Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Much Apu About Nothing With Shivam Bhatt

Episode Date: June 27, 2018

With us this week is Shivam Bhatt of the podcast Commanderin' joins us to talk about this powerfully timely episode of The Simpsons. Shivam talks about his complicated history with the character of Apu and the character's depiction of Indian immigrants. And we dig deep into the immigration debate that this episode brings up, stuff that may as well be ripped out of today's headlines! It'll be a fun/angry episode, so listen to our sentimonies! This podcast is brought to you by VRV, the streaming network full of cartoons, anime and more. sign up for a free 30-day trial at VRV.co/WAC and help support Talking Simpsons! Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons!

Attention Talking Simpsons listeners, would you love to hear us give the same treatment to Futurama? Who would do a thing like that? Who could do a thing like that? Then you'll be delighted to know we're doing just that for Futurama's entire first season. Hey, when you look this good, you don't have to know anything. And it'll only be available for people who donate at the $5 level to the Talking Simpsons Patreon. Oh god, no! And along with 13 episodes of Talking Futurama, you'll get all 23 episodes of Talking Critic,

the entire first season of Talking Simpsons, monthly community podcasts, interviews with Simpsons writers, and so much more! Shut up and take my money! Remember, go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to get your hands on podcasts from the world of tomorrow! I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where it's a freaking country bear jamboree around here.

I'm your host, Nine Mets fan Bob Mackie, and this is a chronological exploration of the Simpsons who is here with me today hibernating Hux here Henry Gilbert and who is calling in on the line hi my name is Shiva pot and my graduating class of seven million people in it that is a large class and today's episode is much a poo about nothing today's episode aired on May 5th, 1996, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby, and happy

Cinco de Mayo to ya. Mariah Carey's Always Be My Baby tops the Billboard charts, The Craft is number one at the box office, and Martin Lawrence suffers a very public nervous breakdown running around in traffic with a gun oh right uh that was exhaustion yeah i remember correctly so exhausted when i'm sleepy i just go to the park with my gun i remember on dave chapelle's inside the actor's studio he talked about that and how he thought it was overblown by

the media and that when he talked to martin lawrence after the fact martin lawrence was just like oh i slept the best i have in a long time after that that was that was so great but i don't know that's pretty running around in traffic with a gun that's kind of exhausted did he sleep well because they gave him a lot of sedatives to calm him down after whatever sort of trip he was on i i don't know what actually what actually happened i believe he tells the story of what happened in his stand-up special run tell that okay that's i i missed that one so what else we have with the craft yes uh i don't know uh it was influential in my life as a young boy and that's all i'll say what shocked me with it was that Neve Campbell was not the main character in it.

Yeah, I guess. She was the most famous, but probably a year before filming, when they were filming, she was not the most famous. No, Scream would be this Christmas, correct? Like this holiday season. Yeah, that's right. And then they shove out another one in 10 months for Scream 2. You can see her in one Kids in the Hall sketch as one of the few actual women they actually had on the show, so look for that. I believe at the end of that scene she's revealed to be a murderer.

That's right. Of creepy guys. We need more of those in the world. So let's talk to our guest, Shivam Bhatt. Shivam, we know each other through some way. How is that? Well, Bob, you and I both work together in the mines at 1UP once upon a time, and we've crossed paths on a number of different video game publications.

I left the industry because migrant farm labor work is not for me, and so now I actually work in the movie and film industry. I think compared to the games press, migrant farm labor might have better hours. They certainly have better insurance. Yes. Also more upward mobility, I would think as well. Or, you know, mobility at all. Yes, yeah. Well, I didn't move all that much when I was a writer in the Games Press.

I will say that. No, I have been thinking about this a lot lately because Waypoint, which rules and is one of my favorite outlets in the games press now, they've been talking a ton about how there's almost no upward mobility anywhere. And if you want to get a promotion, you kind of just have to leave for another website if that's how you want. Or make up your own job like us. Yes. I mean, as I used to say, the only way to get a higher ranking position is if somebody dies, right? Because all the old editors were not going to leave,

so there's nowhere to go. It's true. And usually if someone dies, no one is hired for that job. Someone just has to do their job on top of the three other jobs they're doing. Well, and then that position in the headcount turns into an associated position for somebody new.

This is getting too inside. What we're saying is, don't become a games journalist, please. But Shivam, not to put too much pressure on you but uh in case people couldn't tell by your name there's a reason why we asked you to come on this episode and maybe you can explain a little more about that right so uh this episode that we talked about is much much a poo about nothing now i don't know if you know this but i am an indian american not an american indian or an indian of america as like they go through the whole thing at the end of the episode you're I am an Indian American, not an American Indian or an Indian of America.

They go through the whole thing at the end of the episode. You're not a Native American then. No, I'm not a Native American. As we used to say in less enlightened times, dots, not feathers. That's one way to explain it. Which is seriously the most offensive thing. But having been born and raised in the States and also Indian descent during the era of the Simpsons, Apu was basically a really big deal in my life. Very impactful. In fact, that, you know, everybody would always ask where my father's slushies were or, you know, if they could feed my god a peanut or any of the other sort of horrifically offensive things that would come out of our dear Quickie Mark guy.

So were you a fan of the show despite Um, despite that, did you watch the show despite kids mocking you? So the thing is like when I was a kid, everybody wants a Simpsons. I loved the Simpsons as a kid, right? Like it was super cool because everybody had a, you know, don't have a cow or I had a Bart Simpson, a fanny pack, you know, the whole thing. Like, no, I loved the Simpsons for a while. And then I grew out of it kind of when it started to get a little lamer. But yeah, it was great. It just, Apu was kind of one of those things where I'm like, well, it's cool that he's there. Because really at that era, Indian Americans had like three icons, right? We had Apu, we had the dude Jawarlal from Head of the Class, the sitcom that was on in the 80s.

Oh my god, yeah. And then we had Short Circuit. Ooh, yeah. I mean, despite... With the famed Indian actor, Fisher Stevens. Yeah, I mean, you could have fooled me until fairly recently that that was not an Indian actor. Dude, when I learned that that guy was actually Justin Brownface, it broke my heart. Because he was like the hero. He was, look, that is so cool.

He's totally representing. What do you mean he's white wearing makeup? I guess he's more convincing than Hank Azaria's accent is in The Simpsons. Oh, Hank Azaria's accent is in The Simpsons. Oh, Hank Azaria's accent is miserable. Oh yeah, I mean, he I mean, so we watched the documentary The Problem with Apu, it's great.

I'm not sure if you saw it, but we learn a bit more about where that voice comes from. It's an imitation of Peter Sellers doing a similarly insulting impression in the movie The Party. Is it The Party? Yeah. Peter Sellers, that other notable Indian actor. doing a similarly insulting impression in the movie The Party. Is it The Party? Peter Sellers, that other notable Indian actor. Notable nice guy, Peter Sellers.

Oh, yeah, right? The thing is, though, when I was a kid, and this was one of those things that used to plague me, I'm born and raised in America. My accent is American. Not only American, it was Californian. And I was raised in Massachusetts when The Simpsons came out. So my accent was already like dudes and bonsai and Teeny Minion Ninja Turtles. And people would be like, hey, can you do an Apu accent? And I'm like, no, I can't. I don't

sound like that. I don't even know how to pretend to sound like... It was weird to me that other people could do an Indian accent or what they thought was an Indian accent better than I could. Because I'm like, look, my parents are from Gujarat, which is in the northwest part of India. Apu is from wherever they want him to be from. His accent is all over the place. And it's just kind of like, I don't know how to do that. Nobody I know sounds like that. I think he uh listed as a bengali i guess just because it rhymed with the jolly it's called the jolly bengali in 22 short films but i i actually have some comments about that specifically

so first off let's just do you mind if i just oh no for a second? No, go for it. Okay, so Apu Nahasapima Petalon. Whatever, like super long, long, long last name, right? Short first name plus a very long last name is generally an indication of someone from South India, not someone from North India. Or Bengal is technically North India, but it's like the eastern corner. So, I mean, in this episode, he says he goes to Caltech, a.k.a. Calcutta Tech, a.k.a. IIT, the Indian Institute of Technology. But if you look at his hairstyle, if you look at the way he kind of wears that 70s shirt and everything, and then his parents, his dad in this episode is wearing a lungi, which is just like the white loincloth.

And basically all the indicators we get are that Apu is actually South Indian. Like some of the weird elocutions he uses are South Indian elocutions as opposed to the way Northeas would talk. But in Simpsons lore, I don't think they spent that much time on it. I'm thinking he's just – where do they need him to be from? What rhymes better what is a weird stereotype that i can do what is a place that people will know wow this is a place that people know right this is stuff that we would never have even thought about so i'm so glad you're you're telling us this on the show actually uh poo's uh last name nahasa pima pedalon uh we said

this before on the show but the writer jeff mart Jeff Martin in grade school, he had a friend called, I believe his name was Nahasa Pimapetilon. And that's where he got the last name Nahasa Pimapetilon because the joke... That's like a Thai name. That's a Thai name? Yeah. Wow. The joke that it shows up. So the first time we hear Apu's last name is in the Three Card Name Desire musical.

The joke is, my name is Apu Nahasa Pimapetilon. I am playing Steve. And the joke is like, he apu nahaspian pedalon i am playing steve and the joke is like he's a very foreign man playing a very white sounding man yeah roll how funny no and that episode also has one of many indian stereotypes i've come to see in comedy which is that he he goes woohoo after getting a kiss from marge which is like it's the same kind of stuff fisher stevens was doing in Short Circuit of just like, these Indian men don't have sex with women much. So any affection they freak out about. They're very infantilized, I guess.

So that is one of the biggest stereotypes that has plagued my people. And it's really weird because, well, actually, let me divert again. Yeah, one of the things I do, dear listeners, is I do a lot of talking about Indian culture and Indian American culture. So this is definitely right up my alley. So if I may set the scene for where Apu would have come from and the type of person that he is. Now, in the early 1960s or so, America had an act that allowed people from Asia to finally immigrate to America en masse. They fixed the Immigration Act so that the Chinese Exclusion Bill and stuff, they were all kind of nullified. So you got a lot of people from India and China being able to immigrate to America for the first time in large numbers. Before that, there were Indians here in like the 1800s. They were like farmers in Southern California and stuff like that.

But in the 60s, a lot of people were finally able to come on education scholarships the way that Apu does in this episode. So one of the things you saw was that a lot of educated Indians who were like scientists, nerds, engineers, that sort of thing, who were upper class, upper, you know, upper crust kids from India who had the money to be able to emigrate, would be able to come to America, go to schools in Kansas or Texas or, you know, Iowa, Jersey, random places like that. And they would come in the 70s, single males, young, nerdy dudes who's like for the first time ever, outside of the

clutches of their family home in America, where everything is hella weird. And suddenly, yeah, you're going to get a lot of really awkward, nerdy Indian guys who don't understand how to deal with women that aren't their mother. Of course not. They're college students. What do they know? Like, when my dad came here in the 70s he was working at like his first job was at a burger king and he had to like in in texas and he had to figure out how to make pseudo indian food so they got like tortillas and beans and tried to make like doll and roadies out of them and it's just like this is weird hacked food and they didn't know what like to do with forward college women in america in you know schools that were integrated like that they're like what i that's nice to meet you lady

but i need to go to study now so it was a real culture clash then oh it was completely and i mean harry kondabolu has a line which is Apu is a white man making fun of an impression of my father or something to that effect. And like, when you look at Apu's clothes, he's got his pants up to his like, navel. He's got his huge 1970s collared shirt, the bouffant hairdo. That's because Indian pop culture was about 15 years behind American culture. So all these dudes came here in the 60s, 70s with like 1950s era Beatles haircuts. The guy who came in the 80s looked like Elvis, you know, with the weird 70s kind of get-ups. So

that really was just like, well, yeah, I mean, the dude running the cookie mart is going to look like 1975, even though it's 1989, just because that's the clothes he could afford, and that's the stuff he packed in India to come here. Oh, wow. But then 30 years later, that character turns into even more. It's a stereotype frozen in amber when he appears in stuff now in 2018. Okay, so one of the biggest pet peeves of mine

and of a lot of the people of the Indian diaspora is that Apu – I mean, okay, look. For one thing, Simpsons is frozen in time. That's fine. It's a timeless show. It's meant to kind of represent whatever. But culturally, all of the other characters have at least adjusted for the era. Like their attitudes – I mean, they stay in the same archetypes, but their attitudes and stuff change and grow with the times. Apu is the same today as he was when he was first introduced. He's still a quickie mark guy. He's, I mean, yeah, the story goes up and down or whatever,

but they forgot the third, the second half of that story. Like, okay, so look, the arc of Apu is the arc of a lot of Indian guys, right? I come to America to study in graduate school. I become an engineer. I do the things, pay off my loans. Some people, like my parents, stuck around and became naturalized, green-carded citizens. Some people just kind of skipped out on their student visa and hung around. Some people went back home. But the thing is you see a lot of people like in the 60s and 70s, engineering firms weren't really hiring brown people.

