Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Episode Date: January 27, 2016

It’s only the second season and Homer has found a long lost brother? Danny DeVito makes his first appearance on the show, and we take a trip to Detroit in this week’s podcast…

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And if you sign up through geekfuel.com slash lasertime, you will get an exclusive Star Wars item worth $20 added to your first box. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where white meets bread. I am your host, Bob Mackie, and I think we have the whitest names on record in this room right now. Come on, I got an ethnic name. Talk about first names. Oh, Chris. There you go. That's pretty gross.

Chris Antista of The Late Reception Show. Hi. And I am Anglo-Saxon's own Henry Ober. The most ethnically diverse I am is I have Scottish grandparents. I am one one millionth Cherokee. See, not really So today's episode is about Oh Brother Where Art Thou That aired on February 21st, 1991

Before we tell you what this episode is about Chris, can you tell us what happened on this mythical date in history? You bet I can, Bobby Oh my god Oh boy, you better believe it This day in Simpsons history After months of debate The New York Board of Education

Begins a controversial act of handing out condoms in schools. King Ralph triumphs at the box office. And in the wake of the Milli Vanilli controversy, MTV marks all videos featuring lip syncing with a notation of visualization. Wow. I feel like it was just yesterday we were talking about Milli Vanilli's success.

Well, you're very quickly going through 1991 in almost half the time. Wow, that's amazing. And it seems like one of those stupid things that you would ethically demand and realize in hindsight, it doesn't matter at all. Kind of like which platform you're playing a game on during a video game review. Exactly. Well, meanwhile, giving kids condoms today will still get you in trouble with the police.

Am I right, guys? They should be getting pregnant and learning lessons. That's my theory. Well, as I found out, you need to be authorized to do so. It's not enough just to hand kids condoms. Lots of implications. I read this expose about how unprotected sex is also leading to a lot of child brides in America because kids get pregnant at 15 and then the parents just force them to get married.

They're child brides to other children because the other kid is... That's why abstinence is the only way. And which reminds me i uh it reminds me of a certain meeting he certainly broke up that meeting right now i'm thinking about holding another meeting in bed oh mcbain i do love a good mcbain intro the great thing is okay that's the second mcbain we've seen i think it was the first one they wrote the funny thing is that song you hear which is a very james bondy song there's an entire version of that on songs in the key of springfield it's a really full song but maybe we'll close out the show with it oh we should

what okay but what episode is this oh this is oh brother we're out though and what okay this episode is about homer meaning his long lost brother her powell and what i think this episode does well is that it dusts off the cheesiest, most awful sitcom plot, like a long-lost cousin, brother, whatever, and gives it humanity, makes it interesting. And gives it a reason to never show him again. Exactly. There are some issues with this episode, logically, but in

the commentary they say, we wrote this over a weekend. So please excuse any problems with the logic. And they even bring it up, oh yeah, we wrote that over the weekend. Please, don't be mean to us. So, Chris, on on a previous episode we had the argument of if these mcbain things are all from the same movie but the senator mendoza he kills at the in this shot which is the end of the film is the same design for mendoza that you see later who captures them i just don't i don't believe they did it on purpose because they're all horseshit cliches that come

from action movies you see it out of order though like uh it on purpose because they're all horseshit cliches that come from action movies. You see it out of order, though. Yeah. Like, chronologically. They're just parroting current movies. But they made sure it was always about Senator McGill. Yeah, and Itchy always fights Scratchy. So, like,

I don't think it's anything they're setting up to be brilliant. I think it works, but... It does work. I think it does work if you want it to. Yeah, it could be a coincidence. So you see that movie

and you zoom out to see Jasper and Abe are watching it and they paid $2.50 for it. I think it's senior prices in 91. Or like early matinee, early bird matinees. So my grandparents would go to movies. So what happens in, they're just setting up what happens to Abe next. He's complaining to just a teenager.

Should have been a squeaky voice teen. Is it like Harry Shearer or something like that? I think it was Azaria. Yeah, yeah. So he's complaining about the quality of the movie, things that the teenager cannot possibly do, and the guy's like, what are you going to do? The old man has a heart attack,

and that's when he does have a heart attack. So we immediately cut to the Simpsons family, I believe, right? We do, saying an awesome grace. Dad! Bart ate a green bean during the blessing. How do you know unless you open your eyes during the blessing? Eating is worse than opening eyes. It is not.

