Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons' Politics Special With Chapo Trap House's Virgil Texas And Matt Christman

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

We're briefly disrupting our season one revisit because our pals Chapo Trap House, Matt Christman and Virgil Texas are in the studio live! We love doing politics episodes with these nice folks, so we decided to just cover the political comedy of four classic episodes of The Simpsons. We cover the electioneering impact of three-eyed fish, deficit rags, electoral fraud, and third parties against space aliens, so listen now!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

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That is patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Now please enjoy the rest of this podcast. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoi, everybody, and welcome to Talking Sim Simpsons where we hate life and ourselves. I'm one of your hosts, dear rat boy booster Bob Mackie and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? It's Henry Yelbert aka Slick Willy, always with the smooth talk. And who are our special guests? Matt Crispin here, Chapo Trap House co-host.

Oh, this is Virgil Texas, best-selling author and Chapo Trap House co-host. I'm also one of those, I just didn't feel the need to brag. And welcome to our Simpson celebration of politics, I guess that's what we're calling this. I'm sorry, Dad. I couldn't think of a nice way to say America stinks. So recently we've been going through all of Season 1. We're revisiting it right now. But for this week, we're breaking schedule because we have some very important guests coming in. So we asked Matt and Virgil to be on one of our season one episodes. They said, absolutely not.

So we decided to base an episode around their... The animation bums me out. Just don't like it. It feels wrong. So we decided to base an episode around their interest, which is politics. And you guys are in town because you've been all over the Democratic primary trail just to fully place this in time. We are recording this the Monday before Super Tuesday, March 2nd. So, yeah, that's how we're feeling right now.

We're all very excited is the word, I guess. Yeah. On some sort of edge one way or the other. Yeah. How about that big winner of Super Tuesday, Joe Biden? No, no, don't say that. And I'm recording in Vancouver. I'm afraid of being harassed

by them, so I had to move to another country. Had to protect himself from the bards of the new American left, I've heard you guys called. Pied Pipers, actually. I like that better. I'm more of a paladin. I am a half-orc barbarian. Welcome back to the Bay Area.

I guess it's the first time I've seen you guys in Berkeley. Are you enjoying it? Yeah, we just drove around in the Bernie truck that East Bay DSA has, and I got to yell out of the side of the Bernie truck with a bullhorn, and it has made me think, why haven't I been doing that my entire life? Because it really is amazing to just be able to yell things at people and they have to hear it. And you just like you see someone on the street and you're like, I would like them to know what's in my head. And you can make them know and they can't stop you.

I have never seen Matt more in his element than sitting passenger side on this garish van decked out with, giant paper mache Bernie Sanders on the top of it, yelling at strangers through a bullhorn. It was my full flowering. I feel like I finally carried out my childhood dream, and I didn't even really realize until now that it was my secret childhood dream, to be Alex Jones

in Waking Life. You've been all across the sea, the shining sea of america what highs and lows like what's the what's the worst city best city oh come on we love all the cities they're all equally good cities they're all cities like sometimes you're in los angeles sometimes you're in dairy new hampshire it in Derry, New Hampshire. It's basically the same place. It's all the same stuff, essentially. I guess some people went mad at us for making fun of Iowa, but I'm from Wisconsin. I get to make fun of Iowa.

And I can say it confidently that, no, no, no, thank you. That's just how... There's a hierarchy there. Yeah, no, it's just crap. Just a big pile of corn. Also, he's not being mean. That's just how Midwesterners communicate. It's true. We yell at each other. It is the Balk pile of corn. Also, he's not being mean. That's just how Midwesterners communicate. It's true.

We yell at each other. It is the Balkans of America. And we all hate the ones next to us for no reason, even though they're the same people. Have you guys been entertaining yourselves on the road? Have you been watching any Simpsons? I would assume on a Plex account, not on Disney+. I haven't been able to see any since we've been on the tour. I'm jonesing, actually.

I have not either. I think I caught one of the new episodes in a hotel room, but I was only like half watching it, so I don't really remember anything from it. Let's hope not. Let's hope that doesn't stick to your subconscious. It might have, yeah. I also caught the premiere of the newest entrant in Fox's animation,

Domination, a show whose name I can't even remember, and I'm sure it's canceled by now. Duncanville? Duncanville, yes. Yeah, what does that? Duncanville is still going strong three episodes in. I'm pretty sure. No cancellation notice yet.

There was another show that I guess was trying to be the updated King of the Hill that appears to have been canceled immediately also. Actually, that, bless the hearts, I think it just got renewed for a second season baffling all of these all of these decisions are baffling to me because it's part of it's part of the king of the hill extended universe because they asked mike judge for permission to use megalomart huh so megalomart exists in bless the hearts so that doesn't mean the king of the hill extended universe that doesn't necessarily

mean it exists in the King of the Hill continuity. As well, I'm just shocked that that was picked up again because, I mean, bless the hearts, Mania did not sweep America. I think by now we should know that at this point, essentially all content is monetizable in some way. You know, like they make some weird toy out of lead in Indonesia for the characters. It's incredibly popular in, you incredibly popular in Burma or something.

Who knows? Well, so the real secret of all those shows and why they probably all will at least get two seasons is that after Disney bought all the 21st century stuff, Fox TV still exists and they bought an animation studio to make original things for them. So all those shows will just keep getting made. The shows, if the studio owns the show, it's always going to get at least another season. Oh, so it's like it doesn't even matter what they're producing.

They just have a contract to buy any animation. They could produce Wacky Deli, and it's totally... That's great. Here's your millions of dollars. Let's see Food Fight brought to the small screen. Okay. That's why the amazing show The Critic got canceled, because Sony was making it for Fox. Is that right, Henry? Yeah, yeah. It was.

Sony was making it for Fox, but Fox then started making King of the Hill instead. And they're like, well, we own King of the Hill and we don't own this thing. And they didn't like the then president of Fox didn't like the then president fox didn't like it either so well if you caught our interview with mike reese uh he is still bitter about the way the critic ended and i i believe if i recall correctly uh it was originally on abc

yeah for the first season and it was i believe this is what reese said it was canceled by just a bitter executive at abc who who did not find the show amusing in the slightest. And otherwise, you know, just in terms of its ratings, like, it was, like, good enough to persist. And that one, you know, network exec killed the show. Yep, yeah, yeah. I mean, I can understand why Mike Reese quit Hollywood. Well, as much as he did, I mean,

who wouldn't take a one day a week job on The Simpsons for probably a million dollars oh sure yeah if I had to guess shows up and writes one vowel but yes that's the state of television today with uh with all The Simpsons counterparts basically Fox TV is trying to find a replacement for The Simpsons when eventually they cancel it because they don't own it anymore and uh thein' Ville and Bless the Hearts are one of the many trying out for it. There will be three more coming very soon. Meanwhile, they sold off American Dad to TBS. Yeah.

Interesting. Yes. They're making them there still, I think, with TBS. They're now on like the 12th season or something of American Dad? Oh, like 14th, something like that, yeah. They're way up there, yeah. I gotta say, I think it's kind of an underrated show. It is! No, it's way better than Family Guy.

Way better. I mean, it's not even close. It's like the only good Seth MacFarlane show that still exists, you know. Well, because he's just a voice actor on it. Other people write it. No, they got really weird in a way that was interesting and not just, like, wacky the way that Family Guy is. Yes, exactly.

They're almost at 300 episodes. Their newest renewal gets them to 300 good for them yeah that's a good thing also i did not know this until a couple weeks ago i when i was watching revenge of the nerds 3 i did not realize this that uh booger is the voice of snot yes and that's not is plainly snot is plainly modeled after Booger. He's a young Booger. He's a young Booger. And I didn't know that. There was a joke on one episode where they said, hey, remember that thing from Avenge of the Nerds? And I think Snot said, I've never seen it.

Classic. Despite being the biggest pervo, he's the only non-sex offender nerd in that group. Yeah, no, he's a sweetheart. He also won the burping contest. But anyway, let's go back in time, why don't we, to the politics of the 90s. Oh, what a quaint and wonderful era that we can all imagine. Look back on fondly.

That was when The Simpsons was doing the politics. And, I mean, did the show's old classic era episodes of that inform your politics as lads? Choppo guys. I mean, there's no way i couldn't have yeah the things that pop up i mean i don't want to step on anything we're probably going to talk about but just to say you know moments that have stuck and have formed my and you know informed my thinking uh canyon kodos uh throw your vote away don't vote me don't blame me i voted for kodos very powerful of-Eyed Fish with Burns run for mayor.

Very cynical. I think that, because, yeah, the main thing I got from The Simpsons probably was that cynicism that was the default Gen X posture towards politics. And I think a valuable prophylactic towards, you know, media and received wisdom. But, of course, something that must be transcended eventually. Well, for me, it is the cynicism, and I wouldn't call it Gen X cynicism, because again, most of the creators of the show

were boomers themselves, so they kind of grew out of the National Lampoon type, like 70s Mad Magazine type, the comedy boom of that era, where mainstream comedy became more vulgar and darker, and it was a show that was cynical in a way that you did not see on literally any other program on television and you know in terms of simple explanations for the world cynicism is the best heuristic you could

cling to yes it's it's just merely insufficient is the issue and uh and the thing is is that in the 90s simpsons they did exactly what they needed to do because it was the end of history. Politics was basically a spectator sport, a revolving door between two relatively similar stuffed shirts pursuing basically identical macro political theories. Your job was basically to crack wise on the margins of it. Right. And the show seemed to acknowledge then in thes, what everyone now knows, or at least should know, which is that, yes, at the end of history, politics is just sort of a meaningless spectacle. Yeah.

What did you guys think of the classic Simpsons era looking back on it now? Especially, I don't know, its takes on Clinton or Bush or Rush Limbaugh. I gotta say, one thing I really appreciate, and I think we can thank John Schwartzwelder for this, is how legitimately mean they were to Bill Clinton. They were very mean to him.

Meaner, way meaner than they were to George H.W. Bush, which, fine. I mean, he had it coming and more. I mean, I don't care why Schwartzwalder, what weird mustache wax tariff related reason that he hated Bill Clinton. I just appreciate that he was willing to just be like, yeah, this guy's a disgusting creep. Has sex with actual pigs, as he would say. No fooling pigs. No fooling pigs. And, you know, it was, and I guess that you can chalk that up to Schwarzwalder, it was very much so a both side show.

