

Wow, that's good. That's good research, Bob, man. That Jack Ruby shot is great. On the commentary, Al Jean brings up that viral photo I had completely forgot about, or the Photoshop of it making it look like in that classic photo everybody's like playing musical instruments yeah that's a classic old-timey photoshop they also have a Tiananmen Square reference which I wonder if that picture is in the Disney plus in China I wonder it could be one of those that slipped under the radar

don't tell President Xi about this or do if you want to get some credit with him social credit yeah get some social credit so then it's election night and i like that crusty is bringing up how expensive a bad joke is election night is so exciting i'm on pins and needles and i'm on pepto and xanax i'm so nervous i kissed my dog and gave my girlfriend a flea bath laugh Laugh it up. That joke cost me a thousand bucks. We're ready to announce a winner in Springfield's 24th congressional district. It's Republican candidate Krusty the Clown. Yay!

I won! I'm a senator! Congressman. Whatever. I think at this part of the plot, I was like, yeah, what was he running for? The episode doesn't care yes i mean being a representative it'll still get you headlines but there's 502 representatives you get kind of lost in the mix unless you're say nancy pelosi or uh aoc you know there's very few representatives that really get any headlines i learned a lot about these guys when i watched the colbert report

better know a district segments where he would go to these districts and talk to the people. And I miss when he was that character so much. It was a good time as opposed to now where he just does things that suck. Yeah, everybody gets old and less funny. Not us. It'll never happen. Oh, no. To go back to how it was popular to parody Fox News, that character was a parody of Bill O'Reilly. But Bill O'Reilly also existed in that universe where you would call him Papa Bear.

But then the character grew to have so much more to him than just being a Bill O'Reilly stand-in. Yeah. Also, isn't it funny with all these characters, the guys like Bill O'Reilly, that you just assume they're probably sexual predators. And it's always revealed to be true. Every time, it just keeps happening it's like i feel like it shouldn't be libelous anymore to be like well you seem like you're gonna be me too eventually type guys well i remember part of that al franken book about fox news was basically showing the world did you know that bill o'reilly wrote an erotic thriller oh god yeah these guys have weird messed up lives and they then push on other people and while also

pretending to be heavy family values guys and again that hypocrisy is boring to point out but yes the photo of crusty with the topless woman that's a very girls gone wild era joke as well but there are photos like that of just trump running around well actually now it's photos of hunter biden's dick are just shown on the Congress floor. You know, I'm happy. Still to this day, I've never seen Hunter Biden's dick. I'm one of the few voting Americans who have not been exposed to the president's failed son's genitalia. Yeah, you know what?

I think I have seen the censored version of those pictures online. I'm trying to think of who would have retweeted it into my feed. It's pretty rare the only guy in my feed who ever puts any genitals is when brian quimby retweets his doctored photos of nude wrestlers yes when he retweets the you know god bless him for that it's always a fun surprise when i'm in public looking at my twitter feed oh here's what if goldberg had a hard dick pointing out what if crusty becomes officially a representative i don't like the line of him saying so relax second amendment guys I can't touch you it's like you're a republican you never would touch them you're their friend yeah they would not have any concern at all though it's

fun the guys they dug up to be the pro gun guys because clearly there's a Charlton Heston even with him holding up the gun just like he held up what he said by cold dead hands but also in there is the not snake guy who shoots apu and homer and apu jimmy the scumbag from date with density and then two of the bikers who kidnap marge i definitely recognize the bikers jimmy the scumbag the guy who wig him arrest for the telemarketing scheme though they changed the coloring on a couple of them but i recognize the guy who tries to shoot james woods but shoots up who instead who is not snake your next song is gonna be number one with a bullet i'm not a singer chef and everyone around the gun nuts they're looking at them very warily so now it becomes a mr smith goes to washington parody right down to like camera angles and the old caricatures of old representatives who

are taking the new kid to school that kind of thing now i still haven't seen the movie i thought about doing it this weekend but i didn't but you've seen it by i saw it we talked about it on our mr lisa goes to washington episode it's i love jimmy stewart and i love old movies it was kind of boring and you go into the movie not knowing what is this great cause he's championing you know what is he fighting for and it's to make a private camp for boys that's not enough for me to get invested in as a viewer and it's just And now you have modern politics and stuff, and it's just weird to be like, I've got to find a camp and I've got to get these boys in my camp. He's like, that's his main drive.