So these guys had to do something. And one of the easiest things to do was I'm going to go buy a motel. They're cheap. Nobody cares who owns a motel. And then I'm going to work hard and make a lot of money, rent rooms out twice a day to people under the table or whatever it is, make a ton of money, buy a second motel, invite my brother over who's a farmer and wasn't educated enough like me. He can work in my hotel. He'll invite his brother-in-law and so on. And we get like kind of the chain migration. Or you get the people who are like, well, I don't know how to speak anything, but I do know how to drive a cab. So I'm going to go

drive a cab in New York or in Austin, Texas or San Francisco or open an Indian restaurant, right? Or a quickie mart, the same way. I buy one convenience store, then I buy one for my brother, then he buys one for his sister in law, whatever, on and on and on until we own all of them here. But what's the next step? The next step is these guys all go to their gigantic mansions that they've saved 40 years worth of money to have. And then kids like my generation come up, people whose college educations were paid for by these people who have 40 years of convenience store money sitting around. Like I know people who own motels, who own convenience

store 7-Elevens, who will sit there and they'll be like, look, man, my dad is wearing the same clothes that he got off the plane with in 1973, but he drives a Mercedes-Benz and has three more at home. And, you know, he sent his kids to two private schools and then to Stanford. Where's that half of the story? Yeah, I mean, there's not all of those details, but Apu does have a pretty nice apartment. And his brother Sanjay is part of the show, so he is in business with his brother. So I can see a few of those little details leaking in, but not the entire context that would really inform his character. I mean, economically, they still usually keep Apu a little low.

He's not a homeowner. I think, you know, even when he has the octuplets, they're still in an apartment. He hasn't bought a home at that point either, even that far into the show. I have to say, as a viewer like i was ignorant to this stuff i i i blame my i'm definitely i'm in the wrong here i was i lived a very sheltered suburban life i don't think i even knew any indian kids really growing up i

didn't have to think about this stuff and i it it did really hit me when I saw, uh, before he did the documentary, Hari Kondabalu doing that routine on just like, oh yeah, this, that's what Apu is. This voice is a white man mocking a very specific accent. Like it, it really brought me down. We we've dealt with it before. Listeners have heard us talk about this before, but it, it was such a bummer to, to finally realize it and then it makes going back to episodes like this which even were this episode i would say is an attempt to try to course correct a little bit without oh for sure i mean in the timeline of the show i feel like this is the most progressive it's still problematic as hell today but it's

the most progressive uh look at a poo date where he's a real character. He's not just a silly guy in the background. I mean, the last time they had a episode about Apu was in season five, two years before this. And they went to India and it was like cartoon land. Basically it was like a mad magazine drawing of India. They visited and looking at Apu as an educated person,

giving you his backstory, making you feel sympathy for him and his, and his plights. I feel sympathy for him and his and his plight um i feel like these are all things the show would not have done a couple years ago and i feel like they're trying to work themselves out of the stereotype but they are still too attracted to a lot of the easy jokes you can make with a poo and we see we see a few of them in here yeah i mean i thought it was really neat that they showed his background and like this was again this is the first time i'd seen this episode because I think I'd stopped watching the show before this.

But it was really neat. I'm like, oh my god, he was an engineer who came here? That's something I had never known. And I was like, wow, that is exactly my story now. Suddenly that both makes him more real and also sucks. Suddenly I'm like, oh, but he never progresses. He never goes back. He never, like, the fact that Apu just doesn't go anywhere farther.

Why isn't he a mogul owning 12 Quickie Marts? Why isn't he, like, the branch manager or, you know, the regional director of Quickie Mart Incorporated? I mean, I think part of his character is that he is a workaholic and that he does not enjoy the effects of having work. He just enjoys working, which I'm not sure if that is a stereotype or not. That is absolutely true.

That is a legit, total stereotype. I know so many people who run motels and stuff and I'm like, you don't need to wash the floor by yourself. It's okay. And they're like, eh, but I like to. Yeah. I mean, in the 22 short films episode, which I believe you said you watched previously. Oh, once upon a time. Yeah. Uh, in that episode, uh, it's revealed he takes one four minute break every year and that's, that's all the fun he will let himself have because he's so devoted to his job i believe it i fully believe it i i i

do there was one other thing i i before we get deep into the episode there's one other thing i didn't like in the recent apu thing that flared up again when the simpsons tried to comment on it themselves in a recent episode and it was when people it was when commentators, almost entirely white commentators were saying like, well, no, Apu, he's not a stereotype. He's a computer expert. He's a vegetarian. He has all these characteristics. And I'm just like, that all is from season six onward. Like in the most popular years of the Simpsons apu wasn't that guy and oh using those

examples is not a fair way to talk about oh apu's not what you think he is he's not a stereotype okay so when the apu thing happened i was very much i was writing essays about this you know on twitter basically and i was talking a lot about it because it definitely impacted my life in quite a direct way and people would keep coming back to me oh, they made him a family man and he's a wife and kids. I'm like, yeah, but when I was in second grade, Apu didn't have any wife or kids. Apu was the dorkiest dork who's ever dorked a dork. You know, he was like, he was the guy who I was getting my ass kicked. You know, like, like Apu is, they might have in the 25 years of history of Simpsons or whatever, they might have revived him and revitalized him and given him something else. But when we were kids, they didn't.

He was just the pinata for a lot of racist jokes. And a lot of us just ended up taking basically all that onto ourselves. Like when people come up to you and start going, thank you, come again after the 500th time, you're just like, you know what? This isn't funny. This isn't funny anymore.

I will say that. So the show had a bad response to the documentary. Matt Groening had a bad response to the documentary, but Hank Azaria actually had a thoughtful response that wasn't really committing to anything, but I can at least give him the credit to say like yes i have thought about this and i don't want to hurt anybody maybe this character should change so i feel like he is at least aware even though he was

not he did not give that interview to hari in the documentary and also mike reese who co-wrote the episode where apu first appeared and was a writer on the early, very stereotypical seasons of Apu, he had always said he did not want that character to have an Indian accent when he first wrote it. And in his book, he even is, he was very clear. I'm like, you know what? I can't tell. I'm just some old white Jewish guy. Like I can't tell people what to be indian people or indian americans how they should feel about the character of apu like he so i think he had a he had a good response in his book as well i don't know i mean this character is very complicated and a lot of indian people have a lot of complicated feelings about him it's it's weird because again it was the only representation we had so when that's the only, like, you know, any port in a storm, right?

Like, well, I guess that's what we got. And that was, like, if I'm honest, that's kind of a lame thing to have as your only representation. I totally agree. I mean, we can thank the writer David S. Cohen, now David X. Cohen. He's also the co-creator of Futurama and the co-creator of the upcoming Mac writing series, Disenchantment. He went to school for computer science. He's got a PhD in computer science. He went to UC Berkeley, right up like a mile from here.

And guess what? He was getting a computer science degree. He went to school with Indian immigrants. And so a lot of this comes from his own experience Where I'm sure like it's like Oh I'm friends with a lot of Indian people Let's make this Indian character a better Like a more realistic person less of a stereotype

And they also helped inform The vegetarian episode as well I believe a lot of that Was informed by his Indian friends at UC Berkeley So David S. Cohen I mean he I congratulate him with sort of Making Apu better. Not perfect, but a little better. Cohen on the commentary, which was likely recorded 2005, 2004, he outright says like

Apu was, quote, a stereotype. He said he was a stereotype and that it was their intention to try to flesh him out some more. So it's just funny to hear when now a lot of Simpsons writers are trying to make no comment on this whole thing that on the official commentary, they're being much more clear of like, we knew he needed to be fixed and just to directly call him a stereotype. And, and I also do fear that like they kind of reverted a little bit more like after in the next uh in season nine yeah when they they just have stuff with the this doesn't have a kama sutra joke in

it or yeah a joke uh but it does have an arranged marriage joke i take that back yeah oh man that arranged marriage like that whole scene that three seconds in his hometown or whatever i could write a paper on it was just i was like what the heck am i anyways well his uh his his wife-to-be uh comes back and he does marry her later in the series i remember that when she's older and played by a white woman woman, of course. Yeah, but I'm like, great. She's like eight? Okay. Yeah, not so into that either. But I will say, Bob mentioned written by David S. Cohen, directed by Susie Dieter.

Two of their top, top people on the show. This one is also all about immigration, which we're recording this the day before this goes live on the 17th of june and this is when like immigration could not be a hotter topic we're talking all about the wonderful child prisons listen they're not in cages they're in pens and they can roam freely but they can't touch each other right closures surrounded by chain-linked fences yeah i refuse to call them cages. But it's funny because I remember living through the original immigration hoopla that this episode kind of references. And also Proposition 8 in California back then, which was all about illegal immigration and the Mexican – apparently the flood of mexicans who were going to ruin america and it was just like a horrific bill that passed and that's just really wrecked us for a long time

oh yeah i looked into this by the way so this episode is sort of based on proposition 187 aka sos 187 that's what it was save our state sos i mean how much more blatant could you get but it was really about denying um you know social services to undocumented immigrants and I believe on the commentary Matt Groening says he remembers the governor of California like rubbing his hands together and talking about how he can't wait to deny prenatal care to undocumented immigrants Pete Wilson yes that's him. I will never forget that man. It was messed up. Messed up. So I believe Gray Davis sort of undid it after the fact.

It was actually undid like almost immediately. It was unconstitutional. I believe Gray Davis might have shot down in the attempt to sort of fix it again. I would quote unquote fix it. I don't mean it needed to be reinstated, but it was unconstitutional. I believe you said, Henry, it's one of those things where it's just like, oh, it's too expensive. It's too expensive to punish everybody. I thought this would be fun.

No, it's, I mean, when I read up on that Proposition 187, I didn't grow up in California, so I didn't know that specifically. Oh, it was the epochal in this state. It was huge, hugely divisive, hugely hugely insane and it was like my first taste of what real racism is it's it's so reading up on stories that were published during it it's the same shit you hear now that is a cover for racism of just like no no no we're just worried about how expensive it is like can we afford it i just don't know it's like there are so many welfare cheats let's build an industry of handling people's pee that will not cost anything to handle all of their pee oops it costs more than giving out welfare uh-oh yeah we're

sorry but it's not about that it's it's about punishing a brown person or even just imagining the satisfaction of imagining that a non-white person is being punished, the people voting for that are getting off on that. It's just so fucking disgusting. It makes me so – I am so angry right now. Yeah, I was choking on my own rage all day. Dude, when I was watching this episode in preparation for this podcast, I was just like – I had to pause it a bunch of times because I was like, this is way too real. Yeah. This is way too right now this is like a year after a random dude in kansas shot another indian guy for being

iranian yeah he wasn't iranian i'm like what what yeah it's it's also what was fucking me up watching it was seeing how the what's so real to me is that all these characters who are just comedy cartoon characters usually you're just seeing like skinner turned to be like he's very anti-immigrant and and you see all these people like with their signs like you're not the fun characters anymore you're all just like hateful white people what happened and quimby is very much like almost like a trump like figure he's like i can have this easy answer for all of you It's immigrants, and you know what? If the immigrants go away, you'll have more money Which is, don't blame, you know, capitalism

Or all the rich people who don't pay taxes on anything And are moving all of your jobs away from America No, no, it's the immigrants It's their fault And that's how he won the election It's shocking that 22 years later It's just the same. We've learned nothing. Yeah. In fact, well, I would say that people are now, the difference is people are just more openly

hateful. They're like, oh no, I just am a fascist. Like, yeah, I'm not going to even pretend on the welfare thing anymore. It's just, I hate these, I hate these people that don't look like me and I want them gone. And if you promise me you're going to do that, you've got my vote. One of my favorite lines in this show that Apu said was when Marge was like, oh, wow, I didn't know that illegals walked among us and that you're a friend of ours. And gosh, I'm going to vote no or whatever. And Apu says, you're one of the good ones and I was like oh he because that was like the line that they would use like oh you know we wanted the bad immigrants away not the good ones but to give it to the brown man to be able to turn to the generic white people in the

Simpson's like oh you're one of the good ones I had to like just stand up and applaud I'm like that is that's biting commentary that I expect from Simpsons. That's a great inversion of that horrible phrase I gotta say. Oh my god, dude. The fact that Apu said it, I laughed out loud. I was like, this is so good. The Simpsons will be right back. Man, it's like a freaking country bear jamboree up on this episode, huh?