It wasn't a specifically liberal program and it's like that distinction is it's it's easier to perceive now in the when it's all in the rearview mirror as i got older i came to recognize the place a lot of the writers were coming from like not just generationally but also like there are a bunch of dudes who mainly graduated from harvard which is uh you guys on a chop of classic uh you you had your who's the history's greatest monster from harvard uh off yes uh what i so what do you think of like harvard and harvard lampoon like so informing the uh the show in the in the early classic days i mean well for one it wasn't just Harvard people. There was a diversity of backgrounds.

Like, Schwarzwalder himself, I don't believe he went to Harvard. He was some kind of weird right-wing hippie, basically. Like, he would have been basically Alex Jones if he'd lived, like, 20 years later. And Matt Groening, of course, was more of a left-liberal hippie from Evergreen College. from what i understand about some of the the behind the scenes production aspects of the show you know there was often real tension there between say someone like graining who would have been like very like

anti-gulf war you know to the far to the left of bill clinton kind of guy and uh the more you know harvard uh educated liberal milieu guys. When I look back at this, David Merkin, I think, is underrated in the political insight in the show, at least for his two years of seasons five and six, because he was a real Mason's conspiracy theory guy. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah.

His big push was the Stonecutters episode. Oh, well, bravo to him. Yes, that is an excellent episode. And it does tell you more than you maybe think you learned about how things work. And overall, you know, the show seemed far more interested in the writers' particular esoteric interests than it was in a specific political standpoint. Yeah, like John Schwarzwalder cared more about depicting 30s hobos on the show than he did about getting his thing about NAFTA in there.

Well, and also I think it defined all our politics with this wonderful clip as well. Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns. That's funny. So a while ago, there was a Twitter, one of those viral things that requests you to quote tweet it. And they were saying, give your job in a Simpsons screenshot, I think it was. And me and Will instantly, simultaneously, simultaneously posted that. I posted

Krusty at the Krusty Live show, reading the cue cards saying, talk to the audience. That's always hell. I mean, I think something that makes me like old Simpsons is why I like returning to the classic politics episodes like in this one

is recently they've not had very good politics jokes yeah i will i will say that we haven't gotten these episodes yet but they were uh intentionally hands-off with george w bush during his entire oh yeah terms and at the time i was really upset about that because al jean was on the record saying like we were hands-off with him we didn't know if he was popular if he was unpopular but now i think those episodes have aged better because they didn't go in for the easy jokes yeah oh no yeah well topicality especially with politics is really a smart move for any kind of longevity the one thing i remember from that era the only

political thing and i was still like watching the show through the bush era like more half-heartedly obviously uh was i think this was at the end of a treehouse of horror where the the planets basically destroyed it's kang and kodos talking about it like it's the iraq war yeah saying like you know you said we would be greeted as liberators and i remember right wingers got really mad about that it was also very bad it's also like a very adr joke that felt like it was written after the fact yeah yeah yeah i but yeah i mean now we have the uh i mean i'm sure you guys have seen it the uh the west side story parody that was one of the worst things i have ever seen no i didn't see it oh boy oh wait with the squad the squad oh yeah i did see it yeah Yeah, it rocked. Give me 90s detached cynicism, please, over that any day of the week.

I think I disliked most about it was that it just kind of washed, it treated the squad as all one singular person and all basically just Nancy Pelosi jokes they would have done just coming out of all four of them, which was, I felt like they just couldn't even understand what say AOC or Omar even stand for. They're just like, no, they'd, they'd say, tell him jokes about Putin. Like, is that really what they would do? Is that the joke? The joke for all of these things, the joke for every major political comedy program that's on television, uh, is to point out the ways that Trump is some way grotesque

personally and that is what all of those awful little sketches they've done with trump are about in like very explicit terms and that is i mean it's just drawing room manners horseshit i mean it really is just it just shows an absolute paucity of insight. Just laziness. Because the thing about Trump is he's such an absurd figure that there are so many things you can make fun of, but that's the challenge. That's the issue, is that because there are so many things, you have to pick your spot. You have to find something that actually is, you know,

resonant beyond just a surface observation. And what a lot of these comedy vehicles have done, and all the times the Simpsons have tried to talk about Trump specifically, is that they've just clown card on every wacky, goofy thing about him, or grotesque thing, to just make as the joke, which just renders it into, honestly, a bunch of Hollywood elites just having a fainting fit over somebody who doesn't feel like they should be there. Which, I'm sorry.

I mean, I don't know what they think they're doing with this stuff. I sure as hell don't think. I hope they don't think they're doing comedy. Because they think that they're helping. They're not. Every one of these people think they're helping. And all they're doing is framing it in exactly the way that helps the right wing. Yeah.

And also, just on a level of comedy aesthetics, it's because Trump is such an absurd figure, it's fruitless to try to heighten that and be like, I'm going to lampoon him by making him even more grotesque because you're not going to beat him. Putting a hat on a hat. Like the actual clever way to parody Trump would be to show him, reveal him to be this genius, this astute genius. Remember that? The SNL sketch with Phil Hartman where he's directing around Contra.

Very good. It's like calculating currency differences in his head and talking in Arabic on the phone. It's very funny. Well, the fascinating things about those new sketches they've done is that the Simpsons characters aren't in them. And I think if you're going to make that, what if, let's say, Trump hung or flanders or something like get a character no no no no no no if you're gonna do it don't do it dynamics see that's just just like i mean i have come around especially with trump specifically as a figure he shouldn't be in your work like the guy himself i am fully convinced that any decent we're all i'm sure dreading

the the flood of art that's going to come out of the trump administration about his trump administration the uh all the movies game change for electric boogaloo whatever the hell all this other stuff all the movies and i will tell you right now any one of them that has trump as a character portrayed on screen by an actor will suck will be bad i mean just objectively be bad the only decent piece of any kind if anybody's trying to do it i'll give you a free piece of advice right now do not have trump appear on screen other than on screen as himself that you can't heighten you can't do it it's absurd to try to and then you're just drawing attention to your labored attempt like oh what is this guy going to try to do with trump what are these people going to try

to do with trump to make him funnier than he is and i'm sorry you can't do it he was on he was at a speech the other day and he's talking about mike bloomberg and he got down he like got on his knees he did he did dwarf he did dwarf in front of a freaking group of people. The president did Dorf. He did Dorf. What are you going to do? What are you going to do that's better than the president of the United States being Dorf? I think if you depict Trump on screen, you should do it in the way Todd Solons might do it.

And just have him in one scene depicted by an eight-year-old boy. Another scene he's played by an elderly Asian woman. Yep. Just like a bright orange refrigerator. Yeah. With like a face straw on it. And you never explain why. Yeah. No, I like that idea. But attempts to do any kind of realistic depiction of him falter before the enormity of the absurdity. And that's why, hands off. What if that becomes an exercise in acting schools

for the next 50 years is to play trump like that becomes the new king lear i mean who do you think adam mckay is going to cast in his eventual film about it like it's 20 i'm hoping i can talk him out of that and honestly i feel like he's gonna do what i say eight-year-old boy elderly asian woman refrigerator we've all decided to forget about the Funny or Die movie that was essentially... Oh, God. The one with Johnny Depp. It was the real-life version of all the Springfielders leaving the town meeting and laughing at the comet. Oh, yes.

Yeah. That came out right before the election. Right before, yeah. Oh, boy. They thought it was quite funny. Still available on Netflix. Have not watched that one. Probably not going to.

I actually don't know what that is. I'm sorry. This is probably a tangent. We Probably not going to. I actually don't know what that is. I'm sorry. This is probably a tangent. We can talk about it later. I don't know who directed it. Somehack. It was a movie based on The Art of the Deal. And it's a feature-length film starring Johnny Depp in a terrible wig as Trump.

Insanity. Okay. We have to do a movie episode on that. Maybe we should, actually. I do want to hear that. You guys have to. I don't want to tell you guys. Don't you hate pants?

But if you could do that, that would be great. Actually, yeah, put that in a notes episode. I'm going to require a large degree of whippets, though. At least. It's going to be a race between the drugs and the movie to see which will kill as many brain cells. Watch this to immediately go into a cave hole. The Sentence will be right back.

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And if you're not a Chopper Trap House listener, I think you'll enjoy it. Meanwhile, this podcast is Patreon supported by listeners like you. Me and Bob are able to do this full time and have on our cool folks like matt and virgil because we do this full time as our real ass jobs thanks to the subscribers of patreon.com slash talking simpsons if you go there you can sign up for five dollars a month here next week's episode right now a week ahead of time and ad free the same goes for our sister podcast what a, where we give the Talking Simpsons treatment to a different animated series each week, from choices as diverse as Cowboy Bebop to Street Sharks. Not to mention so many exclusive podcasts that you will

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pants the movie we just did the great mouse detective previous ones have been toy story nightmare before christmas iron giant the animatrix batman mask of the phantasm kiki's delivery service akira beavis and butthead to america and so many more and you can only hear those in full over 50 hours of exclusive podcasts if you're at the 10 level patreon.com slash talking simpson so please sign up today well why why don't we uh go back in time now to uh to september of 1990 for the simpsons first explicitly political episode to go back through some of the the best hits for The Simpsons' first explicitly political episode to go back through some of the best hits of The Simpsons. And so, of course, talking about two cars in every garage and three eyes on every fish.

When we recorded the podcast about it, I would bet it was mid-2015, so if we even talked about Trump in relation to the story of a rich man buying his way into politics, we probably had a lot of those comet-style laughs at the true impossibility of that. Well, the thing is, though, is that the comparison of Burns' campaign in that episode, it's not Trump, it's Bloomberg. No, it's Bloomberg. Oh, now. Trump didn't buy the presidency. He didn't buy the presidency.

He probably made money off it. No, he did because he was charging the RNC rent and stuff. No, he made money running for president. He didn't spend a dime. I mean, he definitely made money winning it. It was all earned media because he was famous. Yep. Yeah.

Bloomberg is not famous in the sense that he was. He's a politician, but he also has $50 billion to spend. And he is just saying, what do you need? And a lot of people are saying, a new car, and he's just giving it to them. Yeah, and as well, Bloomberg is exactly as grotesque as Mr. Burns portrayed in the show. He's so evil and ridiculous and extravagantly cruel.

He genuinely wears his immorality on his face. And you look at him him and you listen to him and you're like any normal person is creeped out. He's got a fucking beak. I mean, I don't think enough people talk about that. Do you mean Burns or Bloomberg? Bloomberg. Well, Burns does kind of have a beak.