It's two. It's not. It's two. It's not. It's two. Quiet, you kids! If I hear one more word, Bart doesn't get to watch cartoons and Lisa doesn't get to go to college. Dad!

Not one word. Love it. And also... One of their pantomime things. I said that in a previous episode, I was on the dying end of spanking in schools and prayer at the dinner table. Yeah. Because most of my family still did that. And so my sister and I did the exact same thing.

See who could screw up the subtlest during the grace. There were definitely moments in this episode that were very familiar to me. And I thought very well observed. I thought it was very cute that they sign afterwards. Just because this is fun for both of them. Yeah. It's fun to mess up Grace. I was going to say, this was absolutely not the first appearance of Jasper.

He was in multiple season one episodes. But I think this is the first time Abe and Jasper were hanging out. And they became basically a buddy. They were a pair most of the time. So is it this time Homer gets a phone call? I don't know how they get to the hospital. I totally forget. It's only in my stupid notes that Marge gets up to go to the kitchen for no reason.

And then is standing next to the phone when it rings once to pick it up. Again, written in Weekend, right? I believe someone forgot to put in the phone ringing sound effect. And she just gets it. And yeah, it's one of those. It was a cute little gag of Homer. It's the hospital. What?

Yellow? Yeah, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but I did have a family dinner as a kid interrupted by a phone call with horrible news. Oh, really? What was it? Well, if you must know. Thanks for asking, Chris. No, it was that

we were all playing Monopoly together, and then we get a phone call, and my mom picks it up, and she's... The president has AIDS. She then bursts into tears to find out that her brother who she hadn't seen in a decade had died yeah but it was yeah that's what we needed uh morning shock jockeying you're welcome so uh the simpsons or at least homer goes to see grandpa simpson and grandpa decides to tell him this this world shattering news because he might die yes and that is uh homer has a-brother that Homer had never known about before.

And we find out how the brother was conceived. It really sheds light on Abe Simpson. Like, slowly we're getting a feel for what a sleazy piece of shit he is. And here's a film about Homer. That heart attack made me realize that I'm going to die someday. Oh, Dad, you and your imagination. There's something I think you should know. Homer, you have a half-brother. A half-brother?

Uh-huh. Ah, sitcom hackery. Yeah. So you see Hibbert right before. There's actually some surprising firsts in this episode. You see Hibbert in there, and Hibbert does the laugh, and it is the first Hibbert laugh. He doesn't laugh like that in his firsts in this episode. You see Hibbert in there and Hibbert does the laugh and it is the first Hibbert laugh. He doesn't laugh like

that in his first appearance in the Daredevil. It is an appropriate laugh. He goes, Grandpa Simpson, you'll bury us all and he laughs. But his description of his first fling is so great. I have a better line of the show later on. When he's describing Herb's mother.

Jaded things your mother would never do like have sex for money so he is at a local carnival looking for sex workers to fuck that is what abe simpson is doing cheating on his wife he is like i'm gonna go find a woman he met her a year later yes they do say that say that. So he could have been cheating on somebody. Oh, okay. If my dad ever says something to describe a tryst, it's like he cheated things your mother would never do. Like, I don't want to hear any of this.

I kind of do. What didn't they do back then? It's got to be blowjob. Well, the way she says you want to dunk the clown, and then she kisses the baseball, it seems to imply a lot of a lot of genitals to mouth yeah i didn't get that at all yeah i'm sorry i thought he was like mary timona at this point but even so it's still sleazy and that's like the least sexy innuendo of all time but i didn't know

it was innuendo until i was an adult i still didn't pick up on and speaking of first again homer's mother flashback ends with the first appearance ever of Homer's mother. We'd see her in one more flashback, and then we'd see her in season seven. It's going close. And one more time, I believe. This time she was not called. Actually, she's made like five more appearances. She came back again, and then she died in another episode, and then she came back in a dream in a flashback.