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about his brand new book, Springfield Confidential, and his 30 years working on The Simpsons. We hear so many secrets, including the story behind the fabled caramel on the ceiling. Plus, we also talk to writer Nell Scoville, a veteran of the comedy scene for more than 30 years, about writing for The Simpsons, The Critics, Mystery Science Theater, Space Ghost, and so much more. Hear both of those interviews and a ton of other exclusive features that are only there for Patreon subscribers at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. If you agree with my sanctimonies that Mike Reese was a really cool interview that we got this month, you might want to listen to the audio book version of his new book.

And what's an easy way to do that? Well, it's signing up at audibletrial.com slash Talking Simpsons. At audibletrial.com slash Talking Simpsons, you can get a 30-day free trial of the Audible service and a book on us that is free, yours to keep after you sign up for it. And a little bit of money gets kicked back to your old pals at Talking Simpsons. So you'll get a free copy of Mike Reese's audiobook.

You get to hear all his amazing stories on his long history with the Simpsons. Plus, you'll get to throw a little money back at us. And check out some other cool books that are on Audible. Just sign up at audibletrial.com slash slash talking simpsons and we'll see you in the funny pages uh well okay well so let's start at the beginning here with the bear on Evergreen Terrace. Run, Daddy, run! Open the door, Mom. I don't have time for the secret knock.

Oh, I'm panicking, Daddy. I can't work the knob. 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! I love that bear walking me. This is Kent Brockman with a special report from the Channel 6 Newscopter. A large bear-like animal, most likely a bear, has wandered down from the hills in search of food or perhaps employment. Please remain calm. Stay in your homes. Looks like bad news for the Imson family.

And Ned is still driving his red Geo. Maybe not anymore. We see him driving it after this episode, so he must have bought a new one after it. Ned screaming is always funny and the uh the triple cut of him screaming three times at different angles it's a suzy dieter episode she's so great yeah though i feel like the joke is supposed to be on ned for being too afraid of a sleepy old bear but there was a bear within 20 feet of me i'd be screaming and running away too i i i don't think i could keep

my cool yeah there's a skunk somewhere and if i can see it i have to like leave town literally leave the leave the town line yeah i find it hard to fault anybody for being like you know even though that bear is just sitting there i don't want him to not be sitting there so i'm going to go somewhere else now apparently there are a lot of bears just hanging around in Southern California at this time, making for a lot of fun news footage. I think the last one that I saw in California was a bear just swimming in somebody's pool. Oh, I love that. I mean, we're taking their habitat, so they may as well run around and get some cool news footage. I mean, it's kind of funny that they start with this, that this is the lighter side of the news hysteria

thing to go with immigrant fear which is another part of news hysteria and also i just love the line a large bear-like creature most likely a bear bear-like likely a bear i just i think it's also a commentary how in all of those helicopter uh newscasts they can never confirm anything there's a great sklar brothers uh bit about that from like 15 years ago. Look it up, kids. And then Homer has decided he's going to confront that bear. And I just love that if his plan had gone well, it was dropping through the windshield, which likely would have killed him.

It's also just so many great little drawings in this, like the drawing of him with the pants on his head Looking at the bear that is so funny And the great swing he does Yeah The bear control or the pre-bear control shows up Sweet dreams, monkey Oh!

Animal tranquilizer! Oh! Oh! Oh! Fuck him, Lou. One count of being a bear. And one count of being an accessory to being a bear. He really stepped it up from his

beer addiction to straight up bear tranquilizers really stepped it up from his beer addiction to straight-up bear tranquilizers. That'll get you where you need to go. You can't get Quaaludes anymore, so I guess that does the trick. But I knew that even in my first viewing as a kid, I was like, I knew he was going to miss that first shot. It's not a good Wiggum joke

if he doesn't shoot somebody accidentally. He can't be competent. Oh, no, there was no way that he was just going to pop them off in the first one but i just love the sound effect that they use on the on the bear tranquilizer gun it's got that just bump that just so satisfying it sounds like a blow gun almost or like a nerf gun with the one of the ping pong balls just coming yeah simpsons has some of the best foley in in entertainment i would say especially when we isolated on the podcast and you're not looking at an image you can really hear a lot of things

that you would never hear and i also love that moe has his own paddy wagon for barney just for barney so then homer is uh pissed off and i have to say homer is a great rabble rouser in this episode except when he tries to do something right like he can get him to be mad about bears and about taxes but when it's no on 24 nobody listens to just the people at the party and homer's stance to ned is actually one you hear from a lot of conservative jerks as well i like, Hey, if you're okay with that, that's fine for you. But my family is afraid of X, Y, and Z in this case, a bear.

And then Homer is taking it downtown with quite a slogan. I love it. We're here. We're clear. We don't want any more bears. Hey Homer, that's pretty catchy chant. Where'd you learn it?

Oh, I heard it at the mustache parade they have every year. We don't want any more bears. Sir, there's an unruly mob to see you. Does it have an appointment? Uh, yes, it does. I phoned ahead. Mr. Mayor, I hate to break it to you, but your city is infested with bears. And these ones are smarter than the average bear.

They swipe my picnic basket. Think of the children. Very well. I promise swift and decisive action against these hibernating hucksters. So when I was a kid, I was probably, I was about to turn 14 when this episode aired I had never heard the word queer I don't think I had either I mean people would

You hear the other F word In my area but not queer But never queer And you know like after high school I was like okay I know what this means But then I was like well that's a bad word So when I got to grad school I was like There's a thing called

queer studies. Can they say that? That word has been effectively taken back. Yeah. I do, as a gay man, I like that phrase because there are some people who like bisexual or pansexual or it's just not a good enough umbrella for them, especially if you accept that there's more than two genders, folks, which is's true so bisexual doesn't do about gender binary it's all just it's a lot of messy phrases so when you can just say like we are queer or we're the queer community it's a fun i i like that and q's a fun letter yes yeah so in the next year homers phobia it was that that's our word for you that's our word for making fun of you i think that's where i learned it like what it really meant but yes the mustache parade is a very very funny line i actually just like the idea of we're here we're queer and we don't

want any more bears which if you know the gay community is a subset of a certain type of gay males oh boy sentence made me laugh so hard just because i'm like oh look it's the gay pride parade but we don't want the burly guys yeah as a bear i actually took some offense to that i never connected it with uh the the term uh bears in the gay community i was like wow homer must have been at a bear exclusionary gay pride parade well in a way it sounded like it was that yeah that they maybe that they've had their fill of bears. They're like, look, we are overloaded with bears. We need other.

We need more twinks, gentlemen. Twinks, we need cubs, we need otters. I just know twinks and bears. I'm sorry, folks. Yeah, it's because I saw the episode today. So, obviously, gay pride is kind of on my head. And I was just like, just the juxtaposition of a of those two yeah this uh yeah that homer thinks it's a yearly mustache parade too is quite a great gag

uh and i also love that skinner is the guy who's boring enough to call ahead for the angry mom i phoned ahead i also i do love how mo Mo says picnic basket in the Yogi Bear way. It turns out Quimby stole his picnic basket. That's the real secret. You're blaming all these things on scapegoats like immigrants and bears, but it was actually the mayor all along. It's the man. But another major moment in this episode, a first.

This is the first time of Helen Lovejoy's catchphrase, won't somebody please think of the children it's true it was kind of a short-lived catchphrase i want to say maybe hung around for like four years four or five years yeah they just kind of forgot about it and her i think one of the last times i heard it was when mo said it in natural born kisser yeah that's right he's standing next to her and he says it so that's the joke but and that's what killed the joke uh so bill oakley talks they talk about it on the commentary and it does come from like bill oakley at the time who was a childless man uh he he was like you know what a lot of stuff isn't for kids and us having to make things with thinking about

kids makes us have to make less good things and fuck the kids like that seemed to be his feeling i wonder if he feel he says he feels pretty much the same way on the commentary as a father now but i think it's a funny point and there are definitely scolds who say this thing for kids especially about animation this thing that isn't for kids is going to destroy kids it's like well it's not for them but oppositely i'm not a fan now as an adult of casting a mom a woman as a scold who won't let you have fun things because she's always crying think of the children well our guest is a father. Let's ask him.

Well, it's interesting because as a dad, I sit there and I'm like, okay, there's definitely things that I don't want my kids to see. Like I took my son's tablet away yesterday and deleted YouTube kids off of it because he was definitely picking up idioms and phrases from the people that he watches on YouTube that I didn't think were appropriate for a four-year-old to be doing. Good decision. And I'm like, you know what? Before you become some kind of neo-reactionary, let's shift you back over to Sesame Street. So it's not like era of the early 90s of just like with video games with the um the warning labels on cds and records of like oh this has explicit language what's a tipper gore tipper gore's whole thing with think of the children oh yeah and it was just like oh okay dude we get it you think of the children is just like an easy catchphrase for

these deviants are doing something i don't want but I don't have a good reason to not want it. So I'm going to fall back on the reason that everybody is okay with the generic faceless child who's just an angelic blue eyed, blonde haired, you know, Iowa kid who's just like, oh, I am the essence of innocence I've seen less reactionary Ism or however you say that Outside of so I feel like With just how immediately accessible pornography Is and extremely violent content You can just get to it in a second People the Pandora's box Is open we can't stop that anymore the only time I see

Reactionaries is in like Christian Communities like fundamentalist Christians Like Harry Potter is evil Pokemon is evil You know that's really Given up at this point Christian communities, like fundamentalist Christians were like, Harry Potter is evil, Pokemon is evil. You know, that's really... I think they've mostly given up at this point. Well, it is quaint to think of a time when it's just like, well, the Simpsons or even South Park is scarring, kid. It's like, you have no control.

It feels like there's almost no control over what children can see of everything. Like, all content is at their fingertips at all point like it is an overload of it like i do say think of the children now it's too much but i don't know it's well it's it's weird though because like you know in the 90s or something when this episode aired okay 96 so yeah it's a mortal kombat had already come out mortal kombat was one of the first think of the children you know it's like the crazy blood and stuff is suddenly in our house. And all of the floodgates are open. 1996, Netscape is out.

The Internet is finally becoming a thing. And suddenly, if you want to see a woman having intimate relations with a fish, you can do so very quickly and instantaneously. And your parents, who are still in that weird quasi-pre-net era, have no idea what's happening, where this stuff is coming from. They only know it's got to stop. And how are we going to stop it? Who knows, but somebody's got to do something. I kind of miss when everybody's parents weren't online. Yeah, it's gotten, I'd say, worse now that my parents are online.

I don't like being cyber-stalked by them for one thing. If I don't want to share information with them, that's my business. But I also, it's a tough thing. I want to be a Twitter influencer, but also not have my parents know where I am at all times. I'd be flattered if they cyber-stalked me. Say that. You say that Well speaking of Stalking or Totalitarianism it's a totalitarian Bear state in the

Simpsons world with the bear control Bob me and you were talking about it earlier it does feel like It presages 9-11 Yeah just 9-11 stuff All of the security theater that happened after 9-11 where it's like it's just there for the appearance Of control and order but it really Isn't and I think of that whenever

I'm going through security and the lines are too long so they're like okay everybody no don't take your shoes off don't take anything out of your bag just go through the line as fast as possible I'm like so the security doesn't matter because the airplane needs to make money is that is that really what it is and it is but it just like none of this none of this matters you would hold me here for as long

as possible if you had the time to do it well you ought to remember you said this episode aired in 1996. Remember that in 1995 was the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh nuking that building in the middle of town. And there was right around Columbine time and stuff. So there was a pre 9-11 security theater was happening. We weren't quite at crazy town yet, but we were definitely at the first World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing. So people were definitely starting to get their ire. That is true. I will say, I think it's because the criminals in those cases were white guys that our government did not freak out as much or use it as

a smokescreen for something else. Like if you up on the actually the podcast last podcast on the left which i talked about a lot on this show they did a four-part series on timothy mcveigh it's all wrapped up in white supremacy and like that entire movement and it's all like post waco white supremacy but they could have like tracked down and uh you know jailed a ton of white supremacists but they're just like let's just get this over with as fast as possible and move on so in some cases they're just like let's let's take it easy on white people yeah isolated most cases rather all that lone wolf all that yeah yeah uh i lisa is such a like extra smart and extra lefty liberal correct in this one than she normally even in a regular episode she is and i like that a lot it's also taught me the term specious reasoning yes specious but it's a great word but it's episodes like this that also made

it more painful that she was the one of all the characters that had to give the apu is now politically incorrect speech why did they have to put it in her mouth like it's just such a bummer yeah it's a little bummer uh but uh hom Homer proves that he's quite an American in this episode by hating taxes for the things that he wanted. Woo-hoo! A perfect day. Zero bears and one big, fat, hairy paycheck. Hey, how come my pay is so low?

