Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Old Yeller-Belly With Kole Ross

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

This week we're joined again by the podcaster Kole Ross, cohost of the many great Duckfeed.tv podcasts including Watch Out For Fireballs, and we discuss an ep about beer and cowardice. As season 14 nears the end, it's an ep focused on the family's pets, along with a big dose of history on Spuds McKenzie. Plus some talk about Jaws parodies, 2003 video games, and our love of Database. Tap into the peppermint glacier and listen now! Support this podcast and get over 150 bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking futurama talk king of the hill the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that's an affront to God. I'm one of your hosts, the King of Six Pakistan, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today, as always? I've gone from predator to partier. It's Henry Gilbert.

And who is our special guest on the line? I am a helpful weirdo, Cole Ross. And this week's episode is Old Yeller Belly. Don't worry, son. I'll build you a new treehouse. One so grand it'll be an affront to God himself. Can it have a rope ladder you can pull up after you? Only if it's an affront to God. This week's episode originally aired on May 4th, 2003.

And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God! Oh boy, Bobby. A record number of tornadoes spread across the Great Plains in eastern United States, X-Men 2 tops the box office, and Castlevania Aria of Sorrow is released on the Game Boy Advance. So there was a big tornado fad, apparently. Yes, from May 4th to May 10th, there were 335 tornadoes in Great Plains in eastern U.S., 50 deaths, 713 injured, billions of dollars in damages. Well, you know, I was far outside of the tornado belt in northeastern Ohio.

Were you safe as well, Cole? Yeah, we don't get a lot of tornadoes where I'm at in North Central Ohio. I just remember it being a lot of, you know, if you would switch to the cable news in 2004 election year, you weren't hearing about Kerry or, well, I guess the Democratic primaries. Then you were hearing about tornadoes ripping across America. Tornado watch. And you'd have a big tornado go across the screen. Except for all of the deaths. That was a pretty good time. know aria of sorrow x-men 2 that's good eden those are good game yes yeah this is this is very strange timing because i am currently in the middle of

playing through or sorry replaying aria of sorrow on the recently released as of three years ago castlevania advanced collection uh well it is i think it is the best one on GBA, and that's a very common opinion. I'm not being very insightful here. Yeah, we covered it on WoF recently. Watch out for fireballs, and it's good. Holds up. You know, I only played the first one of the GBA trilogy, and it was invisible.

That's how spooky it was. I couldn't see what was happening. I can't see me. I can't see enemies. I can't see enemies. I can barely see the levels. Now, I will say, if you play that on a TV as I did recently, it's not fun or good. It's a bad game. So you're better off skipping that one, going right to

the two other Game Boy Advance ones. Henry, what were you doing? This was peak Castlevania years. I looked at other GBA games those years, and I was probably playing Advance Wars 2 for my 120th hour, I think is what I was doing.

Well, I'll admit to being a Philistine, when these Castlevania games started coming out on the DS, I ignored them completely because I thought, we get one of these every year, I'm tired of this. And then they went away and then 15 years later, every game is a Metroidvania. So we're kind of in hell. A little bit, order of ecclesia though you missed out and uh yes x-men 2 what a good time that was as long as you know you don't look into the background of the director of it of

course now it's not so fun but x-men 2 in theaters i was was there day one. The opening bit of Nightcrawler in the White House. Coolest shit ever. And now again, it's like to see a cool X-Men movie didn't happen all of the time. And there wasn't always a cool superhero movie all of the time. So having one good one where Wolverine just stabbed 10 guys in the middle of the movie. Now we're about to get an R-rated, our like second R-rated Wolverine movie where he's going to probably murder like 8,000 people in it. You know, I don't want to take things for granted,

but it felt special back in 2004. It was a real coup. Well, Henry, you were there day one. I was there day, I don't know, 7,000 because I just watched it within the past few months for the first time. And I really enjoyed it. I don't know, 7,000 because I just watched it within the past few months for the first time. And I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the first two.

I have watched the riff tracks of X-Men 3, so I think I'm good. Yes. Yeah. It's sad that most X-Men movies are directed by accused monsters. It's really too. But same deal with X-Men 3. But no, I think, yeah, if you enjoyed X-men 2 and then instantly watch x-men 3 thinking like man and now we're finally gonna get that phoenix saga teased at the end x-men 2 like and

and yeah but the cheat code of x-men 2 is that it's like beat for beat star trek 2 wrath of khan but it ripped it off in all the best ways oh and brian Brian Cox was in it too. And I'm just thinking about Brian Cox because he's in the news like every three months doing a new interview where he's like, this actor's terrible. I hated this movie. More actors should be doing interviews where they just talk shit about other actors.

I'm tired of all this love fest all the time. But anyway. Yeah, we need sniping. Constant sniping. Come on, we need feuds. But yes, that's what we were doing the week of this episode of the simpsons and yes joining us today is cole ross from the podcast network duckfeed.tv you may have heard him on the podcast watch out for fireballs welcome to the show cole yeah thank you so much for having me back i am excited to talk about this

episode we're in season 14 um you know smack dab between Marge gets breast implants and Marge becomes a muscle mommy. Yes. Having the dog become a beer spokesman doesn't sound so crazy when you list those two ideas from the same season. No. I mean, despite all of his human girlfriends, which they do raise questions about in this episode. Yeah. The last episode you were on was War of the Simpsons from season two, and we read it season two, and that also ends with a big giant fish saving the day.

Oh, wow, wow. I didn't think of that. Yeah. This was a fun one to have you on for, Cole. I wonder, how do you feel about stupid old mascots like the ones who are battling in this episode? I miss them. And I miss. OK, so I miss the when the time when it wasn't just insurance companies that had them.

Let's say right now you really don't have anything as far as I can tell. This is this is great. Anything that can just personify a commodity product like this. Give me as much lore as possible. This episode, I think, bats above its weight class for jokes. But like, oh, what about Duff Girl and Duff Lad? That used to be all the time that you would get these little ancillary characters.

We should, if I'm a return person, it's for that. Yeah, we'll talk a lot about Spuds McKenzie in this episode, but all of these mascots for products I was not allowed to consume definitely worked on me like Joe Camel, Spuds McKenzie, the Budweiser Frogs. I loved them all. Yet when I became old enough to smoke and drink, well, I never started smoking.

So they failed on that front. And then when I started drinking, I started drinking good beers. And none of these mascots were for good beers. So they failed on that front as well. And yeah, by the way, this episode went live, I don't know, three or four days before I turned 21. And I was a good boy and I waited except for one night when I got really drunk on cheap vodka. I paid my sister to buy me. Oh, that's cute. I drank twice before i was 21 and both times because friends stole actually

the the first time was with kalua just which is also featured in this episode don't give it to your cats please yeah i was a delinquent i was drinking at 17 so kalua does sound like a underage beverage really of choice mike's hard lemonade kalua smirnoff i the first alcohol i drank officially at 21 was a smirnoff ice and again it was because it tastes like candy i am a girl drink drunk that is my spirit i'm gonna say i'm happy that kids children who should not be drinking i'm glad glad they have White Claw these days because it's only 100 calories. You know how much sugar you're putting into your body with a Smirnoff Ice or a Mike's Heart Lemonade or any of the other sugary beverages that are frankly made for children. We know this.

God, I wish I had White Claw when I was a kid. I would have developed a drinking problem if there was White Claw when i was 19 because it's that dang good well and i guess too also cole you know are are you much of a dog or cat guy as as this episode pits them against each other oh uh definitely a cat person have two cats i uh it was she was cheering on snowball too by singing a saving homer just by being a cat. Wake up, damn it. I bear no ill will toward dogs. I just prefer being a dog uncle. I get all the upside of visiting a dog and they're happy to see me and I do not have to deal with anything else. Even though this is really a Santa's Little Helper episode, I think it is

actually technically the first Snowball 2 episode. Yeah. Snowball 2 gets uh their episodes her episode stolen from her like i i always you know what now i'm feeling a fake simpsons fan i forget the gender of snowball 2 i thought it was a she okay but in this episode they say he but then in that treehouse of horror scratchy presumably a male hits hits on her. Yeah, that's true. So it's up in the air. Is the episode where all of the snowballs keep dying and then it ends with Lisa just using the snowball tube bowl because it's easier? Like, is that before or after this?

Because snowball canonically could have been any sex or gender. That's a little bit after this when she gets an identical cat and names the same thing. That's another one that I was annoyed by at the time. But as I get older, I'm less annoyed by things. Canon's a fake idea. Yes. Yeah, I know. I know this now.

I have to let go. I need to see a therapist to help me let go of these things better. But, yes, as I get older, I don't. Well, same with the Doughboys did a very funny podcast about a fantasy draft, but a family guy characters. And I was just remembering, like, boy, family guy used to make me so mad. And me and Bob have talked about this many times. And then my husband actually said, oh, you ever hear this family guy thing where they sing a medley of the tv themes that's from the like the family guy goes to las vegas cd and i was like i put it on and i was i was both singing along to it and hating myself because i was like this

this is the this is family guy in the way i hate it it's just brian and stewie singing classic tv show themes with few extra jokes on top of it. I've come to terms with Family Guy, and I realized there are many reasons why I was so angry at television in my early 20s. That had nothing to do with television. Well, yes. The behind the scenes on this episode, I do wish they had Bob Anderson on the commentary because there's some crazy animation in this one but yeah it sounded like they couldn't remember if they first thought of what if Santa's little helper became like a viral photograph and then got hired to be basically as parody as Buds McKenzie

or that it starts with Al Jean seemed to think it was it it starts with the dog being a coward and then trying to win him back his favor. But I definitely think they had been thinking for a long time about, like, wasn't Spuds McKenzie weird? So, which is an easy, easy starting point. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, Futurama beat them to the punch with their Fry in the Slurm Factory episode four years prior. But we were pointing and laughing 15 years later. And why not do it twice? This is so far after the sell-by date for Spuds McKenzie.

Oh, yeah. That's a late 80s thing, right? It's a weird reference for them to pull. Well, they often just pull from 80s pop culture. I think it's when Al Jean paid the most attention to pop culture, which, hey, I used to make fun of him for having dated pop culture, but now it's like, yeah,

it's hard for me to reference things that happened like 10 years ago. Oh, yeah. My reference pool is older than me. It's just weird to do that specific one. I don't know. I would also be complaining if the reference was too recent.

Yeah, this is, I mean, making fun of spuds mckenzie in 2003 was like making fun of something from 2007 today yeah guilty also it's funny that i only remember this commentary though because it has stacy keach on it and he's having a lot of fun and i love stacy keach he's he's a great great actor uh i love seeing him play a racist cop or a racist father figure in in pretty much anything he's just such a great like pinch-faced asshole in movies in acting but i i remember the commentary he basically spoils that he's in uh the plane disney's planes like he goes like yeah i'm recording this planes thing like a two years before it comes out different time had the movie been announced yes but he his involvement wasn't announced so i i at first i didn't know it existed because why would i in 2011 ever pay attention to there

being a plane spin-off of cars like i wouldn't give a shit but it's like it's like how the voice of goofy can just say yeah we're recording kingdom heart six and they can't fire him because he's the voice of goofy exactly so the dvd came out in september 2011 and it was announced in august 2011 that the film exists and that the lead character was going to be voiced by John Cryer, which for planes heads out there, you'll be like, wait, John Cryer's not in that movie. Yes. By the time it came out in theaters in February, 2013, he was recast with Dane Cook. Not Ducky, not Ducky. He was Ducky, right? Yes, he was Ducky. Yeah. Ducky replaced by Dane Cook. Well, it was the summer of Cook.