And if you look at Bloomberg's face, he does not have lips as they are criminally understood. I'm sorry, but that is like a bony, hard protuberance that looks more like a beak than any human mouth yeah well we didn't have bloomberg then but uh when we first recorded this episode but i think like it i mean when they did this in 1990 it was already a long tradition of rich guys run for political office because they don't want to pay fines and stuff yeah uh like clint eastwood becoming mayor of carmel, California because

he was tired of the ADA demanding that he put a wheelchair ramp in his hotel. I don't know what he thought the mayor was going to be able to do about that. I'm sorry, I have to break in. We do have some breaking news. Oh no. Chris Matthews, veteran anchor and host of MSNBC's Hardball, resigned from his position after criticism

over embarrassing on-air moments. No way. Whoa. All right, all right. Podcast is canceled. We've got to go. We've got to go to a memorial. That sounds like a knee the size of the Statue of Liberty is just bending. Holy mackerel.

Damn. You guys killed him. Yeah, we killed him. R.I.P. Bye-bye, honey. Go home. Go home, Chrissy. You loser.

Oh, can we adopt him? Can we take him home? I home, Chrissy. You're a loser. Oh, can we adopt him? Can we take him home? I mean, I don't know what he's got. I saw him in person in New Hampshire, and he looks like a cadaver. Well, I'm sure he'll have a lot of fun in Central Park now. Yeah. Just going to wait for the lynch mob to show up.

But I guess, I mean, the episode with you know burns the testing of the plant which it's a funny scene but it's funnier in a later episode so in the homer goes to college episode oh yeah but it ends up with like burns in kind of a a real ish moment for burns of him just like getting drunk alone and sobbing. That tells you what oligarchs were in like 1990 that they're like, well, if he had to pay $100 million, he would be broke. But then Homer gives him the idea of running. They're trying to shut us down. They say we're contaminating the planet. Well, nobody's perfect.

Can't the government just get off our backs? You know, I was just telling the wife that if I was governor, I'd do things a lot differently. Don't get off your soapbox, Simpson. Do you realize how much it costs to run for office? More than any honest man can afford. I bet you could afford it, though. Don't get me wrong. I mean, you're an honest man. I mean, it just meant that you could afford to run for governor if you felt like it. Of course, I'm just rambling because you keep staring at me like that. But it's true. I mean, if you were governor, you could decide what's safe and what isn't.

Where are we going, sir? To create a new and better world. If it's on your way, could you drop me off at my house? And they have to invent a governor for this episode, too. Like Mary Bailey. Mary Bailey. Yeah. Yes.

I feel like she's sort of inspired by Ann Richards. Feels like it. Yeah, I can see that. In her design, too. I mean, she was the most prominent female governor of that era. But she's far more reserved. She's more of like a New England type. Yeah, she seems like a Brahmin.

Yeah, she feels, honestly, like a Bush. Yes. But she's clearly a Democrat. Or maybe she's like a Susan Collins Republican or something. I feel like if in 1990 you make up a female governor, it's just accepted that she's a Democrat. That's true, yeah. And that Burns is campaigning against her in all the ways a Republican fights a Democrat. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, this episode, too, was written, you know, the co-credit is to Schwarzwalder and Simon, so I think that's where a lot of, like, the dark cynicism of this episode comes from, too. I also, I think she's called Mary Bailey after, of course, Donnery's character in It's a Wonderful Life. Well, meanwhile, this is like a Citizen Kane parody. So it's kind of like Citizen Kane versus It's a Wonderful Life.

This was the episode, this had some of the first visual Citizen Kane references. And it also made Monty Burns named Charles Montgomery Burns. They grafted the Charles on so they could, you know,

fit some of the references in. Yes, yeah. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Like, he gives the speech in front of his poster. And at the end, when he loses, he smashes up the place in a withered old man style of the awesome smashing of a hotel room at the end of Citizen Kane. Yeah, I think also Mary Bailey, it's funny, they forget they have her the entire time.

But then in season 14, when they write a script where they meet a governor, they're oh wait mary bailey let's just bring her back so the the wiki has to contend with that they did a joke about a male governor in in like a 1998 episode so on the wiki they're like well she apparently retired it was replaced by a male governor and then in 2004 just say they don't care just write it just say they don't care what was the male governor joe uh I think it was a good trivia question. This is. I'm trying to remember my brain here. Do you know what episode it was? Yeah, if you give me the episode.

God damn it. I'm going to have to wiki this real quick. All right. Well, just give us the episode and see if we can figure it out for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all we need. Okay. Unnamed governor in 1998.

Unnamed governor was mentioned in, oh, well, you're not going to remember this episode. The Frying Game. Which one's Frying Game? It is the 2002 episode where Homer is going to be put to death in an electric chair. Oh! That was later than you said.

Yeah, sorry. It said 1998 on the webpage. Unacceptable. Apologies. I wonder if the episode where Homer's on death row It said 1998 on the web page. Unacceptable. Apologies. Oh, gee. I wonder if the episode where Homer's on death row, we really need to be concerned with the rigor of the throwaway jokes of the episode.

I really do wonder how those kind of completist people, the canon people, Virgil's kind of one of these. I don't know how you people contend with just the absolute, the fact that you're at the whim of these people who don't care about it as much as you do. Well, right, right, no, no. There's all the things you can't be a canon person for The Simpsons because there's no real canon

because everything is subsidiary to the jokes. Yeah. So it's why, you know, the location of Moe's seems to change every other episode. I try my best, though, to be the Virgil of this podcast. You do. The charismatic, you know, He-Man genius. But yeah, so when Byrne starts running,

it's also his campaign commercial is really great. Like first when he meets his whole team, who's like his muckraker, his speech writer, all these like horrible monsters who are out to destroy Mary Bailey. They then have this like great speech it's still the whole scene works so well because they're just like we got to neutralize this three-eyed fish right now and yeah they did this like 18 months before ross perot but it is like he is a rich guy who buys tv time to talk about his campaign that's interesting that

they kind of anticipated pro yeah like he's sitting in a chair and talking about it. And I love in this next clip how he hires a band to play Charles Darwin to tell him that it's fine that there's a three-eyed fish. It may in fact be a kind of super fish. I wouldn't mind having a third

eye, would you? No. You see, friends, if our anti-nuclear naysayers and choose-up-siders were to come upon an elephant frolicking in the waters next to our nuclear power plant, they'd probably blame his ridiculous nose on the nuclear boogeyman. The truth is, this fish is a miracle of nature, with a taste that can't be beat. So, to summarize, say what you want about me. I can take the slings and arrows, but stop slandering. Poor, defenseless, blinky.

Good night, and God bless. Only a moron wouldn't cast his vote for Muddy Burns. Wow, super fish. I wish the government would get off his back. I mean, that jingle can't be beat. That's a good jingle. I like how he's calling out the Bailey bros who are doing harassment of Blinky. God, this is an aside, but in the twilight of the climate era

and the need for radically restructuring energy in America. I kind of wish he didn't work at a nuclear power plant. Because I feel like nuclear power is actually really wildly and poorly represented in media generally. Yeah. That has contributed to wrong ideas a lot of people have, frankly, including Bernie. Well, only to the degree that it is, yes, it's superior to carbon-based fuels because there's no emissions. But I mean, there still are environmental issues involved

and it's still a pretty corrupt industry where if it's privately owned, they can cut corners. And nobody knew that back then. And the thing is, when people think about a nuclear plant, they think about a guy like Montgomery Burns sneaking the spent fuel out to dump it into the park or something. Well, that's the other thing. And they did do that stuff. There is actual waste and we haven't really figured out out to dump it into the park or something. Well, that's the other thing. And they did do that stuff.

There is actual waste, and we haven't really figured out where to put it. Well, when Harry Reid dies, we can finally open Yucca Mountain. How's that fair to them? It's fine. Someone's got to have the nuclear thing. Someone's got to have it in your 90% desert. Deal with it. Yeah, going back to season one,

Henry and I forgot that Homer being revealed to work in the power plant is a joke. Yes, yeah. That is one of the earliest jokes on the show. Like, this guy works in the power plant. This oaf works in a nuclear power plant. What I mean, when they're writing it in 89, the first season, they're thinking of only nuclear waste

in Three Mile Islands and Chernobyl. Yeah, no, the 80s was, yeah, the energy source that was dangerous was nuclear power there's no question about that and that made sense at the time for sure and i mean also as burns running to the right i think his one mistake especially with the rise of the christian right is to defend himself with evolution but honestly that was a bit of a wrong foot uh though i i like that he i mean it's all to set him up later later to lose by saying that the fish definitely tastes good.

But I mean, his whole speech is great in how it immediately gets people to just say like, yeah, they should get off his back. Come on. No, it's a very good capsule description of how corporate speech is able to rewire people's understanding of the world around them almost instantaneously and as the episode goes on it also we've been this is the first uh produced episode of season two and me and bob been doing season one and we've been seeing marge go from a like a one-dimensional character to at least two at least two dimensions to marge but in this episode like she is the proven to be much smarter than homer like more politically minded and engaged and i think this is like a really good episode for marge as a character yeah this is a great marge episode uh you really see that she

has her own opinions she has her own political views and that she's willing to defend them even at the host even at the cost the horrifying cost of appearing to be a bad host. And yeah, the episode finale comes as Burns is making gains on Bailey. I think that one of the only things that didn't feel as cynical as it would be in real life is when they dig up that Mary Bailey got felt up by some guy in college and they're like, good enough it was like they would have they would have used that

against her in the 90s that's they would have attacked a woman with that for sure but oh yeah uh yeah they then decide they're gonna do a you know dinner table with regular america thing which is thinking of it now it just reminds me of like how every campaign still does this now i think like those that weird shit ted cruz did with his family in 2016 like all the oh yeah the fake the fake meal where they sat around talking about the kids school while pretending to eat salad that was pretty brutal but this specific thing of going to a voter the regular person's house and having dinner mark zuckerberg did that if anyone yeah right when he was briefly flirting with running for president uh in like the summer of 2017 there are also like

weird pictures of him in food trucks serving food yeah he i remember he went to he brought a film crew to watch to watch him have dinner with a trump voting family in ohio and i don't i don't know if any of that footage exists. He probably had it all burned. When everyone decided they were going to blame Facebook for Trump, which meant his path to the White House was pretty much foreclosed. Honestly, I get why you do that, you know, because you are a rich weirdo. You do not convey human being at all. To anyone.