Bear patrol tax, $5. What? This is an outrage. It's the biggest tax increase in history. Actually, Dad, it's the smallest tax increase in history. Let the bears pay the bear tax. I pay the Homer tax. That's the homeowner tax.

Well, anyway, I'm still outraged. So I did the math on Homer's income. And if you add in all the things that were deducted, he makes around $12 an hour, which was a step up from his $5 an hour That we heard about in Homer Loves Flanders That's true $96, $12 an hour I guess isn't so bad But you certainly couldn't

I wouldn't think you could be the sole earner For a five person family In a three bedroom house I mean minimum wage was around $5 in 96 So he's making double minimum wage But how long has he been working at that plan i mean come on well you know he's he's not going anywhere homer is not particularly upwardly mobile yeah they just got to keep him around for no reason i i just also love the way

lisa quickly corrects of like homer tax homeowner tax she knows more about that than him but so homer is so pissed about this five5, which, I don't know, if I just $5 for a security statement, sign me up. That's all I want to do. Yeah, dude. Like, I love that stealth bomber that flew over. Yeah. The bear patrol on it.

I'm like, that's a hell of an investment for $5, man. It's great how that is like the sort of like, not really Star White, but like stealth bomber wipe to Quimby's office it is great i and when they cut back to it also i didn't know this until uh rechecking the commentary but drawn into the crowd shot of the taxpayer complainers is brad bird yeah that's right it looks just like him but they say it out loud like no that's brad bird but he's somewhere in the model pack somewhere uh but so, it's time to hear what Quimby's going to do. Go with Taxi! What do you think of the children?

Are these morons getting dumber or just louder? Dumber, sir. They won't give up the Bear Patrol, but they won't pay taxes for it either. Ducking this issue calls for real leadership. People, your taxes are high because of illegal immigrants. That's right, illegal immigrants. We need to get rid of them. Immigrants, I knew it was them. Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them. Won't somebody please think of the children? In one week, the town will vote on a special referendum whether or not to deport all illegal immigrants from Springfield.

It shall be known as Proposition 24. So we should overlook that a town has this power. But Shivam, I heard you say something during the clip. Got too real for you? Yeah, this is where the episode got a little too real for me. Like, hey, you know, we need to scapegoat and distract the people. So let's go find the marginalized guys in the town and kill them or drive them out of town or, you know, do something to get the masses off of understanding what's actually happening.

I mean, yeah, everything that Mo says should be on Twitter. Like, I can see those as all tweets. Immigrants. Yeah, seriously. And it's just like, oh, man, we've got a week to do this referendum, and then we're going to immediately deport everybody. I'm like, huh.

So if you've got a life, let's say, as a Quickie Mart owner, perhaps, and you've built this whole thing up, and they give you like a week to try to stop your life from falling to pieces, how are you going to pick up everything and find someplace to go? What does that actually mean? I'm surprised that we didn't mention ICE.

So let me say, if you think cops aren't racist enough, you got your ICE cops, and they're even more racist. They got into the game to be extra racist. I know, you're a cop you're if you apply at the cop factory you're just like oh i i have to help other people at some point i don't only round up non-white people but in ice that's all you do yeah yeah that's all you fuck it's it's. I hate ICE so much, and I am 100% abolish ICE, and if a Democrat wants my vote, they better start talking about getting rid of ICE. Definitely.

It's just sickening what they can get away with. No oversight. It also is crazy to hear the quotes coming at the start a year ago or 18 months ago of like, oh, we finally got the shackles off. That was a quote in an article I read about how unnamed ICE official was feeling of like, how did you feel you had the shackles on before? And then second, even using that term, just like, yeah,

because you're about to put shackles on people. That's, it's, oh. It helps. Like, didn't another country Have a secret police That Yeah They were a real problem They had a cool logo too

Yeah Such a cool logo Ice needs to catch up With those cool logos They're not Designing it as much As some Some country

In the 1930s But also like Just camps Like they're just camp I How Yeah How is a good

Is a good question to ask As you As you rip your hair out and thin like just yeah right in your clothing this isn't very funny yes um it's been a rough it's been a rough week for all of us well it also at the end of the movie the big shorts this uh there's a similar moment in it too that made me think of this scene in the episode where at the end of the big short where they say like well they've been defrauded by all the banks they stole tax money to even stay afloat americans aren't going to stand for that and then steve carell's character says no they're just going to blame immigrants and poor people that's what they always do and it's like yep yep that's exactly

what happened and they did it and it and nobody thought about it again uh so so it's like, yep, yep, that's exactly what happened. And they did it. And nobody thought about it again. So this is a timeless story then of Mayor Quimby just blaming immigrants and everybody accepting it. It's just immediately like, oh, yeah, okay, yep, yeah, that's our problem. And this is when it gives every, just like in real life, this politician saying it gives every, just like in real life, this politician saying it gives everyone permission to be like, oh, now I can just be openly raceless, even in school.

The TV said it was okay. Hey, German boy, go back to Germania. I do not deserve this. I've come here legally as an exchange student. Young man, the only thing we exchange for you is our national dignity. You want to pick on immigrants? Then pick on Willy.

Willy, please. The children want to pick on someone their own size. It's good that Willy at least attempts to be a hero in that moment. I know. Willy's the only good guy. I will say it's also funny to see them doing that with Uter, who did just exist for extreme German stereotypes. And eating gross candy. He eats the mazapan in the mitaiodine.

Would you like a bite of my joy joy? I do give the Simpsons writers props here for using the whitest possible guy as their immigrant scapegoat for this episode. Because they could have gone wrong in a number of different ways. But it's just – I think because with this episode, the tone I generally took was they were looking at this as how ridiculous is this? And picking on the two white immigrants here was really just driving the point home that like no guys it's not just brown people who come here yeah i thought that was actually kind of refreshing i like the message a lot but henry was like dming me through twitter and you're totally right henry it's like they wouldn't care about willie and uter they would only look at like

the skin color like how different are you from me yeah i feel like it's it's just the understood thing if it's somebody who's like well i'm an undocumented canadian immigrant it's just like ice isn't going to even ask you if they're not going to go on a greyhound bus and stop you to ask any white person if they're canadian they're not going to do that they're they're going to just look at anybody who doesn't look right and ask them if they're undocumented i I mean, I do also love the line Germania. Germania. Though there is, that's another, definitely ignorant people are racist and against immigrants, but I, it's one thing I don't like where they're just like, oh, all these hillbillies who voted

for the president. It's like, there's lots of intelligent people who are unempathetic. Like being smart doesn't necessarily make you not racist yeah lots of very educated people write all the very racist laws and you know nazis were quite educated yeah that's true a lot of stuff oh also the uh the headline quimby propositions 24 at ballet that's a funny that's a funny um but one of the things that really got me was like when you said the nobody's gonna ask a canadian i don't know if you've seen the show Silicon Valley, wherein Kumail Nanjiani is playing one of the – he's like a Pakistani guy playing a token Indian programmer. And they've also got a random Canadian anarchist guy. And in one of the early episodes, somebody is busted for illegal immigration.

And they all look at the Indian guy and he's like, look, man, I have legal papers. I'm here legally. It's not my fault. And then the crazy anarchist dude is like, yeah, I snuck into the country and never left. And it's like this token generic white American nerd who's actually from Canada. And so I was like, oh, that's the joke. They'll never think of the white guy. I have got to – that show has come up so many times.

I really do need to watch it i it's it's good yeah as a mike judge fan i feel like i really need to watch it too uh it's also funny too that you mentioned that too there's bumblebee guys in one scene but or he's at the test at the very end otherwise though they they could have done jokes with bumblebee guy but i think that would have been too mean or yeah and it would have also been too real given that prop 187 was about mexican people yeah that's true and it's also hard to have a scene with bumblebee guy because he can't actually like give you sincere dialogue things have to be hitting him in the head or he he can only exist in a mexican sketch comedy scene even in his own house that's also true i think it would have undercut their point to have a stereotypical character that

you actually that like represent everything they do want to deport as a person that is like the illegal immigrant or whatever yeah it's true it kind of turned him into a third rail story wise i guess i also so then they go to the dinner table to talk about this. And Homer is just parroting another of the points of just like, oh, these schools are so full of illegal immigrants that kids can't learn. Like it's definitely, they hate that schools,

the people who are voting for prop 187, they were hating that schools, the idea that schools were paying for non-Americans to learn. How dare they? Though I feel like if you were to excise all non-white students from schools, they would still be underfunded anyway. Oh, yeah. It's not going to fix them. They've never cared about funding schools.

Yes, no. It's more about taking stuff away. And then we get the lengthy story of how the Simpsons came to America, which I feel like every reaction to it from them is just them saying like well this isn't real this is true it's a fun little diversion uh i do like the the old country i i'm almost positive grandpa simpson was born here too i think so yeah i just love the way they point at the statue of liberty like that's our new home and they just live there and then they filled the head with garbage and ran away and you know uh Bill Oakley co-showrunner of this time he's not that old but

his grandfather was born in the 19th century so maybe he's used to hearing stories about the old country whatever that was also apparently the invention of sliced bread was officially in 1928 oh wow damn more recent than you think what a time to be alive actually yeah this and it's the 90th anniversary of sliced bread this year hats off to sliced bread so then at the end of act one we get this very funny joke of homer almost having empathy and this is when apu finally enters the story and i i do like as a storytelling device they don't show you apu up to this point and if you you're probably not thinking do like as a storytelling device they don't show you up who up to this point and if you you're probably not thinking about him as a viewer on first viewing but the second you

see the quickie mark you're like oh yes this is this episode when those immigrants get deported there'll be a lot more elbow room for regular joes like you and me up whou. Mr. Simpson, it may astonish you to learn that I am an immigrant. You? I don't believe it. No, in truth, an illegal immigrant, sir. If Proposition 24 passes, I shall be forced to leave this country. Oh, I wish... Oh, I wish I could have stayed just one more year or two. There was so much I wanted to see and to do and to have done to me

oh my god i got so swept up in the scapegoating in front of proposition 24 i never stopped to think it might affect someone i cared about you know what up who i am really going to miss you. Yeah. It's a very great American lack of empathy that you see, especially with the penned or caged children things or with people getting torn away from their children or being arrested and deported. You hear, well, I feel bad, but they broke the law.

And if someone gets shot by a cop and they shouldn't have been shot, it's like, well, they should have listened. They're like, oh, they didn't play by the rules. I play by the law. And if you, someone gets shot by a cop and they shouldn't have been shot. It's like, well, they should have listened. You know, huh? It's just like, you really, they're like, Oh, they didn't play by the rules. I play by the rules.

And then just that whistling to have just his walk away. Like don't care at all. It doesn't affect me. All right, buddy. Sorry about your loss. Bye. Yeah.

It sucks to be you. And ironically, this reminds me of a story that happened recently. Uh, just after Trumpet's time happened where in like this small town in Ohio, there was the Mexican gentleman who'd been running a restaurant for 24 years. He had a wife. He had a couple of kids, everything. And like the town went all for Trump.

And then he got deported. The, you know, like head of the community, city, upstanding citizen. I was like, I didn't know Juan was the illegal. He was such a nice guy. We didn't think it would affect anybody here. And it's like, Oh, I have a huge spoiler.

That was my hometown. Oh, some people try to defend where I come from. I do not. And that's one of the many reasons why. Yes. That happened in Youngstown, Ohio.