He's like, I've got to get all these boys together. And I say, investigate Mr. Smith. I believe at this time wasn't he former head of the House of Representatives? Isn't he now in jail for boy-related activities? I'm thinking of Dennis Hastert as one of those guys. activities hmm you know like i'm thinking of dennis hestert is one of those guys yeah that's who i'm thinking of yeah yeah that's all very wholesome and innocent but if he was fighting for like something bigger it would be a better movie but it's just like i don't care about these boys getting a little private camp to like learn how to be men in

i did get out of here it seems like something a junior representative shouldn't bother with. Some of the fun of it is you see how like ruthless political campaigns used to be. And Mr. Smith has like a army of little like street urchins to get the word out about him and his campaign. And they're just literally being run off the road by trucks. And at the peak of the movie, there's an attempted suicide in the Capitol Hill building. Yes. Yeah. There's a montage of him just like punching people out there's like a smear campaign against mr smith and there's like a big fun montage of him just like going around you know washington dc and just knocking people out

get ready for las vegas style action at bet mgm the king of online casinos enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same vegasrip 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, and signature BetMGM service, there is no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today.

BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for T's and C's. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. 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. We care about you. We 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? So here is when Krusty tries to introduce a bill that would make it so you can't fly noisy airplanes over the Simpsons family home.

He's instantly shut down. This is when he's told he has to earn his right to speak into his second term. He's got to pee in a bucket until then. Then he's also handed another bucket to clean up graffiti. I do wonder if Martin Van Buren is a wiener. Is that a reference to or a callback to Bart the Genius with Principal Skinner says, I am a wiener? Yeah, I think it even has the less popular spelling of wiener that Martin points out.

I think so, yeah. And then Grover Cleveland sucks. Sucks what? Yeah. He sucked it non-consecutively. Which they won't let him remove. You're arriving at the same point I'm arriving at, aren't you? Oh, the Trump could end up being the next guy,

the next guy to Cleveland it? He could be doing a Cleveland two-peat. Yes, yeah. It'd be pretty funny. It would take that away. It'd be two non-consecutive guys. Grover Cleveland's ghost will be so upset that it'd take away the one thing anybody remembers him for as president. Much worse trivia would be spawned from that.

You can learn wonderful presidential facts like that from the Hell of Presidents podcast that our recent guest, Chris Wade, co-host. We were just talking with him about all the cool presidential facts him and Matt Chrisman were talking about. Yeah, I think it was all once a Stitcher thing, and now it's all on the Chapo Trap House Patreon, if you want to check that out. Very educational and very funny. And now we have another attack on the dollar coin. They previously did when Moe shot a man for bringing Sacagawea dollars into the bar. Yeah, there'll be an upcoming joke about Sacagawea coins where Marge says, if you take them to the bank, you can exchange them for real money.

We should have got rid of dollar bills and replaced them with coins. It's just going to be saying like, I was just in Japan on vacation, but I was on Japan just in vacation. And I like that the equivalent of $5 is still a coin and i can just pay with a dang coin with stuff well now that i'm here in canada we have loonies and toonies unfortunately i've evolved beyond cash and i just use my phone to pay for everything so i don't get to appreciate dollar coins that their time has come and gone for me yeah maybe i'm just it's the big city bubble, but yeah, I live a pretty cashless existence normally. I go to the grocery store or any other shop. It is very rare I pay in cash for anything.

I definitely think it got sped up by COVID, but yeah, I wonder how cashless things are for regular Americans not living in a big city. There's maybe one coffee shop in my area where they're cash only, and I'm like, come on, what's the holdup? Charge me an extra 25 cents for the transaction. It just makes my life easier. I have to go to an ATM. And see, I was just walking by a coffee place today that had a sign up that said no cash at all. You can't pay in cash here. Only credit. Well, a few benefits of COVID, it made a lot of places take credit and stop taking cash. But I guess that's anti-poor as well. So, you know, what am I saying? This is when Krusty learns that he can't change anything.

I'd like to introduce a bill banning air travel over residential areas. Hey, hey! What are you, an idiot? Freshman congressmen don't introduce squat. Hell, you gotta pee in a bucket till your second term. But how am I supposed to serve my constituents? You can start by scrubbing off some of this Capitol Hill graffiti.

That's right, you got a lot of work ahead of you. Grover, Cleveland sucks what? Leave that, lest we forget. Look, someone on this FACACTA committee's gotta care about my air traffic bill. I'm sorry, Congressman, but this is a committee for designing dollar coins no one will use.