And so you have to uh have you know photographs and video of you with real normal human beings just like you to suggest that you know you too can uh rub elbows with the with the hoi polloi but does that really sway anyone because all i could think is you know i don't want to have dinner with I don't want to hang out with this person. Just leave me alone. No, I can't imagine sitting there and at your own dinner table and trying to eat while out of the corner of your eye, you're watching Mark Zuckerberg's face try to like approximate a mouth

and then pretend, I guess, to put food into it and then chew and go through all of those painful like rictuses of attempting to look like a human being instead of just having his tongue flick out and just suck it off the plate. If you're a politician, I don't want to have dinner with you. I don't want to have a beer with you. I have things to do. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Some people really do.

And we've seen it more and more recently. People reveal themselves that they do genuinely see the presidency as like their friend like the president is like your national either friend or depending on your specific psychological damage best friend parent are people just lonely is that it is it just like a bowling alone thing part of it's that part of it is just yeah maybe a big part of it, I think, is that because a lot of these people have professional jobs, they spend a lot of time watching on screens, watching shows, just watching the internet stream by them, going onto the websites of their choice, that the president, considering how much they are president of the life of a person who

consumes news, that person is more real to you than probably everyone else, but maybe like a handful of people in your life. Like think about it, you know, like the average person who doesn't have an extended family, doesn't have a lot of a huge social network, you know, an atomized urbanite, say, or suburban, suburbanite in an edge city. You know, you've got maybe a handful of friends. You've got your immediate family, Maybe only one side of that.

Who knows? You know, who knows what bad blood is in there? Who knows who stole whose headphones at Christmas? And then maybe some work acquaintances. And that's probably it. I don't know. That seems like a decent social life. Yeah, what it does to us, you know, in this impoverished era.

But, you know, that still means that out of all the people on Earth, the president is somebody who you have more you think about more and have more intimate daily contact with than everyone on Earth, but maybe five people. But that's because of your consumption. I mean, if you have the correct media consumption,

the president doesn't exist. Well, that's correct, but some people don't know how to correctly live, is the problem. People have wrong action and wrong thought, and it's our job, really, to correct that. I think it's because Trump supporters don't know how to correctly live is the problem. People have wrong action and wrong thought. And it's our job, really, to correct that. I think it's because Trump supporters don't have podcasts to form healthy parasocial relationships. Yes. Yeah.

They need to get on that. I mean, that's honestly, I think that might be the case. You know, it's like if you've got a good, healthy, weird parasocial podcast relationship, I think that allows you to take a step back maybe from the president and say well okay what is this job actually about what what actually matters nobody's gonna nobody's gonna help me do my taxes they're the president no not and not like you the listener i love you well we all love you you're all the greatest host love listener well which fanfic would you say is worse to like have a meal with this candidate or who, what house in Hogwarts are they in?

Like, which is a worse fanfic of Paul? Okay, well, it's kind of, there's sort of mirror images because you've got one which is what if the president was my friend or whatever, you know, in the sense that what if I was personally interacting with him? And the other is, you know, what if the president was my Facebook friend? Somebody that I'm like vaguely familiar with whose pictures I look at and who I can then, you know, see the results of the BuzzFeed quiz they took about which Hogwarts house they're in.

I mean, one is fundamentally an intellectual exercise and the other is more of an emotional response. They're all Slytherin, by the way. I do want to note this one thing. I fully acknowledge and appreciate the irony that we are doing this episode describing our current political situation to the 1990s era Simpsons. When we ourselves have been quite critical of people who see everything through the lens of Aaron Sorkin or Aaron Potter or anything like that. But my honest to God response is, well, it's because The Simpsons are good. And those things

you like are bad. Like Harry Potter is bad and it's for babies. The Simpsons is adult and strong. Like if you're a baby and you like Harry Potter, I'm like, okay, that's cool. That's nice. If you're like 40 and you're like, well, Elizabeth Warren is a Hufflepuff, then okay, you have issues.

Yeah, no. The Simpsons or text, that's all you need. If you have The Simpsons, you don't need all other pop culture references are obsolete, honestly. And also, I mean, come on, I've listened to people talk about Harry Potter and politics, and it's like, it always boils down to,

this guy's the bad wizard, and this guy's the good wizard. There's nothing really complex or layered in it. Yeah, because it's like, it always boils down to, this guy's the bad wizard, and this guy's the good wizard. There's nothing really complex or layered in it. Yeah, because it's like, there aren't that many bad guys. So it's just, they always end up just being the no-nose guy. I don't see Simpsons fans participating in the same way online, like saying, you know, Trump is Homer, Klobuchar is Kerbapel. That's true. Nobody's ever done that. I mean, fucking the ones who did it

well who was that republican who said we want homer simpson that was uh ted cruz he said that the republicans he's the simpsons he said that the democrats are the party of lisa and then the republicans are the party of all the other simpsons that's right even though we know pretty clearly from the context of this episode that marge at at least, is clearly a Democrat. Yeah. I mean, Homer doesn't. He thinks, I'll get to it in a later clip, Homer thinks voting is fruity, so he wouldn't vote for anybody. Fruity. Yeah. Well, okay, I have one last clip from this one before we move on to another episode.

And that is this clip of Lisa and the heavily rehearsed dinner. My family and I feel that taxes are too high. Where do you stand on this highly controversial issue? Goodness, I didn't realize this casual dinner was going to turn into

a charged political debate. I was only reading what the governor... Homer, I agree with you, and if I'm elected governor, I will lower taxes whether those bureaucrats in the state capitol like it or not. Lisa, do you have a question you would like to ask your Uncle Montgomery?

Yes, sir. A very inane one. Mr. Burns, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular? Oh, a tough question, but a fair one. Lisa, there's no single answer. Some voters respond to my integrity. Others are more impressed with my incorruptibility. Still others buy my determination to lower taxes,

and the bureaucrats in the state capitol can put that in their pipes and smoke it. Momentum of a runaway freight train. That is one of my favorite Simpson lines to bring up. I really wanted to hear Mr. Burns open his response to Homer with, Listen, fat. Come on, man. Come on, man. Come on, man.

We're going to get a lot of that in the next couple of weeks. Come on, man. Bite. Come on. Just give him one run. I'm a hole. Don't even be president. Come on, man.

One thing I do appreciate about this episode is, you know, we know a lot of the people who wrote the show in this era. You know, they went to Harvard and probably, you know, grew up like upper middle class at least or something like that, which leads you to be a lib, basically, a loony lib. Loony lib. But I like that the emphasis on this in this episode is on Burns being bad because he is a plutocrat. Yeah. Yeah. No, Burns is evil.

Like they only present him being governor a plutocrat. Yeah. Yeah. No, Burns is evil. Like, they only present him being governor as a bad thing. Right. It's not just saying, you know, oh, he's bad because nuclear power is bad. Like, no, no, no. He is a corrupt plutocrat. He's a bad dude. They make you feel bad.

Like, this is the breaking of Lisa. And it makes, like, Marge the hero for showing that Lisa, like, Lisaisa's giving up something by even uh giving that speech about uh the runaway freight train though i would say i have noted that in later years on the simpsons lisa's politics are they're less what you'd say progressive they're more you know okay well she is just like a coastal liberal who would probably does want to cut taxes too yeah well that's because that's who writes the show. Well, if I could chart Lisa's character a bit, at least up to like, say, season 12, I think, you know, she is she's more lefty. And she even has, oh, man, that speech she has when March becomes a cop. Yes.

Shouldn't we be educating people instead of jamming them into overcrowded prisons? Yeah. That's great but i note that in season nine and ten which i do think are still good seasons not as good but good they make lisa more into like this caricature of a you know overly politically correct whiner like right and they just kind of go from there like they give up her more transgressive, progressive beliefs and just make her the woman who complains, well, why can't a girl play football? Yeah, it's the PC thing.

You're describing why. You're saying that progression of that character. Honestly, that's one of the big reasons that Al Gore lost West Virginia and Tennessee in 2000. Just like culture in the end of history just shifting politics shifting completely to the cultural realm like it was just about scoring points on lisa they make lisa into this strong straw man of political correctness ruining things and they just make it about that i mean there is a real thing if you are a white guy who's been successful in comedy uh and you like a boomer and you like, reach middle age and, like,

your 60s, 50s and so, you just get so hostile to the idea of being criticized, you know, for your work. And, like, it happens to a lot of these guys. Well, and they had daughters coming back from college talking like they put words in Lisa's mouth.

That and, you know, for whatever you believed when you were younger, you know, you have a nice house now. You don't want to fucking your taxes raised. You don't want there to be a methadone clinic down the street. You don't want there to be homeless shelters in your community. Well, you know, a lot of it was also monkey see monkey do with South Park, which is very, yeah, where I was like, well, this is this is the commentary we should be making. Like if you're complaining about something, you're whining, and you're only in it for yourself.

That's what these could turn into. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. And South Park became the new cool thing, and maybe they were trying to chase what was making South Park cool at the time. Or, I don't know. Well, it's funny you mention Lisa, because, yeah, the next politics episode, I only have one clip from that but the the mr lisa goes to washington from season three yes where she enters the inane reading digest uh patriots of tomorrow contest which that i love is this the kids are tasked to write like just the most simple

patriotic statements they can about like if you're you're going to burn the flag then burn your pants and tv my belly is yellow i am the american non-voter i love that it's uh it's written by george meyer who uh harvard graduate but he is also like one of the most uh cynical lefties on the classic writing staff too like uh i remember an explainer about his character uh by his brother-in-law john vd on a commentary was saying, if this episode got one kid to distrust the cops, George Meyer was happy. Well, this is a great episode

because it is a perfect dictionary example of a comedy concept that is often misunderstood. Irony, because that ending is just a perfect, prolonged note of satire where lisa gives her speech about the uh about how crappy washington is because she saw a uh comically uh corrupt deal go down with a congressman and then everyone hears it and decides that they're gonna make america great through uh getting all the criminals out of there, ending with George H.W. Bush talking about how his bosses are the American taxpayer or whatever that was. Cool girls, that's our faith in democracy.

Yes. Exactly. Now in the light of like, you have bosses? That's right. All 160 million of them. Yes, that's it. Yeah, no, I mean, that ending is great because the realistic ending is Lisa learns the realities of Washington and is a cynic for the rest of her life. And it gives she, actually, why don't we give a listen to cesspool on the Potomac? The city of Washington was built on a stagnant swamp some 200 years ago, and very little has changed.