Oh my God. That story is just like, I cannot believe the ludicrousness of this. do not and that's one of the many reasons why yes that happened in youngstown ohio oh my god that story is just like i cannot believe the ludicrousness of this well nobody yeah it's like they yeah they damaged the community because somebody broke a stupid law that didn't make any sense and didn't help anybody so yeah let's ruin the community ruin a man's life well and it's it's also there's there's another point too with ice that's what's real cruel about them is that all laws in america are like selectively enforced by the people enforcing them like technically if we were if every law was always enforced like anytime somebody broke the speed limit they'd be arrested but i mean technically i should be on

death row for stealing media digitally i should be in prison it's it's all about how you enforce it and how it can be enforced so when you say oh well i don't break the law it's like you probably do but nobody's breathing down your neck to enforce it on you and when it's selectively enforced it's it's one thing about i would definitely suggest people listen to there's several great podcasts about this on Citations Needed, one of my favorite political podcasts. But a big point they have is like, ICE says, oh, this is somebody gang affiliated. And that means nothing. They're just like, oh, did you stand in this area? Well, we call that a gang area, so we're going to call you gang affiliated and we arrest you.

We saw you wearing this color at a certain time. Oh, did you have a tattoo? We're going to call you gang affiliated Just put you away So It's just selectively enforced It's not It isn't about the law It's about who is being affected by it

And It's fucked up And Yeah the people The homers of the world Can't even have empathy for that That's why The Grapes of Wrath

Is one of my favorite books Because the entire point of the book Well not the entire point It's like It kicks ass to break bad laws some laws are bad and i wish more people would read that book it's so good so good also for apu's history as in as his immigration status in the show uh the only previous time they'd really directly talked about whether he was a legal immigrant or not though i I would say to my knowledge of, well, I guess things are a little stricter now past 2001 or after 9-11, but he was, in the India episode,

he flew to India and came back. If you do not have a valid passport or his overdue student visa right now, you would be stopped at that airport and you would not come back to America if you went to India. I don't think they were thinking that much about a poo in this backstory you also got to remember in the olden days before they had all these security checks you could literally just buy a

ticket at the airport yeah that's true and just go international and come back you could walk all the way up to the door of the plane yeah you could sneak onto planes remember people used to just be able to walk onto planes and be like whoops i'm on the wrong flight to Poughkeepsie. Ha, ha, ha. There are so many movie plots that involve a stowaway or someone getting on the wrong plane where it's like, man, you would just be assassinated in the air by an air marshal or something. It's like, how did you get into the parking lot, let alone the airplane? In the Lisa the Iconoclast episode, He says he's a semi-legal immigrant Yeah

Which means he was like legal once I mean I like that joke because he's saying like I can't have an anti-American thing up here Because I will be killed I am a semi-legal immigrant And it's just like If you flashed your student visa in 1990X

And be like here's my ID They'd be like alright stamp here you go. Here you go. Happy birthday. Bye. I mean, they were still getting paid nothing in security. I mean, they didn't care. They didn't have any reason to care. Now I could have the person who pulled me out of my mother come and they'd be like, I'm sorry, you're not American. It's like, yeah, it's, it's pretty silly. So then we come back and we get to see this.

I think this is my line of the episode, the in Mo here. Oh yeah. That's the joke. You know what really aggravates me? It's them immigrants. They want all the benefits of living in Springfield, but they ain't even bothered to learn themselves the language.

Yeah, those are exactly my sentimentals. You shut up, Mon. I think Barney's unintelligible. That's my favorite. That's my line of the show. It's an easy laugh for me just to hear. And all you see is just the back of him just like swinging his arms around. It's an easy laugh for me just to hear. And all you see is just the back of him, just like swinging his arms around.

It's great. Like you said, Bob, that is just Twitter comments now. If they don't want to, even if you learn the language, well, then you'll find another reason to say you're not really American.

So it doesn't even matter. But Homer's sentiment is, I just love the term. So exactly my sentimonies. That should, that should be up there with Cromulan sentimonies. Immigrants, immigrants,

immigrants. I believe on the commentary, they said this is a David S. Cohen episode because there's a lot of made up words in it. Yes. Yeah. Also there's a by American sign like them picketing the quickie. Marla like,

damn, that's racist, man. But the by American sign, sign like them picketing the quickie mart like damn that's racist man that but the buy american sign it reminds me of how that used to be that made in america or buy american stuff that is not an aspect of the racist hate anymore because i think americans have accepted they want to buy cheap stuff at walmart and they just can't buy american anymore yeah like even growing up in the late 80s uh there was like scandal on the block if someone had a japanese

car and some families wouldn't buy nintendo because it was a japanese thing like it was like that was not that was like 30 years ago so yeah but one of the things like by american even when they were like touting that was still kind of this weird foolhardy like pipe dream because there was no way even in the 90eties, people were like, nobody in America is making my jeans. Like who's, where's this stuff coming from? I mean, the weird things that people would be like, well, we're buying American or like, you know, flags or tchotchkes or random garbage that you're not really buying. And it was like, what does this even mean? I still need to get a refrigerator and they're not making

fridges in San Francisco. It's true. Actually, I bought a can opener somewhat recently just on Amazon. Like, okay, what's a cheap can opener? I'll buy this one. When I got it, it had like made in America, like all over it. Like they were so proud. I'm like, wow, one industry, the can opener industry. Yes, we made it. That plant employs 34 people.

I also love, I like the Eurasia, get your ass back to Eurasia. That's a funny word. That's a great one. United States to Eurasia. That's a funny word. That's a great one. United States for United Statesians. That's a good one. The only good immigrant is Rod Stewart. The only good foreigner is Rod Stewart. Because he was in the band Foreigner.

Was he in Foreigner? I think so. I don't think he was. I thought he went solo after. I don't know. Let's go to Google real quick. No, he was in the Yardbirds. Yeah, he was not in Foreigner.

Damn it. So it's not a joke about the band Foreigner. It's just that he is a British man. And they're acceptable. And they're acceptable. Okay. I can't believe people used to think he was attractive. He always kind of looked like a troll.

Yeah. A bridge troll, I mean. So in the commentary, Matt Grading wasn was the biggest fan Of the Yoo-Hoo to Ganesha Gag I mean he might have changed Recently based on his recent comments about Apu

But we brought up on the show how Matt Groening Was sort of the PC Lifeguard for the show Getting rid of potentially racist things Or ableist jokes too Or sexist or homophobic Some stuff did make it in but i mean the show might be much different and have aged much worse if mac reigning wasn't there as sort of the life

guard and can i just say that was one of the first notes that really just went sour for me ganesha come on man 10 seconds of talking to anybody will tell you it's ganesh i mean i i somehow knew that and i don't know how I knew that. Because you live in California. That is true. There are Indian people all over. He's the most popular god in Hinduism. It's just, I mean, that one's at least, that one at least should have been an easy like layup for these guys.

I think even in a previous episode, they might've said Ganesh when, uh, when they're handing out gods, you must've been taking a whiz or whatever. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. At least, you know, that is one of my favorite Apu lines ever, where there's 700 million of us. And then Lovejoy's reply is like, that's just super. That he tries to categorize them as miscellaneous. Yes, I remember that.

Yes, miscellaneous. But okay, so in three parts here, we have Apu's story of how he came to America. Make the protesters go away, and I'll give you the entire bottle. Oh, thank you, goodness, my first customers in a week. It's hard to believe someone so close to our family could be an illegal alien. Alas, it is true. I came here shortly after my graduation from Caltech,

Calcutta Technical Institute. As the top student in my graduating class of seven million, I was accepted for graduate study in the United States. All right, pause for a second.

Yeah. So can I talk about that for a minute? Yeah, go for it. Yeah, okay. So there's a couple things here that are just like great me. off his accent in this it just seems significantly worse than i remember it but maybe it's because it's been a while but graduating is just like driving me insane the way you were

saying that no indian talks like that yeah i it does sound like a little off from the normal in this yeah it didn't sound like normal Apu to me, which is weird. What does normal Apu mean? But you guys know what I mean, though. It didn't sound like what I would expect from him. But so a few things here. Calcutta Tech. Now, in India is known for a famous series of engineering schools called IIT, which is like the Indian Institute of Technology.

It's like a whole bunch of these really, really high-level Harvard-esque engineering schools called IIT, which is like the Indian Institute of Technology. It's like a whole bunch of these really, really high-level Harvard-esque engineering schools. And so that was a neat kind of throwback both to the fact that there's a famous tech school series in India and also the fact that Caltech in SoCal has a ton of Indian scientists and engineers in it. So I thought that was a neat little kind of tie-in. And I was like, I didn't know that he was from Calcutta.

He doesn't look or act or sound like he's from Bengal. I mean, there's just ways of Bengali. The language is different. That would change the way his name would be or his voice would be. But I don't expect the Simpsons to know the subtle details of Indian ethnicities. However,

the 7 million people in my graduating class was like, okay, I get it. You're making fun of how many people there are in India. But that's also super weird because in the 60s and 70s, post-independence, just as people are starting to kind of get to schools, there's still such a huge economic division in Indian society that there were not a lot of people in universities. Like India is still like 93% poor. You know, they're all farmers and living out in the sticks, even though it's like 10 billion people. The fact that he made it to university at all is kind of a big deal. The fact that he would have graduated at the top of his class and gone to America would have been a huge deal. Like his family would have gone to the train station to send him off as if he

was going like, you know, to Mars or something. No, it, it's, it's, uh,

several stereotypes in basically 10 seconds because you have an overpopulation gag. You have a snake charming gag. Basically. I, I, I'm shocked. He wasn't playing a flute to get the snake to come out of it.

Yeah, maybe Matt Groening said no flute. And then right after that, an arranged marriage gag. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot. It's one step forward, one step back. His family is living in a mud hut. His dad is basically naked except for his lungi that he's wearing and his taped glasses and an arranged child marriage gag not just an arranged marriage guy yeah but like a ah even

though you're like you know half my age i will see you at some point oh it's not very flattering to the indian people no i mean there's a seed of truth in all these things but it's also just like let's pick the worst possible like to look at this, right? Yeah. I mean, there are arranged marriages, but if that is your sole representation of an Indian person on TV, it's not the most flattering representation. Yeah. It's the combination of the two, right? Yeah.

My parents' marriage was arranged. That's fine. It was like, arranged marriage doesn't necessarily mean like, oh, you know, this eight-day-old child has now been set up to get married it's more like hey my cousin my cousin's daughter is getting married does anybody know a guy oh hey that dude's in our community and he's needs to find a wife let's introduce them to each other hey do you like each other okay great let's arrange a setup and that'll be done i think there that's what an arranged marriage is they might have like softened this joke in the manjula episode like i forget what happens but isn't he like going to marry her like at a later time

like they're going to wait or something he thought it was over manjula will come back which by the way they named manjula about after a mutual friend of some of the writers who yeah so in timeline wise and i know it's silly to put actual timeline on a cartoon but so apu goes to school in america for nine years and then he's here seven they say seven years his student visa expires so 16 years let's say she's eight that makes her 24 when she returns that would fit that would fit with how she's drawn that she i think she has played more like she's in her early 30s but 24 is believable for the manjula we'll meet later it's hard to tell with the simpsons designs what is 24 and what is 30 though yeah i mean that that the thing is

that's actually legitimate and like makes sense both in terms of aging and in terms of waiting like i don't know if you're familiar with the guy named mahatma gandhi but yeah he was also because he was born in the 1800s he was uh arranged to marry his wife at a very early age for both of them in their like childhood but the way it works is that your families will get together and be like okay well these two kids will get married at some point but it's not going to happen until adulthood. Or once the daughter goes through her puberty, once the son goes through puberty and gets a little educated, once they're old enough to actually kind of understand what they're doing, then they would get married.

I mean, they would still be kind of like 14 or 13 or something. So we're not talking like, this is great. But it's also like, I'm not marrying a four-year-old. Yeah. I mean, I read, maybe we could be looking too much into this joke, but I read the intent as Pooh was not going to marry a child, but that it was inappropriate for this child to have an older man selected to be her husband from the perspective of the writers. And that is the quote unquote joke behind that. I think they're just hammering stereotype and wanted to fit as many as they could.