He was really cooking. Also, in a very sad bit of things, I learned that in my mind, I was like, oh, it's a direct video movie, right? No, it was released into theaters. It made $240 million and had two sequels. Disney's playing. But it's not. On the commentary, Stacey Keach isach is like yeah I'm doing them Pixar movies and then Al Jean has all these Pixar

questions and I'm just thinking the whole time Stacy Keach got lied to by his manager this is a Disney movie faking Pixar that's elder abuse that's broad despite this making fun of something from the late 80s this is such a this begins on such

a boomery foot because we have a reference to old yeller in the uh title which is the the classic film from 1957 where a dog's a hero until it gets rabies then you got to shoot it in the head and it's all about growing up and then we begin this uh with a singing of Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, but with lyrics about a teacher and talking about hitting her with a frozen Jimmy Dean. These are all very boomery things. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Teacher hit me with a frozen Jimmy Dean and she ain't my teacher no more. Because she's dead. It feels like Al Jean is remembering all the traction they got out of Jingle Bell's Batman Smells in the original episode,

which also is referenced in this, Roasting is referenced in this episode, but he's like okay, what's another thing I sang as a kid? And so it's the hole in the underwear gang starts in a very little rascals way of singing this song. And the hole in the underwear gang

is based on the hole in the wall gang, which was made into a lot of westerns around the time Old Yeller was a movie. So very, very boomery. I saw that the Hole in the Wall Gang, which was made into a lot of Westerns around the time Old Yeller was a movie. So very, very boomery. I saw that The Hole in the Wall Gang was the group of bad boys in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which you just watched, Bob,

for the first time for Deathless research. Yes, yes. My thoughts are in that episode. It's an oddly clean Western, given when it was made. Two years after Bonnie and Clyde. I take issue with this not just because they're singing you know battle him in the other republic or whatever

uh nelson would never be in the same room with database and martin that is true although it is great to see database spawn randomly in this episode because uh apparently macraening hates him he hates his voice i find database delightful he is my favorite i like him more than martin actually i love database too i i always love seeing him i have a feeling matt graining was out of town or something for this and the next episode because database is also in the the uh oh no wait no the episode after next but the this one they're even goofing on matt graining who is not present on the commentary where they say like matt graining always wants us to have the dogs talk and do

things and we have to tell them no matt no which which is the opposite of reality that's that's a joke but uh though i was also thinking of matt graining because i never sang this song as a kid i didn't learn this on the playground but i did see it as a kid because matt graining was in a you know your teacher in art class plays a video type video of him showing kids how to draw cartoons and he's drawing bongo and from life and hell and he bongo is singing another version of this in it it's it's really interesting wow yeah we had a few of these the one i can remember is to another version of this in it. It's really interesting. Wow. Yeah, we had a few of these.

The one I can remember is to the tune of Deck the Halls, you would sing, deck the school with gasoline, light a match and watch it clean. It's about burning down your school. And we could all relate to that. That's a good one. See, when I looked up other versions of this song that other people people remembered online because there's no like real history for a playground song from that long ago other versions were so i met her in the attic with a german automatic and she ain't my teacher no more or so i met her in the bank with a sherman

army tank or i bopped her on the bean with a rotten tangerine yeah you know before columbine you could easily sing a song about killing your teacher and people would just say oh those monkey shines though i guess technically this is after columbine yeah yeah oh yeah yeah that's why they had to change it they had to make it a riff on sausage yeah actually the no munitions there it's a makeshift weapon they're using you're right yeah they didn't they didn't get a gun still results in a dead teacher but i mean nelson had the previous dead teacher song about barbecuing the teacher's head and flushing it down the toilet also was like wait why is nelson saying like because she's dead like what because i i

dug into that one because i was like wait i, I feel like I've heard Bugs Bunny say that a million times. But he says, good evening, friends, to wrap things up. And that is, of course, taken from Al Jolson, like most Looney Tunes things. I like the desperate smile from Nelson after that because he's kind of vamping a little bit. Yes, yeah, he's really enjoying it. Well, also, it's hard to play the banjo. It's a good yes yeah he's really enjoying it he's well also it's hard to play the banjo it's it's really good to see his talent being nurtured uh because you know he was playing guitar before you know just hidden depths on that guy i also feel like martin and database would never go along with a song about anti-teacher violence but they're just

happy to be invited and if i'm millhouse i'm also happy to have martin and database there because you're like wow there's two guys below me in the totem pole of dorks in this group nobody's gonna pick on me for once after we go through the minutes of smelted versus deltic logic bart asked for help from the security officer which i think it's like a real navy thing but it only makes me think of like star trek uh and and their security officers like tossy toshiyar and wharf and of course the greatest one odo he's he's the best in my ranking odo's number one of security officers yeah just and nelson should be working security their logic's all over the place here yeah i guess we don't know what his role is well as i've uh speaking of pedantic logic here when comic book guy and bronson uh and charles

bronson voice guy they're a fun combo i i always enjoy scenes with them but those costumes could never be worn by comic book guy they are they are normal costumes for those people i assume it's just a pure spandex it's nearly translucent once he puts it on his large body right yeah yeah i think that's a stellar blade costume i think they just needed a a way out of this scene because i don't understand the logic of him calling his ass the riddler. We immediately move on after that. I feel like they couldn't come up with a punchline beyond the shredding of the Batman's ass pants thing. Also, it made me think of how things have changed in the show as far as displaying copywritten outfits.

Because, I mean, the coloring and everything, that's a Batman costume next to a spider-man costume well meanwhile i just saw uh this is slightly this would have been like a week ago the episode aired but aljean was teasing the next episode that's about to air on twitter which has a joke of like somebody selling amazing spider pants that are pants with the spider-man webbing design on it except it's purple not red okay well i i know that currently the simpsons in the entire city of springfield they really want me to let me know when a new uh season of loki is coming out yes we we're recording this before the release of may the 12th the next disney plus special that's going to be so funny may the 12th be with you but it's coming out on the 10th i'm confused i i yes i i really don't understand it uh

oh yeah this episode aired on may the 4th before that became like a joke thing that made us have to celebrate star wars i feel like it's more of a concentrated marketing push than a joke but did it start with people or did it start with uh the lucasfilm corporation it felt like a real thing to me like 10 years ago i didn't think it it felt like i feel like i remember when oh wow disney actually started marketing things with may the fourth that felt like a sea change to me but i i could be wrong and misremembering it but it felt like it just started as a joke hashtag on social media yeah i feel like i saw that on, I don't know, early Facebook, kind of mentioned by a lot of the same people who made a big deal about Pi Day. Oh, yeah.

Talk like a pirate day also? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the dated, dated days of early social media. So after that little bit, then Bart wants to start spying on the girls. And again, in a very, like, little rascals way, they attach a string to a can so they can listen through it. And Bart is pretty sure they're talking about him. If I understand the female mind, and I do, they're plotting against us. We've got to get audio. Ah, I'm on it.

Janie, more tea? Operation Ladybug is a go. Over. Today, Balthazar will tell us about global warming in the land beyond the rainbow. Each year, we lose seven species of gumdrops. Lisa, this is your mother. The doctor says your butt's too big. That's not mom.

Oh, someone is spying on us. No one told me there'd be pulling. Whenever a Simpsons character imitates Marge, it's great. Even though Bart's joke could use a little work, I always enjoy hearing those kind of imitations. And Lisa's reaction of, that's not mom, that also feels like, eh, it's kind of weak, but I can't not laugh at hearing Database have to make all of these extra noises. Like, Nancy comes alive there.

It's like, Ladybug, is it gone? It's also very lisa that uh we even when playing tea party with uh unicorn doll she wants to talk about global warming it's a tea symposium yeah it's a tea talk yeah now the hashtags are welcome to my ted talk and i'm just like i i get it guys i get it i get it oh we're doing that again? We're doing that joke again? I didn't feel like it went away. That's the same category of joke as, sir, this is a Wendy's. Yeah.

It's a placeholder. It's a joke-shaped thing. Also, did you notice that for some reason, Sherry and Terry have their hair in scrunchies for this scene? I don't know why. It is not normal for them. It's fancier? I don't know. Maybe they're dolled upies for this scene. I don't know why. It is not normal for them. It's fancier? I don't know.

Maybe they're dolled up for this tea talk. Also, for scenes for Lisa to have a tea party, they have to give her friends she rarely has. She's got Janie usually, but Sherry and Terry normally don't like Lisa. They're there for the promise of tea. And also the cord that Database found, wherever he got it from from it's incredible because

it's strong enough to be pulled enough to explode a treehouse and this thing about the treehouse i've never thought more about the treehouse than i have while watching this because i i you know i grew up with the simpsons i grew up with other media in which tree houses were a common aspect. And yet I never entered a tree house in my life. It never happened for me. And when I see them as an adult, I realize, oh, in The Simpsons, the tree house was maybe like 12 feet off the ground. When you see a tree house now, you can just reach up into it. They're designed so children don't die when they fall out of them, in other words i always imagine them being higher off the ground as a kid i had friends who had like an elevated like playhouse

or whatever as in you know like that a slide would be attached to but nothing built i can't remember climbing into something that was built into or onto a tree either now some kids around where i grew up had like tree platforms but that was pretty much like their dad practicing building like a deer blind or something like that yeah the closest thing that we had a friend and i had basically under his front porch was a crawl space that we built the kind of clubhouse into and now when i think about the fact that I actually crawled under there and hung out, I have a panic attack. Yeah, we just went and hung out in like construction sites. Now, if I were, yeah, if I were a father, I would just build that tree platform so they

could fall off and hurt themselves, but they'd have no privacy. So the kids would be even more unhappy. The Simpsons will be right back. The Simpsons dog has always been one of the family. I think he peed on the rug. To me, that says I love you. I think he left a big hug in your lunchbox. But in a catastrophe, it's every dog for himself. You're leaving me here to die like I was Grandpa.

The Simpsons, all new, part of a full hour a day, followed by an all new Malcolm next Sunday. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You're looking up. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie welcome to the break everybody we hope you're partying it up like suds mckenzie and a big

thank you to our guest this week party animal cole ross from the watch out for fireballs and duckfeed.tv podcast network cole it's so awesome to have you on the podcast as always everybody's check out all the cool stuff he and gary are doing on those awesome duck feed podcast at duck feed.tv and thank you again to cole for coming on and if you enjoy talking simpsons you should know that this podcast is only possible thanks to supporters at patreon.com slash talking simpsons supporters there get every episode of this podcast without ads like this one and a week early if they subscribe for five bucks a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons plus they get tons of exclusive podcasts access to over

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history of that film please see it all for yourself at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. So, yes, they pull on it. And for the first time since Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1, Bart's treehouse has been destroyed. And this time everybody falls. Though nobody's really hurt except for skinned elbows, which Milhouse very humorously wants to get attention from his mom with it. He doesn't seem to actually be hurt. He just wants pity, which is a pretty typical sad Milhouse joke.

Oh, yeah. Just any kind of validation, any kind of attention, he needs it. Homer decides he's going to build a new treehouse, which I guess we have to assume Homer built the first treehouse in the first place anyway. So you can guess he knows how to build this. It's just one instance of a pretty good craftsmanship, I think. Yeah, it just turns out that the one thing you can't build is, well, A, a homemade car, a robot, or a spice rack. Everything else is fine.

You know, that Jimboree nearly killed Maggie, too. He had problems with that. Forgot about grills, too. Shit. So Homer, after making his plans to build an affront to God, which I hope he didn't tell that affront to God plan to the guys who help him build it later on. But then Homer realizes that lumber has a million uses, and so he heads in to steal some, not pay for any. I'm surprised that he doesn't say suckers when he drives past that no trespassing sign.

It feels like Homer always giggles and says suckers, but this time he just giggles passing by it. Yeah, maybe too many suckers happened this season. They wanted to pull back. And he doesn't go to a lumberyard. He goes to railroad tracks that he assumes are abandoned until a train comes barreling down the tracks.

And what happens next? My hats are off to the animation team. I'm wearing several hats by the way, because they make an entire train loaded with cars jump in the air and spin around and then land on tracks again. I feel like there was a previous scene that was suggested by the writers

that previous teams had shut down. Was it Burns' error in which there was a zoo circus train crash that the director said, we're not animating this? This is too hard. to indicate how hard this would be to do. But yeah, I think it's when Bart gets his gifted car from Mr. Burns, and we see it all as him driving through Santa's workshop and everything. But I believe the original thing was his car goes off the road onto train tracks and causes a circus train to smash with a zoo train, and then all of the animals fight each other so this is a little uh less complicated but still i'm impressed they were

able to execute this also funnier like this this this is just funny the the fact that nothing happens that it just lands and like oh that's a freebie do you think that homer is lying to bart when he says no train has come through here in many years or that Homer does think that's true and is shocked when the train is there? One implies Homer is stupid. The other implies Homer is murderous or that callous. I think he's just in denial and not willing to look into it just to get the lumber out of there. I also did really like the misdirect of they go into the forest and you think it's going to be them chopping down trees

and then they're stealing planks from a railroad track like in the next scene. That was a good misdirect too. But yes, nothing beats flying across the train on it. Nothing beats flying across the country on a train. But yeah, Bob Anderson and his team deserved an extra bonus and probably instead got a budget cut that year.

Then we go to more Homer insanity as for a joke, Homer knows information he then has to forget by the end of a joke. I'm impressed that you drew up blueprints, but these are for a go-kart track. Did Frank Lloyd Wright have to deal with people like you? Actually, Frank Lloyd Wright endured a lot of harsh criticism. Look, I have no idea who Frank Lloyd Wright is. He said his name two seconds ago. I was just putting words together. This is before prefacing a statement with actually was poisoned.