But anyway, this is her first ever appearance. But back then then they didn't even know what her name was yeah she's not given a name they picked mona in the season seven episode i remember because i think i've brought this up multiple times on here but the simpsons family album has the family tree and in that i believe her name was mindy's okay mandy it's it's one of her fake ids money not mona mayins. Not Money Mae Suggins. Money Mae Suggins. A different one.

But yeah, they obviously had no plan on the genealogy. Yeah, but they still get to hear Homer's mom for the first time. I want Homer to grow up respecting his father. He must never know about that carnival incident. Okay. Promise you won't tell him. I promise. Forget what I just told you. This is my line of the show. It's not. I won't tell him. I promise. Forget what I just told you.

This is my line of the show. It's not. I don't have it. Oh, where he says, oh, that must mean you really love me. You kept me. You kept me. That must mean you really love me. Interesting theory.

Yeah, I like that. I caught that. Abe's pretty heartless in this episode. Abe is awful. I just feel like they completed this puzzle that is Abe Simpson with this episode. Yeah. But awful in a way

a lot of parents who were born in the 40s were. Oh, for sure, yeah. It was like the greatest generation sleazing it up. Okay, so all Homer knows is... Did you get the bastard song?

Oh, yeah, I absolutely did. Okay, so last episode we had hell. This episode we have the bastard song. Yeah, and this is me falling in love with the Simpsons basically in the form of a clip.

A long lost half-brother. How Dickensian. So, any idea where this bastard lives? Bird! Whose parents aren't married are they? It's a correct word isn't it? I guess he's got his dare. Bastard, bastard. Bastard, bastard. Bird!

Bastard, bastard. Bastard, bastard. I love the bastard song. Why is that on the CD? The hell in bastard words I'd heard sparingly on television. And just the character who was my age just screaming them over and over again. This is the perfect show for me. At least it is immediately poking holes in cliche of this.

Say, how Dickensian? Like, duh, this has been in a million stories before. It's also like, do you know how often Uncle Herb came? I know he came back again. I can tell you exactly how many times. One more time in a 2013 episode for a one-off joke. Really? So this episode, I didn't write down the name of it,

but Homer and Marge are worried about their mortality, and they don't have an official guardian for Bart and Lisa and Maggie, so they have to arrange one. They make a phone call to Herb to see if he would. You don't see him on screen, but it is danny devito's voice who says actually i'm poor again and then homer hangs up on him that's it screw you like it's them just fucking with the audience like yeah we do remember herb exists but fuck it and that's his only other appearance after the next one well just in terms of people they can get on the show

like albert brooks comes back quite a bit i went to a q a uh featuring broadcast news and james l brooks and the q a is hosted by danny devito who doesn't come down for sketch fest ever and they're hanging out they're clearly very chummy and it's awesome that they both like people are very respectful broadcast news blah blah blah your film career together and then the last half of the q a is simpsons you just see james l brook like oh right he the look on his face is like, I forgot. This is all about my movies. I forgot I'm in control of this giant empire that I don't do anything with on a day-to-day basis. And then once they both leave

the auditorium, and I love the Castro Theater for that. There's no backstage. The celebrities have to walk through the crowd and just swarm. Watching tiny Danny DeVito try and waddle into a cab on Castro Street. And him and Brooks are bombarded with twins VHSs, terms of endearment. No. watching tiny Danny DeVito try and waddle into a cab on Castro Street. And he's bomb... Him and Brooks

are bombarded with twins VHSs, terms of endearment. No. All Simpsons shit. Like, a cavalcade of Simpsons shit for both of them to say.

One thing about this, though, I think I just was thinking about it now. Lisa calling this the Kenzian might foreshadow the ending because I believe Dickens said that

readers will only buy coincidences and improbable things if they bring the character's misfortune. And that is exactly what's going to happen in this episode. Not everything can be entouraged. I heard that as a, yeah, fuck that show, man. But I heard the Robert McKay type story theory too,

which is coincidence is allowed in a story if it leads to worse things happening. If coincidence fixes a problem, then it's bad. If it causes a problem, it's good. This is another first. Where's the orphanage that Homer goes to? Shelbyville. First ever Shelbyville. I double checked this on the wiki. I love that joke where he screams

oh brother where art thou and he's across the street from the orphanage. In like 10 years it would be a movie. I love this exchange. I didn't get all of it because it's long but Homer goes into an orphanage to ask about his brother with a guy who looks like Dr. Hib movie. I love this exchange. I didn't get all of it because it's long. But Homer goes into an orphanage to ask about his brother with a guy who looks like Dr. Hibbert. I myself have spent years searching for my long-lost twin brother.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I wish I could help you, but we're looking for my brother today. Can you tell me his name? According to our records, Mr. and Mrs. Powell adopted your brother and named him Herbert.

