Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Our Favorite Treehouse of Horror Moments LIVE with Bill Oakley

Episode Date: November 7, 2018

This week, we're interrupting our regularly scheduled programming to bring you our live Halloween show, recorded on October 20th at Kelly's Olympian in Portland. And, during this performance, we were joined by none other than former Simpsons writer and showrunner Bill Oakley! Listen in as Bill sits down with us in front of a packed house to share behind-the-scenes reflections on the Treehouse of Horror segments Time and Punishment, Homer Cubed, and Citizen Kang! Thankfully, we also find time to talk about Simpsons shitposting, the diet of a Simpsons writer in the '90s, and the elusive PB Max. Thanks so much to Bill Oakley, Kelly's Olympian, and (of course) our wonderful Talking Simpsons Network patrons for making all of this happen! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where you come just to boo us. I am your host, certified number two, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today. Be in there and be in square, Henry Gilbert, hi. Hello, and we're preempting this week's Talking Simpsons for a very special episode. And no, we won't learn anything about drugs or sex or teenage pregnancies, but it's very special because this week you're going to be hearing our live show we recorded on October 20th in Portland with Bill Oakley.

It's amazing, it's fantastic. And we can't wait for you to listen to it. It's so important. We're knocking this week's episode to the future. Next week, you'll hear it. But this week is all about our live show. Yeah. Sorry, my sister, my sitter, but that has to wait till next week. And it's a really good one. But this is too. I mean, this was the biggest live show we've ever done, I would say. Oh, for sure. We both flew out to Portland. We did a show at the lovely venue, Kelly's Olympian, and sold out crowd. And we got to meet Mr. Bill Oakley. What a fine gentleman.

He was a treasure and a gem, both things in one. And yes, we know a lot about The Simpsons. Henry and I have read almost every Simpsons book, watched all the commentaries numerous times. But on this episode, we learn things, and you will too. I couldn't believe I learned new things about these episodes I'd seen 40 times. Yeah, about four or five major things in here. And I guess I will mention that we had a visual component for this. So we played the video with the clips. You'll hear the clips, but obviously you won't see them.

They normally don't see them, though. So use your imagination. But yeah, I mean, look, you guys't see them. They normally don't see them, though. Yeah, so that's awful. Use your imagination. But yeah, I mean, look, you guys know the scenes. And I mean, watch along at home if you're really curious about it. But there's some really cool stuff Bill reveals here, yeah. So yes, thank you once again to all of our patrons on the Talking Simpsons Network. You made all of this possible.

You helped fund Henry's travel and other things, like our lifestyles, our podcasting lifestyles. And without you, things like this live show couldn't happen. So if you're interested in joining the Talking Simpsons Network, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and please subscribe at the $5 level. That is our most basic level. You will get all of the episodes of Talking Simpsons a week ahead of time and ad free. And the same goes for What a Cartoon. And there is so much happening at that $5 level. There is many series like Talking Critic, Talking Futurama, and whatever we do next year that will be exclusive to the Patreon. We have so many interviews. I believe we have 15 interviews at this point in

time that are locked to the Patreon, monthly community podcasts, season wrap-ups, behind-the- scenes specials, and just fun things we decided to do and put on the Patreon, like our One Piece special we did in the summer. Yeah, and our monthly community podcast, Talk to the Audience, where we talk about our favorite comments from the month and also Simpsons news that happened during that time. And yeah, those interviews, I want to especially say some of our most recent ones are so good. If you liked hearing this stuff with Bill Oakley, you should definitely listen to the Dan McGrath interview,

which we call back to, as well as Bill Morrison, who co-founded Bongo Comics back in 1993, worked on all of the Simpsons comics you know and love. Plus, Bill Morrison had more of an impact on Futurama than I think any of us really realized, and you can find out all about that in our recent interview with him, as well as animator extraordinaires like Mark Kirkland and David Silverman and Mike Reese and Bill Oakley one

other time and Josh Weinstein. So many important interviews right there. We're going to talk to everybody. Yes. So joining the Talking Simpsons Network is the ideal way to listen to all of our podcasts. And if you haven't joined or listened to any of the bonus stuff, there's so much stuff you haven't joined or listened to any of the bonus stuff, there's so much stuff you haven't heard. Dozens and dozens of bonus podcasts just waiting there for you at the low, low cost of five bucks a month. But yes, that is the Talking

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So yes, that's the Talking Simpsons Network at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. We'd really appreciate your support. We have so much bonus content waiting there for you as our show of appreciation. So that's enough from us. Please enjoy this live show with Bill Oakley recorded on October 20th at Kelly's Olympian in Portland. Hey, ho, everybody. Welcome to the Talking Simpsons live show in Portland. And this is where we all exchange long protein strings. I'm one of your hosts, the disappointed and terrified Bob Mackey.

And this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Fan of nude conspiracies, Henry Gilbert. Hi. And as I said earlier, this is our Halloween live show. Yes. Ah! Ah!

Ah! Ah! And yes, you're at the special Halloween live show. All the jerks were at the first show. But for this show, we have a special guest. You know him from Instagram as a dominant food reviewer. He also did a little

television, Bill Oakley. Of course, we are not worthy. Bill worked on The Simpsons for about five years, and he's here to help us walk through A lot of our favorite segments of the show All of which he was a part of Yes, hi Bill

Hello And that's all Bill will be saying He won't be saying anything or doing anything You guys were saying it As Bob said it Well no, Bill Thanks for coming on down. You live in the Portland area.

I do. I've lived in Portland for 10 years now, and this is actually the first Simpsons thing I've ever done here. Wow. I've been on Live Wire a couple times, but that's a classy thing. Unlike this. This is a rinky-dink operation. Of course.

I'm excited to be here. This is one of my favorite Simpsons podcasts, if not the primo Simpsons podcast. I'm excited to make it my first Portland Simpsons thing. Oh my god, thank you. Yes, thank you. You guys have the honor of being Bill's first audience for this in Portland.

Before we get into Simpsons stuff, I did want to know Bill, as the premier food reviewer on Instagram, what is your favorite Halloween candy? If we start talking about food, I'm not going to stop for 35 or 40 minutes. Twix, is that up there? Does anyone here remember

PB Max? PB Max? Okay. Alright, I told you. Forget about the Simpsons. We're going to talk about food. Does anyone here remember PB Max? PB Max? Okay Alright, I told you Forget about the Simpsons, we're going to talk about food Okay I assume PB means peanut butter Yes

Okay, yes We're halfway there This is the best candy bar ever Okay guys, this is going to take 10 minutes This is the best candy creation of all time It was kind of like a cookie Stuffed with peanut butter It was made by M&M Mars

in the late 90s. And Josh and I loved it so much that we actually had a crate of them in our office. No kidding. And then it suddenly became discontinued. And it drove us crazy. And we could never find it. And it turns out, you know, the Mars Brothers or the Mars Brothers who founded M&M Mars

are European. And they don't like things with peanuts. They these with hazelnuts and so like it was apparently a part of this their whole slash the peanut strategy which I guess probably stopped after they died but it hasn't come back since then and and that's my favorite Halloween candy of all time thing so their anti peanut agenda lasted after their deaths yeah I think I think, well, the thing is, you see so many different types of M&Ms now, many of them with peanuts,

and you see a lot of other peanut things coming from the company. I suspect that they lost their grip on it. So PB Max is good comedy fuel, right? Oh, my God, it puts you right to sleep. But then you dream of great jokes. You write in the show. I assume this is how comedy writing works for television.

Never, never. Really, the best comedy writing is always done on an empty stomach, in my opinion. Because it always became, like at the Simpsons. I know you guys, if you guys listen to the Doughboys podcast, we talked about this recently. There's so much eating at the Simpsons. I lost 65 pounds after I left the show. That's totally true. We worked there before people had cell phones, which are the constant distraction in the room now.

So there was really no distraction. It was just work, work, work, 9, 10, 12 hours a day, and your only relief was the food. So everybody would make a huge show of ordering a ton of food, and we'd all overeat all the time, and it became a huge embarrassment to many of us. So, okay, I told you we were talking about food. We're going to get back to the show.

So you would just be grazing on candy between jokes. Right, right. That's what... Yeah, go ahead. Oh, yeah, I told you we're talking about food. We're going to get back to the show. So you would just be grazing on candy between jokes. Right, right. Oh, yeah. I was just going to say, yeah, they had a ton of Butterfinger BBs in there. We did. We had those Butterfinger BBs because the Simpsons did a... The Simpsons did ads for Butterfingers, as you may know if you ever watched TV in the 90s.

And we got a lot of free stuff, including this thing called Butterfinger BBs, which was like their whoppers that were filled with Butterfinger and people would throw them around the room and stuff and we had this dispenser there was a little dispenser that was sent by Butterfinger

and you could tilt it and one would roll out and it got filled with water and they became all muddy and people would throw them around the room and it became a huge mess oh god They became all muddy, and then people would throw them around the room, and it became a huge mess. Oh, God. Ugh, man. Well, okay, so when you worked on The Simpsons, from the beginning, you were working on the Treehouse of Horror shows. What was your first one? Three, I would guess?

Treehouse 3? Yes, but we were only there... We arrived literally like the week after they had the table reading for the monorail show. And they were writing, the day that we started, they were rewriting the Homer's Triple Bypass heart attack show. And I think around that time,

the animatic, the animatic is the black and white animation that you see about halfway through the process. For Treehouse of War 3 came back, I guess, pretty soon. And so that's the one, that's the one with the King Kong. Right? The Krusty doll. What was the third one?

Dial Z for Zombie. Those were great. All we did as the new writers at that point was sit there and marvel at the geniuses cranking this stuff out and of course eat a lot of food and pieces of pie and Butterfinger BBs. This one i don't think we contributed very much to it was just it was certainly in process while we were there but

um we were the junior guys on the totem pole at that point and i believe uh we talked to dan mcgrath and some of the a lot of the jokes in this were adr jokes written after the fact it was a more uh more of a popular process during that time and I believe he was telling us he did do the, you know, it comes with a free Fro-Gurt. That's good. The Fro-Gurt contains potassium benzoate. That's bad. That whole back and forth that just built in recycled animation.

And did you have anything to do with that part of the rewriting process for the show? I don't recall it the way that Dan recalls it. Uh-oh. I do recall, I think I do, I don't know if Dan was there at that time, but maybe he was. Okay. I think it was that case.