It stank then, and it stinks now. Only today it is the fetid stench of corruption that hangs in the air. And who did I see taking a bribe but the Honorable Bob Arnold. Don't worry, Congressman. I'm sure you can buy all the votes you need with your dirty money. And this will be one nation under the dollar with liberty and justice for another.

I think that was an ad buster. Senator, there's a problem at the essay contest. Please, son, I'm very busy. A little girl is losing faith in democracy see though i love about that is because it it seems to me that it is much more effective and biting to go in that direction with the with the ironic happy ending because it just shows how far it illustrates exactly how far from reality that is it makes you think of all the reasons that would never happen and it makes you like freshly consider just the the chasm that

exists between like the story we tell ourselves about democracy and the reality of it when i was a kid i think i did like as a 10 year old I think I just read it the way Lisa outright states it. Like, oh, the system works. I read it at face value, too, until, like, the DVDs came out. I was like, oh, wait, this is full of shit. Yeah. I mean, it's the way you may imagine you'd want it to be, that within two hours of somebody saying this guy is getting bribed, he would be put in jail and finding uh finding christ as as the newspaper headline says and that is that's is the ending of one of the urtext of america political culture uh mr smith

goes to washington because he he gives the big speech the big filibuster to preserve the police scouts or some stupid bullshit yeah and i mean can say come here imagine get over come on but he gives the speech and he ends up you know loot he ends up running out of time or running out of energy. And he collapses. But just the power of the words he said make the evil, corrupt senator fail to kill himself. He attempts to. I forget that. Yes, he botches it.

He's like, the cops stop him from blowing his brains out, like Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea. And then he goes, ah, he was right. I'm corrupt. Everything, no. And it's like, yay, we get the Boy Scout camp or whatever. And it is, I mean, that was not played for any kind of irony. That was 100% accurate and uh jabberingly uh insane well i mean a good speech

changes minds is a bad thing i mean that's a bad lesson but it's also a lesson that i mean i mean how how are you going to tell people who write for a living you know who have characters interact dramatically on a screen how are you going to tell them, yeah, actually, the content of speeches doesn't actually mean anything? I mean, that's their entire lives that you're telling them are essentially meaningless in the grand sense of actually moving the wheels of history. Also, though, this episode has one of the greats of,

a parody of one of the greats of political comedy in it. Oh, God, yes. The deficit rag, oh yeah, the deficit rag. Those budget gaps can be a 12-digit drag. I'm telling you, that's the deficit. They really made a mess of it. That's the deficit

rag. Thank you. Oh, this guy is awful. I know. Just sit still. The trading gap shovel, we're in awful. I know. Just sit still. The trading gap shuffle. We're in a heap of trouble. To win the trading gap shuffle is fair. I already sing this song. Oh, that was about the budget gap.

This is the trading gap. You know, I have to say, Harry Shearer's Le Show isn't much better than that. Shots have been fired. I want to ask Matt and Virgil, Mark Russell, better or worse than Capital Steps? Better. Better just because

it's one guy. There's something kind of heroic almost about one old guy in a tuxedo banging away on a piano

about Ken Starr jokes from 25 years ago as opposed to just a bunch of scrubbed, weird, up with people

rejects. I think the Capitol steps, I think they're too arrogant. I think they got too big for their britches. Mark Russell keeps it humble, and I appreciate that. He always makes time for his fans. Yeah, the Russell heads, they're all out there, and he's there for all of them. I think the only time— He's active on the forums the the only time i've heard a full capital steps performance was when they did their

post a 9-11 thing and it was just on npr and i had it on all the time and it was one of those like can we be funny again moments type things it was it's a dark time unfortunately the mark russell reddit has been quarantined i i saw i i actually heard the capital steps once on npr it was it was like i think a performance during wait wait don't call me or something and i was and i didn't know what it was gonna be i just turned on the car and it was on and they were singing a song about uh this was a few years ago so this was about the greek uh uh credits uh crisis oh geez it was greece you know like the song yeah it was about the country oh and i wanted to steer off the road and into a button i wanted i wanted to end my life my i i think i just started screaming like harvey kytel at the end

of bad lieutenant in the car it will it is I mean, Capital Steps is no joke, just like just huffing gasoline in terms of comedy. I had a similar experience when I heard Harry Shearer's Waterboarding USA. Oh. Look it up. Not good, not good. There's a video.

That motherfucker's going to look down on the Simpsons. How dare he? I can't believe it. Like, you're better than that. Shut the fuck up. I know imagining believe it. Like, you're better than that. Shut the fuck up. I know imagining the Capitol steps at rehearsal

the morning of 9-11 and just standing around a TV and going, guys, we gotta do something. What rhymes with Bin Laden? Let's find out

all the things. Mark Russell retired in October 2016 and, you know, I think just like Jon Stewart, we need him more now than ever.

See, what the heck? How is he not out there doing Trump? So many things rhyme with Trump. He's quite old. Oh, God. But how would the lure? Come on. He probably thought of 55 Trump rhymes in the morning on the bathroom.

I think it's like a Tom Lehrer thing. He sees Trump get elected and thinks, well, that's it. My job is over now. My work is done i i also i really that was political comedy at that time it really was it was like it was terrible song parodies about the deficits i that's what i love too about their choice of they make it about the most boring thing possible the trading gap in the budget gap like not even like spicy scandals. There weren't any. That's the thing. People forget this.

There wasn't anything. It's like, yeah, climate apocalypse, war everywhere. Oh, yeah, by the way, there's a giant global pandemic going to come. Literally all of you. In the 90s, it was shit like the fucking trade gap. Remember the goddamned V-chip? That was maybe, what, a six-month controversy?

It was a long time. Running into the 1996 election. Are we going to put a little guy in your TV to stop your kids from seeing swears? Too much sex in movies was one of Bob Dole's core campout lines. Yeah, the horrors of depravity of Hollywood. Yeah, the V-ch trip was a major plot point in the South Park movie. It was a wildly, wildly parched environment.

I mean, there was very little. I mean, because we were at the end of history, there weren't these big Titanic issues. It was all just this petty cultural sorting, because this is the year, the decade, really, the 90s was the decade when that cultural sorting was really accelerated. And you know, Futurama, which was a show that was

famously about five years behind everything else, ironically enough, since it's a show about the future, did an episode about the V-chip when they came back from cancellation in like 2008. Also, the Susan Boyle, that was also from The Return.

Yeah. And when the Susan Boyle thing happened. Years after that happened. No, the Susan Boyle thing, I think the original Susan Boyle thing happened while they were first still on the air. And then they just, you know what? We needed that time off to really nail the jokes about Susan Boyle. I think in the original run, they really covered the end of history stance on the presidential

election. Henry and I recently did the episode Ahead in the original run they really covered the end of history stance on the presidential election. Henry and I recently did the episode Ahead in the Polls where it was John Jackson versus Jack Johnson and they were clones

of each other. Yep. With five cent titanium tax. Yeah. Which, I mean, we did see that just recently with Beto and Pete

on the debate stage together. That was uncanny. The five percent difference was heterosexuality versus homosexuality. I guess. And it sounds like people like gay stuff now. I guess that's i i'm a fan of it yeah people america america was like yes if we're gonna have this let's get a gay version no gay person i know that liked pete made less than six figures like there was not one shock uh but anyway why don't we move on now to season six and probably i think

the show's best politics episode ever sideshow bob roberts oh of course which um to we talk about the writers on it like i think me and bob have said like five and six probably best seasons because dave merkin is this really like his time as showrunner he made some of the funniest episodes and he just upped the insanity and the cartoonishness a whole bunch but then you have bill and josh with their like they're so the opposite of of merkin stance like they have so many great jokes about boring things and naming every type of laundry detergent so here you have like in a political sense i see it as like david merkin's like love of conspiracies meeting bill and josh's love of nixon and watergate and all that stuff in in like one

episode bill as well you know grew up in uh northern virginia i grew up in dc land yeah he's a friend of our shows he's been on both of our shows and when we did this uh podcast a while ago henry we realized a lot of this was also Dukakis and Bush, the 88 election. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, Quimby is quite an ineffectual Dukakis-style Democrat here. He has none of the energy of a Kennedy in this episode. Speaking of the Dukakis, yeah, the scene with Barlow, the speech, or the question he asked for Quimby at the debate, that's basically a reference to the infamous Kitty Dukakis question.

It's a lot of references to the 88 race, though I would argue Quimby is more a parallel of Clinton because of his personal debauchery. He's a horny goat. He's no longer illiterate. You know, you see him in a joke I never got as a kid, watering the marijuana plants. He got away with the

marijuana plants. Hot-smoking spendocrat. That's what's so good about it. Right before they go, tax-smoking spendocrat, and there he is watering his pot leaf. Well, here, actually, I've got the clip. Let's give it a go. Yes. I'm not very political.

I usually think people who vote are a bit freaky. But for some reason, this Birch Barlow really speaks to me. Mmm. Mmm. Yum. Yum. Fruity. But for some reason, this Birch Barlow really speaks to me. Good morning, fellow freedom likers. Birch Barlow, the fourth branch of government, the 51st state. You know, there are three things we're never going to get rid of here in Springfield. One, the bats in the public library. Two, Mrs. McFearley's compost heap. And three, our six-term mayor,

the illiterate, tax-cheating, wife-swapping, pot-spoking, spendocrat, Diamond Joe Quimby. Hey, I am no longer illiterate. Now, why are we doomed to this Quimby-Quagmire, you ask? Oh, reasonable listener. Because this town is under the stranglehold of a few tag-eyed pre-huggers who would rather play hacky sack

than lock up the homeless. Ah, so good. Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, Birch Barlow. Yeah. I have to say that the way Homer says fruity there, one of my all-time favorite line readings on the entire show. This one also has one of my all-time favorite line readings on the entire show. This one also has one of my all-time favorite jokes in the show,

and it's like the one non-political joke in this episode when Homer's listening to Barlow in the car with Lisa, and he says, well, Lisa, when you drive, you get to pick the song. And then it just cuts to Lisa driving and listening to the song St. Elmo's Father.

That's a perfect Lisa song. Yeah, excellent, excellent song choice on that. Also, another of my favorite jokes of the show is also the nonpolitical one. Stay Out of Riverdale. Oh, yeah. That was on episode two. Stuck up Riverdale Pucks. Okay.