I say we make them out of chocolate. Kids eat them anyway. Why fight it? The hot air joke, that one I was like, eh, you could be a little meaner. I much prefer Krusty saying that he's like, did I promise to be a slave to big oil? Well, then no. It is funny to hear Hank Azaria go, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap,

for about 15 seconds. I also like seeing Krusty drinking sadly and just sipping scotch at a DC bar. I figure that's what most of DC bars look like. The Drinking Memorial, I think it's what it's called. And someone on the commentary calls out Mike Reese's short-lived icebox series, Hard Drinking Lincoln.

Did not live as long as Queer Duck. got the hard drink in lincoln movie and that was though more popular than jesus's other brothers that al jean wrote as well that oh yeah i was gonna say i knew al jean had one but i forgot which one it was again i only remember this from doing the icebox research we did for i am furious yellow if you go to icebox.com right now, not only are there new programs, but in the logo next to the Icebox title is Hard Drinking Lincoln. Wow. He's their mascot? I guess. And, well, this was last updated like 10 years ago, I think.

But one of the newer posts on the page is Hard Drinking Lincoln Episode 14 wasted days and wasted nights i suppose he's the safer choice for icebox mascot than mr wong i guess yeah oh a funny thing okay this is for nobody and it's prolonging our podcast but i saw the movie hot rod for the first time and i saw it was written by pam brady and i thought mr wong's pam brady there's nothing offensive this movie. I was surprised it was such a gentle comedy despite being written by Pam Brady. I think she had outgrown that kind of humor by 2007. I think so. I also think Lonely Island really buffed up that script as well and put it more into the Lonely Island style of comedy. I love that movie, especially because one of my favorite actors, Ian McShane, is the mean dad in it. The perfect role for him to play.

I thought it was pretty good, but it reminded me like, oh, this could not have been made without Napoleon Dynamite. But at the same time, it was gentle and there was no like of the time really bad humor in it. So I liked it. I found it enjoyable. I mean, Bill Hader is perfect in it. Danny McBride is perfect. Oh, my God. Chris Parnell describing his

tattoo is one of the funniest things in the whole that is the highlight of the movie for me is chris parnell's very brief appearance with the tattoo of calvin pissing on fm radio and television but then yes am radio is sitting high and dry i also love when he's doing the jump he's like oh if you could only see it it's like he's describing the jump. He's like, oh, if you could only see it. It's like he's describing the jump. That reminded me of our podcast sometimes. Hey, if you could only see the Yogi Bear maze that Homer was failing. Again, we just did. You'll hear it next week, I guess, is the Selma's Choice.

But that's also a Homer is bad at doing children's maps thing. But I like that the specific of this one is bad at doing children's maps things but i like that the specific of this one is yogi bear going to the washington monument yeah because homer is like you didn't just let the people down you let down this sacred document it ends up being the kids menu with the yogi bear maze on the back though the jelly from the unknown toaster not into that we didn't need another it's a hat on a hat i think so also this episode has several times where i'm like oh this feels like it reminds me of january 6th such as the guy ransacking the lamps is in the empty capitol hill very good i guess are you picking

things up noise like and my christmas shopping is done yeah i like they even set this up like the mr smith goes to washington film whereusty's like, I'm not leaving until this. Like he's ready to start his filibuster, but nobody's there. And so he's defeated once again. And to make things more suspenseful, the Simpsons plane leaves in half an hour. Yeah, Homer is building in the suspense for the audience. Like this is also a real like break in the fourth wall thing. So then comes in what definitely is part of the third act twist because as well

aljean as we talked about in lisa's first word they love making fun of walter mondale i think everybody does so yeah this janitor doesn't just look like walter mondale he secretly is him and mondale just passed away in 2021 at 93 he was vice president president under Jimmy Carter, though he's mostly known for losing against Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election in a huge landslide. So Reagan beat him 58.8% to 40.6%. And he lost his final election, which happened in Minnesota when Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash in 2002. So around the time they wrote this, Mondale was back in the news and he was defeated by a republican and i know all about wellstone from al franken that's the only reason i know about him

seemed like a pretty cool guy man i forgot all about that wellstone thing that's right mondale no wonder he won minnesota was homer's line which was the only state he won in 1984 it's his state too right i believe he's from Minnesota. Yeah. He only won his home state to Reagan. Yes. But also it's them reusing the yeah, looks like joke from Mitchie and Scratchy Land. Only like John Travolta

does not go on to become a character in the third act in that episode. But before I play this clip though, I think I should also say that this deserves a jingle. I haven't played in a little while, but Lisa dares to believe something in this next clip. So I got to play a jingle. I haven't played it in a little while, but Lisa dares to believe something in this next clip, so I got to play the jingle.