Like, during that time, the shows always came in short, because Mike and Al were always really particular and would cut anything that didn't get a laugh. So, the shows would sometimes come in short, and we were always stretching them. And I think, I believe, that was one of those attempts. Okay. What was the philosophy at the start when you joined for like, what makes a good treehouse of horror in those early seasons when you guys just had gotten

started, you and Josh? Well, again, at this point, we weren't in command. We were just the lowly soldiers. And I think we didn't have anything to do with this one. And the other, I think the ideal one is one that was scary as well. I mean, to really just be extremely blunt and uncreative about it, it's got to be scary and funny too.

And that's kind of what it was. And often it would be something that was drawn from another medium, like a parody of The Shining or a parody of Twilight Zone episode. Other times it would be just a general satirical stab at the zombie genre like this was. But I can tell you in general, we had a couple of books in the room that most of these ideas came It was much easier to write these back

20 years ago when the ideas hadn't all been used. At this point, it was like we had a Twilight Zone companion. We had a book that was like the great horror movies of all time. And you would just pick it up and you'd leaf through it and go, oh, there's a great one. And it would be much easier to come up with ideas for these. And we had a surplus of ideas.

Did you have any horror pitches that, before you took over the show, did you have any Treehouse pitches that didn't get through? Not that I recall. And are these shows more complicated in terms of writing and animation when you're working on them, the treehouse of horror shows? They're always very long. At least that's the other problem that we had is that you may notice that prior

to the time that we took over, they all had introductions. They often even had wraparounds like that were telling a horrifying story or whatnot and then I think that we took over, they all had introductions. They often even had wraparounds that were telling a horrifying story or whatnot. And then I think when we took over, we had no room for the wraparound even. And so we ended up just having it be like the opening credits and then the show begins without this wraparound. So those were the production issues. The other thing is that it becomes harder to cut as time goes on because there's a certain amount of time.

In a regular episode, you've got a lot more material that can easily be cut without hurting the story. In these six-minute segments, it becomes super hard, especially when it's really plot-heavy. One. So we're starting. The first one we're going to do is Time and Punishment from Season 6, 3S're starting, the first one we're going to do is Time of Punishment from season six, Three House Far Five.

And I noticed, I definitely felt like from Gene and Reese to Dave Merkin's years, definitely they got more violent. Does that have a sense too? Yeah, I think that, well, I think that we were pushing, like, you recall that when this first happened people were really shocked people were shocked by a boy saying get my shorts in 1990 it's hard for you guys to believe especially guys who were like what if he'd be 20

you could be 30 years old and not have lived through that era but at the time it was really shocking like people were really mad about The Simpsons in 1990 and like they couldn't believe that a boy... There was all this... If you look it up in the history books, there was a lot of stuff about they wouldn't let people wear Bart Simpson

t-shirts to school because it said underachiever and proud of it. We lived through that era. At the time, the violence was also part of the problem. That's why we literally had in that first or the second one, Marge came out and warned. She gave a very sincere warning

that said if you have any little ones in the room, do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I think it was for the first three or four years, right? Yeah. And that was a real warning. We had to have that.

And then over time, that just went away because people got on their, whatever cultural collapse we experienced around that time. The show itself warped enough minds that it just became in your head all that violence. And nobody cared and we didn't have time for it anyway.

So the warning got cut too. But yes, I think there's no question that Merkin was really big on physical comedy and violence. If you've seen those two seasons that he ran, you know that that was one of the things he liked and he was really good at it. So that's probably why you noticed that. Yeah, I know. One of my favorite violence jokes in his seasons is Ned getting shot, like, twice in the Crusty the Clown,

Homey the Clown episode. Like, that is such just shocking violence. And these were so bloody, and same of, like, the itchy and scratchy ones in season five and six are just so bloody. How did you guys feel about the violence? Did you guys add more violence to your Treehouse of Horrors

after seeing what they got away with in five and six? We didn't put any inorganic violence. We only did whatever six segments in the two seasons that I was running it and none of them were particularly violent, except for the only one that I ever got that people said they were upset by was the Nightmare on Elm Street one with Grunskipper Willie playing Freddy Krueger.

And a lot of people, that wasn't really all that violent, but I think just because it really aped the scariness of the movie, and it was pretty sincere with really dark music, a lot of people over the years, and even back then, were like, that was too scary. They didn't say it back then, were like, that was too scary. They didn't say it was too violent. They said it was too scary. And I mean, for little kids, I think it definitely probably was.

Martin's death lock he's in is very freaky. Or also the screaming skeleton of Groundskeeper Willie. That's also pretty scary. Especially if you were a seven or eight year old kid and you saw that, I think it would be pretty Willie. That's also pretty scary. Especially if you were a seven or eight year old kid and you saw that, I think it would be pretty scary. That's a favorite one of mine

too because you guys really you were wittier writers than the Freddy Krueger writers. You wrote great puns that Freddy Krueger would say except much... They weren't easy to write and you know those guys probably had to get to lunch on time. Except in that one he runs out of his wit when he's like,

stinky sand. There's no possible joke for that. So we just gave up. I just figured Grants Keeper Willie, he'd run out of his prepared material. I brought 20 quips. You want to get into the segments? Yeah, why don't we get into the first one here. So this is from season six.

This is Time and Punishment, written by Greg Daniels and Dan McGrath, who they really only co-wrote, they weren't really writing partners other than on Halloween shows, I believe. Oh, yeah, I have enough for this. Oh, yeah? All right, well, here, let's take,

let's get to the start of Time of Punishment, one of my favorite cold opens of a Halloween segment ever. You know, Marge, I've had my share of troubles, but sitting here now with you and the kids in our cozy home in this beautiful free country, it just makes me feel that I'm really a lucky guy. Dad! Your hand is jammed in the toaster! What? Dad!

Oh! Oh, Dad! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off of me! Ooh! Woo-hoo! Ooh. Dad, it's in there again!

Oh, no! Ah! It's stuck in my hand! Ah, no, no there again! Ah, no! Ah! It's in my hand! Ah! Ah! So yeah, we were talking about Merkin being in a physical comedy. When I first saw this, I assumed it would be like

Maximum Overdrive and about evil appliances. It's a good mislead. I just like to imagine Homer is slipping his hand into the... When you can't see his hand when he's sliding down, it's just him slowly slipping his hand back into the toaster.

And I can tell we have a good audience because you started laughing immediately when you saw the dinner table. So you understand what's coming. But yeah, that gives no indication that this is going to be a time travel story based on a Ray Bradbury book. But it's such a fun.

This is before the butterfly effect was like a thing people just knew as a reference. You know, like this. But it's all about that and just changing the past as they go. There's a lot of Jurassic Park built into this, too. Yeah. And so Homer. Oh, sorry, Bill. Do you have more clips from this?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We got plenty of clips. My clips are about the dystopia. My remarks. Oh, OK. And so Homer Oh sorry Bill Do you have more clips from this episode? Oh yeah We got plenty of clips My clips are about the dystopia My remarks Oh okay We got a lot about the dystopia It's the best part of the segment But first Homer has to rebuild that toaster

There Better than new Now to take her for a test toast. Just notice that's in his pocket. That's so weird. What the? No! Look at that.

I'm the first non-Brazilian person to travel backwards through time. Correction, Homer. You're the second. That's right, Mr. Peabody. Quiet, you. Now there's some controversy about that joke. Yeah, Bill.

What does that joke even mean? 20 years later, I can say that at the time, we were like, at least three quarters of the people in the writer's room were like, what? According, well, I bought a DVD 15 years ago, so I know the truth. I remember the moment and I was like, what? According, well, I bought a DVD 15 years ago, so I know the truth. I remember the moment, and I was like,

what's happening here? This joke is going in the script? Go ahead. The original joke is a non-fictional person that traveled backwards through time. And Homer in this reality is what? Non-fictional? That may have been what it was in the first draft.

Yeah, and his lips are saying non-fictional, too. Is that right? Yeah, but now I guess the joke was, let's change it was in the first draft. Yeah, and his lips are saying non-fictional, too. Is that right? Yeah, but now I guess the joke was, let's change it to a non-sequitur, and that would be better. I guess that's what I took it as, is non-Brazilian is just a non-sequitur. I still don't know what it is.

It's fun to see people... A non-sequitur, I know. Even the writers are confused by this. There's at least two or three writers who loved it. I'm not among them. Somebody want to vote? No, I mean, the joke makes... If it's not fictional,

I like that joke because it would imply that Homer thinks he is non-fictional as do Peabody and Sherman, so they're all referring to themselves as non-fictional when they are fictional characters. I think that was the original people who wrote

that draft, yes. Brazilian is just a... When I was a kid and heard that joke, I looked at my mom and was like, was there news of a Brazilian man who said he time-traveled? Is this pulled from the headlines? What is this about? We had no answers then

and none now either. But the time-tra travel is like the shot. I love the time travel effect. It's like a quantum leap kind of jump there. Just the white consuming him. And then the time tunnel, it looks like from the show Time Tunnel, the Irwin Allen show, which I only know from clips. I've never watched that show. But yeah, so Homer ends up in the past.

I've gone back to the time when dinosaurs weren't just confined to zoos. Okay, don't panic. Remember the advice your father gave you on your wedding day If you ever travel back in time, don't step on anything Because even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can't imagine Fine As long as I stand perfectly still and don't touch anything

I won't destroy the future Stupid bug! You go squish now! But that was just one little insignificant mosquito. That can't change the future, right? Right? This is not canon, clearly,

but we just did A Millhouse Divided, and in that episode, Bill, you flashback to the Simpsons' depressing wedding, and I really wish now you would have written the scene in of Grandpa telling Homer that. He was always there with time travel advice. Good idea. No, well, that, as we all know, that is non-canonical

because they only got married across the border, and it was just Homer Marge there, which that was in Milhouse Divided, which I love. Yeah, we hooked it up to that old flashback. You even included a clip in there, which it was so crazy to see clips in a non-clip show. Yeah.

And it's why I love that because it would always bug me when there'd be, you'd have a Simpsons wedding joke and it wasn't canonically correct with the previously seen wedding. I take it too seriously, I'm sure. This is the first we've ever heard of pedantic Simpsons

nerds. Yeah, it's just not happening. I should be wearing a shirt that says genius at work. Oh boy. But that was a good, like, Al Claussen, I'm assuming, wrote that, the riff on the Jurassic Park music, that was really nice Al Claussen I'm assuming wrote that the riff on the Jurassic Park music

that was really nice too it's a good this one goes all over the place of being it starts as this Ray Bradbury time travel thing

then you get a Jurassic Park moment and soon we're going to have like T-1000 Brazil futurism it's a real this goes so many places

this is such a packed segment by McGrath and Daniels here. But yeah, let's get to Ned's future. Oh, my loving family. Nothing's changed. Hi-ho, Slaverinos. Oakley, doggley. Hey, whata-lee-doak-a-lee.