I've got that clip. Fantastic callback. I've got that clip, too. Let's give that a listen. Uncle Mayor was just saying that us kids are the most important natural resource we have. More important than coal? Yes. Yes.

Oh, that was a big mistake, Bart. No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and lived to tell about it Stay out of Riverdale It's the duh moves Stay out of Riverdale I think what we're all missing, though, is that this episode is based on, the title at least, is based on the movie Bob Roberts, which no one ever references or talks about.

Have you guys seen it? I have. It's a great movie. I have not. I'm very surprised by that. You should see it. Yeah, I've always been to. No, it really, it definitely gets, it's very impressive. I mean, just looking back on it, he definitely, Roberts definitely gets what's, definitely gets what right populism is going to look like in terms of how it's going to be commodified and stuff.

There's a lot of political films that I've just never seen or really had that much interest in seeing, like Citizen Ruth. Citizen Ruth I haven't seen since I was a kid. I should rewatch that one. From that era, specifically. Yeah, but no, Bob Roberts is highly recommended, and because it came out in the early 90s, it's got a lot

of... It's amazing when you look back at it, because one of the big plot points of the movie is that Bob Roberts, the guy running, who's this right-wing folk singer, who does Bob Dylan songs, but about reaction.

He has an album called The Times They Are Changing Back. Oh. That's the gimmick. And it's very clever. I didn't know that was in there. Yeah, yeah. But he's also,

I guess who's involved with the Iran-Contra affair and all that shit and the savings and loan crisis. And it's all in there because you know the movie was made around the time that all those things were really happening and you know like tuned in lefties like tim roberts robbins are very aware of things like you know the iran contra pardons and stuff like that but it's amazing looking back and just

thinking oh yeah most people who are going to watch this now aren't even going to get any of these are references to real scandals like they've been completely buried by just the rush of history but back to back to Archie what I love the most about that joke is it leaves your imagination what Homer did in Riverdale

to get kicked out I mean we I can figure it out I think you think he went ham on those bergs at pops his malt shop all the bergs I say chocolate shop that's the that's the name of it because we made a pass to mrs weatherby oh god you know what oh now see we're having fun

here but now i'm just imagining that because we live in an infinite simpsons universe and that means everything that could be on the simpsons will eventually be on the simpsons that at least in a cold open there's going to be them hanging out in Riverdale. And it's probably going to be the sexy Riverdale from the new show that the idiots watch. Oh, do you think they'll make a sexy Simpsons for the CW network? Well, that's more of a warning. I mean, Disney is anti-sex on Disney Plus, though.

It's true, but... I mean, they're about to make the new short that's coming with Onward is like a Rugrats short of just like Maggie falls in love and it's like babies go to France. It looks weird. Wait a minute, Maggie Simpson? Yeah. The Rugrats? Well, no, I mean, it's Rugrats style and it's like a baby's adventure.

But it's about Maggie Simpson. Yes. I don't like that idea at all. Well, they hope to get an Oscar for shorts, so they think there is a big shot. I wish them luck. Another race that this episode directly references is the 1994 Virginia Senate race, because Sancho Bob is very obviously modeled after Oliver North. Oliver North, yes. Oh, yeah.

Interestingly, Oliver North, not a felon. No, pardon me. No, not pardon. It was he won on appeal. It was overturned. Oh, wow. So he could vote for himself. Yes.

So he was technically not a felon in the way that Bob is. But I love, yeah, it's what's great in their Willie Horton parody that they say he even let out Sideshow Bob. Well, and also our friend Bill Oakley, like, he wrote a piece in the Washington Post about how the attempted murder, really, like, that was the actual stance of the GOP in the recent impeachment. Hey, you know what? It works, so who cares? Yeah. Congratulations. Well done. Just like in the show, it works. Folks, you know what? It works, so who cares? Congratulations. Well done.

Just like in the show, it worked. Folks, they wanted it more. That's all there is to it. Good game. Well, also, when I watched it this morning, the parallels I noticed, too, were one, that Lisa is totally just the usual fed-up Democratic voter.

She literally says, this time he's the lesser of two evils. And in just the same way, Quimby has this losing ass campaign and lisa as part of the youth vote has to like do all the work for him where they're like uncle mayor says we're the most important like it's uh it's sad yeah and it's also uh it's also gonna be the model for democratic politics for the next 25 years from the time that that was filmed. So kudos to them for getting that one right. Yeah. Yeah.

They called it. They called the, I mean, we'll also like these debate questions here in this next clip. Pretty much the same, I'd say. Sideshow Bob, Councilman Les Winan says that you're not experienced enough to be mayor. Sir, what do you have to say about that? I'd say that Les Winan ought to do more thinking and less whining. Ah, master class. There's no Councilman Les Winan.

Good line, though. Mayor Quimby, you're well-known, sir, for your lenient stance on crime. But suppose for a second that your house was ransacked by thugs, your family tied up in the basement with socks in their mouths. You try to open the door, but there's too much blood on the knob. What is your question? My question's about the budget, sir. Flames digitally added.

That's a very good Limbaugh. That's excellent. That's an excellent Limbaugh. It's got all the rich chocolatey notes. Yeah, like Shearer hits like the way he like smacks his mouth or shuffles the paper as he's thinking things. They must have known. Like Shearer must have busted out a Limbaugh impression

well before this episode, right? Oh, I'm sure. Like he didn't just like come up with it. Yeah, still had that show the terrible show you're talking about back then so yeah i'm sure he busted that one out also yeah the less whining one like it doesn't matter it got a good line it doesn't matter that he doesn't exist yeah no the joke is still solid yeah i which is it seems like he definitely was going to be quimby anyway so he didn't need to steal the election. Quimby was just like... Well, see, I honestly think of that as, I guess that's sort of lazy. Not lazy, but just in, I don't know.

Well, Sajabab can't stay mayor. It needs to reset. Right. It does feel, yeah, exactly. It kind of feels like a parachute thing of like, oh, we have to solve this now. And he stole the election that he was going to win anyway. Well, I also like to think it's saying Sajabab is such an inveterate crook that he would stole the election that he was going to win anyway. Well, I also like to think it's saying Sajobob is such an inveterate crook

that he would rig an election he's already going to win. To 100% of the vote. Because he's a maniac. He's a maniacal person. He tries to blow up the whole town later. He's a bad guy. He's not a good dude. No, he would be like the Voldemort of this.

Well, see, but now he's cute, though. I'm sure. I'm sure he's adorable. He's probably like, he's probably got like back with Patty or something. Stop. Stop.

I don't think they've done, they've gone that far yet. You're serious with the theorizing things to get you mad about later. I'm sorry. You know, Matt, people do that about our show.

Excuse me, but did you see the one where he was the mayor of the town in Italy? Yes. Yeah. You tell me that's not possible? All right.

Get the fuck out of here, please. He's got a kid, right? He's got a kid. Yes, he's got a little bastard Italian child. At least John Mahoney lived to play his dad. Yes, he did it in his lifetime. That was a good one. I rewatched that episode.

The worst thing in it is that they get David Hyde Pierce for, like, two lines. It's like you bring back Cecil and you're not going to have him talk that much. Yeah, that's a shame. Yeah, but that's like, they would have to have Cecil talk and that would remind people of a good episode. That's not good. You want to just be the fleeting, oh, right, from the other episode. You don't want people

to have a chance to be like, oh, right, the one with the jokes that were funny. There were some funny jokes in the italy one i mean they still have good gags episodes from time to time yeah like when you make as many jokes as you do like you're gonna get something's gotta hit yeah yeah yeah well another thing about this episode that reminded me of recent politics was that like there's all this demand for quimby to free the political prisoner of saicho bob and when he gives into this right-wing bullshit and uh frees him that becomes his greatest enemy who defeats him in an election and like that no that's very appropriate it feels like giving into

birtherism for example like to me no yeah you can't give an inch because they're gonna take as much as they can he thought i'm sure quby thought he was going to be popular by doing the thing all the Birch Barlow cranks were asking him to do. But yeah, also all the old people jokes with the Matlock Expressway. Matlock Expressway, very funny. They're up there with the old timey car already with Fort Steven Fields. Doing the Ouga horn. Very good. I think this was a syndication cut, but it was Bob also

speaking to the old people and saying, not only will I build the Matlock Expressway, but I will also listen to your tedious stories that go nowhere. And then there's a solid

like 15 seconds of one of the stories, so it made it like a ripe syndication cut. Was that Edison reading the alphabet on the radio? They would say,

B would usually find... Yes, yes, that one. Yeah, the... There's... God's it's one of the best episodes ever i also uh we said it when we did the full podcast on it me and bob but it was refreshing that it just took a a lot of simpsons was both sides in it but this one was like republicans are evil like it they are as a republican yes literal bloodsucker well i mean you know the stampy episode really put it out there oh you know they're we're just evil and the democrats are we can't govern and those aren't exactly the same thing and also we hate life and ourselves

although i feel like that is see i think that's a good example of like the way that cynicism has changed over the years like that idea that oh democrats bunch of goofballs they keep fucking up so much why are they not better i think at this point you know once history started happening again people have come around i think more and more to the idea oh they're not they're doing that on purpose this is not just oh darn it just can't get it together guys sorry it's this is their job yeah this is their goal and i feel like that i mean you know i don't really blame the simpsons for not having that you know on in the tank in like 1994 or whatever yeah you didn't know in 1994 i sure shit didn't know uh but like just the we hate life in ourselves though i think that's very very very resonant i think i think

that's your job yeah if that's your job to be that to be that like stop gap uh between popular mobilization and political change while literally lying to people about what you're actually doing i don't know how you couldn't hate yourself in life well uh there's one more before you guys go uh that i wanted to on, and that was Citizen Kane. Yes. Season 8. Love it. The gutsy move of doing an episode that is out of date eight days after the episode. I respect it.

No, that was a strong move. The also gutsy move of killing the sitting president on screen. Yep, that was amazing. And you know what? This is a good example. All those comedy rules, they're all contingent on your ability. That might have been dated, but it was really good. So it's now remembered fondly as one of the best.