Herbert! Herbert Powell! Great! Where can I find him? I'm sorry. I'm not allowed to release that information. Oh, please, please. This is my life we're talking about here. Please. Well, I do sympathize with your situation, Mr. Simpson. After all, your brother could be anywhere.

Even Detroit. I know he could be anywhere. That's why I want you to narrow it down. Please. You know, Mr. Simpson, if you ask me, the city of brotherly love isn't Philadelphia. It's Detroit. Well, if you ask me,

changing the subject makes you the most worthless, heartless excuse for a human being I ever... Read between the lines, you fool. Oh, I get it. Okay. Here's 20 bucks. Yes. This is another one of those old style vaudeville jokes yeah the back and forth but they make it like modern and funny but i also i have 100 been in multiple conversations like that where people are trying to tell me something between

the lines but i've been on the other side of them i remember i've been too emotionally caught up or something that i'm just not hearing it and so it's I got an extra laugh at that bit but by the way Hibbert has two lost brothers he never sees one is that twin in Shelbyville Orphanage the other is some jazz musician or something

I got a brother I never see some jazz musician wow I forgot that leading goes was his you said brother yeah his brother wow okay that he never saw either. Oh, well, bye-bye. What is up, Talking Simpsons fans?

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and get a free $20 Star Wars item right now. Okay, so I hate watching this sometimes with modern eyes, or contemporary eyes, and hearing things that are so dated. I can't disclose that information for you. Here's his name. All you need now on the internet is somebody's name, and you could absolutely find them and then Homer

scours the phone book he had to get he had to probably special order the Detroit phone book to do that and call every Powell yeah the last

trio of episodes have all these super dated things that don't exist anymore only because I worry that a young kid is watching this like what is he doing

yeah why is he not on Twitter doing a name search what is he doing he looks up his brother and I love the phone call. Hello. Is this H. Powell of Detroit, Michigan? Yeah.

By any chance, does the H stand for Herbert? Yeah. Woo-hoo! Woo! The H stands for Herbert! Herb, were you adopted? Yeah. From the Shelbyville Orphanage?

How did you know that? Because i'm your baby brother homer hello hello hello stupid hey knock it off i'm here just silent because of the emotion involved oh sorry that's a james i think we need to get together okay brother grab the next plane to springfield we got a couch that folds out. I'll tell you what. Why don't you come here? Was this predated? He would later sleep on that couch that folded out. Only in a world that predates Michael Moore would an auto company executive put himself in the Detroit phone book.

I feel like even then that wouldn't have happened. It is a coincidence, again. That leads to misfortune. By the way, Al Jean, co-exec on the show, is a Detroit Michigan native too. That's what dates it too. A, there's still auto plants in Detroit. I don't think there were

in 1991. The episode ends with it being shut down and bought by the Japanese. Was Roger and me in 88 or 89 or something like that? And for some reason on sale on Blu-ray in Japan when I was there last year. But DeVito is amazing, which he should be back. His voice

is perfect. You don't have a lot of proof anymore that Danny DeVito is a great actor, period. He's on Always Sunny, he's great, but we just watched Space Jam a year ago. He sucks in that. He's playing full Danny DeVito, but he is fantastic in this role as

Herbert. What I like, and it's part of the joke, that Herbert looks a lot like Homer. But it's like the one time Danny DeVito is playing an animated character that does not look like Danny DeVito. It's like, you're not a troll goblin. You're not like a little cruddy monster. Whatever his name is in Hercules, he's playing a heightened version. It's just Danny DeVito acting

like he used to. And, oh man, I love a good DeVito role, and this is definitely one of them. I think it was a James L. Brooks connection that got him on the show. Actually, they said it was Sam Simon's idea. Oh, right. Who also worked with him on Taxi. That makes total sense. If we didn't say that, Sam Simon got the job

developing The Simpsons by taking over as the youngest showrunner in the history of television by running Taxi at the age of 23. After James L. Brooks. After James L. Brooks walks away. But I know you love this scene when they cut to the boardroom. All right, yeah.