Hey, what the hell is that geek Flanders doing on TV? Oh, I see. By the big board, we got a negative Nellie in sector two. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask the whole family to kind of freeze and prepare for re-education. Don't you remember, Dad? Flanders is the unquestioned lord and master of the world. Don't you remember, Dad? Flanders is the unquestioned lord and master of the world. Don't!

Something about the very flatness of Bart's delivery and explaining the history of the world made it even funnier. Slight wall-eyed stare. But, Bill, you said you have stories about the Flanders dystopia. Is there another clip? There's more. I didn't know if you had something to set up. I haven't seen this in a long time. I have a very short, moderately interesting story. I want to see the clip.

I'm not sure which clip it is. We'll be the judge of how moderately interesting it is. I love it so much. In these earlier Halloween specials, you get a lot of fun out of Flanders being the villain. He is the devil. He shows up as a zombie in a framing device. There were a lot of arguments about this.

This is part of my anecdote. You're stepping on it. Oh, sorry. Quick, Henry, play more clips. We're ruining the show. Next clip. Okay, everybody, let's see some big smiles. Just relax and let the hooks do their work.

What the hell are you smiling at? Now, in case all that smiling didn't cheer you up, there's one thing that never fails. A nice glass of warm milk, a little nap, and a total frontal lobotomy. It's not so bad, Homer. They go into your nose, and they let you keep the piece of brain they cut out.

Look. Ooh, hello. Hello there. Who's that big man there? Who's that? Join us, Father. It's bless. No!

No! Oh, God. They're gums, the freakish Simpsons gums there. I'm glad we never see the gums again. Yeah. Yeah, well, why would people with yellow skin have pink gums? I'm confused by that. Gotta pick a color.

They should be orange. But that face manipulation That's what really feels like Brazil to me Yeah Even though in that movie I guess it was voluntary But actually Okay I'm gonna

This is the thing This I don't know if I love the Ned thing Like this is the thing There was a number of debates And I think that we're gonna get I don't wanna get into a lot of You know history here

But I guess that's what you guys are here for. Dan McGrath and Greg Daniels were drafted to do this after they had just done the big rewrite of the space episode. And they weren't really a team, but they had done a really good job rewriting this script for this Homer, Deep Space Homer, right? So they're to do this.

They, in my opinion, did a draft that was one of the funniest drafts I've ever read, but only half of it is in here. It wasn't like this. It didn't have Ned Flanders. And it was more free joke. It was like, again, I think probably Merkin made the right decision in that he put this Ned thing in.

It's more personalized to Homer. However, the original draft had a million hilarious alternate universe jokes, which are not in this final thing. Including one of my favorite, like, what happened was, he kept getting, Homer kept getting dumped into these weird like communist society type things where there were these giant like Red Square parades, but the people who were running the thing, like you know how they have those parades in Red Square and there's giant posters of Lenin and,

you know, Stalin and so forth and the generals up there? Well at one point, it kept shifting, like who was it? Who was it? And then at one point it it kept shifting. Who was it? At one point, it was the Beatles. It was John, Paul, George, and Ringo up there and there was some giant communist, fascist society that was all run by the Beatles.

That was literally one of my favorite jokes that ever I saw in a script. It went the way of Ned Flanders for this. That's what I wanted to talk to you about I wonder if they thought they'd get Paul McCartney

on the show I know Dave Merton's a big fan maybe it's possible that's why it got cut but it's not I preferred and I think that probably

again Merton made the right decision making it more personal to Homer that it was Ned but at the time there were like a dozen hilarious

alternate universe jokes that we wanted to see animated. Well, I guess, you know, that also brings up another cut thing, Roy. Oh, Roy, yeah. I wanted to get to the truth of Roy here. The multiple Roy theory.

We interviewed Dan McGrath, he mentioned that in his original draft of this with Daniels that there was a son. There was no Bart. There was Roy in one of the worlds. I don't remember that. Oh, really?

Yeah, Roy became a meme in the writer's room, according to Dan McGrath. They wanted to work the name Roy into a lot of things, and we weren't sure if Roy in the Itchy and Scratchy and Poochy show was a reference to Roy mania. It was not, but it certainly could have been planted in our brains. We're calling it subconsciously because I don't remember what he's talking about, but it definitely

sounds like it was part of that draft with all the alternate realities. I think he was a droopy style character, just a low energy, sad kid. I believe it. I don't remember that much about that draft other than the Beatles thing, but I think that

Roy thing was in there, and it's totally possible that we internalized it and regurgitated it later without giving him any credit. Well, I mean, that Roy, the Roy that moves in with the Simpsons is very different from that draft Roy. He's very proactive. Very proactive.

But alright, Homer needs to go back and fix the future. They're gaining on me. Wait, I have an idea. These wieners will give me the quick energy I need to escape. I've got to go back and fix the future. This time I'm not gonna touch a thing. Mustn't crush, mustn't kill. Made it.

Oh, I wish, I wish I hadn't killed that fish. So I think in this season there were two versions of the joke in which a dog is chasing you using meat, and this one it makes Homer faster, and Lemon of Troy makes the dogs faster, because it gives them a taste for meat. I like both twists on that joke a lot.

Just the science of Homer eating while running, and then also his a lot of wall-eyed Homers in the Merkin years, too. Every time I see that drawn drawn it makes me laugh and and it's kind of seussian saying of squishing that fish also pretty funny but uh so so homer heads back to his timeline and that somehow made everyone giant and you get a fun yardley smith's mean voice for two lines, basically. And then Homer hits back, and we kind of get a repeat of that scene.

This is another cost me. No! I mean, hey. Good morning, Father, dear. Hope you're well. Are we taking the new Lexus to Aunt Patty and Selma's funeral today? Fabulous house, well-behaved kids, sisters-in-law dead, luxury sedan.

Woo-hoo! I hit the jackpot! Marge, dear, would you kindly pass me a donut? Donut? What's a donut? Donut! It's raining again. One thing about the future is corn is blue. Based on the curtains.

I do love how Homer does have his perfect life and he runs screaming in terror away from it. He could have just stayed for five seconds. It's a great joke. Much more of the cruelty to Noam for this one. Also, just him screaming. Just any time Dan Jesslyn had to scream. You guys had a great

Foley artist or sound effects person on the show. Yeah, who was that? Bill? I think it was Travis Powers. He did all that stuff, right? He was a genius with that stuff. We've watched these clips a lot now, just doing the shows and rehearsing and stuff. You have to come up with Foley

for different dinosaurs sneezing. Yeah. It's pretty impressive. A lot of times that would just be done by the writers too because we would be on the stage and they wouldn't have the right one.

So Josh and me or whoever was there, Dave Merkin or whatever, would act it and they would put it in. Can you remember any notable sound effects you made on the show?

Yes, but it's going to take me a few minutes. Okay. Well, while we wait, why don't we check out what's happening with Homer in the future? Don't touch anything! I'll touch whatever I feel like! I'm going to pause that there. Okay, is the House of Squirrels in there or not? It is not in the final version.

Okay, that was the most... Okay, that's the one... That's one of the most amazing cuts of all time. Like, in that... It's not in there. No, they're not making it broadcast. It's on the DVDs in the deleted scenes. Is it in color?

It is in color. Yeah, okay, yeah. Okay, a lot of brown. This is incredible. In this scene, so you see all those different houses. One of them was a house completely made by squirrels holding hands. Okay? And one poor guy at the animation studio had to draw that from scratch.

And you know, it must have been like 5,000 squirrels, all individually drawn, all holding hands to make roughly the shape of the Simpsons house. And then they cut it. They cut it. They cut it. That's so... What? I mean, it would have been...

Maybe it wasn't clear. Was it clear when you see it? It doesn't read super well on an SDTV. I think in the HD era, you could make the House of Squirrels now. Now it could be a reality. But in 1995... It's possible it didn't read. This was definitely during the time

when David Silverman, who was running the animation, would call us up and say, please don't make us do this. And there was a couple... I think it was in Burns' era where we had written this scene and it was a whole page with no a, there was a, I think it was in Burns' Air where we had written this scene and it was a whole page with no dialogue.

It was just all stage directions and it was a train, it was a, multiple train derailments and Bart was, Bart was driving a car around a mountain going down the mountains

and the switchbacks and each time he hit a train and it would have been like, and Silverman just called up and said, please don't make us do this and it finally ended up

just being this scene where like he was just seeing a lot of stop signs and stuff. Anyway, there you go. Wow, man. I think about the labor that goes into that kind of stuff. I feel so bad. Apparently that guy used it as his Christmas cards that year.

Yeah, I've seen it several times since then. That's why I thought it was in the show because it became kind of a thing that we would have up on the wall. I also, I cut out from this here, but there is a Kang and Kodos scene. They laugh and then turn into Peabody and Sherman. Weren't there a few times where Kang and Kodos

were almost not in the episode, and then they cut in? We always had to force them in because it was a tradition. Were they late editions? Like you had to do them in the retakes? No, I mean, I think we were aware even in the script stage that it was required that they be forced in in some way. And a lot of times we'd have to go through and

find the least obtrusive way. Like in the episode of the attack of the giant eyesores, when it's a giant rolling donut and they're standing there. It's so forced in. But we had to do it. Earth Capital was funny. I think we did an admirable job, but

otherwise we would have cut it out because it was pointless. Homer's just smashing everything inside and screaming. I mean, it's not a subtle joke, but I love it so much. It's a sheer frustration. He's killing everything. But what will all his changes do?

Good morning, dear. What's my name? What color is the sky? What of donuts? What? For the love of God, tell me. Homer, the sky is blue. Donuts are plentiful.

Friday is TGIF night on ABC. What's gotten into you? Nothing. Nothing at all. Let's just eat. Eh, close enough. Yeah, the existence of TGIF is a good baseline for reality. And now we're without it.

Nothing makes sense anymore. Actually, I saw a viral ad on Twitter that said that TGIF is back as a... It's a branded night. I mean, look, it's not the same. You can watch Speed Swiss on there and, like, three other shows. I don't know.

Whatever. It's nice of them to optionally put out the silverware in case you don't want to use your tongue, your reptile tongue to eat. I mean, hey, maybe they like having options. You don't always eat with your reptile tongue. There's some etiquette to this tongue world. Apparently everything is the same

except people eat with tongues. That's pretty great. All right, so now we're on to one of your seasons, Bill. This is Homer Cubed. We're going to do it. Preface, I heard this was a big one for you, getting this

one, getting this Treehouse segment, right? Yes. I mean, this was at the time, there's a lot about this I didn't actually remember until this article. If anybody cares, Entertainment Weekly did a gigantic article about this. It came out yesterday. It's only on their site, but it's an 8,000-word article that comprehensively goes through many things I had completely forgotten and all the details. At the time, this was incredibly revolutionary.