Take that, Lisa's beliefs. We got to do something to help him. Yeah, and to make things even more suspenseful, our plane leaves in a half hour. Excuse me, I think I can help. I've been working in this town for a long time, and, well, I know how to get things done. Beat it, Wexy. Oh, let's hear him out.

He looks a little like Walter Mondale. Yeah, looks like. Let's just say I know how a bill becomes law. Oh, that's easy. First it's introduced, then it goes to committee, then... Wrong! That's wrong! Now I'll show you how things really work around here. Sorry, Krusty, but there's no way I'm letting your airline rerouting bill out of committee.

Congressman, I have a tape here of you using your free mail privilege to send a get well card to your aunt? If they hear about this in Modesto, I'm ruined. Maybe I wanted to be caught. This really is the opposite of Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, which was very ironic where, you know, Lisa uncovers the scandal. People care. The president cares. Everything is restored here walter mondale's like no we have to be as dirty as every other politician and use extortion and blackmail and dirty tricks to get our way yeah as chapo has said if you're not cheating you're not trying yeah democrats should learn from this episode we all have to cheat yeah if they cheated to say stop giving bombs to a country that's killing children every day maybe i'd like that cheating.

But I like that they're saying Mondale's some big political operative, though he was like a senator for 12 years before being VP. He does know. It's such a great specific that this guy is a representative from Modesto of all places. Quite a way to fall, I guess, if they find out about his male privilege abuse. And this was around when there have been many already at this time political scandals involving representatives. And this is such a funny one that it's like free male privileges. That's what they used. And then the extremely southerner guy that Homer's going to drink under the table. I definitely think it's ADR, but I wonder what it was before before but him saying he learned from Ed McMahon this

is more of the Tonight Show comedy it feels like yeah you have to be old enough to know that Ed McMahon was often whacked out on wowie sauce during the tapings of the Tonight Show there's some real classic scenes of it I mean hey it's fun to see old guys drunk on TV it's fun to watch sometimes drunk and smoking it'd be unprofessional now. Yeah. I mean, Jimmy Fallon drinks before the show and after the show. I say, drink during the show. Be honest with us. Bob, he just fell down in a bokeying accident. That's why he broke his finger.

Allegedly. I mean, Ed McMahon was still alive there. So when they did the episode, doing his show, calling him an epic drunk, it's surprising that they did that as well. I feel like, again, a lawyer for the show would have told them hey don't call a living person a big drunk ed mcmahon was about to star in a short-lived talk show with alf around this time geez you're right man yeah no our previous guest nathan raven did wonderful essay on the entire brief history of that talk show yeah it was called alf's hit talk

show and i'm sure the daily motions and youtubes of the world have the entire i don't know six episodes so one of these days alf is gettable and i'd want to talk to alf not paul fusco but of course alf the real person i want him to stay in character the entire time this is homer blackout drunk here and lisa again it's one of those like, oh, this reminds me of January 6th again. So Lisa sneaks in the bill with a paperclip. And what distracts it? Homer busts into the Capitol screaming. I did put in my notes he's doing his own January 6th on this day.

So when he gets arrested, I'm like, oh, well, Homer's going to jail for treason now. Yeah, he can't fly anymore. It's over for Homer. Homer gets punched in the crotch. The animation of the guy's big punch right in the middle of his crotch, that was very extreme. And all he can say is, I say, I say, my groin, being the Southern Senator again. Becoming the character that Foghorn Leghorn was inspired by. I believe Senator Claghorn, maybe?

Yeah, that's right. Bob knows his old-timey radio characters. Yeah, only because to know what the hell any Looney Tunes is about. Well, now, I wouldn't say that. After all this, they are able to get the bill passed. Now, we just need a distraction. You call this a bicameral legislature? Yeah!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! We will now vote on the Flags for Orphans and Airline Rerouting Bill. Oh, well, it's paper-clipped. Chairman Hayes, any objections?

Congressman Beauregard? I don't want to fight no union. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. The system works! I've become enchanted and illusioned with Washington! And the reason it worked is because you all did your part.