You have to love that one. Every day we're losing ground to the Japanese, and I want to know why. Oh, unfair trade practices. Mushy-headed one-worlders in Washington. Some sort of gypsy curse. I'm tired of excuses. Why did I ever hire you Harvard deadheads? Because you went there, sir. Yeah,

but mommy and daddy didn't pay my way. I had to work my way through washing your dishes and scrubbing your toilets. Oh yeah, now I remember you. Mushy one-worlders. I've not heard that term. This is like the eighth terrible board of executives.

I love a Simpsons boardroom meeting. It's like I think they previously worked for Mr. Burns. Was there any other boardroom group? Definitely. Well, actually, on the Mendoza's evil boardroom group, I counted three different guys that were on Burns' campaign team in the governor episode. And I thought Itchy and Scratchy had a similar boardroom kind of thing. Me too. Yeah. Wow. They lovey had a similar boardroom kind of thing. They love this inept Harvard They really do. Even halfway through

season two, they are like, we hate people on board. Maybe it's because they're spending all their day sitting in the writer's room. Homer is going on this road trip with his family, and we get a sense of what... They're hiding Herb's face the entire time. The reveal is that he is identical to Homer,

except he has more hair and is not fat. That pissed me off. It was like, oh, these people mistake him for Herb. Like, they wouldn't. He is fatter, wears worse clothes, and has no hair. Maybe they're like, oh, he let himself go. He must be on an episode of Undercover Boss. That happens.

So do you have any clips from the road trip to uh okay yeah just a bunch of psych gags and stuff i love the bit like when you really care about someone you shouted from the mountaintops so on behalf of desjardins insurance i'm standing 20 000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. We care about you. We care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Care, care.

Did I mention that we care? We're going to turn this car around if you don't stop. And Homer says, but Marge, I want to see my brother. For God's sake, Homer, it's an empty threat. Homer falls for it worse than the children do. It's a classic Homer. So are we still in the boardroom? Because I love the line about the Persephone.

Yeah. That's my line of the car. I don't have that one. My line of the show is Herb Powell says, people of the show. I keep saying herb. It's Herb Powell says, people don't want cars named after hungry old Greek broads. They want power. Mustang. Cheetah.

Cheetah. People forget. But that's part of how he ends up bonding with Homer, seeing Homer as the ultimate vision of the common man that he's become so disconnected with. Yeah, like Homer in a lot of these episodes, people turn to him as a representation for the everyman and find out he's actually

lower than that. He's actually kind of a lazy plot device in almost all episodes. I can think of the space episode. There was a previous one. Oh yeah, the election episode. He needed to go to an average news post. He's promoted to executive. Johnny Boardroom.

Even the cable TV episode, Burns is like, I want to go to the common man's room and watch this fight and he goes to homer's place i also wonder why herb gave a shit about why the kids were born out of wedlock or not i wondered if that was just him projecting his own fears of being a bastard it could be like i sense he had a lot of resentment and like anxiety about his status as like a like an orphan or yeah maybe hoping the best for and if he'd ever met Abe, I think he'd hate Abe for abandoning him. Like, Abe seems to think

that they would have had a happy memory when they meet up again. Before he gets a hint that we move into Homer's on the car. I love this depressing conversation with Marge.

So, Marge, a little about yourself. Well, I met Homer in high school. We got married and had three beautiful children. Wow.

We have so much catching up to do. Actually, I just told you pretty much everything. Oh, man. That is a bummer. A glimpse of the tragedy that is Marge's life with Homer. I'm glad she soon takes back up painting soon. I always tell this to my girlfriend.