Yeah. They got, they got most of them. They didn't get the two spicy food joke, but that, I'm like, where's my smelly guy? They,

they, they burps and things. That's true. They had that before and they will get a reincarnation joke later in this episode. But, but first they had to, I have to say i'm

embarrassed to say until the dvd release i did not get the joke oh springfield heights institute of technology which of course spells shit it's a shit joke it's a shit joke i got away with it david cohen is a dirty jokester and i also believe this is the first time they confirmed that his name is John Frank I enrolled at Springfield Heights Institute of Technology under the tutelage of the brilliant Professor John Frank well sure the Frankie X7 looks impressive don't touch it but I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them. Could it be used for dating? Well, theoretically, yes, but the computer matches would be so perfect as to eliminate the thrill of romantic conquest

in her own way. So when Apu gets his fake ID, I don't know if the birth date on that is correct, but it says he was born in 1962. I would say most likely he was born in the 50s to make this timeline make sense. I mean... This is a 70s computer. Yeah, yeah. And for him to invent what he had to invent... Punch cards? Yeah, totally. I mean, he

would have been in college in the 60s. So they're kind of all over the place in terms of the tech of this era, but I do like that like the writer of this uh episode apu does have a phd in computer science this is where cohen stuck in all of his science nerd his computer nerd jokes which he had to invent a whole show to put it into for futurama also that frank is pretty much farnsworth in this scene yeah yeah. Don't touch it. And this is also the invention of the word Frinkiac, which we owe so much to as just internet people who talk about Simpsons.

I can't believe Frinkiac came into being as we were doing the show. And then people kept telling us about it, and I thank them. But it's like, if anyone knows, shouldn't it be us? Of course we know. I can't imagine a world without Frankie Yak now. Yeah, it's where all of our gifts come from and all of our cover arts, how I react to every news event and every E3 announcement. It's beautiful. I remember a time early in the show where I had to make images for the show or gifts to promote this podcast and i had to make it myself i and

now frankiak they all look better there you know what i had to do i had to put in a dvd and do a screen capture because i wanted the best cleanest screen capture i put a dvd to my laptop to get a screen that's how devoted i used to be now i'm lazy and use frankiak oh and also his name being john frank that is the name of the namesake of the character they called him dr frank because the writers were friends with the writer named john frank who is now a writer on the simpsons yeah not at this point but he would be with his uh partner don payne who has now passed away but i believe don payne wrote one of the thor movies he did yes i believe the first one But this is something that really gets lost. Like, Apu has a doctorate.

He is Dr. Apu, which no one refers to him as, by the way. But also, it's like, I guess if he was not feeling like being an engineer, then fine. But he is really, he's not using his doctorate at all. To be fair, if you have a doctorate in computer science, no one calls you doctor or whatever. I guess not. He should insist on it, though. Yeah, I guess If you have a doctorate In computer science No one calls you doctor Or whatever I guess not You should insist on it though Yeah I guess Unless you're a professor

But My professors had PhDs I didn't call them Doctor so and so I'd call them Professor Who's a fuzz I guess if I

If I was If I had a fuzz I'd be I'd be making Everyone call me doctor I've got a master I want to be called Master Bob

Can we do that? Sure Sure Master Bob Thank you Oh it sounds gross I don I want to be called Master Bob. Can we do that? Sure. Sure, Master Bob. Thank you. Oh, it sounds gross. I don't like it. Oh, God. Master Bob. The thing, though, is that part of that is definitely rolling right into of some kind of means or his community got together and spurred like you know got and shared all their money and wealth to send this kid overseas to go to college in america which is not cheap i mean remember he's from a dirt farm back in india

right this is not like we're not talking he's got thousands of dollars to pay for flights and tuition. And the fact that he can get tuition at a shit institute and still get a degree and come out, that is not easy. Of course he's hyper-intelligent. That's a lot of work and a lot of money. So, yeah, he has to pay off his loans by working at a quickie mart. And the joke is that all of these people who are cab drivers and motel owners and quickie mart owners are like hyper-educated people back in the old country. Either their credentials were not accepted in America or they couldn't get a job because of either visa requirements or language requirements or just plain racism. And you see things like, oh, yeah, you read in The New Yorker some young 24- old white kid is like writing an expose of their taxi cab driver who's like Mohammed Yunus

here has three PhDs back in Lebanon but over here drives a cab on 32nd street and you're like well yeah that's because America is a fucking racist place I'm not going to hire him because his name is Mohammed you know so yeah like when he's like

oh I've got a PhDd but i work in a quickie mart i'm like you and all of my family buddy no i i gotta say that's what kind of dates apu as well in that with a quickie mart job he can pay off a student loan a phd student well this is like college in the 70s so you just needed like i, I don't know, 100 bucks to get a PhD. So here's the end of Apu's story here. Apu, why didn't you go back to India when your student visa expired? I did not feel right leaving without paying off my student loans.

So I took a job at the cookie mart. When my debts were wiped clean, I was all set to go. But by then I had made so many friends here. What you're saying is so understandable. And really, your only crime was violating U.S. law.

You are one of the good ones. You know what? I'm going to vote no on 24. Mom, you're the greatest. Can I have this licorice? Lisa is still a kid. I love that kid moment of Lisa I definitely was that too

As a kid of Well just asking for candy At the end of a grocery store trip But also saying like If you could slip in a compliment To a parent while begging for candy Now I can just buy all the candy I want I don't gotta ask anybody

You gotta grease the wheel But yeah we have that one of the good ones I do like that I like Marge's line Cause it's a very Marge is very naive. So that's her reading of what's happening. And I do enjoy her naivete.

Yeah. The term illegal immigrant, I would like to ask listeners, maybe if you don't agree with the policies that are happening with immigration right now in America, use the term undocumented immigrant is so less loaded of a term and more accurate like a person is not illegal they don't exist to be illegal like so undocumented immigrant much better term i agree i was hoping i was saying the right thing while talking about this too so or like displaced immigrant displaced individual yeah but one of

the things that got me about this episode early on they were like illegal alien illegal alien is almost an offensive term in the way it's so just like because they're so loaded that word alien yeah right like saying something illegal alien yeah it's got a legal sense to it but it's also got the connotation of like you're not even the same species it's so true yeah like these days it's taboo to even say stuff like that, which is why when I was listening, I'm like, Oh my God, it's just,

they should have called him an illegal alien. Yeah. Illegal alien. I remember hearing that all the time growing up in the eighties on TV shows and movies. And it made me think, is there going to be an alien in this thing I'm watching it? Like you're right.

It's not conjure images of a human. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Illegal alien. I forgot. I totally forgot about that term. Gross. So it is quite literally dehumanizing innocent Yeah Yeah Yeah a legal alien I forgot I totally forgot About that term Gross So it is quite literally

Dehumanizing Yeah Yeah And then we get to see Him that actually Is one of the last times They treat Kearney As somebody under

The age of 21 Because he's He's quite old Actually at least The Iconoclast Before this episode They established it He is at least 30

It's true That's quite that I don't know Loophole there, I do enjoy another made-up word, adultivity. Yes, adultivity. Also the name Charles Norwood. Charles Norwood, yeah. And I love the animation of the melting ice cream sandwiches under his armpits. It's cute. So gross.

Adultivity. That's not a great place to smuggle out ice cream sandwiches, by the way. You gotta have some sort of fanny pack. In large pockets. I don't think it was intentional, but I do kind of like the idea that Italian Americans who, generations

before, they were the hated immigrants in America, that now they, through horrible mafia stereotypes are now helping another uh immigrant who is now the hated immigrant for america you know what there's no commentary on it in the show itself but i feel like there had to be some intentionality because why else would they get joe montaigne to come come in to do like three lines of dialogue that aren't particularly super funny? But I mean, I feel like maybe they are underlining that whole mafia thing where it's like, oh, these are the people that people were racist against like 50 years ago, 60 years ago, but now they're accepted. The thing I got out of that was more like less about the commentary about them being Italians and more just like, where's Apu going to find a shady place to get an illegal?

Like, I feel like they're kind of the catch all for all the shady business in town. Oh, yeah. When they gave him his illegal passport, he just made me laugh so much. He's like, you are now from Wisconsin. They don't do a very good job of it. No, here, I'll play the clip. Here are your fraudulent documents, Mr. Nahasa Pima Pedelan, your U.S. passport, Social Security card, birth certificate, and your death certificate. Just hold on to that one in your safe deposit box.

Most humble and grateful thanks to you. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Can the courtesy. You're an American now. Remember, you were born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Your parents were Herb and Judy Nahasapima Petalon. And if you do not wish to arouse suspicion, I strongly urge you to act American. Hey there, Homer.

How's it hanging? I really, really enjoy Apu faking an American accent through, I mean, just thinking about what Hank Azaria is doing. I know if you don't like the Apu accent, I totally get it. I'm not a fan of it, too. But I enjoy him trying to hold it back to be American and not really engaging with things. It's like three stages out from like, you know, it's a white guy imitating an Indian guy imitating a bad white accent. Yeah. That's a really difficult chain.

Think about how contorted you have to get to, to get to howdy partner. Yeah. It really, like I'm always impressed by whenever I hear it, it does not sound like any other Hank Azaria character either. So like I'm always impressed with the scene, including Nymets. Yeah. Nymets. Nymets. Yeah, Nymets. Nymets. I loved it. I also, the American flags everywhere do remind me of like

just the post 9-11 flag. That was just a normal amount of flags in 2002. I also enjoyed the statement, let's have a relaxed attitude towards work. Yes. And Nymets is a baseball squadron. And of course, like, hey, you're America. We don't do courtesy.

Hand the courtesy. Looking at those flags is so interesting to me because one of the big things about my generation of the first generation born in the States, our parents' generation was super big on assimilation. Because they were like, look, man, we had it super shitty being like you know indian immigrants trying really hard to do anything and you know not getting very far we don't want you kids to have to deal with this so we're going to try to make you as white as we can and that's just been like this weird resounding kind of cultural shame that we have which is how you got like all the indians for trump type of thing and all these people, like this kind of assumed whiteness of like, we're the good immigrants. See, go team.

Yay. Well, talking about the immigrant parents, you reminded me of in the problem with the poo. Like Hari's parents did not have a huge problem with the poo because they were like, we had bigger battles to fight. We respect this battle you're fighting. But I'm sure obviously they went through a whole lot more racism than Hari is going through. And he's going through a lot. Well, it's just like, okay, so in 1955 or 56, my uncle and my, well, my grand uncle moved to America. He was the first one in our family to come.

And there was like one other family in California that was Indian from a different part of India than the one they were from. And they would drive something like six hours from the Bay Area out to like the sticks, wherever the family was to speak and just hear other people talking in Hindi because there was nobody else in like within 2000 miles of where they lived that was Indian at all. And it's just like the idea of being that desperate to hear even a semblance of your language or any kind of cultural anything is just baffling to me. Because, you know, here in California, I can throw a rock and hit 12, 15, 30 Indian people, you know, like I can go down the street and there are like six different Hindu temples dedicated to subgroups.

Back when I was growing up, there was like one one pan generic all y'all can fit in this little office building that we took over Hindu temple type of thing. And so it's like it's crazy. So I totally understand what Apu's doing in this scene where he's sitting there like oh my god I sold out my culture and my family I have abandoned what my parents have taught me and like that kind of crushing feeling he has is the most real thing I think I've seen out of a poo to date. Yeah. It's a great scene.

And he has to keep, I mean, it's very telling. They has to keep the statue of Ganesh in the back in like the storeroom, cover it up. It's just the ultimate betrayal of who he is really. Yeah. I,

I love this scene of him breaking down. Yeah. What was I thinking with that? Who needs the infinite compassion of Ganesha when I've got Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman staring at me from Entertainment Weekly with their dead eyes? Look at me! I betrayed my Indian heritage, sir! What would my parents think of me now?

Make us proud, son. Never forget who you are. Don't make the same mistake I did. Oh, forgive me, mother. Father, I failed you. Who am I kidding? I am no citizen. This passport is a cheap forgery.