This was before Toy Story. I forgot that, too. It was revolutionary. This was before Toy Story. And I forgot that, too. Like, it was a month or two before Toy Story had come out. So people hadn't seen this kind of thing, which really, like, you have, at the time, you have to put yourself in the mindset of someone watching this in 1996 who had never seen any computer animation of this caliber. And it was a remarkable achievement. I like to blow my own horn about this.

It was, we didn't know that it could be done, I think, at the time. and it was a remarkable achievement. I like to blow my own horn about this. We didn't know that it could be done, I think, at the time. It was the train coming at the screen of 1996. Yes, exactly. We all just ran away from our TVs. We thought Homer was real. No, when we first saw as kids, me and Bob, when we saw the commercials for this,

it blew our minds that this could even exist. Like, I could... Nothing had been more mind-blowing to me than The Simpsons and seeing that footage of him saying, holy macaroni, in the commercials. This was... I mean... What's the first clip that you're going to show for this? It is just 2D animation.

But I'm curious, like, did you and Josh, were you into 3D animation? There were existing 3D animation things, but nothing as ambitious. We weren't aware that this could be done at the time. It was all just a parody. Again, we had that book, The Twilight Zone Companion, in the writer's room. And this, I'm proud to say, was actually my idea. It was this episode, The Little Girl Lost of Twilight Zone.

If you've ever seen that one, it's where a little girl goes through some sort of portal in her wall into the fourth dimension. And the fourth dimension is just a bunch of clouds and and like mist or whatever but she's lost and they can't find her because she's not in this dimension and when i saw that as a kid i was like whoa it totally blew my mind the concept of the fourth dimension anyway my very simple parody of that was like well what if the simpsons are in the second dimension, and they go into the third dimension? And then we had at the time, initially, the very first idea was, let's do all sorts of animation, and we're going to do paper cutouts, like South Park,

and we're going to do claymation and stuff, but then it wasn't as thematically pure as just having second dimension and third dimension. The animation styles got cut pretty soon, and I remember the first day we talked about this, nobody knew that it could be done. We had an animator around for something else and he was like,

we could do it on our home computers or whatever. It actually turned out this cost several million dollars of high-end computer time from PDI. It couldn't have been done on people's home computers or even close. That was basically, that's the conceptual theory of it. Basically, it's a straight parody

of Little Girl Lost, Twilight Zone episode, just knocking the dimensions each down by one. So they had a much bigger budget than a normal Treehouse of Horror. Well, they paid for it. This is another thing that was covered in the article that I'd completely forgotten. What happened was we went to this company

called Pacific Data Images that had done a few small things prior to then, but really hadn't made a name for itself. And they were eager to do this for free. Oh, they were doing the Pillsbury Doughboy commercials. And they were eager to make a name for themselves, so they agreed to do this for free. And apparently it cost them,

it must have allegedly, according to the article, cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars of computer time. But it paid off because they got bought by DreamWorks and then did Shrek. It's true yeah. So it worked out. So it's a good lesson

about maybe doing some spec work sometimes doesn't it? And just think of Homer as yellow Shrek in this episode. Right. But yeah they

Pacific Data Images they were bought by DreamWorks they made Ants and Shrek and a lot of other stuff and thanks to support decisions by the studio they were

shuttered in 2015. I think their last movie was Peabody and Sherman the CGI version of that. So they made it at a time when awareness of that property was at an all time low. I don't know what they were thinking. You got it from Jay Ward's studio they may as well give it a shot, right?

Well how much, how did this have more lead time than a normal Simpsons scene or no? No, but it couldn't be rewritten because that was the thing. Like, as I'm sure anybody who's a Simpsons fan knows, these all go through multiple rewrites because we have many opportunities at the storyboard, at the animatic, at the color screening. There's many opportunities for a large-scale rewrite. In this case, there was not because you can't, they couldn't change the animation.

So we had to, Dave Cohen turned into a into brilliant script barely needed any rewriting anyway but we had to make sure that everything was set in stone before they began animating which was rare for us yeah it's written by david x cohen futurama co-creator is that his official credit for futurama or developer developer every match screening show is created by matt great developed by the other person and that's why there are just math equations in the background and if you have six figures of student loan debt you will understand them. I won't pretend. David Cohen is a

longtime friend of mine and is a genius who has a degree in physics from Harvard and also a degree in computer science from Berkeley and he put all this stuff in there. Just check out the Entertainment Weekly article because he explains it all in detail and many of these like all the equations and things you see in the background have incredible meaning

to people who are filled with this knowledge. There's a stab at Fermat's last theorem, and there's all sorts of other things that us civilians didn't get. But he put them in there and apparently a huge number of smart guys and nerds love them. I think in our 2 o'clock show, Henry,

you were positing that in this segment every character has a Futurama corollary. I just feel, yeah, you can see a little of the spirit of Futurama in here, I'd say. Well, I mean, like, Frank is Farnsworth. Almost most times when I see Frank

in co-written episodes, I'm like, that feels like a Farnsworth joke. Definitely possible. And I'd say, yeah, Bender is Homer, Fry is Bart, Leela is Marge, and I think Wiggum, I'd say, yeah, Bender is Homer. Fry is Bart. Leela is Marge.

And I think Wiggum. I'd say Wiggum is Zoidberg. And Flanders is Scruffy. Oh, yeah. He is Scruffy. He just shows up with a ladder. But here, why don't we get the first scene of Homer Cubed. Homer, get ready.

Patty and Shama will be here any minute. Oh, no. Better ride this one out in the closet. Sorry, Dad, this is our spot. Oh, yeah? Well, it's my house, so it's my spot. Nuh-uh, because we called it. Did not.

Well, we're calling it now. You are? Afraid so. Oh, they got me with their legal mumbo jumbo. Just a second. Huh? I never looked behind this whatchamacallit case before. Huh? That's weird.

It's like something out of that Twilighty show about that zone I like to think that Santa's Little Helper and Snowball 2 Are experiencing their own Twilighty Zone Episode, we're just not seeing it Right, they're flat under there Dogs are hard to animate Well, have your kids

Ever played any legal mumbo jumbo with you Now about It's not quite as witty as that professionally Wr legal mumbo jumbo with you now? It's not quite as witty as that professionally written mumbo jumbo, but they definitely do it all the time, yes. It was great to see Patty and Selma here doing gross things. This felt like a real throwback, too. It is a real throwback to the era of Sam Simon.

He really didn't like Patty and Selma. Patty and Selma were written to be set... How much can I say about... He's dead now. Sam was a great... Sam, genius. Created so much of The Simpsons you wouldn't believe it. Had a bad relationship with his sister-in-law.

This is all I can say. Upon whom these were based. You'll often see a lot of Sam's, in the second season and first, when you see Patty and Selma, you know that it was written with real vitriol. Like someone who really cared about slamming Patty and Selma. So while we were trying to rekindle that feeling in this.

20 years later, though, they kind of rule. They're kind of awesome, Patty and Selma. I like how free they are and they don't care. But not even how disgusting they look when they're sucking dead crabs. Yeah, the crabs out of the shells from Sulphur Bay. Yeah. I'll take my chances in a mystery wall.

Now, this is one of the... I'll take my chances in the mystery wall. Now this was a... This is one of the... Every shot in this is a money shot. This was a shot where I remember being there and we actually got to travel up to PDI in Silicon Valley. And this was a really hard... Because it required two types of animation

to be happening simultaneously from two different studios. And also it was conceptually unclear. It was really hard to describe. I remember sitting there going with them. Just imagine there's a plexiglass panel upon one side, or a shower curtain on one side

is the second dimension normally animated, and this other side, the third dimension. It took hours to get people to figure it out. Then finally when they did it, we're like, there we go. I mean, this is the shot where it's like, this is the mind-blowing shot in my opinion. Yeah, I think you needed this to sell the idea.

If Homer just appeared in 3D, you really need the transition from 2D to 3D. Yeah, if you just start in 3D, it's not as impressive, that's for sure. Yeah, no, I mean, it's quite impressive. So it was Dave Silverman worked pretty closely with the PDI folks on this. Yeah, and I think it was either Bob or Mike Anderson who directed the episode as well. Forgive me for forgetting which Anderson it was.

But it's covered in the article. And Tim Johnson, who supervised it for PDI. Oh, glory of glories. Oh, heavenly testament to the eternal majesty of God's creation. Holy macaroni. Hey, you can just suck them out. Hello? Can anybody hear me? Homer, where are you?

So that's the... I'm somewhere. Hello? Can anybody hear me? Homer, where are you? I'm somewhere. The processing on that is the same processing that's in Poltergeist. If you remember, I believe that when the little girl is in the other dimension, is speaking through the roof, I believe it was the same exact sort of processing. Okay. That was intentional. I don't know where I am.

Do you see towels? If you see towels, you're probably in the linen closet again. Just a second. No, it's a place I've never been before. The shower. Hey! So we did this episode for the podcast not too long ago, and one of the commenters pointed out the music is a lot very reminiscent of Myst,

the game Myst. Did you have Myst on the brain? Myst is only actually in that one shot. It is supposed to be just a general type of fantasy music. The only specific Myst music is in that shot where the Myst temple appears. Interesting. I love that it's going between this high end 3D animation of Homer

and then you go to Patty and Selma doing kind of like Archie Bunker style sitcom gags on Homer it's also because we could only have they gave us a total of maybe two and a half minutes of computer animation so we had to fill up the rest of it with regular animation

Patty sucking the thing out of the shell is on par with the 3D animation, in my opinion. It's very well done. Just all the dead sand crab on her face. So hideous. I also like that it's a great gag they do on Homer, and then it's even better

that Homer reacts as the normal person would like, hey! I don't want to alarm you, Marge. But I seem to be trapped in here. We better call Ned. He has a ladder. What's going on here? I'm so bulgy.

My stomach sticks way out in front and my... Well, as the tree said to the lumberjack, I'm stumped. It's like he just disappeared into fat air. Hey, shut up! Okay. Unprocessed fish steaks. And this, like, I wouldn't really say that these are award-winning jokes here, but they were really put in to show off computer animation. Like, this is, as you'll see, if you read the article, you'll find out,

like, the animators suggested this because they already had, like, an idea. They already had animated water. They already had, like, a few ways to do this that didn't require, you know, another $100,000 worth of work on their behalf. So that's why we have this area. Man, this place looks expensive. I feel like I'm wasting a fortune just standing here. Better make the most of it.