Oh, yeah. It's never been good behavior, but I hear that now. I think it's like post that scene in The Office where they call out Oscar on that or whatever. You can't do it now. It's not like Seinfeld there. Sorry. The way Yardley puts a lot of actually like she puts a good extra emphasis on that too oh she hits a k in there yeah actually also i'm impressed that homer's

blueprints for go-karts weren't like drawn and crammed but they actually look like a real set of blueprints this is like when he builds a barn instead of a pool. He just is really good at building the wrong thing. And that's another joke involving the Amish. It's exactly the same joke. Like they do different stuff with it. And I call that out because like, A, how many people have a reference point for the Amish outside of that Harrison Ford movie? Or maybe Kingpin? But also like, sure, it is a fine barn, but it is no pool.

English is one of my favorite bits from this that hits real hard. I love all Amish humor because I grew up in Eastern Ohio near Western Pennsylvania. Just a short drive from Amish country. We would go to Amish country to buy food and treats and all kinds of things and see the Amish people. And a hallmark of driving around where I live is getting stuck behind a buggy. And I think even when I visited home in like 2016 or 2019, on the way back from the airport in Pittsburgh, we were stuck behind a buggy for a little bit of time. Oh yeah, no, exactly the same.

You know, also in Ohio, like we would just go and Amish country was where you got cheese, old candy and furniture. Yeah. Oh yeah. Amish country was where you got cheese, old candy and furniture. Yeah. Oh yeah. Amish furniture. Everybody praised it to high heavens and it's nice, but I could never take any with me because I moved a billion times and it's so heavy because it's been made to last for generations. Yeah. Yeah. But I remember just as a kid going to Amish country feeling bad for them because I loved TV and Nintendo and electricity. But then I thought, you know, these Mennonites, they can do a few extra things the Amish can't do.

I think I'm more on their side than the Amish. Oh, yeah. Man, I'm jealous of you guys. For me, it took like four jokes about Amish people on Simpsons and MST3K before I realized they weren't like made up or fake. You should be jealous of our access to Amish country, Henry. It's wonderful. Well, you know, where I grew up in the South,

you could go to rural areas and get old-fashioned-y things, including things you'd see on the shelves and be like, shouldn't that be illegal to sell post-segregation things for sale? You get different kinds of German-speaking cults in the South. Yeah, like a big attraction where I grew up was going to a place where an Amish family makes you dinner. Oh, dang. And that's all there was to it. Yeah. Well, before the Amish show up, Bart and Homer start pranking each other with painful tools, including Bart starts choking Homer with cock.

Delicious, delicious cock. And see, I was reminded of like 10 other better earlier Simpsons jokes in this episode, even though I think this episode is kind of funny. I don't I didn't dislike this episode. Like dude, where's my ranch? Actually, they, they do this in the movie, this kind of a scene, but they escalated the fight with power tools when Homer,

I believe it's working on the roof. Right? Yes, that's right. Their dare game. Yeah. I forgot that. Yeah,

this is so they, they read to this joke of four years after this. Yeah. Oh, they've done it before. It's them fighting with the IV fluid. You know, you're wasting $4,000 worth of interferon. You're interferon with our fun. Yeah, yeah.

I like this because I like any time where Homer and Bart are friends. Like they're just kids playing with each other and i like in this case as happens other times homer becomes bart's little brother here not his big brother his little brother he's like no no no i'd like to applaud all of us for not having any fun with the word caulk low-hanging fruit i'm gonna go past yeah we're better than that you know six years ago we'd all be saying bart is putting his caulk in homer's mouth but now we would never say anything like that never i'm really i'm hitting the l hard in the word calk uh aljean does bring up that he thinks that the amish were invented for comedy writers to make

jokes about them i mean they're they're fine people. Maybe they have some institutional problems, let's say. But I was singing Amish Paradise during karaoke about a month ago, and I thought, at what point will this be problematic? Maybe it is. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's a good point. I was just reminded of, I looked up a classic David Tell, his old Amish jokes as well, and he had this great line, I love making fun of the Amish because they'll never find out about it. I was going to say, I don't know if it's going to become problematic

because unless they're on Rumspringa, they can't participate in discourse, which makes them the most blessed of all people, really. Oh, yeah. Capital D discourse. And then, well, also david tell then follows that joke up with saying like oh what are you going to do next make fun of and he uses the word eskimos which i know should be inuit but he says eskimos and he's like yeah that's right or as i call him

snow mexicans and then he continues on like that's good old david tell he's apparently he's got a new stand-up album out or netflix special or something as long as he makes a new netflix special that doesn't have him standing in front of a bunch of like college students or having like tape put over his mouth then i i'm still okay with david tell stand-up there's no prager connection with him yet to my knowledge not yet no so yes uh they call into action the Amish. We even get a Batman 66 reference, which on other commentaries, Algin has said,

the Fox guys always told them to use it, or like, hey, use Batman whenever you want because we don't got to pay extra. We own that song. Use it as many times as you want. Yeah, I mean, I did groan a little at the Buggy Mobile joke because a decade ago

we had to the b-mobile and then it's played out in a very dry way after that i think it's a funnier joke than actually just playing the music but i really laughed at the joke of finally one amish person is about to defeat the devil but he's too industrious to finish the job. He's got to be called away to work. I just like how blasé he is about leaving it. Like, oh, this just happens all the time. Like, oh, the devils are coming up. Got devils in the bar.

So then we shift to the Amish building it perfectly. I do also like the cut to the Mennonites gambling. That's funny. They're so debaucher like the cut to the Mennonites gambling. That's funny. They're so debaucherous by comparison, the Mennonites. Because I learned about Mennonites before the video game series Kirby came out, whenever the character Meta Knight appears, I immediately think of Mennonites.

And let's get them in Smash Brothers. Oh, what? They're not allowed to fight? It should at least be a me costume yeah technically pacifists that might be them or the shakers i don't know quakers i know are pacifists or aren't they yeah i could be mixed up there uh look we we know about video games more than uh the smash brothers reference instantly got it quakers versus shakers not so much so yes uh after faith is restored in hell full weirdos we then cut to opening night and uh lisa and maggie are holding very powerful flashlights to work as spotlights for the this big opening event which tons of adults are at it's's mostly adults. It's a real gala event.

I spotted Ruth Powers in there even. Even she invited. And Mole Man gets a fist bump from Bart, which is a weird moment. Then we get jokes about how the Amish installed the electricity and it instantly catches on fire. So Bart has two treehouses destroyed in five minutes. Oh, yeah.

It's the unluckiest tree in the world. And this ice sculpture of Homer becomes his undoing because the treehouse catches on fire, he knocks it over, and he's hot up top, cold at the bottom, and actually very pleasant in the middle, right? Yes. You know, I blame Homer's hubris for getting a nude statue of himself done in ice. Like that's the that's what pushed it too far.

And God had to punish him. If something possibly could fall on me, I would not want it to be exactly my size. And be you staring at your face, though. I wonder if this is not explained in the episode. But when when when he's saved by Snowball snowball 2 he is in a puddle of water perhaps the ice melting caused enough water to get around him to prevent full smoke inhalation or him being like burned to death sure sure maybe yeah i also will say that acab except for the joke police and i'm putting on my joke policeman's hat and I'm flagging down this joke because it's been done before where SLH appears he it looks like he's going to save Homer really he just drags

away a cooked turkey this is just like in Homer the Heretic when he pulls a candy bar out of Homer's pocket and leaves as the house catches on fire yeah I don't think they're ripping themselves off I think it's just an observational joke about how dogs care more about food than love. It's not a plot point in that episode, though. Yeah, I remember now on that commentary, Al Jean says, oh, we did this in a later episode. Like he was they I think just written or would have just aired the episode when they were recording the season four commentary. It's the kind of thing that is just an accident. Like, oh, we know dogs and we know this particular unreliable dog okay yeah no it's just that with that input you're going to get the same output unless somebody is checking

um you know outside of obsessives like us so is santa's little helper a coward for not wanting to be burned horribly while trying to drag homer is he a coward guy? I think we're projecting too much agency onto a dog with these accusations of him being a coward. Yeah. Also, he's really going to drag Homer? He's a greyhound. He's a little dog. He's normal size, but

they're wiry. They aren't known for their pulling strength. Yeah, they're built for speed. Yeah, and what's he going to do? Go down the ladder with Homer? Yeah. At best, he'll throw him out of the treehouse. Homer will break his neck and die. Then it's much worse than being a coward. You're a murderer. When Santa's little helper gets near Homer, a big burst of flames comes out and he runs away. Oh, what a coward, not wanting to get burned while grabbing homer it's an unfair expectation though this did remind me of a recent story i saw of a heroic dog uh which was mixed

martial art legend mark coleman he recently survived and saved his family uh his elderly parents from a fire because his dog woke him up and like his his dog hammer uh who sadly did not survive the fire but the dog did wake him up and then mark saved his parents and then mark coleman got in a coma for a few days because he tried to run back in to save his dog but could but and and unfortunately fell unconscious afterwards henry that is a really sad story well you know as a mark coleman was fine he woke up and was so happy his parents were alive and he thanked his dog he says he'll never forget his dog hammer for for saying henry can you now play the clip where homer says dog on fire dog on fire uh well also uh i i wanted to mention it too because mark coleman this event happened

at his at his parents house in fremont ohio so i wondered if either of you ohio boys knew of that area it's near cedar point is where yeah yeah that's a you know up there by huron yeah sandusky yes yeah bit of a drive bit of a drive for us they got to change that names can't they or do you think they can they can wait it out just call it cedar point town so then uh homer says you know i took you for a walk once so just let you know homer also is shitty like he's a bad uh bad uh dog owner but then marge makes the tragic discovery that one of the family is missing. Family headcount! Pointy, pointy, spiky, stylish. Where's Baldi? Ah! Ah! Ah!

What's this? Flames? Searing pain? A black cat? I must be in heaven. Homie, get out of that treehouse! Move the net under the window! There's no net! Ah! I always thought cats were just for losers who live in apartments.

Until my life was saved by this sweet little kitty. But as for you, Santa's little helper, you are a selfish coward and a bad dog. Get out. And stay out. And then Homer even locks shut the doggy door. uh again i feel so bad for santa's little helper to just be happy he was alive you know yeah yeah i mean he's only acting as a real dog actually would now when i see the guilty dog stuff here too uh i am also reminded of the endless like guilty dog videos that go go viral every now and then.

Though this on the commentary, they say they question if a cat has ever done this. And then when I Googled it just in the last year, three different stories I found from three different like states in the US of cat wakes up family, saves family from fire like this. This this does happen. Oh, yeah. They can be loud when they want to yeah though though i guess you could be a jerk and say those cats and those stories were selfish because they wanted you to wake up to get them out of the house so they didn't die hey you know the end's the same right yeah the snowball runs into the treehouse to save homer So that is actually even more heroic. Oh, yeah.

Snowball. Goat. Yeah. Yeah. I love this. This is the most Snowball has been in the show in a long time. And also the animal sounds in this one. I look back to Bob's wonderful research on the history of how much they want to pay Frank Welker or not when I looked at the credits here.

But did you take a look too, Bob? Yeah, who's in the credits? John Kassir is in the credits. Okay. So he might be doing the animal noises in this one. Yeah, I have to assume so. Has he been on the show before? Or is this the only time?

I think he was on another animal noise episode, actually. Though now I'm just going to have to Google this. I didn't remember. I think, I i mean it feels like they were trying to find a new animal voice guy that was cheaper than frank welker and ultimately over the over the years they decided dan can just do this because his dog noises are very funny his cat noises are very funny and he's not a separate actor we need to pay a different fee to nowassir is credited as a various animal noises. So yes, in Jaws Wired Shut, he was the dogs in the gay pride parade as well. That's right.

I think we covered it then. That's right. Yeah. And oh, and a possum in Screaming Yellow Honkers. So those are his two other credits I could find on the wiki for John Kassir. Though, you know, that darn under, that darn Crypt Keeper, he's underbidding Frank Welker out of jobs here. Hey, he was the second Buster Bunny.

It's nothing to sneeze at. I know the, one of the early reasons I really vibed with Bob as a friend was that I saw him correct somebody, Lisa style of, who said, you know, oh, the Bugs Bunny and Crypt Keeper have the same voice and then Bob goes actually it was Buster Bunny 2 not the first Buster Bunny

yeah I once pulled a gun on someone at a party for saying that I'd said it myself so that's how I knew I knew I had a friend I also like Marge's pointy pointy spiky stylish I'd said it myself, so that's how I knew I had a friend. But I also like Marge's pointy, pointy, spiky, stylish, where's Baldy? Like, in her head, that's how she views all the hair in the family. It's exhibit A in my case that Marge has face blindness.