Yeah, we talked with Oakley about it on stage on our Halloween live show we did with him in Portland. Yes, I heard that one. That was good. Oh, thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Well, and he talked about how that's exactly how it felt then. It was America flips a coin like this is justin no i cannot think of a love a more i mean like the

bush bush gore i mean it looks back it's very fraught and it what but at the time the people were like what is what is the difference between these guys what are why are we even here that rage against machine video that michael moore directed i mean that just shows you like this is what it was then that's how everybody felt but uh i think like that that sense was strong i think partially because they kind of read as the same guy in a lot of ways you know yeah uh whereas the clinton dole campaign was even more vapid i mean like there was it was like violence in movies uh dole promising a 15 percent tax cut and then just doing a bunch of stunts To get attention

Like dropping out of the Senate Saying he's going to campaign Like the last 48 straight hours State days or something Until he pitched off the front of a Fucking A hay wagon or something That's a hilarious photograph

It was an election about nothing Except image And I think that was the election that reified the Carville view of politics. Yes. That it's not about substance. And it's just about being young and optimistic and smiley. Yeah. It's the bridge to the 21st century.

That was the slogan. The bridge to the 21st century. Honestly, if you're making a decision to vacuum, which people basically were at that point. Yeah, nobody had any. And it's between Clinton and Dole, I mean, yeah, you'd vote for Clinton. Why the hell not? Yeah, because Dole was like an angry old man.

I mean, he really was. Like I was saying. Oh, he was a bitter man, too. It was a more vapid campaign than 2000, but the actual contrast between the candidates was greater because Clinton was this relatively young, cool guy, and Dole was just this cartoonishly cur curmudgeonly old i mean the walking ghost literally could he had a hand with the pen fallen off of the stage falling off the stage and it was just sort of people were like

oh this is embarrassing at the time i remember being a kid and really rooting for dole because all of the dole related comedy that I was consuming was way better than the Clinton stuff. Like, Norm MacDonald on SNL as Bob Dole was hilarious. That's why it was hilarious where the day before the, I think the last weekend update before the election, Norm ended a weekend update by saying, don't forget to vote for Bob Dole, which is very impressive. I did enjoy Bob Dole in the real world, that sketch. Very good. Who took Bob Dole and peanut butter? No, all the Bob Dole uh which is I very impressive I didn't enjoy Bob Dole in the real

world that sketch very good who took Bob Dole to peanut butter all the Bob Dole skits were excellent and the but my favorite the Bob Dole comedy uh of 1996 was the Clutch Cargo uh Conan sketches yeah with Smigel and Smigel would play Clinton and Dole and his Clinton was like a kind of a cartoon hillbilly cowboy he'd be like yee-hawing all the time yeah yeah but his doll was just this yeah bitter angry old man and i just know that i love the dole so much more i thought it was so much funnier when dole came on i was so excited so i was just i was like give me this guy i want this this is funny give me the give me the angry crotchety old dude in in 96 my politics were really i was 14 and like other than

simpsons defining my politics the the content i was watching was like uh michael moore's tv nation and uh politically incorrect with bill maher like i i remember i wasn't watching cnn to see the 96 results i remember when like bill maher on the live politically incorrect just announced like oh bills won it this ended two hours earlier than we thought it would uh i guess uh we got to keep talking though uh that's uh and so this episode also was like a uh it told me who they were and i like that homer thinks he's mumbly joe and doesn't know what's mumbly joe i saw him on TV the other day. The president. But yeah, and this one's written by David X. Cohen, who on the commentaries that were recording during the W. Bush years, they do mention some regret about the two sides.

They're the same guy. There's no difference kind of speech because they were feeling that they were very much in the 2004 thing of like, no, really, the lesser of two evils, you got to vote for Kerry kind of situation then. So I wonder how they feel about it now, the episode. I mean, it would have been bad if Dole had won, though. I'm trying to think of how bad it would be because the thing about Dole is, you know, he was a really vicious guy when he was a senate majority leader like he was the reagan's point man for he was reagan's hatchet man against the uh social welfare states uh and he was responsible for a lot of welfare cuts in that era and in terms of abortion though i don't think i mean i i i would guess dole is like very anti-abortion but i don't think he was

like a hardcore anti-abortion guy. I think he was just kind of going where the wind was blowing, because the actual religious right did not like him, and they did not trust him either. But so you want to talk about social welfare cuts. I mean, that was the fucking Clinton's first term. That's the thing. That's why he got blown out so badly, besides optics, is he had nothing to run on, because Clinton had spent the first term triangulating in the direction of all the Republican complaints about big government that were left over from the Reagan Bush era. He had nothing to do. So he was, and he was visibly annoyed by it too, which was very funny. Like, he's just like, this guy stole my platform. What

am I supposed to do? And yeah, his big thing was 15% across the board tax cut. Just a big number, 15%. Come on, I'm giving you money. And the primary is pretty much all sewed up by February, right? I mean, I know Forbes and Buchanan gave it a little shot. It was a few months after, because they didn't start as early back then. Oh, okay. No, like Dole ran away with it starting like that. Well, it didn't. I've got to check this.

Please, Elite, if I'm wrong. But I thought Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary in 96. Yes. I do believe he did that and please, Elita, if I'm wrong, but I thought Papu Cano won the New Hampshire primary in 96. Yes, I do believe he did. Yes, that sounds correct. I was just trying to think, like, at what point in the writing of this do they go, like, we have to commit to a character design for Bob Dole now. We can't sub in Papu Cano if he ends up winning it. Because if it airs in October, they say it's like a normal full nine months from writing to finished episode. What I'm more impressed by, I mean, I assume they had worked out the kinks on this production schedule.

I don't think they gambled on this one. What I'm more impressed by is how optimistic they were that it would actually air before the election, considering this is the period when, I don't know, Fox was airing the World Series back then, but I just remember it was the Halloween episode and the season premiere that was always delayed because of baseball. I think this was one of the last years where it didn't premiere with the Halloween special. Is that correct, Henry? I think so. I remember the summer of 96 was a ton of MLB on fox ads but i don't think they scored the world series until a couple of years later yeah all right i'm looking this up i'm looking

at the 96 and yes about uh buchanan won the new hampshire primary dole won the iowa caucus and buchanan won the new hampshire primary and then dole just started winning everything uh so dole won the vast majority of primary contests uh peppy cannon won a couple states including new hampshire steve forbes won delaware and arizona yes correct delaware and arizona well done wow and that's uh i just remember from uh snl talking about snl memories like i think you mean teve torbs by the way of fucking course he won delaware let's say there's just a giant p.o box arizona's a little more confusing yeah i'm sure there's an interesting more like uh sunbelt holy rollers or something

it'll be more buchanan style very odd i don't know i but i think i think at that point it's all people who just moved arizona to not pay taxes so yeah mr flat tax it's like yeah arizona is it's reactionary in a way that's kind of different from other states i think it's just like you you had me at tax cuts. They've produced a lot more evil reactionaries than other states. Oh, yeah. Joe Arpaio and what's his name? The guy who was the accidental governor of Arizona.

Oh, that guy's a maniac. He was so bad, he lost them the NCAA convention. He got impeached, I believe. Yeah, members of both. I think he got recalled, actually. Oh, yeah. Recalled. Memory doesn't serve.

Oh, but so when the. Fife Symington? Fife Symington. That's it. Wow. Oh, man. Man. So in the episode, though, they kidnap the Dole and Clinton.

The main jokes are that Dole is crotchety and that Bill is lazy. That's mainly what they had then. They barely have any time for it. And though this line by real Bob Dole, not King Bob Dole, I love this. What the hell is this? Some kind of tube? Dang.

The hell is this? Some kind of tube? Bob Dole doesn't need this. Why wouldn't you love that guy? Listen to him. Hilarious. It's so funny. But once they replaced them, then the whole David Cohen, what he was really having fun with was just parodies of the inanities of a speech.

Like, it's just a series of sketches about how empty a political speech is. Yeah. Turning towards freedom. Let's hear Slick Willie's first speech is. Turning, turning, turning towards freedom. Well, let's hear Slick Willie's first speech here. 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. I like that Marge just takes it as slick Willie smooth talk like that. That's not insane to say. These parodies of speeches are way more articulate than Joe Biden is right now.

Oh, absolutely. They should try that necktie thing the next time he, like, calls somebody Chuck. But, yes, then the Bob Dole speech, you mentioned him on abortion. He has opinions here. 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. Ladies and gentlemen, 73-year-old candidate Bob Dole.

Abortions for all. Very well. No abortions for anyone. Abortions for some. Miniature American flags for others. Yay! Forgot that oh yeah flag.

That was the first time abortion was said on the simpsons by the way yeah cause causing a scandal across the nation the joke there that he's a 73 year old candidate his age was a big topic then and now literally every everyone's all the shit at the time of this recording anyone who will be elected president in November is older than Bob Dole. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's different. It's different. Well, because everyone's got that stem cells hookup.

Everyone's just chewing cord blood all day. The adrenochrome. The adrenochrome. It's all gotten much better. Our new super seniors. It's got to be much better than it used to be. Mid-90s, that was some schwag. It was bad, stepped on adrenochrome. Now you get the

pure Bolivian fish scale adrenochrome. Keep you nice and sharp well into your 90s. I love his speech about you're doomed, you're doomed, and they're like, frank discussion from Bob Dole. Of course, the ultimate speech among all of them is

Bill Clinton's dreams. 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 towards freedom. Stop! Those candidates are phonies! I just like Homer saying, those candidates are phonies.

I like that. And everyone's just like, what? How could that be? That was the first podcast. Damn, yeah. Homer's just telling it like it is. I love they even have him say, like, Lyndon LaRouche was right, because this is, like,

these are the conspiracy theories of the time. Yeah. You know, that poor Lyndon, the queen outlived him. His nemesis, the queen of England. Yeah, because there was also a Posadist on the cast of The Simpsons. Also, the way they throw a flag i'm like here's your stinking flag your stinking flag uh but i guess yes the episode all comes to an end in washington dc homer reveals that uh they're aliens and i i love the the drawing of their little eyes poking about. Oh, it's so good. It's so grotesque.

But then we get quite a speech about the importance of a two-party system. 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 believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.

Go ahead. Throw your vote away. 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! We had Bill Oakley on stage though he said a lot of people misunderstand that joke about the third party candidate and i do see people on twitter

taking that as if it's to say you know uh yes third parties are bad it's very strange because they're obviously saying like given the choice people would choose to be enslaved instead of vote for a third-party candidate. Right. Because they're very short-sighted. Yes. I want to ask you this. You want to remember which one was Kang and which was Kodos? Kang was Clinton. They correctly...