A cheap $2,000 forgery. He just tears it up. That's pretty cheap for a fake passport and all that stuff. He got a good deal. 22 years ago. Wow. I mean, it's also not the best quality that's true when i was taking notes about this episode i literally wrote down on my paper father

i failed you that was such a huge and like you know meaningful line to me just because of the immigrant experience in this country of like assimilating and of like the biculturalism of we've immigrated to a country we can't really go back either because of finances or because of you know visa issues or any number of reasons that like i need to be in this country for x number of years or they'll take my green card away you know all of these kind of things that cut you off from your roots right and like you hear the stories about like irish people too are like yeah they got on the steamer in 1912 and never looked back or wrote a letter back to County Cork or whatever. It's just this kind of this weird disconnected diaspora feeling that you get

of you're like, all I have left is this accent, these clothes, and my statues of my God. And I have to hide them to pretend to be an American so that you guys won't send me to somewhere. I don't know where with nothing. And it's just like, it's crushing. It's kind of one of those things where you're as an immigrant, you're like, well, how much do I need to give up to be an American? What does that mean? Yeah, it's a great scene. And it's great to see. I mean, it's not great to see a Pooh breakdown, but it's like, he is too, he cannot live with the lie he cannot even fake it it just it's too damaging to him it's it's a level of emotion uh that a poo isn't allowed to have normally even in even in the apu focused episode of like who

needs the quickie mart in in that it's more cartoonish his breakdown it's a funny scene of him howling at the moon basically but it's not particularly human i would say yeah and a big part of a poos character that is part of the stereotype is that he's very subservient and that he's very like cheerful all the time like in a very i mean being someone who helps customers a lot but that's this one role but it's you get to see him do a lot more in this episode he doesn't become homer's manservant yeah i mean he still calls him sir yeah you know like being really polite you know politeness and yeah and culture i also do like that uh vacuousness is shown in the face of tom cruise and paul kidman which they're dead dead eyes it feels like an undercut

like a they're not calling him gay and in a fake marriage, but they're not not saying that either. They were kind of the phoniest celebrity couple of that vintage. I loved when they got divorced, one of my favorite jokes about it was on the Daily Show, Craig Kilbourne's Daily Show,

they said that their children had been returned to the prop services in Paramount. But they're adopted children. But yeah, then Homer, this is also funny plotting in that Act I and Act II basically end the same way, but they're just each side of the coin of what Homer's reactions could be. Yeah. And this is Homer finally changing his mind.

I want to stay, but as the real me, not as some Yahoo from Green Bay. Amen, brother. Wow. You must love this country more than I love a cold beer on a hot Christmas morning. Turn it up, Hoo.

I'm not gonna let them kick you out. I never should have bought this button. Can I have my three dollars back? Store credit only. So you could consider that a selling out of a Pooh's character, but I think it's part of his character in that he learned that in America you have to be a ruthless capitalist. In fact, a lot of the jokes are of a Pooh ripping people off at the quickie mart. So that's just part of what he learned from coming to America and starting a business. And he can think and feel and charge whatever he wants. That's right.

To be fair, if I may divert once again, one of the things about Indian immigrant culture that was in the 60s and 70s is that the groups that managed to come over, aside from the educated people people, the engineers and stuff, they were also the merchants and the businessmen. So you saw a lot of Gujarati people and Punjabi people, especially making those first trips out here. And Gujarati people are like my people. They tend to be a lot of motel owners, business owners, stuff like that. The Punjabis tend to be like the Sikhs. They're a lot of farmers, truck drivers, but they're also business owners. And the thing is, these two communities in India are stereotyped as being ruthless capitalists, effectively.

Like hardcore businessmen, lots of bargaining, lots of like, we're going to take milk from a stone type of people. So that kind of fit the Indian immigrant lifestyle. Like, yeah, buddy, I know you're trying to be sympathetic, but I'm also not going to cut you a break, even though I'm crying over here. You still have to pay me. If yes on 24 buttons for selling, Apu is going to sell you one. Amen.

So I love that the next act opens with Homer bringing home Apu. Marge's assumption is so hilarious here. Hey, Marge, look who I brought home. Oh, Homer, are you rounding up immigrants? Hey, Marge, look who I brought home. Oh, Homer. Are you rounding up immigrants? No, Marge. Apu convinced me that Proposition 24 is a big mistake.

All right, now you've got all the Simpsons behind you, Apu. That's nice, although three of you are below voting age. And I'm not registered. I do appreciate your concern, really, but it is hopeless the latest poll shows a whooping 85 support for proposition 24 this is when they come to the idea of like getting him to married for citizenship which uh i don't know how it works in 96 but it takes a long time

it is not like oh i'm married i guess i'm a citizen now no i not how it goes i like how quickly this deflates because that was a common sitcom and movie like cheap plot like let's get you married exactly so you think it's going to go in that direction but selma's just like no i'm shutting this down rather drink poison she says i'd rather drink poison wow actually and uh this is i find this really convenient when I saw that section. When I was in college, I actually wrote my graduating thesis on marriage fraud in the Indian community and immigration. So this is a topic that I actually know quite a lot about. It actually is a big, huge problem in the Indian community community like my own cousin got married to this girl that he

found in india they you know they went back home for the first time in 40 years or whatever his mother went back home and they were like holy crap there's cars here what happened to the village we came from it's like well time didn't stop an india lady but they found a girl and they were like going to get them married so they brought her to america they got married they had the big wedding and everything she stayed for like six eight months or something long enough for her papers to clear as a white a woman married to an american citizen to get her green card permanent residency and then she took off and disappeared moved to tennessee with her old boyfriend that who'd moved here earlier and then they went off and started a life together with her now

irrevocable, naturalized citizenship. Huh. Wow. It is a huge problem. It happens all the time with these scammers back home in India. And I say back home metaphorically because I was born here but you see this a lot where people realize, well, all these guys who

went to America in the 60s and 70s like Apu did, got bloody rich. They came home and built giant towers back home in India for their parents. These people have a crap ton of money. Let's go find one, get married to them, move to the good country,

take their money and come back. That's amazing. It is insane. Again, this is context we could not have provided for any of this. Thank you so much. Though also I like when they call Selma

that when she reads off all her names, at some point marrying troy mcclure she did marry lionel hutz i wish we could have seen that off screen so she was married to both characters voiced by phil harman it's probably like that whatever the britney spears 72 hour wedding she had yeah i think so though i'm surprised she didn't marry mig Miguel Sanchez. Yeah, yes, Miguel Sanchez. I'm surprised she didn't marry him. But anyway, they find a real fix. Oh, poor Appu. Hey, the government don't control the sky.

What if you lived in a balloon? That's it! Did you hear that, Mom? She's as dumb as me. Oh, not what he said, what he is. Grandfather, as in Grandfather Claus. Apu, how long ago did your visa expire? Seven years, but I don't...

There was an amnesty declared for people who've been here as long as you. That means you can take the citizenship test. But Apu, the vote on Proposition 24 is on Tuesday. You'll have to pass the test before then. Oh no, that is not nearly enough time to learn over 200 years of American history. Oh, it can't be that many. Come on, Apu. I'll be your tutor.

On the commentary, they kind of mock themselves like, boy, we gave ourselves an easy out here, didn't we? Listen, it's a very complicated issue yes so they just have to say like well fortunately in springfield they created amnesty for somebody who's been there i guess seven years and so you can apply for citizenship which honestly that's a very pro-immigrant stance for you wouldn't find that in many states in america and i mean i would not expect the show to be this Leftist even now but watching it again

After all of these things have happened In recent memory I was thinking you know It'd be great if the show question like What is citizenship like why is there's A why what is this process why is it Why is it made so difficult like these Are things the show is not addressing Like they would have made it very hard

For a poo to apply for citizenship they Would have made it very hard for Apu to apply for citizenship. They would have made it a very expensive form to apply for citizenship. Instead, it's just like, it's a free class, and you get to sit down and have your own exam. I would say a lot of people who, they make assumptions, they maybe don't know that it's thousands of dollars just to apply. Just to apply. They might reject it. Like, that really makes me angry the people who assume that like oh they're just giving out green cards to everybody it's like no they really aren't it's

a pain in the ass i mean you have to live here for a certain amount of time you can't have left for a certain amount of time you know i mean in the 80s and 90s it wasn't as hard as it is now obviously post 9-11 has become significantly harder. Because I remember both of my grandparents getting American citizenships so that they could get Social Security or whatever it was, because they'd lived here for so long. And my grandmother didn't speak English, but she took the test in Hindi and was able to become a citizen. And I remember studying and teaching her like, this is how many stripes are on a flag or whatever. And it was really weird and kind of confusing. But it's amazing how much we who are born here take for granted how easy it is for us to become citizenships.

When you see the citizenship tests are so ridiculously complicated and all of the hoops and stuff you have to jump through are just if you don't speak English natively, it is really, really hard. And if you do speak English english natively it is really really hard and if you do speak english natively it's still really hard hey this scene is almost a little too long it's just a little homer side quest here but yeah i i do like the idea of like homer is as american as it comes and he knows nothing about the history compared to apu who knows so much more like this dipshit like this dipshit woke up and he was American, but Apu has to go through the struggle to become American. And he already knows way more than Homer ever would. Yes, I especially love this gag here with the flag. Please identify this object. It appears to be the flag which disappeared from the public library last year.

Now, we all know the 13 stripes are for good luck, but why does the American flag have precisely 47 stars? Because this particular flag is ridiculously out of date. The library must have purchased it during the brief period in 1912 after New Mexico became a state, but before Arizona did. Partial credit. That's some good flag knowledge from a boo. It seriously was. It was only six weeks. It was from January 6th to February 14th.

They should not have printed flags then. I would think they probably didn't. I don't know. I wouldn't think flag production is that fast in 1912. In 1912, they were making them by hand. Someone probably sewed it together for the welcoming to new mexico into the country's you know ceremony yeah before they did the welcome to arizona or whatever so yeah you would think of even in

government buildings they they in governmental groups they would know like and we're getting pretty close to arizona's statehood maybe we don't make this 47 star flag we'll never have another state because 50 so perfect yeah no one wants to have 51 sorry puerto rico for many reasons i'm very sorry yeah i'm so sorry but the thing is though in the immigrant community the stereotype of like us having to know this country inside and out, while American people are like, you know, ever since Jesus founded America 2,000 years ago. He wrote the Constitution. Come on.

His name is on the country right there. Jesus States of America. But it's kind of one of those stereotypes of, oh, what do you call somebody who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call somebody who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call somebody who speaks two languages? Bilingual. And what do you call somebody who speaks one language?

American. Yeah. Our educations do not serve us well. They're like, let's teach you another language at the same time your language center of your brain shuts off. Right. So, good idea, public education system. Oh, well, then we get a quick Where's Springfield gag which

I do like it though it Says that it's it's at least on the East half of America It's a nice screw you to the audience yeah Bart like appears immediately Based on wherever Lisa's Hand could go it still has to be on The left side you can't

Springfield is not on the west coast we know that there is no answer no i know there is no uh mike reese and his book tries to answer it too and he's like there isn't one but uh uh and then we had a couple of really fun wiggum scenes uh first him falling through the uh the pier was pretty funny yeah and the uh and the uh reading the poem on the statue of liberty but using that as a way to round up immigrants yes yeah i don't know if you have the clip of that but i remember that was like something that happened recently where uh so in our modern times this battle is still happening over immigration and someone brought up at like a press conference i know the one yeah and they're like, isn't this on the fucking Statue of Liberty?

And some great grubbing asshole had to be like, that's a poem. It's not legislation. So fuck you. No, that was the skull-faced asshole, Stephen Miller, that said that. It was, I believe it was Jim Acosta of the CNN asked him like, hey, it says this on the Statue of Liberty. He's like, did you know that that was added at this point so i'm not really sure what that has to do with you telling me that cnn doesn't know what's on the statue it's like eat shit you fucking monster can you die in a cancer fire fucking ghoul like go to hell like uh we don't wish death on everybody

but stephen miller i think we'll take an exception. Yeah. And not the Steve Miller from the Steve Miller band. He was great. But I also do like, this is the first time ever I caught on the newspaper gag that the, the bear control steps up. It's Bobby. They're still wasting all of that money on the bear patrol for all this.

While they should be. So they're also, yeah, all these times they've been saying like these immigrants are taking up all our money you're doing all this stuff they they are spending so much money on bear control i mean speaking of like modern times i think they're using the bear patrol as a reason to militarize the police yeah yeah they're not just using those stealth bombers on bears guys uh so also apu just knocks out can't he forgets everything that homer taught him which is pretty

funny it's perfect uh yeah and that i he slept so hard that i love that he just wakes up and like bart's eating breakfast in front of him that's how deeply he's sleeping but uh this there aren't really any good quotes here but just i had to get it because the springfield protesters it's just so scary seeing like, again, Ned Flanders is in the front line. He shouldn't be there. I agree with that. Yeah, he wouldn't be there, but I kind of like this sound here and just the visual of Lisa escorting Apu into his test in front of all his protesters is, I think, kind of a powerful image. Wow, Skinner's pretty savage in the background there. Yeah, I know, right?

Immigrants go home. I heard Barney say something about jobs. I think I heard jobs. About taking jobs. Actually, there is a cut scene. We're going to do a cut scene episode, as we do for the past three seasons. But there is a cut scene showing that at the nuclear plant the the immigrants there do all of the worst jobs like literally handling the toxic waste uh that's where they bring in zootroi yeah and the new character

fong i believe but zootroi does come back and uh so yeah then we cut to the test and that's where bumblebee man makes his appearance in this episode as are they actually have like kind of almost every stripe of foreigner including like a like a beef eater type british man and uh mo or momar or morris it's true this fits with the momar mo i guess him being secretly an immigrant and having to wear a cartoonish mustache while taking it. Well, in Bart's inner child, his inner child is asking him why he doesn't use his Italian accent anymore. Oh, yeah, he doesn't use his Italian accent anymore. I guess he's under the amnesty as well, I suppose.