Whenever we end up having kids, we have this entire block of memories when we didn't. Things that define us i also did like the kids it was very real the the the kids going like watch me watch me watch me you didn't watch that happened to us all the time hey me too devito and castaneda by the way i'm amazing chemistry like that's again why oh it's so good bring him back yeah he's a great character too so like at this point uh daniel devito or sorry her Powell, is spoiling the family because he never had a family. I mean, we don't know who his parents were, but he's, like, relishing in the fact that he has a brother and a sister-in-law and, like, nieces and nephews.

So he's treating them to the best things. And he asks Homer to pick out a car, and Homer does not like any of the cars. Do you have a clip for this? Okay, cool. Okay, Homer, pick out anyone you want. Are you sure you want to give me a car? Hey, you know what these things cost me? There's maybe 40 bucks worth of steel in them.

Oh, okay. I'd like a big one, then. We don't have a big one. Why not? Because Americans don't want big cars. Well, then give me one with lots of pep. Sorry, our cars don't have pep. Why not?

Because Americans want good mileage, not pep. Homer. Yes? Tell the nice man what, not pep. Homer, tell the nice man what country you come from. America. Do you hear that, you morons? This is why we're getting killed in the marketplace. Instead of listening to what people want, you're telling them what they want.

Homer, I need your help. You do? Yeah. I want you to help me design a car. A car for the homer simpsons out there and i want to pay you two hundred thousand dollars a year and i want to let you it's a great act break i laughed at the americans don't want big cars because i think that at least at least when i was driving it seemed like everybody was getting huge cars. Pep hasn't been in demand since the 80s, though.

What's that? Pep hasn't been in demand since the 80s. Oh, no, no. No one wants any Pep. They want Moxie. But in 91, I think it was before people were driving giant SUVs just to tower over everybody. That would come later by the time we'd get the Canyon Aero. Wasn't the 80s like, again, I was barely alive, but wrought with gas crises and whatnot?

That was the 70s., again, I was barely alive But wrought with gas crises and whatnot That was the 70s And following that were compact cars Smaller cars that used less That had better gas mileage But I guess the point of this bit Is that you should never Listen to the common man Don't ask one normal guy

What would be successful in Something you're making because they don't know anything he does make the nuts and gum of cars that's what homer does in this episode i like that he goes back and he has no like they pretty much the engineers ask homer to leave yeah because like yes they should this is impractical and stupid and his brother has to i did all these little story elements i didn't notice before that he's so oblivious to his own business because he's enraptured by herb is wrong to be mad at him at the end of this. It is his fault.

Once Homer comes in he never goes to the office. He spends the entire time with Marge and the kids. And so he goes back to the house and Herb has to give him a pep talk and I love this transition back into the office. From now on before you say anything say to yourself if I was ever sure of anything I'm sure of

this. Do you understand? Sort of. Homer, answer me again with self-confidence. Sort of. Now go get him. Yeah! All right, you eggheads. I want a place in this car to put my drink.

Sir, the car has a beverage holder. Hello. Hello, Einstein. I said a place to put my drink. You know those super slakers they sell in the quickie mart? The cup is this big. Extremely large beverage holder. I'm not done yet.

You know that little ball you put on the aerial so you can find your car in the parking lot? That should be on every car. Little ball. And some things are so snazzy they never go out of style. Like tailpins and bubble domes and jack carpeting. I do want a bubble dome yeah me too i did it made me think about like if you've gone to get any fast food or at the gas station drinks the cup holder has never grown no no but for the last 20 years i think we've been used to like the stupid oblong like girdle part of the cup and where the cup gets really fat you know it's like

it's a normal size cup on the bottom. Because cup holders have never grown. We've never been able to get the automobile manufacturers to cave on the size of the cup holder. They had to change the shape of the cups. So they then just expand it upwards to give you an extra gallon of sugar. Herb fucks up. He gives every... He says, I don't even want to check in with you guys.

This is all up to Homer. He gets phone calls and won't do anything. It's a bit contrived, but you can say this is the first time he's had a family. So his business does not matter anymore. He's finally happy. I also have a nerdy timeline question for you. So how, I didn't look this up. This is a question for a gearhead but how long do you think it takes to from scratch

design build design finalize the design and then mass produce one car one design of a car

even if Herb puts everything else on hold you could argue that it was a concept car but even then that process is like it's like game development

it's like multiple years it can't be a concept car because it bankrupts his company. He can't have just made one of them. Exactly. You'd have to mass produce them. And we don't know how long the Simpsons were at the estate, and there was no, like Homer did not have an excuse for work or anything. I mean, like even six months?