But I didn't do anything. I just passed a bill in three hours. Quit complaining. Alas, those planes are flying where they belong.'s right over the homes of poor people great great ending i feel like the march thing but i didn't do anything i feel like that is just a hallmark of a john swartzwalder script where he forgets about marge and lisa and they're just underlining that way march had little to do with anything going on here. I wondered if Mondale said a different line to her because it looked very ADR to me, but I love him saying, I just passed a bill in three hours.

Quit complaining. It's a good resolution to how ridiculously fast they got it through Congress. And yes, all the middle-class gains come at the expense of poor people. A perfect resolution to the American dream. Yeah, that it's like, well, fortunately the middle class that the Simpsons represent were able to bring their problems to poorer people who are even less represented than them by the government.

Also, I love Krusty's, I've become enchanted and illusioned with Washington. It's one of those things where no one ever says the opposite. You always become disillusioned or disenchanted. Like, oh, I'm so illusioned with this they say it on the commentary that crusty remains a congressman in the show i was coming up short finding any proof that they dealt with this again with crusty they say they do i'll keep an eye out for it but it's kind of crazy that they had this ending because i mean they've gone back on canada a billion times but it seems like a very big deal to have crusty be a congressman to never reference it again even like in passing like oh

he was kicked out because of like some moral code or whatever yeah normally they undo a big change like this by the end of the episode if somebody does get elected say sideshow bob becomes the mayor guess what it's reversed at the end of the episode and quimby's back in place as the mayor this is more like apu's children in that it stays but yeah i was just thinking about this too because in the last season there was an episode where abe gets a new girlfriend and she has a child aged grandchild who abe is treating much better than he treated Homer when he was a kid and Homer is jealous and all that. And when the episode is resolved, everything's fine. And Abe is still with the girlfriend.

But then in the post credits, they say they broke up that I was like, oh, wow, they decided to break him up in the post credits. I guess they realize like there will be an expectation now if we don't do something about this yeah they stuck with this and then we have more news crawls at the end of the show which i guess if you are a very dumb person you could think these are real because the previous news crawls were framed by the simpsons frame of the tv so it was like sort of that picture and picture deal where you see like the outside of the tv and then the image inside. But these are the crawls. Ashcroft declares breast of chicken sandwich obscene.

John Ashcroft was attorney general of the United States of America. And he would not be photographed with the Statue of Justice unless it's one exposed breast was covered up. Or I think the entire statue had to be covered up or something like that. I believe one breast was exposed in the Statue of Justice behind him. and then he had a drape put over that breast yeah i forget if it was a whole thing or not but it wasn't like uh he was being puritanical i think it was like oh if the picture is taken of me in front of this you're gonna make fun of me so i just don't want to see the statue but it's also a very nice metaphor where you're like putting a black bag over justice basically yeah fun time yeah uh hillary clinton embarrasses self nation it's happened a bunch since then this is not a joke well we were just

talking about 2016 so there you have it bible says jesus favored capital gains cut a lot of conservatives do argue for this i think we had one of those alfranco books had the comic in it called the adventures of supply side jesus where he was a trickle-down kind of dude. I remember that being funny. Again, though, it's like citing Bible quotes to people only like the Bible to support their horrible beliefs. They don't care. You could quote a Bible thing back at them. And we also have Stay Tuned for Hannity and Idiot. Of course, they're talking about Hannity and Combs.

Combs was the token liberal they would have on the show to belittled. He died in 2017, and nobody really cared so i don't know what happened to sean hannity either i mean he's still on the fox kept hearing that like when tucker exited seemed like they were going to try to sweep away hannity too i guess hannity is not enough of like a outright creep that he's a horrible guy but he hasn't done anything like literally criminal to women at the office so they can't get rid of him i think he's pretty stuck in there he's still around then we have only dorks watch cnn i'm gonna say that's true only dorks watch cnn jimmy carter old wrinkly useless as of this recording still with us despite bad health

news for this very old man so let's see if he it. Don't hold that against us if he doesn't because he is like 99 years old. Yeah, he's been in hospice for months now and his wife just passed away. So yeah, I feel like it's any day now. Brad Pitt plus Albert Einstein equals Dick Cheney. And then one of them is cut off. It's like right wing of chicken, H-E-A dot, dot, dot.

And I'm not sure what the joke would be, but those are the hilarious jokes about fox news crawls to enter episode i wonder if they put it on the top was their way of saying like well if it's at the bottom of the news crawl that it won't trick people or whatever but if it's not at the bottom i mean in the post 9-11 time was there fear of like well what if say an anthrax attack happens or whatever and then we do have to actually put a text crawl on the bottom of the screen during this episode? Maybe that was a slightly legitimate fear, but these were funny. I'm glad they at least got every joke they could out of putting it on the screen.