Ow! Watch it, Cody! Oops. Yeah, Bill's right. In 1995, you didn't get water or reflections in your reboots, in your Beyond the Mind's Eye VHS collections. PDI, they specialize in character

animation. That's why they sort of wanted to do this. And before this, even the Pixar shorts were like, what if a unicycle danced around? Or what if these shapes moved around? Or a teen soldier, too. Just not living things. And especially, I don't

envy their challenge of having to animate in 3D a character as famous as Homer Simpson that everybody knows what it's supposed to look like and they have to kind of imitate that. Well they had the benefit of all the action figures and the plastic dolls which that place was loaded with at the time

because they didn't, like how are you how does Bart's head look from the top? You know things like that are weird and they fortunately they did have the dolls to you know as models which they were scanning and stuff into the system hmm now those dolls are dangerous the Homer's the only non dangerous Simpsons doll yeah Lisa or Bart will fuck up your younger but yeah I guess I mean that gag now, I guess it doesn't look expensive, but

I still love the joke that Homer's wasting money just by scratching his ass. He was. Not your money. It's like did anyone see the movie Tron? No. No.on? No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Yes. I mean, no. No. I just love that. So, yeah, we want to check in. What was the feeling about Tron in the writer's room in 1995? I don't think we really had anything against it. You know, and the thing is that that's just, it was such an enjoyable slam.

It wasn't even really that merited because Tron, I think we all kind of liked it when we were teenagers. But that was just like, you know, it was like Tron. The whole thing was based on Tron and Battlezone. Okay, yeah. The whole interior of the dimension. Because when I, so when Gen Xers started writing for the internet in the early 2000s,

before that, they were celebrating Tron. And I was like, well, I was told Tron was bad. The Simpsons are right about everything. I don't know what to think. And then nobody cared about Tron Legacy, and we've all moved on, I think. Right? Yeah. It's back to nobody's heard of Tron again.

All those no's in a row and Wiggum's three no's. Anytime I'm with a group of people and we ask, like, does anybody remember this? And if one person says no, then the other two people have to immediately say no afterwards. Just no, no, no, no. Are you going to play the clip of Freak

at the chalkboard? Oh, yes. Oh, we have it. That's my favorite thing. Here is an ordinary square. Whoa, whoa, slow down. Oh, man. I was losing it. I think it is the best joke of this segment. Or maybe the decade.

No, I feel weird on this pause here because Ned's eye is all a little off there. Yeah. Well, they're all supposed to be looking. Some of them are looking. I don't know.

Okay. They're still thinking about Tron. We extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe along the hypothetical Z axis there.

This forms a three-dimensional object known as a cube or a frincahedron in honor of its discoverer. Hey, hey. Help me! Are you helping me or are you going on and on? Oh, right, and of course, within we find the doomed individual. Enough of your borax, Poindexter. Man's life is at stake.

We need action. Take that, you lousy dimension! Enough of your borax, Poindexter. Man's life is at stake. We need action. Take that, you lousy dimension! Oh, there's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I read that book by that wheelchair guy. Bill was pointing it out, but I really love Frink not even flinching when the gun is being fired. Yeah, just flying back. That's a really great touch.

And just the bullets disappearing into the wall looks great. In that episode, Wiggum shoots his gun indiscriminately twice. Earlier, he had shot the captain of the high school basketball team. He was turning into a monster. He was turning into a monster.

Yeah, just the Frinks being nonplussed by Wiggum makes the gunshots get better. It's rare that they come into contact with each other and I think it's a funny pairing. That should happen more often. I'm going to pitch that now. The Frink and Wiggum episode.

So the bullets flying in too, was that like a request from PDI to have some action in there or was that your guess? No, I think from PDI to have some action in there, or was that your guess? No, I think that was pretty much scripted, and I don't think it was, why would they complain? It's very easy to animate. Yeah, and the

stretching on Homer's face there is wild. Like, that was crazy. Right after talking about the wheelchair guy, which is a pretty funny thing to refer to Stephen Hawking. The late Stephen Hawking. This was the scene that really blew my mind

as a kid because me and Bob, we talked about this before. We thought we'd see Homer. We did not think we'd see Bart when we first saw this as kids. That does it. I'm going in. Bart, no! Cool, man. Oh my god, I'm gonna be sucked into a

black hole, I'm gonna be sucked into a blivin, I'm gonna be nothing, and what's gonna be coming out the other side, I don't know. I'll save you, Dad. I can't get any closer. You'll have to jump. Piece the cake, son. Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! So was Bart always written as being in the third dimension too? Were you worried if that was possible?

There were actually going to be other characters and this is one of the things that's covered in that article. Flanders was going to come in briefly and I think Marge even briefly was supposed to come in but it was way too complicated and expensive and they were terrorized at the idea of having to do a CGI version of Flanders' mustache apparently. Yeah.

I was going to make a joke about that but yeah. And so it was like we can do one character max and that was why it finally got cut down to just Bart.

As I said, this was a thing where there was no rewriting. We had to get everything, all the ducks in a row before we even began and so Flanders and Marge were just cut out

right at the get go. I think Henry, you pointed out in the last show that Bart and Homer are never on the screen at the same time I mean rarely you can see Homer in the background with Bart there but I would have figured that the two

having two characters animate with each other at the same time that sounds like more than twice the work for PDI I think it was actually just because of the architecture of the universe like there was no way for Bart to get near Homer. His entrance point was across the vortex. I don't think that was a

financial decision. I think it was a creative. I also just love Homer. Homer really doesn't even try to jump. He takes a large step until gravity sucked him down. I think that's the thing. I think it was definitely inspired by the whole skateboard canyon jump from Barth the Daredevil. Oh, cool.

And that was why we wanted to do it. And in this case, it was like he jumped, but the gravity sucked him down immediately. And then I also recall that was not what we wanted for when he exploded. I think we really wanted him... We wanted some sort of incredibly dynamic effect that they just couldn't do. So they were like, well, how about if we break the models of his face into pieces individually? And we were like, okay. We didn't love it. That shows you how to

make your own Homer at home if you've got a supercomputer in 1995. Well, right before that scene, I didn't get the clip for it, but I love Abe and Jasper coming in in the old-timey diving suit. That really feels like a Bill and Josh trademark thing. You got it. Old-timey. It's too futuristic. We need the old-timey diving suit. That really feels like a Bill and Josh trademark thing.

You got it. Old-timey. It's too futuristic. We need some old-timey jokes. But so Homer goes to the worst place yet. This is the worst place yet. Oh my god, look at this. Oh my god. this is the worst place yet Yeah. Erotic cakes. Pause on your credit there.

Yeah, you know, we're living in an era where bakers are too picky about what kind of cakes they can bake. I think we need more erotic cake stores. You know, Bill, I've only seen them in comedy shows. I've never actually seen a real-life erotic cake store. Are they all on Etsy now or something? What's going on? I've never seen them in comedy shows. I've never actually seen a real-life erotic cake store. Are they all on Etsy now or something? What's going on? I've never seen one either. This was a photography studio,

and we paid them to take their sign out of the window and let us put that neon one in there for the day. This was also a giant... This was an operation. We didn't think this was possible either, and initially the idea was to have a costume, like an amusement park-style costume that Dan Castellana would wear, assuming he'd been willing to do it.

Then he walked down the street. We were like, that's going to look phony. That was what it was supposed to be. Then the guys at Pacific Data Images said, we could probably put him into the real world. We were like, what? We'd certainly never seen anything like that. They were confident they could do it, into the real world. And we were like, what? We certainly never seen anything like that. And they were confident they could do it.

So we did it. And I think it came out great. The whole segment was directed by David Merkin, who had a lot of live action directing experience. And we shut off only, again, this is covered in great detail. We were only able to shut off one lane of traffic. And it wasn't enough. And the actors were looking.

The biggest problem was that the people walking down the street didn't know where to look because there was nobody there. First of all, there was a truck driving by with somebody having a sign, and they would have to look at that. Then finally, that wasn't working. Somebody had to get a giant fishing pole with a ping-pong ball dangling from it

and say, this is Homer, and they held it as they went down the street, and the people would look at the ping-pong ball. That's how they made all the Star Wars prequels. Wow. Bob, you have the address? Yes. If you go on Google Maps, don't do it now. It's at 13567

Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, California. It's now, as of my last Google Maps search, it's now a coffee roaster cafe. Very nice. And we need to go there in beautiful Sherman Oaks. Homer has got some Sherman Oaks opinions. It doesn't look that good in this.

I've never been. I really appreciate the reflection. You even see Homer in the reflection in the window, which in 1996, I would forgive

if they didn't animate the reflection. I'd be like, that's too advanced for that. I would like to see a show of hands. Who found this ending to be hilarious

and who found it to be confusing? Hilarious. Hilarious. All right. That's confusing. Oh, my God. Not really that many confusings. Okay, because we were like,

I think people, we didn't know what people were going to think because it's like erotic cakes. It's a mixed message, you know? It's a weird place to leave you in a Halloween episode. Exactly, because it's not like a big cakes. It's a mixed message, you know? It's a weird place to leave you in a Halloween episode. Exactly, because it's not like a big laugh. It's real subtle. And it's also like, what happened to Homer?

He's going to be in a cake store? It just leaves you hanging in a lot of ways. But I'm so glad to hear that at least this audience was not confused by it. I like to imagine that in some universe, Homer, a giant CG Homer, is in an erotic king's cave. Or he just won't leave. And also,

there's a great crane shot after this, and I would assume Fox wouldn't pay for a crane shot if Melrose Place exploded. Again, it was a big issue that Merkin was fighting for a crane, and they wouldn't give him anything, and it was complicated. Get a jib, I think. Yeah, it's a great pull out.

And also, that was a funny thing was, another funny thing was, we had to spend a lot of time working with the baker and the prop master to get cakes that were erotic, but could still appear on TV at 8pm. So you look, if you look carefully, you see there's kind of a butt, but it might have like a bikini over it. I remember this was a sensor issue

for quite a while wow they actually baked erotic I wonder what happened to those erotic cakes it might have been styrofoam covered with frosting

or something like that but it was it was cool you could get Merkin to do it and keep it like kind of in the family at least for

the Simpsons production oh yeah he was a great director I mean he directed all those episodes of Get a Life and stuff and was really great at that no Romy and Michelle's high school reunion was one of my favorite movies very funny Oh yeah, he was a great director. He directed all those episodes of Get a Life and stuff and was really great at that. No, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion was one of my favorite movies.