But we get to the end of Apu's test, which is another great scene back to the, under what we take as the acceptable level of knowledge of American history for most people. All right, here's your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War? Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between abolitionists and anti-abolitionists,

economic factors, both domestic and international, played a significant role. Just say slavery. Slavery it is, sir. Yes, I am a citizen. Now, which way to the welfare office? What? I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

I work. I work. So, the just say slavery thing is something that happened to David S. Cohen's friend. She was a history major at Harvard taking the same exact test with the same exact question, and she got just say slavery. Yeah. Because the guy was just like, I don't want to hear this it's all formality i really like the crosstalk and he's like hey hey yeah just say so i and i do like the quote slavery it is sir slavery it is whatever it

takes to get your stamp just give it to me and i'll be on my way yeah and it's a funny gag apu says which way to the welfare office though it goes on a stereotype I'm not a fan of, of just like all these moochers sucking off Uncle Sam for the welfare money. Which, by the way, folks, welfare no longer, there is no system called welfare anymore. So if you ever people complain about welfare, it doesn't exist. There's no such thing. Yep. This also then came at the time Where like Bill Clinton Was really talking hard About welfare reform

And what an awesome guy And the amount of strikes You can have Yeah Up to three What a cool guy So then we get to the Apu's celebration

He is officially an American And we get that Cute Indian American American Indian exchange Yeah Native American And which The term indigenous people

Now exists which would kind of kill this gag honestly but uh it's it's cute and then we get homer's big speech which i really do love there's something to me bart laughing and homer's dad joke yeah cute to me and the fact that he's the only one laughing is also very cute so great hi everyone if i could just say a few words i'd be a better public speaker not that you're all relaxed most of us here were born in america we take this country for granted but not immigrants like apu while the rest of us are drinking ourselves stupid they're driving the cabs that get us home safely.

They're writing the operas that entertain us every day. They're training our tigers and kicking our extra points. These people are the glue that holds together the gears of our society. If we pass Proposition 24, we'll be losing some of the truest Americans of all. When you go to the polls tomorrow, please vote no on Proposition 24. No on 24. And it's yes on 24. Well, so all this proposition talk,

it does, it feels so Californian to me too. I mean, I voted on specific propositions or articles in Florida as well, but it's vote no on prop, whatever vote yes on prop, whatever I, I, I guess it does help to the,

the first election I really voted in, in, in, in California was the prop eight. Oh, right. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Boy, that sucked. That was, I was, it was, it was a real damper on the Obama winning evening to see Prop 8 pass. But fortunately, that's all in the past now.

But the, the Homer speech, it's a great speech. But it also, I feel like unexceptionable immigrants should also be given humanity. You don't have to just be an opera writer or a field goal. Or a PhD, a cab driving PhD. Yeah. Humanity it's you don't have to just be An opera writer or A field goal PhD A cab driving PhD yeah Yeah I mean we're talking about the Podcast citations needed they did a Great episode about perseverance porn where

It's just like this person worked Until they almost died so they get a chance You have to like almost Kill yourself with the struggle In order to be considered worthy of a chance This guy walked 20 miles Every day to do a shitty job. You shouldn't complain. It's like, why didn't he have a fucking bus?

Yeah, there should be more bus lines. It just like listening to that, though, was such a like the heart of that speech was a good idea. It was a very heartwarming speech or whatever. But then it's also just the most condescending frigging speech. Yeah. He's like, while we're getting drunk and living leisurely lives, these guys are driving us home diligently because they don't drink. I'm like, what?

Dude, really? It is really Homer's limited point of view. Yeah, I know. But it's also just kind of like, well, wait, what do you think immigrants do? Do they not get to go out and have fun they exist to serve us yeah yeah right like oh it's like we should be grateful that they're here to do our manual labor like really really then we get uh we get the no on 24 uh chanting and the voting shots and i i like all the different ways you can vote in there.

And the animators added that toilet one. And the writers were like, they accepted it. Like, that's funny. I like that the room with two toilets flushed one of them. Yes. But then we have a very real. Yeah. It's a landslide.

Yes, on 24. The proposition passed with a record 95%. When are people going to learn? Democracy doesn't work. Please don't knock the land that I love. Jury duty. Oh, today I am truly an American citizen Just think, haven't everything worked out for the people we care about?

Ingrates Willie comes back, don't worry No one cares about Willie, that's the joke It's sad sad but also it they could only do this joke with one of their white immigrants it's it's just too mean if that was bumblebee man it's it just would have been too cruel so instead willie gets picked on all the time it's there's all honestly not a lot of scottish stereotypes so it's true a it's a real gut punch in first viewing when you see like you're just led up to like all right homer

changed everyone's minds like and it's a landslide 95 which like you you don't get that in voting a landslide is 70 yeah i believe the proposition 187 on the undercover immigrant, it passed for like 62%. That's pretty good. Yeah, yeah. But again, it was immediately like not put into practice. But, oh man. I don't know, man. It was definitely a good commentary on just what's the word I'm looking for?

A lot of people just posing, but not actually, um, you know, go following through. Like once the voting booth clues, once the voting booth is closed, it's private and you can still be as racist as you want. Yeah, that's true. And it's just like the leave campaign where like, we figured everybody else would vote no. So we voted yes. Or we know, whatever their yes or no version was. Yeah. We're just like, you know, we're just standing here and we're going to like sit here and they say virtue signaling,

virtue signal. Yeah. It's like virtue signaling. You're all just going to, we're going to vote. No. Yeah. Pass with 95%.

Yes. Uh huh. Because we know that you're all racist on the inside. Yeah. It's a very realistic ending and it is a gut punch, uh, you know, worthy of a Simpsons joke.

Yeah, and I also ignored jury duty, just like Apu. We're very similar in that way. And the continuity error, if I may. Apu did serve on a jury already in the Freddie Quimby trial in The Boy Who Knew Too Much Season 5. So, got that one wrong there simpsons guys how dare they and also please anyone out there listeners when he froze that trash over his shoulder and it lands in the trash can i swear that is an insert shot from a previous trash can scene in an episode before this one it wouldn't be from an episode after this one.

I'm talking about before this one where he throws a pink piece of paper in the trash can. I could not find it. I will tell you what it's not. It's not throwing in the trash can from them throwing out Homer's college thing. Homer goes to college. It's not them throwing out Bart and Lisaisa's script in the front where is it

from folks like please it is my hurting me my theory is henry had a minor stroke no i swear i've seen it before they took it from an older episode uh but no i i put it on i put the question on twitter but nobody found it uh had had a suggestion at the time in this recording but so please if you know save me save my sanity henry needs to heal uh but final thoughts uh shivam you're our special guest like what was your ultimate feelings about this episode you've never seen it before and you have you have some interesting and complicated feelings about a poo like what did you think about it in the end i thought it was a really nuanced take on a very complicated topic that i was not expecting.

And I mean, it was really interesting to see this guy, because I remember living through 187. I remember being here in California when all the immigrant rig then was there. And obviously, right now, I remember I'm living through the fact that suddenly I'm the target of this, right? So it's been really interesting to kind of contextualize this both in then and now forms. And, I mean, ultimately I'm still really, really disappointed with Apu. It really just saddens me that this character could have become so much and meant so much to us who had nothing except this guy.

And they could have gone places with it, and they didn't. And it's just like, oh, man, you're just going for the low-hanging fruit everywhere. And even in this message, even in this message episode, they still just undercut it at the end being like, well, they're still always going to be second-class cab-driving citizens. But, yay! I mean, The Simpsons can never be too helpful, but I totally agree with you that I feel like it was a mistake for them to throw away what they built in this uh in this episode

and like later showrunners would not acknowledge changes made by former showrunners so I feel like maybe the Mike Scully era they could have done more with the poo uh with this taking off from what they did with them here but I feel like this is a very honest and genuine attempt to salvage a stereotype while still indulging in stereotypes And for 1996 it is hella progressive to have an entire story about Apu That is not just a joke about him being from another country As we saw with Homer and Apu Which is mostly jokes about he's foreign and he's weird

Yeah, this one is sadly timely now And I do think there's still This episode hasn't aged at all and that's sad i'd say 22 years ago it was pretty different to feel something for an immigrant like have a show that's about empathizing with the other in this case uh so i i like it in that sense i kind of wish it was even more like full-throatedly uh pro-immigrant and pro-undocumented immigrant but it's it's it is strong enough and i like lisa is just over most of all the voice of reason i think it's great that they gave her that they let her say yeah all americans are immigrants

if you think about it apu like that's that is an important Message to remember like we're all Immigrants so shut the fuck up At least it doesn't say that part but A little more polite yeah And I I hope I don't know I Hope this political message Still I hope more people listen Than the did in Springfield on No on 24 yeah me too

So Shivam where can we Find you what do you do you've got another podcast you want To talk about let Let us know. Yeah, sure. First off, thank you so much for inviting me on. I was thrilled to be able to talk about one of my favorite topics, Indian culture and Apu. Oh, thank you.

You were great. Your listeners can find me on Twitter at ElectroTal, E-L-E-K-T-R-O-T-A-L. And if they actually play the game Magic the Gathering and want to hear me talk about that every Wednesday my podcast is called Commanderin and you can find that at at CommanderinMTG on Twitter and anywhere that social is sold

but once again thank you so much and I'm happy to talk about what it's like to be me Awesome, thank you, we'll have you back and also I should tell our listeners you were on a recent, as of this recording, Retronauts about the Suikoden series. Oh yeah,

that was so much fun. I barely got to talk, but that was okay because you and Shane really just knew everything there would ever be to know about that series. So yes, amazing job there. Well, I mean,

you bring me on to talk about my favorite game of all time. That's what's going to happen. You, you brought it, but thanks again, Shivam. Thank you. Thank you so much. So thanks again to Shivam for joining us. That was great. I was glad's going to happen. You brought it. But thanks again, Shivam. Thank you. Thank you so much. So thanks again

to Shivam for joining us. That was great. I was glad we got to hear about his authentic experience. You've heard a lot of our loud white guy opinions, so it was good to hear from someone else about Apu. But thanks for joining us, folks. If you want to know how the show is supported, it's all supported through Patreon. Go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. We have

so much stuff to offer you, but I'll tell you right now we have like mini series we can get you can get the show a week ahead of time and ad free i'll tell you what we have to offer you we have so much going on at the patreon if you go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons you can get a week ahead of time and ad free every episode of this show and also all kinds of bonus podcasts over 100 at this point henry what's the most recent cool stuff we've done uh well i would definitely send people to our interviews with our two most recent ones with Mike Reese, who just wrote a whole book on The Simpsons, and Nell Scovel, who wrote the

Blowfish episode of The Simpsons and wrote for a ton of other shows. They both have a ton of Hollywood comedy writer legends in there. I just really enjoy both of those books. And their interviews, I think, turned out really great. Yeah, so we have a ton, a ton of stuff happening at the the patreon just go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to check it out i think you'll enjoy it if you enjoy hearing us talk for two and a half hours about one tv episode as for me you can find me on twitter as bob servo my other podcast is retronauts every monday go to retronauts.com or look for retronauts in your podcast machine uh we've been

going on since 2006. We have so many topics to cover. Listen to our Suikoden episode with Shibbam if you want. If you don't know about Suikoden, find any other topic we've done. We've done like 400 episodes, maybe 500. I don't know. I can't count. Definitely a few Simpsons ones in there.

Yeah, yeah. We've done things like the Simpsons arcade game, Bart vs. the Space Mutants, Bart's Nightmare. Virtual Bart. Virtual Bart. Oh my God, we've done so many bad Simpsons games. But, yes, those are all painful memories that I turn into fun podcasts. Check it out. Retronauts.com.

Henry, how about you? And I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. And you can check me out on Twitter. If you follow me there, you'll see when new episodes of this podcast and bonuses go up on the Patreon, as well as when we post new episodes of our sister podcast, What a Cartoon, where we go through a different animated series in the Simpsons style. You should listen to our recent episodes

about Freakazoid and Fooly Cooly. Oh yeah, both amazing. So thanks for joining us, folks. We'll see you next week for Homerpalooza. Wow. Infotainment.