That feels like six months is a lowball estimate on how fast they could get back. I would love to work for $200,000 a year for one month. Yeah. Just right now. Triple my salary would be great. You were talking about the calls that Herb repeatedly gets while playing with the sisters. This is my line of the show. Me too. It's great. He gets a call complaining again and

has the stupidest fucking decree afterwards to make a great joke. Okay, this is what you're going to do. You're going to hang up, call me back, and say the exact opposite of everything you just said. Goodbye. All right, Lisa, come over here. What is it, Uncle Herb? I want you to hear what the guy's down at the plant thinking you're old man.

Yellow. Homer Simpson is a brilliant man with lots of well-thought-out practical ideas. He is insuring the financial security of this company for years to come. Oh yes. And his personal hygiene is above reproach. I love that line. Above reproach. Pretty good,

eh? And then over the phone, he was also, after all the complaints he was saying, you don't hear anything he's saying to her. On the other side, he must've been saying to her, like he's a huge idiot.

He's going to destroy this company. And he's the worst. He's the smelliest man I've ever met. One thing I noticed about this episode about the engineers is that a lot of them are the nuclear inspection team. You're right. Because when I made the thing about Sam Seder's Bob Burgers character, he is absolutely in the line. That guy with the puffy hair that's parted. Yeah, he's there. That and Mendoza's boardroom, they're just reusing characters a lot more in this episode.

Again, to make it feel like this is a quickie episode produced. So, yeah, again, I think after that, they then just start doing everything Homer says. Because I think the designers just threw up their hands like, you know what? He wants some fiasco. Let's just do it. Yes, sirpson yeah we're gonna put that there should play like kukaracha can do i love like confident determined homer especially when he's dressing them out like hello einstein hello you're fired what do i brother pay you for and i i don't maybe it's an i wish i got more clips of him talking to the engineers. I wish there was a scene of him describing,

how did Homer end up being the designer of the car and also in the commercial? A great commercial. All my life, I have searched for a car that feels a certain way. Powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball. Now at last, I have found it. I still don't own a Homer car, and I've always wanted one. Yeah, like the Hot Wheels. They had another model of the size of the Playmates stuff.

My mom got one for my Uncle Eric, who loves The Simpsons, while she bought it for me. Yeah, I know Hot Wheels made one as a a Comic Con exclusive when I was there one year and refused to wait in line to get it. No, it's mass produced now. You can buy it on Amazon right now. I love the Homer. I remember the joy

of unlocking it in what was it? Oh, Hidden Run. In Hidden Run. It was so great. It's like the best car in the game. So as a child,

I love that car and I see why now because it is a child's drawing of a car come to life. And in the end, Bart's like, I liked your car, Dad. Like, because it is a child's drawing of a car come to life. And in the end, Bart's like, I liked your car, Dad. Like, it's a car Bart would design too. And then, again, Herb didn't even look at the car before unveiling it.

That's the first time he's seen it. And the Pope is there. They made a commercial. Such a good joke. It is. The hat comes in off screen. It's such a good joke. There's a lot of great coming into frame gags.

But they filmed the whole commercial and the car's right behind the thing. And Herb's still just like, I'm not even going to look at it. It does imply we're looking at a situation over the period of a couple years. Yes. Exactly. Also, Homer apparently was flown to the Pacific Coast Highway in California to film that commercial. What's happening at home? What's happening at the Simpsons house?

I need to know. This episode definitely stretches the realism they worked so hard for in season one before they completely just throw it out by the end of season three. Yeah, for sure. I mean, Herb invents a baby translating machine, which just exists in that world now. I can't wait for, what, three years when we finally get to do that episode. I'm here on Talking Simpsons.

TalkingSimpsons.com, everybody. Do we have Herb's freak out? Like, how much does this monstrosity cost? I don't. $80,000? $82,000. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Push your glasses up afterwards. My commentary is, this is no stupider than a Humvee. I'd rather drive a Homer. I also think it's wrong. Homer didn't get to keep a car. Like, he made it. Let him keep one. But, yeah. I also think it's wrong. Homer didn't get to keep a car. Like, he made it. Let him keep one.