Very funny. Any last thoughts on Homer Cube you want to share? No, I think we covered it. Read the article. I wish I had read that article. Or if there's time, we'll read it to you. So up next is Citizen Kang. Absolutely not topical in any

way. Well, see, how did Citizen Kang come about in the room? You guys were cutting it close in terms of production and referencing real life events. Right. This was a weird one for us because it was, I don't recall that this was based on any specific, we weren't parodying, we were playing like They Live

maybe? Was it They Live with Roddy Roddy Piper? I think there was some... There is a little bit of that, but there's a number of other things. I don't remember what the genesis of this was, but I do remember it was a lengthy debate because we had never done anything so stuck in time. There was a joke about George Bush,

and there was a Bill Clinton type of thing, but we brushed by them. We'd never done something that was so set in time. This became dated only two weeks, extremely dated, two weeks after it aired. But we thought it was so funny that we didn't care. And that was, I think, the go-for-it kind of thing was like, let's just do it.

Let's just do it. And the weird thing about this is that it hasn't really become all that dated. It's still like, I mean, I think our political discourse has changed somewhat in the past two years. However, from 1996 for the next 20 years, this was pretty much how every election went. It was all the same old bullshit,

which this, I think, skewered quite well. And I was only 14 when this came out, so all of my knowledge came from SNL. I'm just curious, how much did you know Dole would be a lock for the nomination? He was already a lock at this point, wasn't he? By the writing, I assume he wrote this in like early 96, or maybe before

that. I don't think there was any choice, I don't think there was any guess that it wasn't going to be Dole at that point. I don't remember ever thinking about that. No one wanted to write for Pat Buchanan. And also, like, this is another David X. Cohen one. Was it a big deal to get, like, this was the first

Kang and Kodos-centric one since Monkey's Paw in the third season. I think we were happy because it didn't require some phony way to cram them in. Like, we had to do the previous year. This year, we were like, oh my God, it's a really organic Ken Gakuto story that's also like, it practically writes itself

or David Cohen can write it for us. But it didn't have, I think it felt very natural from the get-go. And the only issue was like, do we really want to do something that's going to be so dated so fast? And then we were like, yeah, why not? And you worked in the great Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton, too.

Yes, that was a treat. It was always such a treat to work with him. And he did Bill Clinton on SNL, as you probably know, and it was always really fun to go record him and have him do it for us. Were there any thoughts to get anyone for Dole, or to just go to Harry for that if he had a good impression? I feel like Harry already had it in the bag. This wasn't like,

when we did the one with, when we did the one with George Bush moving in next door, like, at the end, actually, it was supposed to be Nixon, by the way, instead of Ford, because Nixon was still alive when we wrote that,

and it was gonna be, we were like, oh my God, maybe we can get Nixon, and he died halfway through it, and then we were like, Ford, okay, well, Ford seems like he looks like Homer. He seems like he kind of like that, and so we had people audition for it, and then we found that Dan Castelletta already did a great Ford, okay, well, Ford seems like he looks like Homer. He seems like he kind of like that. And so we had people audition for it,

and then we found that Dan Castelletta already did a great Ford. Oh, great. In this case, I'm pretty sure that we had Harry Dubobdol at the table, and he nailed it. And we were like, why bother to go anywhere else? It's a great doll. All right, let's get in the opening here.

Ah, the old fishing hole. So peaceful and relaxing. Doesn't even matter if I catch a single fish. Come on, you stupid fish! Take the bait! Don't make me come down there! Oh, my God. What's that? What's that? What's that?

What's that? We used that because there had already been at least two tractor beam jokes. In the previous, you know, when they kidnapped him in the first thing, there was already the tractor beam and he was so fat that they had to turn on the second tractor beam. Remember that one? In this, we were like, okay, we've got to come up with something

and then the Iron Claw did it and we did that same joke. We did a realistic joke about how stuff already falls out of the Iron Claw. Oh my God. Space aliens. Don't eat me.

I have a wife and kids. Eat them. Silence. We are travelers from a certain nearby ringed planet whose name we'd prefer not to mention. My name is Kang. And this is my sister, Kodos. Hello.

I suppose you want to probe me. Well, might as well get it over with. Stop. We have reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us. I also wonder whether this is a dated joke. At the time, there was all sorts of space alien. Every space alien story was always involved in probing somebody rectally.

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I'm making this up. No, no. I mean, people said it happened. Well, after that Christopher Walken movie I felt like it was just a joke in every

every comedy at least American comedy yeah like Kids in the Hall did a really good sketch on it but it was like I felt like it was in every

by 96 I'd seen that joke a million times okay good because again I was concerned that people wouldn't know what the hell we were talking about

but it was supposed to be yeah it had already become a cliche at this point that aliens that's what they want. Well, and then, too, you do a Uranus joke, but go around it by not saying it. Which I, again, dodging the obvious joke.

That's what I loved about Simpsons. And still love. But I love just the revulsion. These alien creatures that shouldn't be more disgusted by Homer's ass than any other ass. They are so revolted by it. He does not get stripped naked and tubed though. Yeah, yeah.

They can't stand that. They'd lose it. But yeah, so Homer explains to them about the election that's about to happen in nine whole days after this episode airs. There's this election next week, so after that it might not be him anymore. It might be, what's his name?

Um, Mumbly Joe. Saw him on TV the other... Uh, Bob Dole! Hmm. An election that complicates matters. Set grid coordinates for Bob Dole.

Well, night everybody. Good night, everybody. Good night, Senator. Good luck next week. What? Bob Dole doesn't need this. What's happening? Is it noon already? And see, Clinton, Billinton wasn't really known as being

lazy, but at that point, this was before we knew he was so lecherous, I guess. So we didn't, there weren't really very many comic handles by which to make fun of him, so we had to say that he was sleeping till noon. I like that they stealthily rip the president

out of the White House and the world doesn't know. They didn't care. They really didn't care. I just love that. You laughed at it there. I love that aside of like, good luck in the election. Yeah, good luck next week. Just the guy from the Horns.

Okay, so this is something, too, that really gets me about this episode. I feel like you could certainly, I think you couldn't have done it in the last 10 years on The Simpsons of like, you strip naked the two presidential candidates and then later kill them. And I feel like on a network sitcom, like even South Park might have trouble

like doing this without a ton of controversy. Now I feel like Simpsons couldn't do this. I feel like we did it good naturedly, you know? Oh yeah, yeah. Like they weren't, I think if South Park did it good-naturedly. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think if South Park did it, it might have a little bit more edge. It was an accident.

You'll see. I don't want to spoil it. What the hell is this? Some kind of tube? Well, thanks for taking care of Dole for me. Hey! So this episode, I guess... It's funny. I'm so glad to hear people laughing at Bob Dole jokes.

Here. It's really like... Who... Bob Dole is dead, right? He's still alive. Oh, he is. Okay, sorry. Sorry.

I mean, technically... Anybody would laugh at the jokes. Imagine people in 1990 laughing at McGovern jokes. It's shocking. He could be. I love it because it really does sound like him. And it's grumpy. It's just the kind of thing he would say.

Bob Dole doesn't need this. He is just a grumpy grandpa. But I mean, both sides kind of get it in this episode. Were personal politics involved at all? Did anyone disagree about who should do jokes about who? Nope. I think it was bipartisan. Well, this, I mean, you,

the 1996 election, as I recall, felt it really did feel like a coin flip, one of the least partisan elections of the time. I mean, there's a joke coming later, but yeah, right? Yep, yep. Also, yeah, he's statement was like, was it some kind of tube of all possible things to say? He's a man who knows his tubes.

He was in the war, Henry. Well, and also, I believe on the commentary, Cohen made a really funny point that if aliens waited nine days, they wouldn't have to do any of this. They could have just replaced the one president. They really don't need to do any of the election stuff. There's no reason actually to do it. They have fun

though. They're having fun. That's what I love. Yeah, it makes it even more ridiculous. The animation on their transformation of like the two one giant eye becoming two smaller eyes looks so great. And I guess plot wise they had to strip them naked so they could steal their clothes, I suppose. Looks so great. And I guess plot-wise they had to strip the naked so they

could steal their clothes, I suppose. Right, right. What? Are you still here? I'm afraid we'll have to dispose of you. No, no! What are you spraying me with? Rum! So no one will believe

your story. Go! Don't come back. Go! Ket Brockman here with Campaign 96, America Flips a Coin. At an appearance this morning, President Clinton made some rather cryptic remarks, which aides attributed to an overly tight necktie. I am Clinton.

As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me and obey my brutal commands. End communication. That's slick Willie for you, always with the smooth talk. March, march. There I was. I had just caught the largest fish you'd ever seen when I was abducted by a flying saucer.

Sure you were, Rummy. That's one of the creatures. Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton? It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. Doomed. Well, a refreshingly frank response there from Senator Bob Dole. These candidates make me want to vomit in terror.

I've got to stop them. So that Bart, sorry, that Bart's sure thing rummy. When we do the podcast, we can, now we've seen these so many times, we can tell like, oh, that was a rewritten joke that was, you know, 80 yards later. Do you, when you watch these, do you remember the original line at all? Because we always want to know, like, what was the original joke? I think that was the original joke. Why do you think that was EDR? The lip sync seems a little off.

I don't know. I don't recall there being another joke there. I wouldn't expect you to remember, but it's fun to just look at. So Joshua Weinstein, your co- showrunner, he often posts old scripts and things on Twitter. So you can actually see sometimes where the old lines used to be. It might have been because there was a trim.

As I said, all these came in very long. So Bart may have had an actual stronger joke that had a second sentence, and we cut it out for time. Okay. That, you know, sometimes you get to see other jokes. We just did one. We watched the Springfield's Most Wanted clip show,

which that had like three or four original lines in it. They're like it that seemed like first pre-retake shots in there, too. Do you recall that? This is the one that aired before Who Shot Mr. Burns? Yes. That was entirely done by a different... We didn't have anything to do with that. The Fox promo department did that

whole episode. The names on it looked like a bunch of non-union names. But the Vomit and terror line is such a funny line. Yeah, this episode has vomit and terror and disappointed and terrified. Well, actually, you know,

Bill, in general, what did you... Did you guys learn anything from doing your... a show running your first Treehouse to doing the season 8 one? Were there any, like, changes you made in working on the one for season 8 versus the season 7 one? Were there any changes you made in working on the one for season 8 versus the season 7 one? I don't think so, actually.