Because that's exactly how people keep track of who's who is the hair. Yeah. That's good. There's a season 36 episode for you marge's journey with face blinds yeah she's got prosopagnosia uh also gene on the commentary is a funny story about like trying to get a cat a real live cat to act on alf i want to hear al gene on alf dvd commentaries i only want to hear aljean talk about alf have we investigated alf dvds they came out at a time where it feels like they would have done a few commentaries shout factory uh i actually was just looking at it because the price went down on amazon shout factory released those new alf collectors thing that has you know before in

the u.s alf was only in the and we talked about this with our found footage fest pals who are the alf experts uh or nick pruer is the alf expert the german versions have the full episodes but if you bought them in the u.s you know 20 15 years ago the alfs on there were the syndicated cuts meaning shorter but shout factory just put out uh remastered versions of the broadcast versions of the episodes though they did cut out the opening of the first clip show where alf electrocutes himself by dropping a egg beater in the bathtub which they said it was an imitatable act and they cut it out from all future i didn't know there was a suicide scene in Elf. Elf got dark.

And apparently, according to the extras listed on it, Elf did some new commentaries for that DVD set. Of course he did. The Elf guy is available. It's also funny. It said in the listing for it, like FAQ on it, and it said one of the frequently asked questions was, why isn't this in HD or why is this just on DVD? And answer, ALF was filmed on VHS.

This looks as good as we can make it. There's no HD ALF. There are no more pixels to show you. That's how cheap they made ALF. They filmed it on tape, not on film. They didn't even put it on beta. Come on. It was on extended play.

They were recording six hours of Elf on every tape. So then when we come back, Snowball 2 is getting all the love, even from Mo. Mo loves her so much, she gave her free Kahlua and cream, and will eat around her on his plate Which, very good animation on that Mo's never eaten a salad in his life No It's funny enough when he's picking around Snowball 2 But then when he lifts her ass up in the air to get the salad underneath Great little visual gag to go out on

Well now, Cole, as a cat owner Has the cat ever sat in your on. Well, now, Cole, as a cat owner, has the cat ever sat in your dinner? No, no, thankfully. The closest thing to this was one time right after I got my first cat, I was grilling pork chops, and I brought them in and then stepped away for a moment, like just a second. And when I came back, there was a pork chop on the floor, the big bite taken out of it. It was literally something out of a cartoon. Never happened again. But no, they've never sat on the food.

They've looked at me, hopefully, but never sat on them. And on the DVD, there is a secret deleted scene from this, which involves perhaps the only scene ever where Lenny and Carl interact with Snowball 2. So give it a little listen here. So, Snowball 2, what's it like being a big star? You idiot cats can't talk. So does that get frustrating or are you pretty much used to it?

And then that's when Santa's little helper opens the door and comes in. So it's a teeny little cut. I like that joke. Yeah. Yeah. I like when there's slight helper opens the door and comes in. So it's a teeny little cut. I like that joke. Yeah. Yeah. I like when there's slight discord between Lenny and Carl. Yeah. Well, and also when this episode feels like it has 20 extra seconds at the ending, I just

think like you could have just kept this scene in or the other scene they cut out of the episode that's on the DVD. But yeah, so everybody's mean to sand his little helper who's just walking around town apparently and goes into most tavern and then leaves uh which homer should be i guess homer hates him right now so he's not going to be sad that his dog is lost he was locked out of the house where else do you expect him to go and then we get uh i i love love that it's uh of course it's sideshow mel who announces long live the hero cat of springfield it's a big slam on garfield i know henry you must have taken this

personally because you recently received a little garfield item my husband uh got me a blind box garfield toy that just happened to be the one I wanted most on the list, which is the pirate Garfield from the Halloween special that we covered on a podcast years ago. Well, of course, there's a resurgence in Garfield merchandise at the moment, thanks to the soon to be released Garfield CGI movie coming out on Memorial Day, same day as Furiosa. Which movie will win? Only time will decide. It's going to be sad if Garfield does defeat Furiosa. I'll be a little sad.

I'm going to go to both. I'm going to pull a full Garfiosa. People haven't been pitching that yet. Cole, get going on that. I'll retweet it. I'll join the campaign. What if different movies came out on the same day i can't handle it uh it's only become a trend since this last uh summer

we all need distractions hey you know what i think it brought movie theaters back to life so you can have your fun little joke okay folks and then after being offered lasagna he also gets an ad in a very Garfield-like move. She, Snowball 2, is part of an ad campaign. I'm making you lasagna. You eat it up like the cat in the funny papers. It's not so funny. Today I can truly say ich bin ein feline.

And I hereby rename Springfield Dog Park the Snowball 2 Municipal Cat Park sponsored by Buzz Cola with Lemon. Damn, that's a lemony cola. I cracked the books on the very brief initiative by the Coca-Cola company to add flavors to their sodas. And Diet Coke with Lemon was introduced in 2001 discontinued in 2005 though you can still get lemony coke from one of those big movie theater dispensing machines yeah the coke freestyle yeah yeah i i like original coke thank you very much i don't i

don't want to tamper with that formula it's time tested and then around the same time there was vanilla coke discontinued the same year and i I think the joke here is, who asked for this? When he goes, damn, that's a lemony cola. Did somebody want this? It's so random to just like, I don't know, whoever. I mean, you go to a restaurant, maybe somebody will put lemon on your soda. But again, I'm not a soda drinker. But to just have like, no, this is artificial lemon.

When I looked up another lemony, thanks for doing the Coke lemon research, Bob, because I ended up doing the Pepsi twist. Their one competing soda from the same time. Oh, so it was an arms race of lemony sodas, right? Yeah, but but it was Coke with lemon. Was that branding? Well, meanwhile, Pepsi twist the word twist then had like the word twist then had a lemon being squeezed next to it. And you know what? How hot was it being advertised?

Well, in 2002, it got the hottest marketing partner it could possibly have. That's not a Pepsi. It's a Pepsi Twist, man. Okay. So the twist was it'sin powers in disguise as a beautiful woman am i remembering this correctly in the one commercial i found britney spears comes there and is drinking pepsi and he's like that's not pepsi that's a pepsi twist man and then he uh alleged that britney spears was a man baby yeah and then uh hit beat her up oh okay but then she kicked him in the face back and he says fair enough good i guess he was looking for a twist wow the austin powers promotion

in 2002 i'm guessing it was part of gold member a part of the all-out blitz of marketing that was gold member but uh yeah the the dog the i think all the other dogs are mad at sands little helper because the the dog park is now named after a cat so they're very offended by that and then homer is asked how much he loves cats by kent brockman in a scene kent brockman even realizes is weird mr simpson how long have you been a cat person all All my life, Kent. I prefer cats up to ketchup. And to me, Yusuf Islam will always be Cat Stevens. Terrific stuff. You must really love the Broadway musical Cats.

God, no. It sucks. Seems like you're quite the animal lover. Do you have any other pets? A dog, perhaps? Kent, let me make this perfectly clear. I have no dog. I didn't know statements like that were legally binding.

I was going to say, yeah, that will eventually cause some real problems for Homer. He was not under oath. He did not sign any affidavits or anything. Well, Lisa's reading a book called The Law, and it must be true. And it's another of the show's love of the jazz singer the the the neil diamond jazz singer with i have no son they they just love bringing it up uh i i learned of it from like father like clown uh and and you know what i also thought so the deal with Yusuf Islam slash Cat Stevens, I always thought that it was still to this day a situation like if you were to call Muhammad Ali Cassius Clay, which is a choice to ignore somebody's, a famous person's name after they convert to Islam and it's an insult to them, you know, if you call them cat stevens but currently at the very least with yusuf cat stevens

he goes by both of those things and cat stevens is acceptable to him now in 2003 he was still only going by yusuf islam okay i've never heard anyone refer to him by his uh yusuf islam name i've only heard cat stevens it was a big deal a little before this episode aired because he had just started getting back to releasing music. He actually took almost a 20-year break after his conversion to Islam at the end of the 70s. He then left the public eye, stopped playing music, and was very committed to his religion. But he started getting back into performing and releasing music and albums and even playing his old hits.

Yeah, I guess apparently him getting back into religion is why he could no longer produce secular music. That's why he took that 20-year break. I always thought, like this joke with Homer, if I heard somebody... I thought when people said Cat Stevens still that I was like, wait, no, you're insulting his religion or you're you know being islamophobic but now i at the very least in his case no it is it's okay to call him cat stevens but

i also heard he is one of the more expensive guys to get his music in your movies i i just heard this about the wonderful movie holdovers i love that movie uh and it features the cat stevens classic the wind in it for a powerful scene and i saw alexander payne the director do an interview of saying oh yeah this movie might look cheap but uh some of these songs were very expensive including to get this song in there i had to like talk to cat stevens son and cat stevens son is like, I can get you the friend price. And the friend price was still the highest price of a song in the movie. Giamatti had to pack a lunch for a few weeks on that film set.

I mean, it's a beautiful scene. If you want to feel ways about things in a 70s context, Cat Stevens' songs will do that for you. Easy. It's a cheat code. See also the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. Yeah. Oh, of course. And hey, there's a really long deleted scene.

This is where it pops up, right, Henry? My God, is it long. Yes. I assume we're on the same page, but my take was there's a joke in here that I think they thought people would misinterpret of them being on a certain side politically, which they're not. And that's why it didn't go live. I think you're right, Bob. Actually, that did not occur to me, but here I'll play the clip. The first bit in the clip is, I cut it out because it's mostly visual, but Kent,

after the interview's over, Kent says, and we'll be right back from this commercial and then he gets hops uh he starts running off with his cameraman because they're live but they've got to get back to the studio before the commercial ends which which that's a good joke but then we go to a dog therapist you've got to help us doctor our dog is coward. I'd expect this from a French poodle, but not from an American dog. Traditionally, cowardice is brought on by extreme self-centeredness. Could he have picked up this selfish behavior from someone in the family? You're all out of family names. Those were dog Viagra.

Uh-uh. I think I see the negative family dynamic at work here. I have a name. It's Homer. I think what your dog needs are some new role models. Excellent. But we still have 40 minutes left. I'd like to talk about our marriage. But I'm a pet psychologist. Well, in that case, my turtle retreats into his shell every time I try to talk about his lack of ambition.

I didn't know we had a turtle, but he sounds cool. I think it was that French joke because maybe it was just a stock joke to make. You know, the French are cowards. But by the time in the nine months between the writing and the production of this episode, we are now at war. I feel like anti-Fred Settman is at an all time high and they don't want to look like they're sending that message out via Marge. And we had the season six line cheese eating surrender monkeys. But that was Willie, the unreliable narrator. It was Willie's point of view hates everybody, especially Scotland. That did not occur to me, Bob.

But you are i i think you're extremely right they are two months into the the actual like open invasion of iraq that france cowardly and it's such a cowardly way chose to not invade a sovereign country that was not a threat to anybody i mean if you want to call french cowards just watch them strike and you'll realize americans are the most cowed populace on the planet oh we're such bitches no uh yes i think you're right bob well especially because like we when they did the commentary for that episode which he's eating surrender monkeys in it you know gene talks about how he heard i think he said it was uh that janine garofalo was talking about how that was a a slur against french people and she

hated it and how uh al jean you know felt bad about it because that was not how the joke was meant so if he's already if he is thinking about that in 2003 i could see them wanting to cut a bit of more french slander that they don't want taken out of context yeah and then the context for i believe that was the PTA disbands. Was that the episode? Yeah, they say like, oh, yes, Willie took over the French class as part of PTA disbands. I mean, the context is A, it's Groundskeeper Willie. B, he's resentful of having to teach a French class.

And I think people just took what he said and ran with it without the context. Because it's a funny pairing of words. See also Burns calling the japanese sandal wearing goldfish tenders right like these are terrible people you know engaging in caricature right also the the you know line was set in 1902 i think so yeah and i think up up until a certain point in my life i did use the uh get me his non-Union Mexican equivalent joke. Then I realized if I say that out loud, people might not realize, well, you know, it's from The Simpsons and Mr. Burns said that. And here's the context in which it was said.

So I stopped saying it in public. I was just thinking about ironic things I did and now regret in an office space, which was like all my coworkers knew I was gay in my group of cubicles. So they all thought it was funny that, and it was a joke amongst us that we got some freebie sexy anime girl game stuff in the mail. And it was one of the mouse pads where you rest your arm between the boobs. And they were like, Oh,

it'd be funny if it was on your desk. I was like, yeah, it would be funny. And then also, it's very comfortable, and I actually did like using it. But later in life, I thought about, like, it was a big office. If you didn't work in our group, you would just think I am a guy who brought his porno wrist guard to work and had it sitting at his desk for about two years. Many such cases not you forget people aren't as irony poisoned as you in office spaces this is why i don't work in

offices anymore oh no no i mean you make a joke about something and people think that you're endorsing it no i just know about it please yeah see now today i use use a Kirby version of that where I put it between his cheeks, which is still in the lumpy. It's the same model, except it's Kirby's cheeks. I got to tell you, though, it still looks a little obscene. Just a little. Well, that's because I've spilled a couple things on it. Food. Food.