But, yeah. Probably hasn't met safety standards. Herb immediately loses everything. Everything, which is not, we know as adults, like, executives who destroy companies, they leave with a giant bonus. They go and destroy other companies. It's like, everyone who worked for me is fired. I get to do something new.

You have to all look for jobs. And I'm still, like, famous and successful. That's how CEOs work. Yeah, that Herb, I mean, it fits. Maybe we're being cynical. Maybe this is the days before the golden parachute. No way. But the point of these, obviously they did it because Homer can't actually,

Danny DeVito's not going to be a regular on the show. Homer can't have a half-brother he can easily visit, so they have to just burn it all down and be like, you know what? He's gone and he never wants to talk to Homer again, so he may never be back, and forget he even had a brother. Let me find out he's a hobo eating pizza cheese out of discarded boxes.

Herb, because of me, you lost your business, your home, and all your possessions. I can't help but think that maybe you would have been better off if i'd never come into your life maybe i would have been better off maybe why you sponge head of course i'd have been better off as far as i'm concerned i have no brother well maybe he just said that to my conversation his life was an unbridled success until he found out he was a

simpson that's basically like any the end to multiple treehouse of horror scenes from this like all the treehouse of horrors from from this season and with lisa saying well there's something something something a simpson yeah now we're status quo again just giving her her giving the moral of the story but we do have like the small moment with Bart saying, I liked your car, Dad. And that's how it ends. Oh, and that Grandpa arrived in two ways. Oh, right, yeah. And it wouldn't even get a ride home with Homer.

He's just like, no, just take me back to the airport. I'm flying. From Detroit to Springfield. Yeah. I wonder how knowing her bounce back and became famous and successful again, this episode is not as depressing and sad but this is a real downer of an ending like a man's life is ruined by homer partially

by him but you know he's herb takes all the blame he had 8 000 red flags thrown exactly and he's and then for him to just shove it all on homer for making a shitty car that he forced him to make i knowing herb herb fucked up just knowing corporations as well as i do live having lived this long there's no one failure that can ruin your company yeah new coke uh sega saturn like i feel like powell motors wasn't really doing that well for one he makes it clear like when they're trying to pitch percent all right yeah their cars aren't selling anyway the japanese are eating us alive and kumatsu motors more motors are going to take them

anyway. They're putting up the sign like as he's leaving. It's like MC Hammer's mansion is being repealed. He would have

gotten some cash from selling it. This is true. But that's how he got a bus ticket. Yes, exactly. But if this is the close of our show,

I can give you the line of the show. Go for it. That's the joke. To think I wasted my life in boardrooms and stockholders meetings when I could have been watching cartoons. This old fool has wasted his life. I'd like to think that describes what I'm doing now. Because I have not had to be in a boardroom in an awful meeting in almost two years and my job is to watch cartoons me too

laser time podcast.com everybody living the dream yeah so yeah thanks for listening everybody i'm your host as always bob mackie am i you can find me on twitter as bob servo and i'm also on a u.s gamer as a writer and please listen to my retro gaming podcast retronauts find it in your podcast app it's easy to find. Everybody else, plug something. I'm the host of the Laser Time show, and I write a bunch of stuff

at lasertimepodcast.com, and I'm on a bunch of podcasts, and I did not make that to sound, want that to sound like I was rich, but I found happiness in being poor and watching cartoons. You're rich in podcasts, that's for sure.

You're the richest man I know, Chris. And that includes the newest podcast, 302010, where if you like our this week in history bit at the beginning of the show it's basically a whole show about that about what happened 30 years ago 20 years ago and 10 years ago on this week in history uh there's also cape crisis comic book podcast i do every week and if you like this show but you want to hear the first season and you're not seen in itunes that's because it's only for people on Patreon.

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and it gives us a lot more visibility on the network. So, yeah, thanks a lot for listening, and we'll see you next week. The punches that bring pain to other men mean nothing to Macbeth. Macbeth. Macbeth. Black Bay Black Bay