Both were pretty similar. I don't think this one had a wraparound at all. I already covered this matter. But I think that that was just like everything is going to be far longer than you expect it to be, so we're going to have to keep it short and cuttable. It's not a very interesting anecdote.

Well, in this... Was it this one or seven that starts with the crusty throwing his head at the... I think that was the previous one. This one is the clip we started with, the pumpkin one, yeah. That crusty one, that had some other scenes that were cut too, right?

A whole page of crazy scenes, yeah. I think Patty and Selma are being burned at the stake. Yeah, it was like a minute long and then it was the first thing to get cut. But that whatever you do, your planet is doomed. I mean, right now we just heard that at 2040 no matter what we do. That phrase

is the most trenchant phrase ever heard on The Simpsons. You can really use it almost every day in any context. And Homer was really ahead of himself, too. He's doing a Wakanda forever. Sorry, Clint was. But all these scenes, these stump speeches,

it is because they have not changed so much in American politics that these jokes still work, including this next one here, which, B and Bob, double-check this. This is the first time the word abortion was said on The Simpsons. This was... I can't believe we got away with this. I really... Anyway, go ahead. 73-year-old candidate

Bob Dole. Abortions for all. Very well. No abortions for anyone. Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others. Cooling these earth voters is easier than expected. Yes, all they want to hear are bland pleasantries embellished by an occasional saxophone solo

or infant kiss. Mr. President, sir, people are becoming a bit confused by the way you and your opponent are, well, constantly holding hands. We are merely exchanging long protein strings. If you can think of a simpler way I'd like to hear it. They resume smiling. They really stump George Stephanopoulos.

Well, yeah, that abortion joke was really... Especially the setting, that he's in front of a closed factory with his helmet on, letting people know he's going to open that factory again. Very, very realistic. It is. And I think we probably wondered if we were

gonna get away with that abortions line in and we did much to our surprise but it really sums it all I'm stating the obvious it sums it all up flags for supportions that and then also that George Stephanopoulos thing like that every time I see that I'm like how come George Stephanopoulos didn't eat least write us a letter saying thank you for putting me on The Simpsons like never once did we put someone on in a fairly flattering way like that and not receive some sort of gratitude.

Lousy George Stephanopoulos. That could have been his highest profile TV appearance, even though it wasn't really him. I don't know. I'm just saying that other people would send us little bottles of liquor or something to thank us for mentioning. You know what Shirley Jones and Marty Ingalls New Year's Eve party? Oh, right. Remember that? I don't know. I'm just saying that other people would send us little bottles of liquor or something to thank us for mentioning. Like, you know what Shirley Jones and Marty Ingalls' New Year's Eve party?

Oh, right. Remember that? Marty Ingalls sent us a little box of assorted liqueurs. Oh, wow. He's like, thanks for making it sound like my New Year's Eve party is great. And we were like, you're awesome. And then Paul Anka did it too and stuff. And like, George Stephanopoulos, what makes you so much better than those two legends? And now where is he?

I don't know. Is he still hosting that morning? I think he's still hosting. I think he is, yeah. Is he in this week is he? I don't know. Is he still hosting that morning? I think he's still hosting. I think he is, yeah. Is he in this week or whatever? I see a clip. He's not appearing on The Simpsons,

I'll tell you that. Yeah. It's been 22 years. I feel like every couple months I see a clip of him talking to Kelly and Conway about something. I think he's still at it.

I think he's the host of a TV series. But man, just that they, them holding hands is funny enough and the, but the smiles. smile, the smiles really makes it, they don't have to do that to exchange log protein strains.

There's no reason to smile for it. Honestly, I think it's because the animators were like, this scene isn't funny enough. Let's make it visually funny at the end. I think that's like, and that's when you watch these things, you realize sometimes the joke, the written joke is actually a little mild. So the animators spice it up. And they often do that. The one place where they really do that is in the couch gags.

Like in the couch gags at the beginning, you'll sometimes notice, like, it wasn't obviously this part wasn't scripted, but the animators added the little zing, whatever it is. Like the smile, that's the kicker that gets your laugh there. Otherwise, it would have been a very mild ending. And I think this is my favorite speech of all four of them here. My fellow Americans, as a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball,

but tonight I say we must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling Twirling Twirling towards freedom For those of you listening at home to this podcast It may not have been clear that the entire audience

Was saying that along with Bill Clinton Twirling towards freedom especially It should be on a bumper sticker It should be A modern candidate should embrace Twirling towards freedom, especially. It should be on a bumper sticker. It should be. A modern candidate should embrace twirling towards freedom. It's just, those are all the platitudes, but said all at the same time. Saying to go forward and then not forward.

If this was the time I caught here, actually, maybe I'll go back just a little bit. You can see that Lisa, like, she isn't reacting to it and I fucked it up sorry okay there little Lisa was not reacting to it at all it's crazy that she liked it was there a cut joke there of Lisa going like that's why is he talking like that or can i see it okay wait it's because she's too smart for to fall for this crap right isn't that the answer not backward say it again not forward and always twirling twirling twirling toward freedom. Wow, wow, wow. So Marge is into it.

Bart is into it. Maggie, no opinion. But Lisa, not sold on it. And wait, Kirk and Luann. Well, no, there's a lot of mistakes in this shot. Okay, well, first of all, Lisa obviously is too smart. Everyone else is a boob.

There's a way to poo. It's miscolored, right? Is that Sanjay or Apu who's colored wrong? Is that a really badly drawn Kirk? Oh, yeah. No, that's Kirk. No, that's definitely Sanjay miscolored there next to Apu. This election caused the breakup.

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, when you get to these crowd shots, you often find that things have, the quality control has slipped a little bit,

but at least they got Lisa not reacting properly. Kirk had a long, what the hell was going on with Kirk in that shot, man? But Homer busts in

and then basically starts talking like Alex Jones.ones and yeah i think this is the the uh they live moment yeah it's the most like they live i think they live is unfortunately inspired a lot of alex jones just to be like no i'm right just like the guys and they live they were correct my gun will prove that i'm right just just like for roddy piper and they live that gun proved he was right. Now, actually, this episode has the second reference in your history on the show of Lyndon LaRouche.

Like, why did he come up a couple times? Because he was an easy target, I guess. At the time, I mean, he's faded from popular memory now, but at the time, he was like Alex Jones, right? It was exactly that same sort of stuff. And there would often be people trying to give you pamphlets about you know crazy conspiracy theories that came from mr. LaRouche I think Linden's top one at the time was that the the Queen of England was secretly

controlling everything with with of course Jewish bankers that had the anti-semitism had to come in there somewhere but but also that's another joke like that is such a pre-9-11 joke where they say, here's your stinking flag and throw it on the ground. Yeah, here's your, take your lousy flag with you.

You can not make jokes, you never make jokes about the flag. The flag wasn't small enough. Hold on, guys. I'll help you. Oh, no. Am I still here?

I don't want to serve up my term naked in a tube. I am so mad at the Secret Service right now. Hey, who the hell are you? I'm Homer Simpson, sir. And I'm going to get you back to Washington before it's too late. I just want to interrupt here. You'll notice that piece of metal around the tube moves up and down depending on what side of the tube we're on.

Here, it's just low enough to let you see their butt cracks, but when we get to the other side, it's moved up a couple inches to obscure their genitals. So it's just some nifty animation there. So I want to ask Bill, as someone who works for TV still in this modern age, what are the butt rules?

The butt rules have changed. This is now illegal. Oh, my God. What? You can't show these butts. I mean, I think post Janet Jackson, there have been new rules. So even in animated shows, I've seen the butt crack blurred out, just the line blurred out. I have no idea what you're talking about.

This is true. I mean, I thought that the censors were, I thought they were pretty strict in 1996. And I feel like they've only gotten less strict, but who knows? I mean, you're talking about on broadcast TV? Broadcast TV, yeah. It could be that that's the way broadcast TV is going because they rely so much kind of like on the, you know, middle America market these days

that maybe they're getting more stringent. I don't know, but I mean, maybe it's on dramas. I don't know. But this enchantment is full of butts. Is it? Not as many butts as... I can't remember, but I want it to be now. I don't know. But this enchantment is full of butts. Is it? Not as many butts as this. I can't remember, but I want it to be now.

I don't think so. I mean, I feel like this enchantment, we're not allowed to do anything this light is a bit dirty, but there's a lot of incredibly violent material. So that's the difference between this enchantment and this. I want to say you're always seeing Lucy's butt every time he's on the screen. That's because he doesn't wear clothes. Exactly. See?

More butts per second. Oh, God. We didn't... You guys... You guys gonna do a Halloween episode of Disenchantment in season two? I don't think so, because you know how Netflix works. The shows all come out, and everybody's really excited about them for

two weeks, and then they move on to the next thing. You know? It's like, there's no date. You can't tie anything to a specific date. What a weeks it was exciting it was it was a great it was great around the world and i think it also tends to go in cycles around the world like i i don't like it becomes popular overseas on a different week and stuff it's it's i have no idea how they do it it's gonna be complicated what what's uh What's your favorite gag you wrote in Disenchantment, the first season anyway that we've seen? It wasn't the... It didn't go in the way

I wrote it. It was the guy... Okay, it's the guy in the barrel. I've seen the drawing for that. Yeah, it's the guy... We wanted to have Bean be scolded by someone who was really... Okay, the guy wrote... This was a... Okay. Bean is on the way out of town

after having been derided by everyone and she's a loser, she can't do anything, whatever, and a guy in a barrel of his own urine has a sign on it that says, buy my urine, five cents a sip. Says, get out of here, you're bad for business. But it was changed, changed the ultimate broadcast version they didn't want to mention urine so the

broadcast brought the streaming version so it was rewritten slightly anyway that's my favorite joke being in suspended animation gave me time to think partisan politics are tearing our country apart you got a point there bill if you and I are gonna what these when one-eyed space fellas, we're gonna have to set aside our differences. Together, we can lead America into a new golden age.

Friend, you got a deal. Homer, let us out. It's time to tear those aliens a third corn shoot. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm. Yeah.

Oh! Oh. Oh. I just gave the Italian chef kiss to that. The way that not only are they spiraling, but you can see as they suddenly die and become motionless, but still spiraling. It's really well directed because they're moving, but they're clearly dead at one point. They were alive at one point, and you can see it happen. It's so well done. They're moving, but they're clearly dead at one point. And they were alive at one point,

and you can see it happen. It's so well done. They're twirling towards freedom. And really, death is the ultimate freedom. Walk away with that message. It feels like kind of the 2001 type of reference there, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they both die at the same time

so there's no partisanship on the show yeah yeah but it's a bipartisan killing a presidential uh nude as well i think it was an honest mistake really because if you look at that i think homer was there's you could anybody could have made that mistake not just homer it was pretty the labeling on the sign was pretty vague. I got to say, Homer's doing a pretty good job of flying an alien spacecraft to that point. All it has is one joystick, but even so, you can imagine it being difficult. Okay.