I have an Ace Attorney desk mat available now at Fangamer.com. Oh, I've got the elden ring one oh nice so you're you're learning how nerdy we are listeners um so i like you didn't know but i i do like them anytime homer is written to be in a scene with a therapist a therapist instantly realizes all problems go back to homer and he is he needs a whole lot of fixing that he won't do I like those jokes I do like those it does vary how much he's aware of

it though right you know to see how it turns you know children's against fathers wives against husbands and then something against me right yeah neighbors against me and it is a great I mean they didn't put the scene in the episode but i like how they go out with homer identifying with a turtle that's clearly a metaphor

for him he's like oh he sounds cool i also liked him saying i have a name homer and if that scene had been in there then her saying that sad Santa's little helper needs new heroes would then lead into the next scene of Lisa telling him he should respect Rin Tin Tin and try to emulate him. It's the connective tissue there. But we learn Lisa respects him for being the first openly gay dog in Hollywood, which, you know, is obviously a silly little joke though them making up a fake world war two rin tintin movie is funny as well because he's more connected to world war one as uh the the the i think rin tintin is the first uh movie star dog or at least american movie star dog like he starred in silent films yeah yeah i i you know what i I miss this entire era of dog-based entertainment. As a kid, if I were to see part of, I don't know, a Benji movie on television, I would say, oh, the dog doesn't talk?

Well, what am I doing here? Just a dead-eyed dog walking around as a trainer is offscreen saying, go over there. Now go over there. Now lick his face. Same thing with Lassie. Yeah. Homeward Bound, The Incredible Journey. One of those dogs sounds like Marty McFly in there.

I want to hear their thoughts. Yes. Yes. Yes. I loved that movie as a kid, too. But yeah, if I'm not hearing inner monologue from animals, I don't care as much. I, yeah, no, Lassie, some of the worst afternoons of my childhood were just way of like in the 80s, turning on nickelodeon which should only have funny cartoons on it i want to watch and then an hour of lassie and it's just like god it never ended like dennis

the menace or any other black and white things bad enough but lassie i couldn't stand it as a kid so boring at least rin tin tin i think would try to battle people and worked in at least kind of an adventure law enforcement thing instead of just you just going to wells on a family farm like Lassie would. I was watching Dennis the Menace, the black and white version. My thought was, at least it's not Lassie. It could be worse. Also, I saw the first Rin Tin Tin passed away in 1932. So before Hitler really rose to power, He passed away before there was Hitler.

And this was another bit where I was like, oh, Matt Groening's out of town this week because they say that Mike Reese added this whole Hitler bit of the mailman who looks like Hitler and gets bitten and that Matt Groening hates Hitler jokes. He hates animals acting like people and he hates Hitler jokes. It's too bad he's not on the commentary to react to all this. He'd be boiling, man. But I guess maybe him and Stacey Keach, just their availabilities did not match up. Seeing the mailman lift up the mail in a Zieg Heil type way is so funny.

It's a good drawing. Yeah. This is why you let your mustaches grow free if you're going to grow facial hair. So, yes. Then Santa's a little helper. He then acts in a very dog-like way of just eating Homer's burger and pissing off Homer all the more. And this is when he gets chained up. Homer chokes him, which also MacRaney hates that animal abuse.

Like, Homer just indiscriminately chokes the dog. No, there's not. The joke to it is that then he puts a choke chain on him. And Marge says it's more humane. Right. Which they covered in depth in Bart's Dog, It's an F. Yeah. Yeah.

So let's just say they broke out. They never got rid of the choke chain Bart wouldn't use in the training. And then they head out as they leave to use the emergency ham. Then he starts playing around. Sansa Lullaby starts playing around with a beer can. They say on the commentary, John Frank frank one of the writers with don pain the late don pain he can't remember where he got it from but he he swears he was thinking of some then viral dog photo with like a beer can or something but unfortunately decades of online

viral dog videos have ruined my ability to google for this photo, so I don't know what it is. Well, the important thing is season two favorite Dave Shutton makes a reappearance. Isn't it great? They remember Dave Shutton, and he's there to take a photograph. And yes, Dave Shutton named after John Schwarzwalder's friend, who I just saw a few months ago. John Schwarzwalder did a tweet saying, my friend Dave Shutton just reminded me of this old joke I wrote in Playboy. And I was like, wow, the Dave Shutton is still alive, reminding John Schwarzwalder of jokes.

He lives. And of course, he's a yellow journalist, though, reenacting the photograph to fake it to get the viral shot he wanted, as I'm sure all people who have funny dog videos do. They all try to make it look real but i bet it's like take five we're seeing on on the dodo you know this episode along with many from this era are a result of algae and coming back to the show watching the episodes again for commentary the old episodes and saying oh we should follow up on this. So we have Dave Shutton. We have the return of Santa's Little Helper's owner in this too. So it's the confluence of two different old ideas slamming together.

I forgot that this was a lore-heavy episode. Much more than I thought it would be. Just a reminder, like, oh, you abandoned him on Christmas Eve 13 years ago? Or I guess four months ago, since the kids are the same age. Well, and it brings back the lore of like H.K. Duff and his competition with Duffman, which we hadn't seen in a couple seasons as well. From Hungry Hungry Homer. Though, it's funny, Stacy Keach is being the pedantic nerd fan on the commentary. Did you catch that too, Bob? Yes, because he points out that in Hungry Hungry Homer, where the character makes his debut, it's HK Duff the 8th. Here, it's HK Duff the 7th.

So someone screwed up. Also, he gives himself more of a southern accent in this than i felt like in in that one he was just doing straight up stacy keach but in this one he's more of a texas kind of guy but they also kept his bolo tie which was how he revealed he was going to arizona or wanted to take the team to arizona oh it was new mexico albuquerque new mexico oh what am i yes of course yeah you know all those flavors for i am the mayor of albuquerque now the now the isotopes have to be even hotter because they can tie into the oppenheimer films as well i still need to get one of those hats what if the whole team played in an oppenheimer hat oh man that'd be great just for one game or oppenheimer hat night i just want the logo of the movie on the front on

the back it says this summer get blown i also i i wish they'd bring back keach more he didn't return till season fit uh season for in 2015. I think it was. It was a little while before he returned again. But him and Hank Azaria as Duffman, they have great chemistry here. This photo gives me an idea. We might have found our new Duff spokesperson. He's young, he's slim, and he can stand on his hind legs.

Unlike our current spokesman. Ooh, Duffman could use an eye opener take a hike duff man you're a disgrace to the unitard you're firing me but what about my children duff girl and duff lad oh those were one-shot characters in a super bowl ad oh yeah i love that joke so much because as a kid i was extremely invested in commercial uh lore and where they'd be like oh the this like say this keyblerelf only appears in these ones or what happened to kool-aid man's best friends from like they who he doesn't meet in the commercials anymore so hearing the duff girl and duff lad were one-off characters for a Super Bowl ad that weren't brought back is such great marketing comedy.

You know, it's funny that this episode is about dueling Budweiser mascot parodies because Duff Man is a parody of Bud Man, who I believe was the mascot character right before Spuds McKenzie for Budweiser. And then we have Spuds McKenziezie a much more popular and marketable figure uh yeah bill oakley and josh weinstein they invented duff man as a parody of this just very obscure short-lived uh marketing mascot the the bud man cartoons are so cute and fun he's he's drawn into like you know jay ward style i don't believe it was a Jay Ward creation, but in that style that was popularized in 60s commercials, and he was a late 60s guy into the 70s, but then disappeared for the 80s. I mean, much like Spuds McKenzie,

Bud Man was invented to have a colorful, cartoony mascot children can see, and they did bring him back for a 91 ad campaign of like called find bud man where it's like buy a 12 pack and see if you get a bud man sticker in it and you could win fabulous prizes yeah i guess i guess they uh invented this because it was really 70s nostalgia and they and they loved doing things with 70s nostalgia uh bill oakley and josh weinstein but uh bud man very obscure and i can only find the 1991 commercials on the internet from the bud man revival but meanwhile you can kind of watch all of

the spuds mckenzie commercials on youtube i could find posters and print ads that people saved a bud man but if he had televised commercials back in the day i nobody kinescoped them or whatever uh in the pre-vhs days now i as a kid loved spuds i thought he was cool i thought uh and i was like six at his height so i didn't even think about why all the bikini babes loved him yeah are we talking about spuds mckenzie now can we go into the bio of Spuds? Sure, yes. It's a very short bio. In fact, I took my research from our episode of Talking Futurama about Fry and the Slurm Factory. And so, yeah, Spuds McKenzie was the spokesdog for Bud Light from 1987 to 1989. And the first commercial was aired during the Super Bowl in 1987.

So huge splash for this spokesdog, who was actually a female dog named Honey Tree Evil Eye. And this dog was a bull terrier. So Spuds McKenzie, not a man. So, wow. So it was about a lesbian dog then. A lesbian dog named like a racehorse. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know if they covered up the dog's genitals so you couldn't see his big swinging dick in these commercials, but yeah, I mean, I feel like they were very tongue-in-cheek. Watching them now, I realize they were having fun with the idea of, you know, so many beer commercials were about, oh,

open the beer and the bikini bags arrive. Here, the bikini babes are aroused by a little ugly dog who's extra cool i mean you just put sunglasses on a dog and it's fun yeah it's always it's it's great any animal uh so yeah spuds mckenzie did not last very long because temperance groups and weirdly enough strom thermand uh attack spuds because they thought budweiser was using him to sell beer to children and i you know like you said henry i know i like spuds as a kid,

but I never became a bud drinker. I just thought, Oh, here's a commercial. Oh, a cute doggy. And, uh,

these women are fairly interesting. Yeah, no, I, I never wanted to also like, yeah, but always seemed gross to me, especially like,

and also me and you watched, uh, you even more than me were were regular viewers of Married with Children, which named a character after Bud Beer. And yet we still did not want to drink Bud alcohol ever. No. Yeah, and Strom Thurman hated Spuds McKenzie almost as much as certain races. Yeah, that was his priority.

I did see that Spuds came back for a 2017 super bowl bud light ad it was like spuds mckenzie's ghost was trying to help i was doing like a ghost of christmas past thing and showing a guy how he used to party with bud light though it made it like spuds could talk in it which uh but it was like voiceover they didn't like move the dog's mouth but yeah no well i mean once a dog dies it can yeah that's just a fact well whenever i see spuds or a bull terriers apologies to bull terrier owners out there i think of that line that khan has a king of the hill where he says oh it's like one of those dogs who are so ugly they're actually cute they've got these beady little eyes they're so far apart on their heads but then you know the ugliness uh it transcends ugliness and becomes cute again.

It is. Also, I assume that all of those Bud Light angry protests that were happening last year were all about wanting to bring Spuds McKenzie back, I'm assuming. I didn't look into it, but I think you're safe saying that. Guys were pouring out all their Bud Lights until Spuds mckenzie was remade as the uh the mascot well now i'm seeing all of these spuds mckenzie the original party animal t-shirts and i gotta find one on uh ebay or something oh they got somebody's gotta at least have a well vintage one maybe on etsy but if not then a fake vintage one on etsy so yes they they don't get too creative with the name they want it to be right in your face of like yes he's going to

become suds mcduff which uh it's fun to see even at uh universal studios they have a suds mcduff like banner at one of the uh the the areas too. They still are keeping the character of Suds McDuff alive at the Universal Studios. And Blue Haired Lawyer is there to make it official. Homer says, I don't care if his name is Boney McDork, so long as the checks are made out to me. This

next bit where Homer hears about the corporate jet and has a fantasy that becomes a nightmare, I think it's the best joke in the entire episode and perhaps the season it is it ramped up the most of homer going cool he just wants something interesting to happen homer hears that he's going to have access to a corporate jet you know lisa should be against this by the way i don't know why lisa is pro corporate jet all the pollution but anyhow homer that, has a fantasy where he's wearing a tuxedo and a top hat,

telling the pilot to go over to Germany for Oktoberfest. He doesn't get a response. He goes to the cockpit. There's no pilot. He starts screaming. And then we cut back to Homer in the present going, sweet. Yes. The screaming animation on him, too, is very funny. and his top hat and tails it's also great

and it was a literal thought balloon around him which i again take that to to mean aljean is getting confident to have a thought balloon cut away because family guy is currently canceled when this episode airs oh it's safe yeah there there was a it was the rare time when there wasn't a new family guy being produced in the last 25 years yeah though and listeners if you want to learn more about the history of family guy and his trip back to uh dvd that's a side part of bob's great history on bender's big score which is the movie this month on our what a cartoon movie podcast uh and then the also homer turns back to loving santa's little helper and i also love this line dad five minutes ago you hated him who are you my biographer it's a pretty good all-purpose one i need to keep that in my pocket it's a rejoinder yeah so so we go to Krusty, and it's more of Krusty being Johnny Carson, or I guess Jay Leno in this case, but any late night show host who has on Crazy Angels.

I think they're really drawing back to Johnny Carson, and also the many Krusty jokes before where he is Johnny Carson doing the animal bits, and the animal pisses on him or bites him or claws at his head. This isn't as good as, why do they call it a urine monkey? But I do like that Krusty says, and now I will just stand on my mark in between the snake and its child. That's a good, that Krusty sees,

oh yeah, this is where my mark is. And yet he is surprised when the snake attacks him. So was it the person who blocked out the scene wanted Krusty sees, oh yeah, this is where my mark is. And yet he is surprised when the snake attacks him. So was it the person who blocked out the scene wanted Krusty to be attacked? We're never going to know. Whatever the case, we get a new technical difficulties sign, which are always great. Well, him in an ambulance, which maybe they made that after Krusty got shot on TV in the Old West episode. Oh, right. And so after Krusty in this clip gets attacked by the snake, it then cuts to a beer commercial

on a children's program. Krusty, our animal today is the toxic pricker snake. Very good. Now let me stand on my mark between the snake and its baby. Cut the commercial. Between the snake and its baby... AAAAAAAAHHHHH! Cut the commercial! Hey, boy, this is your commercial! Houston, we have a problem.

This place is dollsville. Da, how can you get a buzz chewing freeze-dried beer? What? It's Sons McDuff. Where the shuttlecraft is genuine draft. Ha ha! Woo! Oh, buddy.

Duff, the official beer of NASA. National Association of the Sellers of Alcohol. Yay! Why does a dog have human girlfriends? People do crazy things in ads, like even Arby's. Sick Arby's dig. More Arby's slander. Now, I enjoy this commercial parody, but I don't think it goes far enough to be a parody.

It just feels like this could have aired in 2003 as a sincere beer commercial. As things are getting more ironic things are getting a little more clever in terms of how things are advertised to people i feel like there should have been something beyond that the joke at the end is obviously the exaggeration but it feels a little too close to the vest i guess the the stuff that's like funny about it is super subtle like flipping the switch from power up to party down you know like oh they're shutting down the the shuttle that's a bad idea the uh the bikini babes um uh somehow still having those like 50s sci-fi glass uh helmets over themselves but still

holding beer like they're gonna drink it like there are funny details in it but it's not funny because it's a parody in my mind also uh santa's little helper is the second uh simpsons family member to get a uh blue denube playing while they're in space oh sequence that's true yeah wow man now that yeah you're right the sons mcduff ad it's fun's fun, but it would just be an ad. This is the problem with satire catching up with The Simpsons. I kind of miss this era of advertising, and by this I mean the parodying of the late 80s beer commercial, because now every commercial thinks it's Tim and Eric, awesome show, great job, and they're not. Don't got the juice no i i it really sucks that tim and eric they got hired to like direct one old spice commercial and it ruined all future commercials every commercial is like after they after tim and eric shared the secret sauce that we all knew as adult swim viewers with the rest of the world and those Old Spice commercials,

then it ruined all future American advertising. And meanwhile, Tim and Eric, I feel like every marketing company should be paying them $8 trillion. They're doing just fine, but they're the crux of marketing today. Though, yeah. Also, you remind me of that thing with mascots.

Why is it, Cole, that all, you make such a good point, that it's all of these, the insurance companies hoard all of the mascots. They have like five different mascots in these insurance companies. I think it might just literally be the only industry that has enough money to do that. Also to run like extremely, extremely long campaigns too too obviously this began with geico right to become their own to become their you know the differentiator right for a lot of people but like it it also like insurance is insurance so what are you going to do it's like it is the way to differentiate it but yeah it is it's just wild but it is all um you know insurance companies limu limu uh the geico gecko the cavemen uh you know way back it's a no it's weird when people from other countries come to america and see

commercials they make the remark all the commercials are for medication and or insurance and that's exactly what happened when i went back to America and watched commercials on TV. It only dawned on me when other people not from America told me that. And suddenly I saw what was going on. It's just like, oh, yeah, it really is this. What a demented country. Do you want to not die? You better give us money.

Who are we to look so snidely down on like crazy Japan and its commercials when we've had like, you know, Flo be a part of our lives for 20 years now as just one of the many insurance human mascots. Haha, one of the worst things that could ever happen to you happened to you. You crash your car. Let's do jokes. Yeah, also this International Space Station stuff, it just reminded me. Recently on Chapo Trap House, they were just goofing on why does it exist? Why do we spend billions of dollars on it?

Though I've said before, even if you could, if you want to save government bloat, get rid of every military, and then we can deal with NASA. Then we can count the money spent by nasa but uh yeah the suds suds mcduff is a big hit we then see he's getting paid tons of money and uh wads of cash even 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. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird.

I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance. That's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Oh, yes. That Arby's thing. Sorry. That Arby's thing.

We talk about that more in the to be released podcast we did on the front. But basically, it sounds like it is like a protection racket and Arby's doesn't pay enough money to not get made fun of. Yeah. And, you know, Bill Oakley, friend of the show, points out that Arby's is good, but the word Arby is funny, so it ends up as the punchline many a time. Yeah. They're not going to say, like, eat a Taco Bell.

Like, that will get you in some trouble in 2003. Yeah, it just, it's also like the one fast food chain that's different, you know? Like, roast beef sandwiches, it's a weird variety of thing to get a chain actually you know now i'm thinking about when they the only time i see the mascots come back for things like that is in super bowl commercials like this buds one i was talking about but also bud light is the most guilty of it i'd say or they've done it the most that i can

remember where they did a they did a super Bowl commercial that was basically their Avengers endgame where all previous mascots come out of portals and team up to save a guy. Bud Light is the most invested in their mascot history. Oh, yeah. We then see that Homer is getting paid in wads with cash and that he is ranking the family members and that Sansa the helper has now moved on up. And great freeze-frame joke that Vegas wife is ranking the family members and that sands little helper is now moved

on up and great freeze frame joke that vegas wife is at the bottom of that list she's not been forgotten homer's vegas wife is the one that survived right i think so i think it's ned's who dies in a future episode okay yeah again lore of course at this point, when this episode aired, it's been, I think, at least 14 months since they drugged the Vegas wife and Abe had sex with her under dubious circumstances. Yeah, not a great start to production season 13. Whoa. But let's remember something we have warmer memories for. Simpsons roasting on an open fire in our next clip. Ten wads of cash. Your dog has sent Duff beer sales through the roof.

Boy, you're now second best in the family, right ahead of Marge. There you are, old pal I finally found you Who the hell are you? I'm this dog's owner I raced him at the Greyhound track under the name Santa's Little Helper Good times

Well, he's not yours anymore You threw him out on Christmas Eve Yeah, don't listen to him, Mr. Duff the Seventh We took this dog in and loved him and that makes him ours. Oh, really? Well, this tape says different. Kid, let me make this perfectly clear.

I have no dog. Dad, you can't let him take our dog! My watch! I never even broke the wrapper! Who's going to eat my homework now? Yeah, the return of a little guy named Les Moore, who goes unnamed in this episode. Apparently, one of the Simpsons episode guides, which they stopped producing, I think after season 20, they identified him as Les. And then there's an episode way down the line i think season 32 called

the way of the dog and his last name is revealed to be more he makes an appearance again but yeah this guy he is from the first aired episode and we only see a close-up shot of him for as long as it takes him to say the line you've come in last for the last time and he throws a rock that's the only time we really see a good shot of him but yeah uh he doesn't really appear after this yeah he's he's got a big season one mouth and uh hanging out uh rounded teeth he is extremely season one i gene calls him very claskey chupo looking uh and yeah when i saw that 2020 episode, the way of the dog, uh, that was also a shocking one of like, oh wow, he's here. Like it, it was also, uh, thanks to COVID it aired in, in, it was supposed to be their

Christmas episode, but it aired in May of 2020 as their, uh, season finale. Uh, and that, that is also a Santa's little helper goes to a dog therapist episode and it's how he learned we learned that uh santa's little helper has mommy abandonment issues that they have to say fix yeah i thought we'd learn more about him in this one but we really don't he shows up here and then at the end and then uh 18 years later 17 years later in that episode yes also uh i was wondering what led him to this choice but uh it's it's interesting that they could end on homer crying i never got to break the seal but they do intentionally choose to then cut to bart crying and even though bart says a joke they want it to be centered on bart's emotion of losing his dog not not on a joke with Homer crying. So they're trying to

get some emotion out of this, of Bart loving his dog. Which makes sense, but that has not been the tone of the episode so far. Yeah, Bart has expressed no opinion about Santa's little helper up until this point. When Homer's calling him a coward, maybe Bart should be saying like, hey, don't talk about my dog that way. I love it. Like something to indicate that Bart likes this dog. Bart identifies with this dog. Also, Bart's been through this huge fame spike as well.

I'm not asking them to make this like a serialized series. There's a lot of emotional core there that I feel like in an earlier season it probably would have been explored. No, and Bart's dog gets an F. They explore it perfectly because Bart sees the rejection that Santa's little helper is getting

for being a screw-up. It's just like, oh, the family, Bart is projecting onto his pet of going like, oh, the family feels this way about me too. Or if they get rid of him, it's like family feels this way about me too. Or if they get rid of him, it's like they're getting rid of me. And it's, yeah, the connection is much deeper.

I did forget to mention this episode does start, the very first shot is Homer and Santa's little helper in the same shot. So it feels like at the very least the layout team was trying to set up this episode as a Homer and Santa santa's little helper story yeah and then to as another marker of time in the show in treehouse 9 in season 10 regis philbin and kathy lee gifford appear in live action in a scene from their show of live with regis and kathy lee and by now they have to change and update the joke to be a joke about live with regis and kelly yeah and i guess the joke is that regis is very obnoxious and kelly can't really speak on the show i never watched this era of regis uh sorry the live show as i recall people started to like

kelly rippa more than kathy lee that kelly ripa is seemed more wholesome or the very or that she could like she seemed more um real yeah than kathy lee i think the problem was kathy lee was too wholesome and people viewed it as an act and then there was a husband cheating on her thing that revealed dark elements of her life and kelly ripa was more relatable despite being a gorgeous tv star yeah the kelly uh she was a fresh-faced youngster when they made this joke and now she controls the live empire because regis retired from the show in 2011 she has been the lead of the show since then and she's had a revolving door of uh handsome guys who team up with her but it's always been

live with kelly and man's name just like when siskel died all these gorgeous men came in like harry knolls kevin smith fucking harry knolls uh no yeah kelly kelly ripa she her empire has now grown so much that the regular co-host on her show at this point is her husband mark consuelos so it's it's an entire family uh production here first married news crew yeah my my favorite my favorite my favorite culture that uh the the live regis and ke and Kelly thing, that kind of TV had created was the arc on Veep where Dan, the social climber guy, gets cast on there. And it kind of falls into that, oh, I'm just the random handsome guy kind of dynamic. And we hear a reference to producer Gelman, which if you watch this this program you would know he was the butt of a

lot of jokes and then in the snl sketches about regis and kelly regis and kathy lee they would do a lot of gelman humor i believe it was chris parnell who by the way very good in the new fallout series oh he was playing gelman he's yes he's so great yeah i mean he's great in everything but man he steals every scene he's in in fallout but yeah no i only knew about gellman from the snl like i would see clips of of regis regis and kathleen or regis and kelly on tv occasionally but i was i wasn't watching it regularly even in the even in the lazy summers of watching daytime tv but i knew gellman from the snl uh things and he he still is the executive producer on the kelly rip his show he's their very own baba buoy also in a funny uh bit of

symmetry here so suds goes on regis and kelly we have jokes that kelly doesn't even get to speak then we cut to him being on a version of of uh i guess it was the 64 000 pyramid at this point it's interesting uh because it's a pyramid parody but the set in the sound design is like who wants to be a millionaire oh you're right and and the game you know the the joke is that that Santa's little helper is just barking. I don't remember the $64,000 pyramid being like a password kind of game, you know, where you're trying to make somebody guess. I think that's the dynamic on it, isn't it? I think know is it's a $100,000 pyramid now, and its host, Michael Strahan, Kelly Ripa's old host on the live show. Well, she's a job creator.

She's within wheels. Yeah. She actually, that was the last time I read news about Kelly Ripa was because when Michael Strahan left the show, she was like one of the last, she went public of saying she was one of the last people to hear about it and that her producers didn't tell her. And it got her. I think it expanded her power on the show. And she flexed some muscle on it. But yes, apparently you can watch it in some markets back to back. You can watch Steve Harvey's Family Fe and then michael strahan's hundred

thousand dollar pyramid then marge has a joke that uh about how santa's little helper is being treated as poorly as bob cuccioni treats his pets and sadly if you search the words bob cuccioni allegations online marge's joke is full of more truth than she knew in 2003 that joke is surprisingly like like an obscure poll but also surprisingly dark and it comes out of nowhere i only knew him from his guest appearance on duck man of course he appeared on duck man what was it oh what did he say uh his exit line in that episode was like the only safe sex is abstinence. Doesn't he say? Surprising turn for Guccione. But yes, it's Bob Guccione, a lot of dead now, a lot of allegations. Anywho, though, it's funny then Lisa holds up a book that just has law on it.

It's like, well, sorry, legally he owns some. Like, no, well, that closes the case on that. He definitely is. He owns Santa's little helper and gets all the money yes then bart starts crying over the best friend that he never thinks about and rarely interacts with but for this episode he really cares you figured he would have been in the treehouse at the beginning or something should just show a little bit a little bit of a reminder that they're they're buds yeah that's that's a simple rewrite of just like put that at the start like i feel i do feel like that's a difference between a season 4 and a season 14 that they'd

think of at least having a tiny bit of foundation for for that idea they're just relying on this archetype like of course a boy loves his dog more than more than anybody like it just it can go without saying but should it like there's room there you can integrate it it's fine uh and then after a long series of homer trying to scare lisa and not working which bob anderson his team got to draw some funny homer faces though it is very much within their funny faces but if you compare it to say don't mind if i do freak out you can see the rules are a lot tighter now on how homer crazy homer's face could be and they they decide they need a zany scheme which like with other stuff in the episode like the commercial i feel like it's not arched enough the zany scheme just isn't it needs slightly more

zaniness yeah it's uh it could use a bit of a punch-up oh yeah it could yeah it could use a punch-up and also like their scheme relies on something like it relies on people being disappointed that um suds suds mcduff is is a is a coward but that is not established to be the character of suds mcduff right like they're like oh this specifically will disenchant people and my question was why would anybody care yeah we're writing this line between trying not to be the comic book guy here because like it it is like a like a motivation that pops up out of nowhere and i had to like this is the space to be like comic book oh absolutely yeah there's no shame in it no it reminds me of a less effective back to the future style plot in which a dangerous situation

is engineered and then someone is set up to be the savior to restore their confidence to restore their place in the world etc etc this one is a little a little shakier i think it's a great scene because every scene in back to the future is great but that is such a wacky seed uh or when even marty in the scene is is shocked the words he's saying he's like so look this is gonna sound kind of crazy but i will take my mom to the dance and then you're it's the as he explains it as they're walking around the uh the laundry hanging up the clothes like even marty's like yeah this does sound insane but uh it's it's got to work out this way first step though they have to head to

springfield's men's mission we add god to your misery that's a great sign gag love that song and we also get gill being tossed out because there's a six months limit and based on the sound effects i guess gill is permanently blinded and eyeless for the rest of the series after this yep he's a horrifying character when he appears again screaming with two big black voids in his face also dark this is one of i don't know there's something about eye jokes in the simpsons like when uh when homer gets laser surgery and they crust over or scab over or whatever it is like they i mean i'm trying to decide if this is a personal thing or if they just really really like doing super gross stuff with eyeballs perfectly chosen sound effect of

eyes being scooped out very quickly too yeah a good a good i i feel like this was when i just started around when i started noticing the existence of like you know the horrible like payday advance loans places or cash for gold places all around our blighted country oh well now it's plasma plasma centers are everywhere really yeah man geez guys, start a podcast. You don't have to sell plasma. No. Then we get to see the return of Duffman in a very quick turnaround here. Okay, if you have six liters of blood and your blood is 80% alcohol, how much alcohol do you have? Anyone? Hey, Duffman. Please, I'm not Duffman

anymore. Just plain old Barry Duffman. Oh, yeah. But we need you to be Duffman again so we can get our dog back. But I like it here, helping the less fortunate. It'll be a cold day in hell before I shill beer again.

Nicey cold, full-bodied, beechwood-aged, amber-hued, day in Oh, who am I kidding? Where's my trademark headgear? Yay! You really are Duffman. Then I must be Jesus.

Up, up, and away! Ah! Stay cool, hopeless drugs. Oh, yeah. You know, Family Guy, if they did that same joke, they would not have the groaning outside the window. He would just be dead, the guy who jumped out. And I realize that this is a third Duffman, I guess,

because he has been killed on screen before. And we have that joke from Jaws Wired Shut where he says, duff man can never die only the actors who play him because because lenny said i think that he like died of like liver failure or something i i choose to believe that mo also killed the duff man when he uh put the sticker over his face and duffman collapse, unable to breathe. The, the, the,

the, the implied cosmology here where Duffman is not an individual, but instead is a dark passenger that boards a person whenever they put on the headgear, whenever they put on the hat, like, yeah, just,

uh, there is no Duffman. There are just avatars of Duffman. I'm just sad that we lost his theme song, I guess, because it's, you have to license that song every time, but that's the greatest intro for him.

Yes, God, it's such a funny song. Though this name, Barry Duffman, would stick around for some other Duffman storylines, including the dedicated Duffman episode from season 34, From Beer to Paternity,

where he meets his adult daughter, Amber Duffman episode from season 34, From Beer to Paternity, where he meets his adult daughter, Amber Duffman, played by Aubrey Plaza. Henry, can you confirm this? The wiki is telling me that he's currently in relationship with Grady, the Scott Thompson character from Three Gays of the Condo. Duffman, I think, has made other appearances after From Beer to Paternity, but that episode treats Barry Duffman as a heterosexual man, a chauvinistic, sexist, heterosexual man. And that's why his daughter comes back into his life, because he becomes one of those guys as a father of a daughter. Apologizers like that. That's the joke. But I think the Grady one, my choice is either Barry Duffman is a closeted bisexual or not straight man

or that this was a different Duffman who is interested in same-sex relationships. That's my choice for it. But the Grady thing, that's only within the next five years. That's not a season 30 and beyond status quo for

Barry Duffman. Though I think it's more fun if Barry Duffman is bisexual. I think that's not a season 30 and beyond status quo for barry duffman though i think it's more fun if barry duffman is bisexual i think that's a funnier idea it just it fits with him being a party animal kind of guy like uh there's a certain uh bacchanalian kind of thing to it there's resonance there yeah and it plays against the the image of the macho guy surrounded by babes kind of thing though though in that episode he's also in from beer to paternity he's fired uh because again of the shifting marketing of beer it's it's a statement about current day marketing of beer and the episode ends with i believe he returns to being duff man in later episodes but in that episode he then then starts working with his daughter Amber when she opens up a dispensary and he instead becomes Puff Man.

Thinking about the changing marketing, I know they don't like to use Barney. And even around here, is this post-sober Barney? He's actually getting drunker in more episodes he just relapsed as of three or four episodes ago i believe as of this this airing here this season yeah in season 14 this season okay yeah so he wasn't i thought he was sober for longer but just kind of like oh man like you should have but you should have barney here to me like i don't know and stuff yeah it's it's ups and downs with Barney's sobriety at this time. But,

uh, well, I mean, even in the Simpsons movie, he's drunk for one scene and then he's going to AA and another scene, though, of course, you know,

that is that a lot of people have struggles like that. That's realistic. Yeah. And what we go to Simpsons for is realistic explorations of, uh, alcohol. Absolutely. Gritty character studies.

But yeah, Duffman turns around in like five seconds. I do like that he just says he seems to care about sobering up these unhoused people and then instantly gives up on it. It's like, good luck. Good luck. Hopeless drunks. Hopeless drunks. I mean, these children ruin this man's life again by calling him back to it. But also those sunglasses are barking out to him like the Green Goblin mask.

It's not depicted, but that's happening. Also, credit to the animators who remembered to put in the unhoused guys who Bart met at the Thanksgiving mission as well. So they're the first two guys you see on the cots when they enter the place. You know, only partially related. Cole brought up the green goblin mask. I have only recently seen the Spider-Man films, but the whiskey maker's mark is so prominently featured in those scenes that whenever I see it, I'm like, oh, look, it's the goblin drink. It turns you into a goblin. Which is a funny thing for a teenager.

Like, oh, this billionaire scientist or whatever right yeah yeah i like i can buy like that it's not not an especially fancy bird when the the goblin son whatever his name is uh starts losing his mind that's when he hits the the goblin juice pretty hard man now i i i want to say it's cores but in X-Men 2, it's very clear which drink. No, wait, it's not. The joke is Wolverine doesn't have any beer because it's the school, so he drinks Dr. Pepper, which was the ad campaign. And Iceman blows cold air onto the Dr. Pepper, so it's cold for Wolverine to drink. If Wolverine's drinking anything besides Labat, I don't know.

I just don't know what we're doing here. Dr. Pepper is a good tie-in because it sounds like the name of an X-Man. That's true. Man, Bob, you missed the Spider-Man movies and the X-Men movies 20 years ago. Too busy getting laid constantly. Oh, yeah. Not me. So, yes, they get Duff Man on board very quickly.

And we go to the zany scheme. And it starts to unfold at the beach. Here's how we're going to get our dog back. Dad will pretend to drown and call for Suds McDuff to save him. But he won't because he's too cowardly. Oh yeah. Once again, Duff Man's mug will be the only one you chug. A lugger. Give it a raspberry.

Sorry. Sorry. Now, to honor America, Navy paratroopers will jump from their planes and crown Suds McDuff King of Six Pakistan. All hail his royal duffness. This stunt costs 50 million

dollars. Help! Help! I'm drowning! Uh-oh. Who will save that poor fat man? I know who will save him. The bravest dog in the world, Sads McDuff. And everybody goes along with it, like you said, Cole. When Lisa says the bravest dog in the world, not keyed any of their ads. It's true, yeah.

But I, though, totally forgot about King of Six Pakistan. I love that joke that it is about how America invaded Afghanistan and apparently has renamed it and installed a beer mascot as its king. At great expense to the taxpayers. Yes. $50 million is a low estimate on how much things cost when the military invades places. Oh, you don't want to know about their barber chairs, how much those cost. Here's a small qualm i have with this ending here the thing homer is floating on looks like a novelty raft it later turns out to be an actual beer keg and i'm asking why i mean i know why but him getting attacked by a shark was never part of the plan and then

and then getting the shark drunk with the keg i'm just how did the keg come into this equation why was he allowed to pull a keg out into the ocean? Would they really float like that? I don't know. Well, I'm no scientist, but maybe a keg with pressurized air in it would be lighter than seawater and it might float. But no, my first thought was it was a flotation device that just looks like a big beer can, which you're more likely to be able to buy.

I mean, it turns out they're building a very long runway to a Jaws parody. But a keg wouldn't have a lot of pressurized air in it? Like kegs, you got to pump them to make it come out, right? I don't know. Yes. Let's get the Mythbusters on it. I was thinking of the Mythbusters the other day because I watched a movie where a guy just uses a gun to shoot a lock off of something.

And I remember the Mythbusters did a deconstruction of that and it took them like five shots with a magnum to blow. It's not as easy as you think and you're very likely to just ricochet a bullet into yourself when you do that yeah i don't know i don't want to shoot something that's just like three feet away from me you know this episode went live or sorry was written right before the mythbusters went on the air so it was written in a pre-mythbusters world so many myths of had been had gone unbusted. It's complete impunity. They could do whatever they wanted.

God, I watched an alarming amount of Mythbusters and it was great. It was always on right when I came home from college and just sat there and watched it and then how stuff made would come on after and I would just fall asleep. Good times.

It was made for people who are who are pedants about is a dog how could a dog really do this on a simpsons podcast it's made for ruining any conversation at a party oh terrible yeah it didn't make me a better person watching that much of it it did seem very silly to me that once santa's little helper won't go in the water or suds won't go in the water to save Homer and everybody boos I was like who boos a dog I mean I know he's like a spokes dog and so he's famous but what

crowd would boo a dog why would they come just to boo him so yes Homer is so excited with the plan that he's going to keep splashing around like an injured seal which of course brings in a big old shark, as always happens in movies and cartoons. But Duffman leaps into action with some really great bounding animation that reminded me of when we covered the Fleischer Superman cartoons on the podcast. Now's your chance, Duffman. You can save my dad and look like a hero.

Don't send a Duff dog to do a Duff Man. You can save my dad and look like a hero. Don't send a Duff Dog to do a Duff Man's job! Hold on, sir! Soon you'll be filling your lungs with Duff, Duff Light, or new Duff Blue. Tap into the peppermint glacier! Are you there, God? It's me duff man now let me think how did that beautiful young naked lady and jaws make it out alive homer forgets the memorable opening of jaws where the skinny dipper is eaten he thinks she got out of it alive i'm gonna i'm gonna be honest with y'all. I would fuck with Duff Blue. I'd try it. Yeah. You know, Cole, I love trying any weird-ass beer just to see what is this.

I had pickle beer recently, and you know what? I liked it in small quantities. Of course. Yeah, yeah. Have you guys had the peanut butter whiskey? I got some of that as a gift from my stepdad recently. I've heard of it, but am like one of the vanished things vanishingly small percentage of people who does not like the taste of peanut butter

so more for every other human on earth i have not had peanut butter whiskey i've had peanut butter stouts before the the beer beverage oh that's good i but the peppermint glacier is such a great like tap into the like i when i hear blue drinks i think think of Labatt Blue, but I guess this also was at the time where if the Rockies get cold, you know your beer's good. It also makes me think of that. There was that Pepsi Blue, right? Yeah, Pepsi Blue, Mountain Dew Code Red, Pepsi Black, all these innovations in soda. We mentioned the Coke with lemon, vanilla Coke. trying to have a i don't like soda and i'm trying to not have you know if if calories were no option or no problem that i would just have like high sea fruit punch but very few places gives you

like multiple flavors of uh zero calorie powerade i will tell you one one last comment about canned beverages uh i will say i was in japan for a while i love their drinking culture even though it's terrible for you and how you can just get a high ball in a can it's so cheap that's not happening where i am but uh my liquor store recently started carrying jack and cokes pre-canned and they're terrible for you but god damn are they great coke spiced is the new thing right now i was just hearing our our uh our podcast pals on the sloppy boys podcast who we've had them on, they just did a rum and spiced Coke podcast, or one of their drinks. So, yeah, it's a new, I think it just means there's a little extra kick to it, like more cinnamon-y Coke. But yes, rum and spiced Coke is the new thing.

There's so much innovation happening. Pepsi's putting out Pepsi that tastes like dreams and galaxies. There's that AI-designed cola flavor that's apparently awful. Oh, no. We're off the map here. I know. Man, though, Japan is the home of the highball. Bob, I feel you so much.

I have a carousel of photos on my uh phone's home screen and one of them is one of the happiest pictures i had in japan uh that my husband took of me when we went to one restaurant that served the big steins of high balls and i've got it in front of me i'm like i love this like yeah mega size they have a new size it's called mega oh it was so good i they respect high balls in japan to the right degree it's the carpenters and highballs are two things i love that japan loves just as much as me and so yes duff man when he sees the shark he does not want to save homer and jumps to in fear quotes the uh the you know are you there god it's me margaret which Gracie Films would then turn into a live-action film recently.

Which Marge Simpson herself endorsed. And that endorsement worked, because that was how I learned that movie existed. But I don't think anyone saw it, so maybe it didn't work. Was it actually in theaters? I think it was. I think it was, but I don't recall. Though I read a couple Judy Blume books as a kid i was not a

bloom i'm not a bloom spurt uh but so so yes homer is about to be eaten by the shark it even pops up like the poster and uh yes it is completely out of left field to just have the barrel explodes in the mouth just like in jaws but i gotta give the animators credit when he bites into that keg and it bursts out of beer and foams and stuff it by tv animation budgets is very well done i think it's precisely it's it's almost exactly like the shot from the movie i don't know if the shark is okay though it looks like it's in trouble no it's like it's like those fish at duff gardens yes the aquarium that's that's actually my favorite joke that's i it's second favorite joke in the episode i agree with the bob for the best joke in the episode my second favorite is that the shark is dying like it's a beach shark and if you know the the corny saying is if the shark stops moving it dies like that you know

but a drunk shark that's beached like that is dead and they're all like yeah party down with so they're all just dancing around a dead shark and they make a dead shark the mascot that's very funny that's a that's a pretty funny guys want to be him girls think they can change him uh fucking marketing okay so then i have the last clip of the happy ending here uh it's it's uh what the longest clip i got but i got it this full way because i feel this episode ends 30 seconds earlier and then they gave it 30 more seconds yes henry exactly i'm on the same page as you the the line they're just hams okay that is so funny i wish it would have been like black executive producers and then we have one more scene that's not quite as funny or punchy the crowd's going crazy for that shark guys want

to be him girls think they can change him everyone say hello to our new mascot, Duff McShark. Duff McShark! Duff McShark! Duff McShark! Well, Suds, looks like you're no good to me anymore. Ah, you might as well be with a loving family. Aw, I missed you so much, boy. It's good to have you back with the Simpsons. I'm sorry I was ever mean to you. Marge, prepare the celebration ham. All we have left are the earthquake ham and the condolence ham.

Marge, they're just hams, okay? Well, boy, now that we've got you back, I'm never going to let you go again. Uh-oh, Dad. I think he peed on the rug. To me, that says I love you. I think he left a big hug in your lunchbox. It's probably that stupid cat. That cat saved your life. What has he done for me lately?

He woke you up when you stopped breathing last night. Yeah, but he ate the last can of tuna. Dad, you ate the last can of tuna. Everyone's against me. You know, I'm not against the premise of that final scene, because I feel like uh a lot of the mercan era stuff ends with homer on the couch and the family's trying to teach him like well this is what this series of events was about he doesn't get it at all and i kind of like that

but the last scene was so funny and it's such a great like punchy last joke that i really feel like that should have been the cut to black yeah i agree it's a weird i it gets it back to the emotions but also just for a series of jokes about like dog shit which yeah uh and also the when i pulled up the vintage commercial to uh be laid into this episode the marketing team at fox loved this scene because basically they put the end of the episode in the commercial for this episode. Weird. I do like whenever they joke about Homer's very serious health problems. Just like matter-of-factly saying, oh, when you stopped breathing last night.

Homer needs a CPAP, everybody. They're more popular than ever. Yeah, yeah. Changes your life. 2003, were they even invented yet? Yeah, I don't know. I know they existed now. I didn't realize it then because it's a plot line in season two of Sopranos, which is like two years before this, where Junior Soprano, the elderly man, he is given a CPAP machine and he does not like using it. So though based on that,

my perception of it until I was given one was that it was for old people, not for, not for vibrant young men. I mentioned in 2001, it was a sort of an iron lung like device that you climbed inside before it became the Bane mask. We all know and love. That's I think of my,

actually every morning when I take mine off, it has like two clips that undo. And my geeky thought is, I'm just like Darth Vader taking off his helmet when he has to unclip it. That makes it more palatable. But yes, the joke of saying, Marge saying the earthquake ham and the condolence ham, they're just hams. That's too good. So good. Yes. And they've all made up anyway.

The emotional conclusion is there. I mean, it's also great that the original owner of Santa's Little Helper just with no conflict goes like, meh, you're no good to me. See you later. Just lets him go. But yeah, I think if they had kept in that therapist scene, then they could have cut that bit at the end and just had the punchier ending.

But perhaps it was that Al Jean wanted to get more into the emotion of the story. I don't know. Unfortunately, we'll never know because on the commentary, all they want to do is talk to Stacy Keach about working on Pixar movies or being in Cheech and Chong movies. He's still with us. So God bless

you, Stacy. Yeah, I will say final thoughts on this one. It's a little uneven plot-wise, but I think it's got a lot of great punchy jokes in it. So I can forgive how the story doesn't really track with SLH being revealed to be a coward, even though bravery, like we said, was not

Suds McDuff's trait. It was partying down. So yeah, I mean, I'm just happy this not Suds McDuff's trait. It was partying down. So, yeah, I mean, I'm just happy this is an improvement over last week's, which was a lull in the season that, after the midway point, has been pretty good so far. So I will give my patented thumbs up. No one's done that before on this episode. I was surprised at how many funny jokes there were in this. It was jarring because i currently am in the middle of a rewatch of the simpsons and by middle i mean uh season seven so middle of the distance i usually go

when i do this and going from that to this basically in the same night really does highlight that like yes this has an awful lot of you know good jokes in it it hits but like not a lot of them are given time to really develop they're basically introduced and resolved in the same breath yes which uh is you know a different way to handle this that i am you know i prefer less but it feels worth noting that you know that comparison and hopefully that's more interesting than just like oh don't bother after season 10. Like there are material ways

in which it changes that are not like actually qualitative. It's just, you know, something different they do. Well, the good news is, Cole, you're nearly one fifth of the way through. Rewatch is the wrong word. I'm just between,

I'm between comfort watches. And I was like, oh, well, I'll just put this on while I go to sleep kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. My final thoughts, too, are just it has the things that are the hallmark of most of season 14, which is like, you know, uneven plotting, a weird attempt to get back to a motion ending. But this one, unlike this, has better jokes than the one we just did of season 14, Dude, Where's My Ranch? And you know what?

In a season full of movie star appearances that distract or feel weaker, Stacey Keach is just a great character actor brought in to be a funny character who's not overexposed. Thank you again, Cole Ross, for joining us on this episode. Please let us know where we can find you online and more about your podcast network, DuckFeed.TV. I know that based on a recent tweet you made or a Blue Sky post, you tallied up all of the content you created within a certain month and you inspired me to do the same. So now we're in direct competition with each other. Metrics, baby. Yeah. It's just the number I came at.

30 hours of content put out in april we're only at 24 god damn it oh yeah no i i can rest easy now i thought we were the most prolific podcast duo around um yeah uh you can find me uh you know it's on social media cole ross k-o-l-e uh not the normal spelling of that. And yeah, podcast over, we have a podcast network, DuckFeed.TV. Primarily do shows about video games, main one being Watch Out for Fireballs. It's like a book club

for games. Been going for a very long time. Bonfire Side Chat is coming back soon because of the Shadow of the Erd Tree expansion, our show talking about Souls games. And if you liked hearing about cartoons, a couple of years ago, we wrapped up a full kind of rewatch series

on the Venture Brothers. That show is called Orb, and you can find it at orb.show. Now that saves me and Bob from doing it for ourselves. Saves you, it's delightful. No, no, I mean, you made it so we can commit to other things and not do the Venture Brothers thing ourselves. It was an act of podcaster diplomacy. Yeah.

Yeah. No, and I can't wait to hear your guys' thoughts on the, you know, this will be Elden Ring was the first Souls game I played when it was new instead of like years behind the curve. So I'm interested to experience a new dlc alongside with soul spurts like you're yourselves yeah no it's uh it's a it's exciting it's coming up way too quick yeah i got a i got uh three other hundred hour video games i gotta beat first yeah yeah after the two others i beat already this year. No, not really. I could start Persona 3, but reloaded. But I'm like, eh, you know, I did play all the Hades 2 tech demo. That was a good time.

Oh, no. And that's hitting beta here real soon, too. Yeah. No, I'm looking forward to early access on my Steam deck to beat. I beat Hades 1es one and by beat of course you well you know it never really ends but i i did most of everything in hades one uh twice and started a third time on steam after i did it on switch and then xbox you know what's coming out soon i think it's out as of this release uh The Thousand Year Door remake of the Paper Mario game for GameCube. A slim, a slight 40 hours.

Yeah, stay tuned on that regarding podcast coverage. Well, not if you want to get down to the 99th level of the optional dungeon. It's not 40 hours. I'll pass. But thank you so much for having me on. I always love coming on. Yes, thank you, Cole. Oh, thank you, Cole. Thanks again to Cole Ross for being on the show.

Please check out what he's got going on at duckfeed.tv. But as for us, if you want to support the show and get 150 full-length bonus podcasts on top of that, head on over to

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And what is that, Henry? Bob's talking about the What a Cartoon Movie podcast where we talk about an animated feature film super in-depth. This month is a real treat for any fans of Matt Groening stuff because after we completed the Fox run of Futurama, but before we get into the Comedy Central run of Futurama at the $5 level, $10 and up subscribers get to hear us talk about Bender's big score, the Futurama return movie that came out on direct-to-DVD, which has a great history to it. That is really the history of animated adult programming in the mid-aughts.

And we dig into the entire movie era of Futurama. And the month before that, we covered 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as part of our live-action April. And we've done more than five years of what a cartoon movies for folks we've covered a million things including our longest podcast ever six and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit without a second wasted check it all out for yourself everything from Akira to a goofy movie at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons as for me I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter and BlueSky as Bob Servo. And my other podcast, by the way, is Retronauts.

That is a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to Patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you? And you can find me, Henry Gilbert, on social media at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G or at Talking Henry on Instagram.

Follow me for all the cool updates I'm tweeting all the time. And if you're following me and Bob, you should be following on social medias all over the place at TalkSimpsonsPod. At TalkSimpsonsPod will keep you in the loop whenever new stuff comes out. And also you can find Talking Simpsons pod at Talk Simpsons pod will keep you in the loop whenever new stuff comes out.

And also you can find Talking Simpsons podcast on YouTube now. And more of that info is at the always great to follow TalkingSimpsons.com. Thank you so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you again next time for season four. So it's come to this, a Simpsons clip show, and we'll see you then. Son, that treehouse is going to be bigger and better than ever. It really restores your faith in helpful weirdos.