I really think it was just more that a bad faith argument where the Fox believe like we are standing between civilization and barbarism and you're making fun of us that's I'm sure what they thought they took extra offense that the Simpsons their you know star of the network basically was doing it

and I love that joke I forget what it was from I think missionary impossible where Rupert Murdoch so you save my network and Bart says wouldn't be the first time so all of this evil

we experience in this time period is thanks to the Simpsons yep they bankrolled it all to help all those horrible people stay in charge. So thank you. And look, all money's horrible. Every business is bad. Married with children just as responsible, I think.

Yeah. Without that early hit. Nobody's blaming them. Yeah. You know, this episode, it does bring me back to the bad times of the early aughts, which are now returning because, you know, nostalgia works in 20-year cycles so it's time to do war again and have hatred and bad presidential candidates and whatnot but yeah i feel that despite how the political commentary has aged i think it is funny and again i treasure all the swartzwalders we have

left there is one full episode with swartzwalder left and it's going to be sad to see him leave the show 14 years in and then for the show to make, let's say, 21 more years without Schwarzwalder and counting. Yeah. At the time this aired, I didn't think it was as good political comedy as its contemporaries at the time. I thought Daily Show and South Park were funnier. But this one held up better than I thought it would, other than, of course, a transphobic joke or two. It definitely captures 2003 era of political comedy, including in how they are scared to make fun of George W. Bush in their politics episode. It's because that also is, in a bad way, a reflection of the politics at the time. It captures when Fox News was a big deal too. And yeah, Krusty, who could have predicted, I guess the Simpsons did,

how celebrities and politics would get much, much bigger than they thought when they wrote this Krusty is in Congress. Where was the DJ Tron 3000 to make a joke about clowns in Congress when Krusty got elected? That's what I want to know. Holy crap. I didn't even think about what an obvious joke that is. Like, yeah, oh, he's a clown in Congress.

Like, get it? Like, wow. I only thought of it now, but obviously having Trump as president is more outlandish than the clown becoming a congressperson. So we're beyond parody, people. But thanks to all of you for listening to this episode of Talking Simpsons. If you want to support the show and get a ton of bonus episodes on top of that, head on over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

And when you sign up for five bucks a month month you'll get these episodes one week at a time and ad free and also access to over 150 full-length miniseries episodes we've covered shows like futurama king of the hill the critic batman the animated series and mission hill and when you sign up for five bucks a month you get all the episodes recorded so far and also new monthly episodes of talking futurama and talking of the hill if you enjoy hearing us talk about the simpsons we have nearly seven years worth of bonus content waiting for you just for five bucks 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 of the five dollar stuff naturally but then you can also access 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 as in-depth as we do a classic episode of The Simpsons, which often means talking for four, five, or even six hours about things like last month we covered Walt Disney's classic Bambi and Bob did a ton of research into the original source material as well we really learned a whole lot about Bambi this month we are covering the Hayao Miyazaki Studio Ghibli classic Porco Rosso and it's Michael Keaton dub and a ton of the fun backstory in that and we have over five years of what a cartoon movies at your fingertips we have covered so many awesome movies that cartoon movies at your fingertips we have covered so many awesome movies that i think you will love we covered south park bigger longer and uncut for instance if you like us talking about this era of political humor as well and so so many more

including our longest podcast ever where we covered who framed roger rabbit for six and a half hours and not a minute is wasted you need to check out all the amazing stuff we have exclusively for subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and i have 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 and sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month.

And Henry, how about you? You can follow me on Twitter and most other social medias at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G or on Instagram at Talking Henry. And I'm always posting up a storm there and all the cool stuff that's going on in my life. And if you want to know when new stuff happens with this podcast, then you really got to follow on pretty much all the social media sites, including blue sky at talk Simpsons pod at talk Simpsons pod keeps you in the loop when

there are new podcasts coming out. Whenever we're doing something on the Patreon, when we have live shows like the one we just did in SF sketch fest. so so many other things you stay up to date if you follow at TalkSimpsonsPod and of course you can always peruse the list of our many free podcasts we have released if you head over to TalkingSimpsons.com. Thanks so much for listening folks we'll see you again next time for season four Selma's Choice and we'll see you then. Shh. I gotta go. Don't forget to vote. And watch out for the 612.