That staircase. Yeah, there's about 13 steps to the front door. I love... And just a creaky normal bathroom door for the front door. I love... And just a creaky, normal bathroom door for the front door. We hope that people would like it rather than saying that it was unrealistic. I like how fast he gets down to Henry,

so I want you to pause it when the guy says, I believe I'll vote for a third party candidate. Yes, I will. I know what you're talking about. But are we to believe that it's some kind of magic staircase? Anyway. America, take a good look at your beloved candidates. to believe that is some kind of magic staircase. Take a good look at your beloved candidates. They're nothing but hideous space reptiles. Now this was the subject of some debate because

it's like, wait a minute. I thought that they had sort of transmogrified themselves into these humans. They weren't just wearing latex human costumes and squishing themselves down. But I think we just said, screw it. People won't care. It's a funny image.

I forgot. It's true. We are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system. You have to vote for one of us. He's right. This is a two-party system. Well, I vote for one of us. He's right. This is a two-party system.

Well, I believe I'll vote for the center. That's Principal Skinner. All right. Bob was going to... Thank you. Yes. It's a mistake. And it was in there, and it came back, and I think we only noticed it, like... I think we may have noticed it just, like, about a couple days before this went on the air, and we're like,

Principal Skinner is not in Washington for this event. And so whatever they did was we revoiced it, and we also recolored the hair. And recolored the suit, I believe. And his tie, Skinner wears a purple tie, right? So it was all recolored, revoiced, but even so, you caught the mistake.

Whoa, so the mistake was Skinner shouldn't be in Washington, D.C. Right. It's weird. I mean, doing the show, Skinner shows up a lot of places he shouldn't be, like the Itchy and Scratchy trial. I mean, look, it even stopped you. I mean, it stops the comedy because you're like, whoa, wait, it's Skinner. And it adds a different layer to the joke where it's like Principal Skinner talking and you caught it.

I mean, it's definitely a stopper. We hope people would notice. It seems like most people didn't notice. Secret twin theory. Third party candidate. Go ahead. Throw your vote away. Everybody said that. All hail President K.

Hmm. I don't understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I never even heard of. Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos. Go! So, Kodos could have been the first female president, but America was not ready. Especially then. But Bill, were you surprised by Ross Perot getting a huge

laugh in this room? Yeah, I can't remember the reaction. I mean, it's like Harold Stassin or some sort of joke like that. See, nobody knows what Harold Stassen is, but everybody knows what Ross Perot is. They're equally dated third-party candidates, I would say. But we were talking about this joke earlier, and I think it's been misinterpreted.

What was your intentionality behind this, you know, throw-your-vote-away, two-party system sort of commentary? Because I think it's really true. Like, don't you think if this really happened people would still not vote for the third party candidate? Yes. Right. There you go. I think that's actually I think

it's the same it's just true now as it was then. I think if this really happened people still will not vote for the Green Party candidate or the Libertarian candidate and we would be stuck with the alien as the president. I mean every election I think Henry would agree like we see this misread. Like, yes, this show is telling us

a third-party candidate is worthless, but I think it's the opposite, the opposite meaning you have. Well, no matter how, I would say, no matter how valuable or worthwhile the third-party candidate is, nobody's going to vote for them. Not enough people are going to vote for them.

I mean, I think the joke is extremely clear. And way ahead of its time, I think, for 96. I love the flag, too. The flag of the new Earth flag. Yeah, much bigger than the U.S. flag. Yeah, also, so Kang wins, who was dull. Was that meant to be a prediction, or was it just like, eh? I can't even recall.

I don't know which one is which. To be honest, I honestly still, even at this date, most of us were never able to tell the difference between, just like Rod and Todd Flanders. We had a very hard time telling the difference between them. I don't think most of the writers ever knew which one was Kang and which one is Codos, and I don't even right now at this moment know which one is which.

Well, and how'd you decide? I see you just had the same Halloween name you had the last year. How'd you decide on Halloween names? I mean, every year people, like, I think the first season we were on there, it was like Objectional Bill Oakley and Jaded Joss Wentz, something like that. But I think once we hit on this, we were like, this is perfect. I don't want to blow my own horn,

but I think this is the perfect Halloween name for a two-writer pair because it rhymes, late and estate. And it's like, you didn't get that till just now? I just got it. I didn't go to Harvard, Bill. I went to Gudger College. Okay. Anyway, it's the perfect Halloween name for us because it's not just a corny pun. It's like, these guys are dead. They're both dead. I don't know.'s not like it's not just a corny pun. It's like these guys are dead. They're both dead.

I don't know. I really like it. Sorry. We're both dead and in fact the first time this aired we got at least three calls from people from like

my high school and stuff who were like is Bill dead? You should have put a black and white picture of you and Josh at the end of the show. In memoriam.

Awesome. What a classic. Can you pick a favorite of the ones you'd worked on? Do you have a favorite Treehouse segment from the years you worked on the show? You know, I really like Homer Cubed, but I think

in terms of like... I really like all these ones, but I think in terms of like, I really like all these ones or else I wouldn't have put them on in the first place. I wouldn't have done them. I actually still think I might like the Lard Lad one best. Like, I just,

I love those characters. I love Lard Lad and I love Red Devil Realty and I love all those other weird giant statues and stuff that's the one i like to watch you know but like each one has different things i like there's some pretty horrifying deaths in that one yeah the smooshing of the people under the beer bottle the neon beer bottle i think is my favorite or the zip boys who are not the pep boys legally distinct

yep of course yeah and the guys don't scratch up them heads I love it They're dragging their heads On the ground I love that I guess Yeah I guess that's it Any parting Sorry Bob

No no go ahead Any parting thoughts About your Treehouse Havar And Simpsons And Halloween Bill Aren't you guys

Supposed to ask me Some questions I don't know You guys I don't really have Any parting thoughts But I guess If you gave me a question

A more specific question I might be able to. We can talk about candy again. Yeah. So PB Max. Take us back to the late 90s. Okay. Well, you know, actually, have you ever done a Simpsons themed Halloween costume? I don't think I have.

I don't think I have. But I've been told. My daughter has really insisted that I should go as King Zog because I look like King Zog from this enchantment. I'm like, hey, come on. I'm not quite that fat. And she's like, oh, well, you're close and you can have a grown mustache. Anyway, so

like King Zog, that may be my costume sometime soon. I haven't done any Simpsons ones, I don't think. That crown with the dealie bobber is pretty cool. Yeah. And we talked we interviewed you brief a

brief bit about shit posting and I believe a few months ago maybe it was longer you declared the steam ham memes dead but it survived so Bill is the writer of the steam ham segment if you

don't know that he wrote the entire thing and yet it lives on still I wouldn't say I wouldn't declare it far be it for me to be so presumptuous as to tell the internet if something was dead

I just think that I don't want to participate in killing it and I don't want it to be one of those things where 10 years from now everyone is like look at that stupid relic of the past when we were idiots and we were tweeting about steamed hams. Because that's what happens to everything that's four or five years old now, is it becomes a humorous relic of the past.

Keep calm and carry on signs. Are four years old now, they're subject to parody. I don't want that to happen to steamed hams. So I'm like, let's give it a rest, everybody. But I still see new ones almost every day that I really like. Do you have any new favorites since we last talked to you? Just today about 15 minutes ago I got the LimeWire one. Yeah!

There is a new era of Simpsons LimeWire jokes. I don't even really know exactly what happened with that LimeWire thing but I got the gist. It was just a vehicle for viruses to enter your life. Really. That's a great one.

Oh, gee, I guess that's it. Oh, by the way, though. But the dud. The dud, yes. Oh, the dud, yes. Yeah. As much as I love the steamed hams memes, I love the dud ones far more.

Like, I don't know. Like, it's because of that face. The face that Homer makes. And if you haven't seen if you are familiar with if you know have any idea what I'm talking about

check out the super cut of the dud where they've pasted that onto like 19 different Great Simpsons moments they pasted the Homer face and the dud

onto it just blows your mind because it's also actually kind of it's kind of creepy in a strange way because it's just like

the eerie smile it's like you know it's like Jack Torrance and the Shining smiling as he says strange way because it's just like the eerie smile. It's like Jack Torrance in The Shining smiling as he says, here's Johnny. It's creepy. But also fascinating. Anyway, those are the ones I love. I really like the one where it's from Homer the Smithers and Mr. Burns is sticking the mirror under the door. You can explain it.

He sticks the mirror under the door and normally when he would see Homer, he sees the dud and then he reacts with a smile. Yes, it's really good. I just can't get enough of that particular one. And it seems like that's actually one that isn't being beaten to death. It had a brief arc of

two or three months when everybody was talking about it, and then it was forgotten, and I think that's probably the most noble way for one of those to die. Like the liver and onions, that was a great... That was like three great weeks of July or whatever it was. That was the meme that everybody was doing. God, I love those. What a time to be alive.

Are there any gags from your seasons that you feel are underexploited in meme territory? Or that you haven't seen memed yet? I saw one meme of this. All the jokes that I say around my house are the ones that were not jokes, that actually are straight lines, but I love them.

One of which, most specifically, is that's really more of a weekend thing, Ray. George Bush is going through the drive-thru and he says, why don't you just get the cheeseburger, sir? He says, what kind of stew do you have? We don't have any stew. Why don't you just get the cheeseburger, sir?

He's like, that's really more of a weekend thing, right? George Bush only wants to eat cheeseburgers on the weekend because it's a weekend thing. I feel like it says a lot about him. I've only seen one with that, and I think it was like a week ago, and I retweeted it. But most of the things that I talk about at home or my wife quotes from The Simpsons

are things like that that nobody else ever noticed or cared about, you know? Well, I mean, he lived through the Depression. Cheese was a luxury. All right, well, I guess that's it for the show. But thank you so much, Bill, for coming out. Yeah, give it up for Bill Osley, everybody. Yay! And, I mean, thank you all for coming out, too. Thanks for having me. We've been talking Simpsons. We'll be in the back. We're selling the posters, I mean, thank you all for coming out, too.

Thanks for having me. We'll be talking Simpsons. We'll be in the back. We're selling the posters, that poster. We'll be signing it, too, so say hi to us. We'll be hanging around

for a bit after the show, but thanks for coming out. We really appreciate it, everybody. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. Infotainment.