Oh, okay. Yeah. I was just wondering if... What if they were just so obsessed that they recorded two versions of it? One where Kodos wins, one where Kang wins. Because I guess you would just really have to maybe change some of the mouth movements and just record a couple new lines.

Just a little bit. You know what? No, because it's just not as funny. I mean, maybe it's just my preference to hear it, but it's the two syllables. It is. I voted for Kodos. Don't blame me. I voted for Kang. It literally clangs off the end of the sentence.

It's not good. And I love Homer's smug satisfaction the way he even touches his chest and puts his nose up like, well, I voted for Godos. Yeah. I mean, the idea of like,

well, I voted for the person who would have done the exact same thing. I gotta say, though, I really don't think he could have gotten that laser plan past the Senate.

Because the thing is, well, who are his allies his allies in congress you know he's the only alien none of them all have a shared interest in building the laser the shot of ross perot punching his fist through the the hat is pretty great too the uh one of my favorite looks of matt chrisman and that's similar similar hats yes i love i love a good boater well that is one of those things. It's like, hey, why is this guy doing bad when all the other options are terrible? Well, he was doing great in 92 for a while, and then he dropped out of the race,

claimed that the RNC had pictures of his daughter that they were going to use in a blackmail situation. And then people were like, what the hell? And then he came back, and he dropped, he lost 20 points, and he never got back. And he still did like 16 percent, something like that in the popular vote. It was very strange. Like that's one of those kind of unexplained things from history.

Well, I mean, I think it's just this it's just it's just it's one of those subterranean, you know, sort of bodily responses to the changing political situation. Like nobody even knew what was happening. Like nobody realized what phase they were entering. Like the NAFTA globalization, you know, duopoly phase of major party politics. But you could feel it, you know. And here's a guy to sort of manifest that anxiety about that. The idea that, oh, we are being funneled down a slaughter shoot here without any say on our part uh and he had the money and the crankishness to try to get that out there and

i really do wonder what would have happened if he'd stayed in i don't think he could have won obviously but it's an interesting map to imagine where maybe he wins a couple states did he give it a shot in 96 he did yes but he never got got any kind of real traction the way he did the last time. I mean, reform. By that time, he was like, you know, he was a joke. Yeah. I don't believe he was involved in the debates in 96, which was a big part of Perot's ability to. That three-person debate stage, that was like the first time I watched a debate as a kid.

And I didn't realize that was unprecedented. Yeah, no, that was wild. No, they did it in 90. John Anderson was on the debate stage during the clip. In our 80, yeah, Carter Reagan, yeah. Well, no, he wasn't because Carter refused to debate

where Anderson was on the stage, but Reagan agreed to have a one-on-one debate with Anderson that the networks carried and Reagan did very well there and it kind of killed Anderson's chances. That was an idiotic mind-blowing. You're going to be running for president and you're not going to...

Well, I mean, the Simpsons are famous in their contempt for Carter. No, I'm saying Carter was a dope. Carter was a dope. I mean, everyone likes him now and yeah, he has a good post-presidency, but he was not just well-meaning and and like made mad decisions he was a comprehensively shitty precedent yeah he builds a good habitat he does well i mean i've never been in one i don't know

i've seen those pictures of him you know like drilling a hole into a board with like a giant bandage on his head after he fell down in the spool. I was like, look, you know somebody's going to have to go in right after that and do that again, right? That's not going to be allowed in a home. That's not going to be certified by the homeowners society. Hundreds have died living in Jimmy

Carter-built habitats because no one had the heart to tell him that, yeah, just don't do it. Maybe just raise money for the cause or something. We'll just hire people to do it. We can hire people. We have volunteers. You don't have to drill.

Just relax. You're retired. Just relax. Take a load off. They're all like Ned Flanders' remodeled house. Yeah. They are exactly that. Very true.

Just turns in the sand here. Well, man, we could talk all about Simpsons and politics for another hour, and we will when I go to the snack. No. But you guys have limited time. You're popular folks all around. So, I mean, like, any last thoughts on politics in The Simpsons? I think what's interesting about The Simpsons is now politics is, like, there's comedy that is political and i feel like that has the political

has subsumed the comedy part and not necessarily even in case in sense that it's always bad it means even if it's good it's like ours i think our show you know i think it's pretty funny but it's clearly like it's it's suffused with politics like everything feels suffused politically and what's interesting about the simpsons, and it really reflects the different era, is how unpolitical it is. I mean, it's political and it presents a worldview, obviously, and it's giving you embedded ideological assumptions and structures and stuff. But in terms of explicit references to politics, it, for the most part, leaves those in the

background. It feels very alien. It feels like it would be almost impossible to try to do that now. And the way that they embarrass themselves on a semi-weekly basis with their topical little viral videos, viral in every sense, really indicates that. Like, you know, you can't just dabble in politics comedically anymore. It's either the sole focus of your endeavor or you ignore it completely. What I've always taken from the show as an artist myself is that The Simpsons always held its aesthetics of comedy as its paramount aim. It was not in a propagandistic project, a ideological project. It wasn't even, and I hate using this term, but what else can I call it?

It wasn't like virtue signaling, like being good liberals. No, it was about the jokes. It was about the jokes. And they would not dumb the jokes down. They would not erase obscure references. They were also quite preoccupied with just the way the jokes even sounded. And yeah, they would use a joke even if it did not conform with their politics. And that's something that really, you might call that nihilism, but I mean, as someone who appreciates comedy, I'm sure the three of you do, it's something that emanates from the 70s alternative comedy scene. What eventually became the mainstream of comedy, which was, you know, like we said, the National Lampoon and the SNL and guys like, you know, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, something like that.

For them, comedy wasn't an ideological project. Of course, there were the various underpinning assumptions and so on. No, it was about the goofs. It was about the gags. show does oscillate between being very political or theoretical to uh again just trying to put out something that is very funny in a mixture of highbrow and lowbrow way and right now obviously we're at that the political peak it being the day before super tuesday and it being the event of paramount importance the bernie sanders campaign and the potential for him to beat Donald Trump and be elected the first socialist president,

and for maybe the horror to begin to recede, possibly. But I think that for us, we're not going to lose sight of the fact that gags and goofs are important. I mean, what's the point of any of this politics stuff if we can't appreciate just a well-crafted zinger? Yeah, very well said. Did you guys want to promote, like, documentary or anything else? Like your

Patreon podcast, anything like that? Yes, Chapo Trap House. C-H-A-P-O space T-R-A-P space H-O-U-S-E Google that. Only use Google. The other search engines are not very good, not high quality. And you can find more information about our program.

Do not click on the news tab, though. No, no, no. Do not read any of that. Don't read any articles about the show. Yes. Only go directly to our official website. Yes, there's a Patreon and a SoundCloud where you can listen to the program. And I think right now you're leaving to do a screening of your documentary in Oakland, is that right?

That's correct. We're very excited about this. Yes, it's called Good Vibes at the Iowa State Fair. You can purchase it by Googling Good Vibes at the Iowa State Fair. Well, I'll do it. I think it's at goodvibesiowa.com. Something. I don't know, that might be pornography. Using that blessed

Google search engine. Pride of the Bay Area. I believe you can get that for like $3 on Vimeo and you can watch it whenever you want, as many times as you want. You can watch it thousands and thousands of times.

It's really up to you. And also, very, very important, if you're on Twitter, follow me on Twitter at Virgil Texas. Trying to make some sales here. Thank you guys so much

for coming on this week. Yeah. Awesome job, guys. Thanks for having us. Till next time. So thanks again to Virgil Texas and Matt Christman from Trappo Trap House. Please check out their podcast and also their documentary.

It's called Good Vibes at the Iowa State Fair. Yes, and by the way, I'm in Vancouver. I normally would be there in person, but I planned this trip before they planned their trip to the Bay Area. So I miss seeing Matt and Virgil in person, and I will curse every waking day of my life because of that. But, man, it was so, so nice to have them in my home. They didn't even comment on my many toys and assorted garbage.

I assume they would mock you and bully you mercilessly. They're very nice guys. They're such nice guys. They're the nicest guys. I forgot to take a picture with them. Oh, man. They're so nice. Yes, we love Matt and Virgil, and hopefully they'll be back. very nice guys such nice guys they're the nicest guys i forgot to take a picture with them oh man they're so nice yes we love matt and virgil and hopefully they'll be back and we always appreciate whenever they come down because they like we said they're very busy guys they're they're in demand

and they just came off of a really big live show tour so thanks again to matt and virgil for being on the show but as for us if you want to support our show and get all of our episodes one week in advance and ad free please head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons and if you sign up at the five dollar level you'll get just that and also everything we have behind the five dollar paywall that is uh frankly too many podcasts to list here but that includes all of our mini series there'll be a new mini series coming up uh in april i believe of 2020 so get ready for that and another one later in the year so two new mini series are coming up for you at the $5 level. But you also have access to the ones we did in the past.

The most recent one we did was Talking Futurama Season 2, Part 1. That was 10 new episodes of Talking Futurama, so you get those and everything we've done on the Patreon for nearly the past three years if you sign up today for $5 at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons.

And Henry will tell everyone out there what is happening at the ten dollar level on the patreon one extra long podcast every month that's voted on by patrons that's right bob the what a cartoon movie where me and bob talk about a different animated feature film for over four hours sometimes each month our most recent one was the great mouse detective this month we're going to be talking about SpongeBob SquarePants the movie. And I think you folks are really going to enjoy it. And you can only hear it in full if you're a $10 and up subscriber at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. So as for me, I've been one of the hosts for this podcast, Bob Mackey.

You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And my other podcast is Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast. Every Monday, head on over to retronauts.com or just subscribe to Retronauts wherever you subscribe to podcasts. And also we have a new revamped Patreon at patreon.com slash retronauts.

If you sign up for five bucks there, you get two new episodes that are exclusive to Patreon every month. So it's new. It's happening at patreon.com slash retronauts. And you should follow me, Henry Gilbert, on Twitter at H-E-N-E-r-e-y-g i tweet about politics a lot there but also whenever new podcasts go live on the patreon or on the free

feed you'll learn about it there either on talking simpsons or what a cartoon and if you really want to stay plugged in into the world of the talking simpsons network follow at talk simpsons pod on twitter to stay alert that is the official Twitter account of this podcast at talk Simpsons pod. Follow it now. That's it for us this week. We'll see you next week as we get back to our regular schedule with call of the Simpsons and we'll see you then. Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns.