Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Pranksta Rap With Bryan Quinby
Episode Date: May 20, 2026"Rap music belongs in the rubbish bin. It encourages punching, boastfulness, and rudeness to hos!" - Marge Simpson Despite the protests of his mother, Bart sneaks off to a rap-style music concert and ...then fakes his own kidnapping in an attempt to get away with it. But when the adults in his life all profit from this fraudulent Bart-jacking, Lisa learns that moral issues are often grey and sometimes feature pool parties. Our guest: Bryan Quinby from the Guys podcast Support this podcast and get over 200 full-length bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow us at @TalkSimpsonsPod on Bluesky!
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Ahoy, hoi, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that encourages punching boastfulness and rudeness to hose.
I'm one of your host, the Little Yellow Cracker Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons,
who is here with me today as always.
Still keeping it real, Henry Gilbert.
And who was our special guest on the line?
In the monster museum in the basement of my limo, Brian.
And this week's episode is Pranksta, rap.
Rap music belongs in the rubbish bin.
It encourages punching, boastfulness, and rudeness to hose.
Step off, Mom.
Rap is the poetry of the street.
It's the quote so nice we had to use it twice.
And this week's episode aired on February 3rd.
13th, 2005.
And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.
Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.
Hitch tops the box office.
Britney Spears and Kanye West win big at the 47th Grammy Awards.
And YouTube goes online.
Yes.
Weird to think that we did not have YouTube until this point in time.
And before that, we had to have all of these proprietary video players for every different website.
Yes, real player. And the Wild West of YouTube, I forget, there has to be a thing that was the first YouTube video I watched. I don't know what it was. I don't remember. But probably old commercials or video game footage or a song probably was the first thing. I got to think. Or an SNL sketch. Might be that.
Like drinking out of cups. That's like the first thing I ever was like. And misheard lyrics.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
No, around this time, there was also Google Video,
and I was really placing my money on Google Video,
but it didn't take off or it turned into something else
or it was incorporated into YouTube because,
like Gmail, Google owns YouTube, right?
Yeah, it only took 18 months.
November 2006 was when Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.
And YouTube was started in San Bruno, California,
by three former PayPal employees,
Chad Hurley, Steve Chin, and Joad Karim.
So it's more of this.
It all comes back to PayPal.
I hope these guys are not as evil as the two founders of PayPal.
You could go back in time.
You'd just erase PayPal.
Everything's fixed.
Yeah, we'd still have Venmo and Cash App and all that other stuff.
The songs, Britney Spears, she won for Toxic.
That was her big Grammy winner that night.
And Kanye West, it was his big debut year, I think,
because the college dropout and Jesus Walks were his two big winners.
Just to show you where the pop music game was at
when this aired. I think at the time of this recording, you know, Kanye West is still as crazy,
but he's trying to make it come back. And Britney Spears just checked in into some detoxing,
not to make it a pun on toxic, but she's getting help.
Kanye West just launched his, forget all the Nazi stuff I said tour.
Yes, yeah. You know that Globe thing he was on videos that did look pretty cool,
but it's hard to forgive all that Hitler praise. That's a tough one. And Hitch, has anybody seen
the film Hitch? Everybody was seeing it as their date-night movie on Valentine's.
I did not get hitched. I'm sorry.
I did not see it.
It was. Will Smith is, you know, a hookup artist or a love expert who gets ugly, horribly ugly Kevin James a date.
But then meanwhile, Will Smith is having trouble for once getting dates of his own.
And he doesn't understand what's going on.
That's what all we were doing on Valentine's Day, which I should also mention this episode when it was advertised.
The night of programming was called Fox's Valentine's Spectacular.
and this was said, Bart discovers his true love, gangster rap.
So that's how this was a Valentine's episode.
You know, that's the joke I was going to make, but they just ran with that idea.
Yes.
What does Bart love?
A rap.
Let's go with that.
Listeners can hear that and all of the other shows of Arrested Development and whatnot that were
advertised the same night as this.
But that's what happened the week, this episode of The Simpsons aired.
And joining us once again is Brian Quinnby from the podcast, Guys.
And Brian last joined us to talk about season 15's The Ler.
wandering juvie. Welcome back to the show, Brian.
This episode seemed, it's probably because I don't have a refined Simpsons palette.
This seemed a lot different than the other one.
Like it was by completely different people to me.
So I thought the last time I was here was in the single digits because I was like,
this is really weird.
It felt different.
I mean, Simpsons episodes are often known for having a very different first act.
But given that the episode is named after that first act, I would have, I think there
would be more about rap throughout or perhaps like a,
huge eight mile parody that, you know,
flows from Act 1 to Act 3, but no,
all the rap stuff, Act 1, Act 2
and 3, phony kidnapping.
Yeah. And the Wiggum stories.
Who did all the rap voices?
Okay, the actual rap performances are
like Hank Azari, mostly
as black men, but...
You're very sure playing a lot of black guys
in this episode. I mean, it's very obvious
to buy the raps and the way
they're doing, because it all sounds like 80s
rap. This was a shock
to me doing the research on this,
and Bob, you maybe heard it too in the commentary.
Matt Selman shouts out to him at the very end.
And this is before he was mainstream famous.
But there's a famous name that is the writer of the, not the lyrics,
Selman takes lyrics credit,
but the writer and performer of hip-hop in songs in the episode.
Did you see that, Bob?
Oh, I totally miss this.
It is Boots Riley.
Really?
Yes.
Okay, wow.
Boots Riley from the coup.
You can't get mad at him, I guess then.
Because some of the raps didn't sound like, I mean, really sounds.
to like when you could have replaced them with the rap song,
they're playing basket ball.
It just seems like they threw in some gangster type words in there.
Well, I got to say Nancy Carrae has lost a lot of her flow since Deep Deep Trouble.
Oh, I had that tape when I was in fifth grade.
And I kind of thought like, oh, what if Bart got on stage and he did that rap?
people would lose their fucking minds because I would have I was thinking when he went on stage and he was going to rap I was like it's very possible that he's going to do the rap from the tape I had growing up and if he had done that it would have hit me much harder you know I'll get to the boots rally stuff in a little bit but Brian you're counted on rap experts for this one especially in the realm of Eminem yeah I'm an Eminem expert maybe actually I don't even want to say that I'm an Eminem guy expert I'm like yeah I
of fans of Eminem expert.
You're an expert of the experts.
Yeah, they're kind of, they're wild.
I just, we did an episode, you know, had Justin Stanger on and we did an episode of
Eminem guys and like, I don't know what I, sometimes I go into them thinking like,
ah, I don't know.
But I have found now that when we do the specific musician guys, they're much funnier than
when we just do like, we did death metal guys, which was fun.
a fun episode and everything. But like when we do like Eminem guys or Kiss guys or like Metallica guys and
stuff like that, I find those episodes so fun because it's a sort of, I don't want to say hero worship
because I'm a fan of bands. You know what I mean? But it's very funny what fandom can kind of turn
people into. And Eminem is this perfect age for that because, you know, his fans are between 40 and 50.
You know what I mean? And he's a respect.
expected guy.
So it's just strange sometimes to see the fans being like, oh, man, you know, I was
looking at the highest net worth rappers, and it seems like Russell Simmons has more than
Eminem.
I wish Eminem could get 800 million more dollars.
It's just like, what if cares, he has so many millions of dollars.
I guess some people are into a group for just a little bit of time for when that group
or that artist is popular.
Like, as far as I'm concerned, I don't know what Weezer is doing.
doing right now and frankly i don't want to know no no yeah it would only upset me i actually did tell my
wife about like how like i was into early weezer like the blue album for just the singles i would
have never listened to the whole and then i was in a new metal when the other stuff started to come out
so like i didn't get into wezer until like the green album so there was no way i was going to get let down
at that point it was just like yeah and i saw them in concert it's really weird we saw weezer in concert
and probably 2002 or three,
Tenacious D was opening for him if that helps with any.
That fits.
Time.
And Tenacious D.
Just blew them out of fucking water.
And then also like they seemed grumpy.
You know how sometimes you go to a concert and you get a vibe from the people on stage?
Like, I don't even want to be here.
This sucks.
I want to leave and I want to play in front of famous people in L.A. or something.
Not in Columbus.
Ohio.
Like, I think there are.
are those guys i've had the same situation with system of a down like where i've seen them three times and they were bad every time and it just seemed like they didn't like each other and they were kind of just there for money and they were complaining a lot on stage and stuff like that so it really soured my wife on weezer so we're never going to see them live again and once maladroit came out i can still picture the cdr that i wrote wezer maladroit on and it got played like four times and it was yeah but m and m and m i really like
the first two.
I think I was done after that.
When he became like,
people always call him physical therapy music.
That was when I was kind of like,
I'm done with this guy.
For old sports injuries for high school sports.
Yeah, yeah, or military.
Like, that's one of the big jokes we have on our show
is that like there's this weird story
that is very pervasive in M&M world
that a troop came up to him in uniform
and said, can I have your autograph?
and Eminem said, only if I can have yours.
Oh, that definitely happened.
You can't imagine the AI depictions of that that exist.
I guess we're making these comparisons because Bart is kind of doing an Eminem style white boy rapper persona early in this episode.
But I kind of have a bone to pick with Eminem because in the early odds, the worst people in my life were mega Eminem fans and they were mostly retail managers.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, because they're not irresponsible, right?
They're like one level up.
Like they're one level up from irresponsible.
Because again, Eminem does do some like pretty nasty.
He says, you know, edgy stuff.
So they like that.
But I think they also really like the idea of this, first of all,
guy that hustled and worked hard and got to where he was from a trailer park.
They see that as a possible path forward in a weird way.
not that they can be rappers
but that you can make it past this
and they're the guy at work
that works just like 25% harder than you
and you hate his guts
like that is the Eminem
yeah that exactly was a manager of mine
and I remember we were doing inventory
staying very late one night
he was just doing nothing but playing Eminem
and like pointing out different parts of the songs
and explaining them and he was really obsessed with the song
My dad's gone crazy
I don't understand why
but that's the one
where his daughter is on the song, right?
Yep.
Okay.
That's why because he probably has a daughter.
He probably had a kid young.
And then he's like, look at this, man.
Like this guy had a kid young too.
And he's rapping with her on his album.
That didn't stop him for being a star.
I'll be a platinum album guy too,
even though I have a three-year-old.
Once I'm done counting these hobbies of kingdom hearts.
And also, very importantly, he wasn't an absentee dad.
And I think there's a lot of guys out there.
again, just 25% more responsible than you are that I'm a fuck up. And there was always like one guy above me that like, he just was like, I'll never get it. I was avoiding trying to get it. I was avoided getting in trouble. You know what I mean? As in like, I was doing bad things and trying to hide them at my job at the cable company. But there was a guy above me who was like, and that was most of the people I worked with, right? It's like, hey, I'm taking naps on the job. I don't want anybody to fucking know.
No. You know what I mean? And I don't want to get caught. And sometimes you get caught. Sometimes you don't. But then there's one guy that just like doesn't take naps on the job. And they just pay him like a little bit more than you to snitch on you all the time. I think that's what you're talking about. Yes. Yeah. I mean, this guy, he was making $13 an hour and he had keys to the store. So I thought, well, he's got it going on. He knows what he's doing. And I guess all of this, you know, anger and hard work is paying off for him.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was a.
first album Eminem fan. I did actually, I owned the Marshall Mathers LP and listened to it quite a lot.
Then it was the second album. I was only a watch the music videos type guy. And then when eight
mile came out, I didn't even see it. Like I watched eight miles for the first time in full a few
weeks ago just to be ready for this. But like, I was like 17, 1617 when that album came out. And I did like his
mix of anger with stupid poo-po jokes.
Those were like he, it was attractive to me on some level,
though his specific anger towards mothers and vibes,
I was like, well, I can't really identify with that,
but I feel angry.
Also his anger, though, I mean,
there's another thing too that's there that I think is why
some really annoying guys get into him is because some of the target,
if you put back like all the actual real
marginalized people targets that he went at,
He seemed to, you know, kind of be like, oh, I shouldn't have done that.
But if you just push those off to the side and you just look at his other targets, you're like, he tried to start a fight with Moby.
And I think that makes a certain kind of guy really happy.
Like, I'd like to punch the shit.
I'm Moby too.
That's true.
Yeah, I had this epiphany while listening to an M&M song for the first time in like 20 years.
It's his early, like, joky or stuff.
I realize, tell me if I'm wrong.
It feels like most of his audience graduated from weird.
Al to Eminem because they were getting older and they were getting frustrated.
Weird Al won't swear.
He is not homophobic and he won't make rape jokes.
I need a musical comedian that will satisfy these urges as a team in the late 90s.
I mean, that's the thing like Eminem, his stuff borders on novelty when it comes out,
which is like where other white rappers ended up in that zone.
Like you could say like, you know, snow or vanilla ice.
Like those guys just became novelty guys.
but Eminem was able to transcend that into actual like consistent popularity.
I think by proving he actually is good at rapping.
I forget, I want to say it was Method Man, but I don't think it was,
but it was a major black rapper at the time.
They did say, and it's always stuck with me, that Eminem is good,
but a black performer as good as him would not have a third of the sales that Eminem had.
Yeah, it's weird because he is like a sort of middle ground.
of that. You know what I mean? I mean, he's not a novelty at, but I will say the first single,
you would think that was just going to be it. You know what I mean? Do you give me like my name is?
And you would watch videos were so important then. And the video was kind of funny. And like,
also Dr. Dre just saying like, this guy is actually the shit. Like, that's what did it. You know what I mean?
And like, I think you're right in that we'd had snow, which is why I just talked about snow
on another podcast about him doing the, because we were talking about sublime.
Ah.
And how that guy, like the storyline of sublime, right, is that a guy went to Jamaica for two months and he came back and he was a reggae guy.
Like, that doesn't happen anymore.
And that was with snow too.
Like, and then so we looked up the story of snow.
And the story of snow is like,
you lived in a Jamaican neighborhood
and Jamaican guys would call him snow
and he would do reggae with them
and they would laugh and it's like
they were making fun of them.
But then he ended up being famous.
You know what I?
Eminem is a clever name for him too
that like obviously Marshall Mathers
is his, I believe, is government's name.
So M&M and M.
But also Eminem's are chocolate on the inside.
Get it?
That's a, you know, candy-coated outside.
And why?
And watching 8 Mile, it's directed by a real director, like Curtis Hanson, the director of L.A. Confidential.
Like, it stars, like, Kim Basinger is there as his evil, horrible mother.
And it's a real movie, though it basically is the karate kid was what it did.
Yeah.
You are right, though, because I remember when it came out, I was like, wait a minute, like, this is not some crappy, like, biopics.
And this is a time when biopics were, like, not hated.
I hate biopics now.
Musician ones are the worst.
Like the worst movies in the world.
And somehow 8 Mile doesn't fall into those traps, which I like, like the trap where the guys like sitting in the studio.
The famous ones in that queen documentary.
Yes.
When the guy's like done, or he does like a part of a song and they're like, that's the song.
Oh my God.
Or like the Johnny Cash one, which just makes him seem like a nice religious man.
Like stuff like that.
But for some reason, 8 Mile doesn't feel.
feel as much like that. It has its own look and it has its like own the grays and the blues and stuff
like that. It just has like a different kind of vibe. And I think, you know, I would call it the
Howard Stern effect where I think it also succeeds on having the guy play the guy. You know what I mean?
Which I think that's only, I can't think of any other times that happen other than Howard Stern and
Eminem, right? They don't usually have. Babe Ruth did it back like 70 years earlier.
did they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Babe Ruth, Eminem and Howard Stern are the three. But I think that like,
it's weird he has only done one other movie after that was Happy Gilmore too. And, uh,
I was so excited when I saw him. He like played himself so then people could say like,
I think he deserves an Oscar because I there was Oscar buzz around Eminem when eight mile came out.
I don't think it was ever going to happen.
I don't think he was ever nominated.
But I think people were saying like he's so good in this movie.
You won't believe it, you know?
Yeah.
Well, and lose yourself did win an Oscar.
Presented to him by Barbara Streisand.
Barbara Streisand hands an Oscar to Eminem on stage.
It's an amazing moment to see.
A passing of the torch.
I truly hate that song.
Like that is the song that turned him from what he was to what he is.
You know what I mean?
I feel like Lose Yourself.
I don't tend to think of him as cynical as a lot of these other guys,
but it does kind of feel like after lose yourself, he's like,
I'm not afraid and stuff like that,
where it turned into music that you could play in Jarhead.
I think the last new Eminem song,
the last time I really gave him a chance was the song Mosh,
because I was very into, you know, his anti-Bush song.
It was the anti-Bush song.
It even Moby shared it.
I remember him saying, like, you know what, Eminem and me, we've had problems,
but he's standing up against Bush and that's good.
Well, we've all heard Eminem's anti-Trump freestyle rap.
Oh, man, and I'll tell you what, that gets a lot of play on AI Eminem Facebook.
Like, they'll just share a meme.
Here's a meme you shared today.
Eminem didn't just, actually, they always have a story with them.
So I'll read you the story.
This is from an unbelievable world.
You might think losing half your fans would be a career disaster.
Eminem treated it differently at the BETT Hip, Hipp.
Pop Awards, he performed a freestyle called The Storm, where he directly criticized Donald Trump's and told fans to choose a side.
In a later interview, he explained he was prepared for backlash.
For him, taking a stand mattered more than keeping every listener.
Some fans reacted strongly, even walking away. Eminem addressed that response of his music, making it clear he stood by what he said.
He never apologized or softened his position, choosing instead to accept the consequences of speaking openly about his views.
And here's his quote.
Eminem didn't just criticize Trump.
He told his own fans on live television
that if they support Trump,
they can leave and then said,
so be it when they did.
So that is like,
that is a classic.
And again,
it's a classic Eminem story.
There's two guys that this hat,
jelly roll is the other guy.
Like if you on Facebook,
you're going to see something saying
jelly roll said something or did something
or saved somebody's life.
It's him and Eminem.
It's like every other post, at least on mine.
Well, yeah, Eminem is, for our age group,
it is the like Bob Dylan dies at concert.
Yeah, the things that our parents get.
If only he was in this episode.
If only, yes, an Eminem branded, affiliated performer is in this episode.
But yes, I bring up A Mile because they're very clear on the commentary.
Matt Selman, the writer of the episode says, like,
this was inspired by Aet Mile.
Like, A. Mile was a huge enough hit.
Like, it was a, like, seriously big box office.
as quadruple platinum, Oscar winning album.
Like, it was a big hit, so they decided like, oh, you know, it would make sense that Bart would be a type of suburban white kid who would then get into Eminem and follow that into just a general hip hop fandom.
Though there seems to be a bit of reactionary bent to this episode about the idea of little white kids being into rap.
Yeah, there's a lot of it, too.
I think it's them saying, like, you know what it reminds me of?
And when you hear this song now, it's such a different.
thing. This reminds me a pretty fly for a white guy.
Oh, yes. Like when you, that song was huge. And it was,
it was addressing a thing, you know, that a lot of people believed this episode. Because like,
I've gone back and listened to some offspring. And they have a lot of problematic songs. You
wouldn't believe it. Like, come out and play. If you listen to the lyrics of that song,
you're like, oh, okay, man. But I think like, this is pretty, like, this is pretty,
fly for a white guy in a way.
Yeah.
And like that was such a prevailing boomer sentiment.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Boomer and Gen X like pre 75.
You know what I mean?
There's a certain, let's call it a half slur or an 80% slur.
It begins with a W ends with an R.
Throne around a lot these days.
And I feel like that was a lot of hand-wringing over the idea of white people getting
to black culture.
A lot of the racist parents I knew who did not like their kids listening to rap, their
idea was like, oh, you're debasing yourself. This is low culture. Yeah. And it's also like,
it is like it's the same reactionary thing that happens every generation. Rat music was just like
the rock music of the 90s. Well, hey, to go back to an Eminem lyric, they're embarrassed. Their
parents are still listening to Elvis. Yeah, that's funny. I mean, my parents were a little young
for Elvis, but hey, listen, I like Elvis so he can suck it. The bit, yes, I wonder a little bit,
And one of the first clips I have is Lisa is making fun of Bart for being phony in that he is like stealing a culture very like surface level.
But yes, this almost entirely white writers and artists working on this, there is a little bit, it feels, I think there is a little bit of, you know, you're stealing from, you know, African American culture.
But there is also a little judgment on a bit of judgment on hip hop culture as well, I'd say.
We didn't have the word.
It's funny to say this because it existed, obviously,
but cultural appropriation wasn't a thing that was like out in the world.
So like you're starting, like, is that kind of what they're trying to address?
Like, are they clumsily trying to address cultural appropriation because it's a concept that people didn't quite understand yet?
Or are they doing pretty fly for a white guy?
I think it's a bit of both, honestly.
Though it's also funny to mention.
this too that Brian you mentioned Bart's
rap in the 1990 album
Simpson Sing the Blues and
in that album like
there was Washington Post
back in 1990 did an article about how
written by David Mills talking about
all the bootleg Bart shirts and
how Bart was very popular
in the black community and
hip-hop community then and like
Matt Grading even said
I know the character better than anybody and I
know that Bart likes hip-hop and then
Matt Graining is actually writing a rap song for
part of my album to be titled
The Simpsons Sing the Blues.
And so it was Matt Graney approving
of it and now it's funny like
this episode air 16 years after that
where I don't know, I would bet that
50 cent perhaps wore
a bootleg Bart shirt in 1990
and now he's on the Simpsons.
I only had the Bartman
one. You know what I mean?
Oh, that's a cool one.
Yeah. Oh, if you looked at the bootleg
shirts of 1990, it was either
Bard as Dick Tracy,
Bart as Batman,
Bart as Ninja Turtle,
or Bart as a black person.
Or I guess,
yeah,
I guess if you look in the seedier angles
of aisles of the Lee market,
you'll find that.
I guess the Bartman shirt
was essentially Fox co-opting the bootlegs
and saying,
we'll make you the Batman Bart shirt.
The funny thing is, like,
because I was thinking,
I, you know,
I like buying clothes.
That's one of the things about me
that people get crazy about.
And I was looking for
specific
like shirts from that era where you just wore cartoon characters on your shirt for some reason.
Like it was really popular in like the early part of the 90s with like 14 year old or 13 year old.
You know, I think I was like 12.
And I had a shirt that said Looney's Blunts on it.
And it was a Looney Tune shirt that was for blunts.
But it said humor small under the blunts.
And I bought that thing because my parents didn't know what a blunt was.
Because it was so early.
I bought that thing and wore it to school all the time.
And I just Googled it and almost paid $100 to have it in my house again and wear it.
Well, Warner Brothers definitely co-opted all of the street art that depicted the characters in like the styles of the time with drugs and alcohol and everything like that.
And they just erased all the drugs.
Like Bugs Bunny can still have the baggy pants, but we're going to take away the 40 out of his hand.
I was big into Marvin the Martian.
I don't even know why.
Like he's not like always in the episodes, but all my shirts have Marvin the Martian on them.
Well, like Taz or Tweedy doing the cross arm.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
Marvin is the only Loonington's character with a gun at all times.
That's true.
He's packing.
And I've talked about this.
It's really weird considering who I am now.
But if I wore one now, I guess, it would definitely be, I like Yosemite Sam with the two guns, like doing this, maybe without the, you know, other stuff.
But I would have never worn that.
growing up because I didn't want people to think I was a hillbilly, which obviously that went away.
And now everybody just thinks I'm a hillbilly.
Can't run from it.
Yes, the Boots Riley thing did shock me.
It was just crazy to hear it on the commentary.
And the credit is hip-hop songs written and performed by Boots Riley of the Coup, which was his rap group in the 90s.
They made mainstream news because the cover to their album party music that was planned to be released in November of 2001 is them blowing up.
the World Trade Center.
I remember.
He recalled, if you remember that one.
It's funny, I got mad at him
for that at the time.
I was like, who is this fucking guy?
This is America, you know,
as an idiot, I promise.
And he listeners.
On the other side now.
To our listeners, his new movie comes out
very, very soon, Boots Riley.
I love boosters.
I'm excited.
I can't wait.
Yeah, I'm going to see that.
I like, I'm about to call it the horse movie.
Sorry to bother you.
I like the worst movie.
I still haven't seen I'm a Virgo yet.
Me neither.
Me neither.
Fox Sunday, it's the Fox Valentine Spectacular.
Why must I be so voluptuous?
First, Bart discovers his true love, gangster rap.
Homer is a fatho.
All new Simpsons.
Ben, love builds the air on an all new arrested development.
And Martin Shorts playing footsy.
Ben, Family Guy is a.
Thing of beauty.
Peanut.
Oh, sorry.
Followed by another Simpsons.
It's the Fox Valentine Spectacular at 766 on Fox Sunday.
The more you know, the more you grow.
And we hope you learned a whole lot this week on the podcast.
Hey, Henry Gilbert here.
Welcoming you to the break.
Big thank you to our guests this week, Brian Quinnby, from Guys, a podcast about guys.
What a funny guy.
We always love having him on, especially for insight into the world of Eminem and the ongoing
strangeness of that.
And if you're not a listener to guys, come on, what's matter you?
Thanks so much, Brian.
Always awesome to have him on the show.
And if you're a fan of Talking Simpsons and would like to hear no ads like this one and get early podcasts
and support me and Bob doing it as our full-time jobs, then you should sign up at patreon.com
slash Talking Simpsons because subscribers there get all of those things, early, ad-free bonuses,
only for five bucks a month.
You not only get to hear next week's Talking Simpsons without ads like this one,
And you'd also get to hear a monthly podcast about Futurama and a monthly podcast about King of the Hill where we go as in depth into those as we do an episode of The Simpsons.
So a ton of fun.
We've covered multiple seasons of Futurama and King of the Hill there.
Plus we've covered every episode of The Critic, every episode of Mission Hill, and many of our favorite episodes of Batman, the animated series.
It's all there waiting for you.
If you're a subscriber at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, head over there today and check out all the stuff you're missing out on in the collections tab.
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That means tons of history, tons of trivia,
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dot com slash talking simpsons.
Even though I did see, I lived in Berkeley and went to, I love to brag about this.
I went to the Oakland, an Oakland AMC theater to see the second Spider-Verse movie.
And Boots Riley was there with his family to watch the movie, just like as a civilian.
And like the whole theater was buzzing.
And like, I just did the Coke freestyle machine and he walks by.
He's wearing his big hat and everything.
And I just go like, you're cool.
Like, that's all I can.
He took one look at you and he thought, this guy will.
never watch a streaming series I make.
I'm moving on.
He knew I was a phoed.
I don't need you.
The first album to let you know
how real the coup was back even in the day.
Their first album was titled
Kill My Landlord and lyrics
included, well, since the days
that I was shitting in diapers, it was evidence
the president didn't like us.
Assassination attempts, I'd root for the snipers.
You can hear where
Bart, Matt's a real part.
You can hear where Bart came up with those
lyrics in it.
though I'll tell you what ruins the thing is like you search Twitter for this,
you search any Google like Boots Riley Simpsons.
All they talk about is his announced plan to adapt Mr. Burns,
a post-electric play as a movie.
It ruins any search results.
But as far as I can see, he has never tweeted about it.
And Matt Selman has never tweeted to explain any extra about how he worked on this.
Or if honestly, I hope he actually recorded the raps.
And they should have just kept, he should just be playing Alcatron.
in this episode, honestly. It should not be Hank Kazer. It's very funny to think that more people
have heard Nancy Cartwright rap than Boots Riley. Yes, it's true. Oh, also one other bit of fun
trivia behind the scenes on this. And just overall, as they talk about Sam Simon being told that,
like, this episode didn't make any sense. And he did, like, because, I mean, this does take a very weird
turn. And then they confirm on the commentary that Sam Simon based Patty and Selma off of Jennifer
Tilly and her sister Meg Tilly.
So if you need to, if you look at Patty and Selma, one of them is Meg Tilly.
Like that's why I said it felt like it was like three episodes to me.
And I understand like the first episode usually like, I don't know if it's called a misdirection.
But like it's usually about one thing and at the end it's about something else.
But like Homer watching sports and saying please cover the spread, that actually made me laugh.
I like, it hit me as funny.
There's a few lines in it that made me laugh and I don't laugh at anything.
I said this episode as I was writing now
jokes I was a good joke this is full
of good jokes yeah I do remember once again
Homer is way ahead of the game when it comes to gambling on sports
yeah this came out and you said early 2000s right
yeah 2005 February right
my daughter was like only one
at that time okay so you probably were not catching
this even though it was advertised you could see 50 cent in it
yeah oh I'm sure I'm sure yeah no I was not
catching anything at that point we're gonna be called out for being too
what we call them 50 cent.
50.
No, no, it's fitty.
Fitty cent.
I know.
I feel like I would sound phony if I said fitty.
You have, that's just how they spell it.
It's idiomatic, right?
It's actually the number, right?
I won't play the opening bit because the deleted scene that starts the episode that I will play
is actually a much longer version of it.
So the bit of the commentator, he's watching Florida State team play, which is the Seminoles.
And I know this.
I was a Florida boy.
University of Florida's Gators and Florida State
Universities and Seminoles
they were big time rivals
and the deleted scene leans in more
on the commentary about problematic sport team
names
Oh doctor the politically correct pale faces are going to scout me
For that one
They're going to make man corn out of me
I wish I could take it back but I'm not an Indian giver
Ho ho ho there I go again
Go Seminole!
So there you go
Yeah it's weird that they just let Homer be racist
and then there's no commentary on it.
It just goes by.
I didn't even, yeah, yelling, so they cut that out because I didn't recognize that.
That's one of three deleted scenes on the DVD, yeah.
Yeah, he just yelled Go Seminoles.
I was like, I mean, he was a Florida fan for some reason.
He does do the Tomahawk chop, which I will not imitate, and I say that in quotes, listeners.
What was that hand motion you were just doing?
I was only doing it to reference it.
I grew up, even though I would later move to Florida, when.
The Tomah Chop got big, and I did to do it at sporting events was I was an Atlanta Braves fan in, like, 1991 as a kid.
Like I was in Marietta, Georgia.
They co-opted the Tamahawk chop from the Seminoles.
The Seminoles did it first in 1984.
Then the Braves took it.
And then the Kansas City.
No, it's Kansas City Chiefs.
Then the Braves did it.
So now I feel like, I don't know, do they still do it?
I would think at sports games, that would be the last.
place, they wouldn't care if it was problematic or not.
I go to a lot of minor league baseball.
And I've been to five games this season, and it's only, you know, mid April.
But I live across the street, and it's very cheap and fun to go to.
And it's the farm team.
My team, the Clippers, is the farm team of the Guardians, the Cleveland Guardians.
And every one of the teams in their division is the Indian.
Indianapolis Indians and I'm like, the guardians change their name.
And these Fire League guys are just like,
I'll just keep it.
I mean, the Braves are still the Braves.
I think they're able to be like, what, it's a compliment.
They're brave.
Yeah.
He doesn't want to be brave.
I wonder how long that'll, it's weird that they're the only one left, right?
Other than, you know, like I said, the Indianapolis Indians, which eight people know about.
I try to think if there's another one.
The chiefs are still the chiefs, right?
The Kansas City Chiefs there.
I think they'll get away with it forever because Chief is just, it's like, oh, they're the chief of police.
Like Wiggum.
You know, we are only 10 seconds into this episode, by the way, but I have some important information to drop here.
So here's a thing.
It is 50 cent.
And 50 cent was a mispronunciation that was concocted by the one and only Sharon Osborne.
This sounds fake, but it's not.
What?
Yes.
What indeed?
It really happened.
Boy, that sounds like something that I just find
on Facebook. It is AI.
I got many AI results, but then I found
actual news articles from the late odds that
confirmed this. Wow. Okay.
I hate Sharon Osborne.
I mean, yeah. As she started wheeling around
his corpse yet to make money?
I was actually just reading.
She's like going as a
part of some like super right
wing march
in Europe. And she's big
time like, anti-
Palestinian and stuff like that.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
I mean, and Ozzy was too, but
he was the Aussie and
like, I don't think he's making any
decisions. Yeah, apparently
she was invited to the BET Awards
which is something you do with Sharon Osborne,
of course. She's so popular
at that time. When she announced his name, she said
Fitty and that's what stuck.
So it's because of this one moment in time
that many people have, like me,
think it's Fitty, but it's actually
50. And Bart actually uses both in
this episode. We'll get to it in the next three hours.
Then the football gets interrupted by Santa's Little Helporter, eating the remote.
This dog's going to die. This is why he has a twisted stomach.
It goes to sitcom Sunday, which that should be mentioned too. This is their first episode
after the Super Bowl. So football's over for when this air. It is time for sitcom Sundays
to take back over. And it has the lineup of all the types of sitcoms that existed in 2005.
A friends rip off, except with a black man.
And it's not like friends.
Two men with a baby, a fat guy with a slim spouse,
and then a hippie with his young business guy friend.
The four types of sitcoms that were allowed on TV then.
Then Homer is searching for the remote.
We get a joke we haven't seen him forever,
which is a joke about something being in Marge's hair.
It's been a minute.
In this case, they're only furthering the idea that Marge is a thing for Lenny.
I know.
It's really holding a torch for old Lenny there.
Then we cut to the TV channel changes to a veggie tale's joke about the passion of Christ.
they just did a Passion of the Christ joke the previous episode,
but this time it's with the Veggie Tales.
That, I will say, that joke was, I'm sorry to say it's brutally unfunny.
I really was like, what the fuck is this?
They had just done a Veggie Tales Simpsons joke earlier in the season, I think.
I mean, they just learned about Veggie Tales being like the popular Christian cartoon of the day then.
I guess maybe if I had seen that scene, I might, uh, I didn't get the,
joke. He didn't think it was very well done.
I just was, it's one of those ones
or like there were jokes I really, I thought
were pretty funny in this, but that one
to me was like, this like kind of just seems
random, I guess.
Then Homer gets, she says, after the dog
gets trapped, and then forced feminization is
Homer by Patty and Selma.
Which I like how he asks, how do I look? He's not
that embarrassed. Yeah. I guess this is
a classic thing that older sisters would
do to younger brothers. Not me, but if you had
older sisters, they would often put makeup on you and dress
up like a pretty girl.
Hmm, geez.
See, Bart avoids that, and it happens to Maggie in Flaming Home.
That's right.
Then I guess this is their on-wrap into, oh, random TV channels gets them to end up on, I assume, B.E.T.
It's hip-hoppinnings section of the news.
It definitely doesn't seem like MTV news, I'd say.
And there is, like, humor to be found in this realm, but it does feel like a bit of punching down when it's just a bunch of white writers and one black writer doing it on the Simpsons.
because it's like, isn't this world crazy?
They're all so violent and obsessed with money.
That's kind of just what the joke is here.
I mean, that was the also, at that time, maybe even still,
there's this battle and the largely like sort of white guys that are like
deciding what real hip hop is.
And then the people that listen to the modern stuff that exists, you know?
And like that at that time, there was more of a push and pool.
And that to part where people would be like, yeah,
you got to listen.
like Wu-Tang and De LaSoul, you can't listen to like Mace and 50s. You know what I mean?
Mace actually came from my like area of Florida and people like new Mace and were rooting for him.
And then speaking of Facebook posts, some of those friends now like after Mace with Sean Combs information came out,
they're starting to feel even worse for poor old Mace. He got bad from video.
Yeah. Yes.
Yes, Bob, you're right. I think that this is, you can look at this as the Simpsons, you know,
satirize everything.
If they were doing other cultures, they would do this.
But yes, when they have their first ever black staff writer hired like two years before this, and there's only one, it does feel a little different than if they're making fun of other culture.
Yeah, I was thinking of that send-up of a gangster rap in the Mr. Show episode, The Story of Everest, which we covered on What a Cartoon.
And in that send-up, the idea is that all of the imagery as a facade, these are actually like very savvy business people.
And then the ultimate reveal is that the very Shug Knight style scary rapper is actually a kitten in disguise.
So it just becomes pure absurdity at the end.
So I feel like that's a much more inspired take than like, this stuff is crazy.
Yeah.
It's all about murder.
Or they wear giant hubcaps is a bikini top.
Yeah.
And it is also weird for that to be going on in 2005 because I think hip hop was very firmly, very mainstream by then.
You know what I mean?
Like it is now.
Like for a long time, it's just been a part of the culture.
The biggest music other than that really bad country music that is going on now.
But it's like a huge influence on the culture and stuff like that.
It's weird to be shocked by hip-hop music in 2005 is what I would say.
We are complaining, but I will offer comedy points to MC Champagne Millionaire is a great name for a rapper.
I loved all the names.
I think, too, what they're parodying is like, 1990.
rap and they're pulling from a lot of
what they saw on MTV. Like they bring
up later MTV Cribs or Pimp My Ride.
These are their insights into it, which
look, it was mostly my insights too. I own Eminem's album.
I did have a hip-hop phase of listening to
like I own Fear of a Black Planet, the Public Enemy
album and the 36 Chambers of Shaolin,
the Wu-Tang. What I got though,
what would pull me into a lot of those ones
if like, oh, Wu-Tang, they like Kung Fu
films and anime. Like they're dorks like me.
Like that's what pulled me into Wu-Tang at the first.
It's just from the jump.
There's a thing about like there's a certain thing.
It's like conscious rap, right?
It's like those fans of that, they're not all white, but there are a lot of them.
Like just can't respect the artistry of these other guys, which, listen, sometimes it sucks.
Like the mainstream stuff can suck.
But like, I don't know.
You can find talent.
and a lot of young rappers
and instead they spend a lot of time
and all they talk about is money and hoes
it's like have you ever
I'm surprised at Bard's saying hose
for some reason
I don't know why
but I was like really surprised by that
but like yeah I think
it just comes off as people
who are maybe a little bit
and I think about this with like a lot of TV
of the time
is that like
if you were a kid
or a young adult living in this time
your pop culture was all informed by stuff that you didn't know you know what i mean like they would
say stuff like i uh the thorn birds oh it's as serious as the thorn birds it's like i don't know what the
fuck that is you know what i mean and like i think there was a lot of that going on where the references
on a lot of tv at the time at least were very old and we just grew up like kind of being like
oh, the Algonquin roundtable.
Like, we just had heard somebody say that.
And we're like, oh, yeah, it's where people talk.
And I think, like, I think this might be, like,
some white guys and one black guy having a go at rap
the way that people would have 10 years before this, I guess.
And this is where Lisa in our first real clip is letting Bart know he's rather dated.
Yo, yo, yo, here now to Nizuz.
The top artists and hip-hop are coming to Springfield.
This all-star concert, dubbed Murder for Life, features the Glock Pointers.
Romeo's smooth, queen booty shaker, MC Champagne millionaire,
and Assault Weapons Magazine's Man of the Year, Alcatraz.
Alcatraz is widespread.
I'm talking to junk.
Just what we need.
Another lame suburban kid who loves rap.
So, you like the blues.
Yes, but the blues are unpopular.
Man, are you illen?
Rappers stopped saying, I'm keeping it real.
They stopped saying keeping it real three years ago?
Mom, Lisa's dissing me.
Disson? Do rappers still say that?
No.
Dad, can I go to a rap concert? Tickets are $50.
Go to hell.
Okay, what if I pay for it myself?
Fine, go nuts.
I love you, Dad.
I love you, too, Jerry.
That's a good job.
Very disappointed that life didn't have a why in it in murder for life.
Oh, yeah.
Hey, that's a miss there.
You're right.
Was that Hank Azaria doing?
That would be our old friend Harry Shearer.
Yes.
I sure he doesn't go back and listen to this, but man, if he did, I don't think he'd be like.
It's a little embarrassing for sure.
And doing the isle.
Yeah.
There, yes.
Again, the isle thing happened in 1993.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
Like that or the shiznit is a song from 19.
92. Maybe they had just heard about the show
Doggy Fizzle, Televizzle, that Snoop Dogg show,
which was using the terminology way too late.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, is it?
No, it's not.
Is that Carney Talk?
Oh, man, it does sound a little like, that is true.
I heard wrestlers use it in Carney Talk as well.
Yeah, I think that's also Carnie Talk for Shizzle to keep K-Fave.
They have their own stupid language, and I'm blanking on it now.
But yeah.
I did like the bit that Lisa,
Bart is kind of critiquing her as like,
hey, you're hypocritical too.
You're a little white girl who likes the blues.
And she's like, yeah, but it's unpopular.
So I'm not jumping on a bandway again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She may be like doing cultural appropriation,
but it's for something unpopular,
so she's not doing it to be cool.
That was a good line.
That's actually really funny.
Even Marge knows dissin is too lame to say.
On the commentary, they say that, like,
they wanted Bart to intentionally say dated stuff
because they felt they know there's no way
they'll feel current with any jokes on this.
Also, to put this in a time frame,
Boondocks, the Adult Swim adaptation of the Boondocks,
that comes out November of this same year.
So about nine months after this,
as once that finally, like,
otherwise, I feel like the only,
the most recent, like, African-American animated show in America
then was, like, the PJs, which had just ended, right?
I can't think another one.
I think that's it.
I just watched a thing about the PJs.
It was like a documentary about them being ahead of their time.
Oh, really?
It was on YouTube.
I watched the same video.
I'm checking this out.
I don't think I've seen this.
Also, $50 for a concert for front row seats in this concert?
What?
Yeah.
Even then, 50.
No way.
Those were the days.
50 might have been, for some reason in my mind, I have like I went to a nine-inch nails concert for,
Oh, that would have been in 1999 for $75 a ticket.
So, yeah, you're right.
Can you imagine that?
I just bought fucking tickets to see the strokes on the lawn.
I got four tickets for almost $500.
Woo.
Fucking insane.
I was like, this sucks.
I just bought the guerrillas.
Check your tickets, Henry.
There might only be one gorilla there.
Yeah, I think it was like $150 per ticket for all right seats.
in an arena show.
Yeah.
This bit will also
like, a listener should know,
like, Brian, you went to Woodstock
99. Like you're,
was Eminem there? I can't even remember.
I don't think so. No. Okay.
And if he was, I didn't catch him.
I caught Kid Rock,
Jamirakwai,
ICP, the roots,
corn,
Limbiscuit, and
that was basically it. The rest of the time
I spent wandering around the place.
I should say, I come from
the land of Limp Biscuit. So that was also,
like i could only plug in a little bit to the detroit wars of m&m versus kid rock and then the juggaloes
were in there so icp was it was actually it's funny you say that because it was m&m versus iCP of course
and the story goes that emm was handing out flyers at a bar and the bar said that iCP would be at his
show and iCP was at the bar and they're like we're not going to be at the show so then they had a whole thing
But on the album Devil Without a Cause by Kid Rock, there is a guest spot from Eminem on that album at the end of one of the songs.
So they did not hate each other.
I don't think they would like each other now.
I think they sort of have differing political viewpoints and stuff.
But yeah, no, Eminem didn't do Woodstock.
I think like there were a few bands that I think thought it was kind of lame.
you know what I mean because
you know
it was kind of aggressive and
like it was just I think a lot of people
I didn't see this all I saw
was Woodstock 99 is the coolest place
and you have to be there.
But I think there were a lot of bands that were like
I don't think I want to do that.
Oh so Jerry gets his approval
to go to the concert with his own money
where Mark gets the $50.
Feels like that could have been a story
but there's no answer of how he got that or got that ticket.
That was weird. Yeah.
I was like, is Bart known to have a job?
How does Bart just have $50 or this ticket?
But this is where Marge sees her, like,
Marge could come off as racist here as when she sees Bart in baggy pants,
like she is instantly offended by it.
This is what upstanding men like Bill Cosby were telling the world back then.
That's true.
That's true.
My parents, like, of course they didn't do anything about it,
but we get so mad when my pants were sacking.
And it's like, guys, that's what we do.
Dude.
I remember just said, you guys used to wear bell bottoms.
Those were fucking stupid, too.
That's where the opening clip came from.
Though there's one extra line in a tiny deleted scene on the disc,
which I thought was funny.
Here, Bart had one extra reply to Marge.
Rap music belongs in the rubbish bin.
It encourages punching, boastfulness, and rudeness to hose.
Step off, Mom.
Rap is the poetry of the streets.
It's about respect, except for women.
Maybe laugh.
I mean, also, too, I will say, with my Eminem liking,
I also came out of the closet not too long after Eminem.
And I was like, oh, wait, he is pretty homophobic.
But then he sort of went on as like Apollett like he performed with Elton John.
He performed Stan with Elton John.
And then it eight mile, he technically has like a anti-gay bullying scene.
But in the scene, basically,
Exhibit is playing a guy who is making fun of somebody for being gay who works at this steel mill
or at this auto plant they all work at.
Oh, I love that. That's my most enduring memory of the Simpsons.
So Exhibit makes fun of this gay guy. And then Eminem makes fun of Exhibit for making fun of him
by calling Exhibit more of an F slur than the gay guy is. He's like, he's gay, you a faggot.
Like, that's what Eminem says. And I was like, and that was the progressive message.
of eight miles.
Well, I think he, yeah, because he had gotten heat for it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know what I was recently looking at, but somebody else was talking about using
that.
I see P talks a lot about it.
I don't know if you've ever read it.
There's an article where I seep was like, I go back and I hear that stuff and I'm so
embarrassed about the things I said.
And because Violin Jay's daughter is like a furry and I think she's LGBTQ and he's just
like read it.
of them apologizing and I was like man
not a lot of people do like I don't think M&M
ever really apologized or anything
I think he performed with Elton John
and didn't say any more
slurs and stuff like that
but like to come out and actually
fully apologize is really
something yeah it's impressive I mean I know
like a lot of them are millionaires beyond belief
but some part of me does feel bad for musicians
because they have to constantly perform their thoughts
about the world they wrote down when they were 20
yeah here's everything
about women
Well, I've talked about this even to a non-political or lesser extent, like a band like corn,
who has to go on stage in their 50s and sing about getting bullied at high school.
That's got to be so weird.
Or a band like Blink 182, although I don't think they really care.
But some of the things that we're singing about back then and now they're on stage,
I don't think they perform anymore because that one guy got weird and started believing in aliens.
Yes.
He almost died.
You know, you mentioned performers not caring as much.
When I saw Weezer in 2018 or 19, that was the pixies open for him.
And I was really excited.
I'd never seen the pixies.
But it really was just like doing it for the money tour.
And like Black Francis was singing as quickly as he could to just get through songs in 30 minutes.
Now, I'll say this.
That kind of shit is funny to me.
But I understand being let down.
Because I've said this before.
extraordinarily bad concert is better than a good concert in my opinion these days like i would rather see
a mess on stage than i would see a perfectly played thing now that one is different
because it was kind of soulless and stuff like that it's the same way that i see system up a down
where it's like so i just went and saw the deaf tones with the mars volta and the bars volta open
They played their brand new album that wasn't released yet front to back.
Oh.
And the way people stood and just stared at them was so funny to me.
Like people, you can tell people were getting like angry because it's like, what the fuck, guys?
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
But there's something funny about being so antagonistic to your fans.
I forgive three new songs.
In a concert like an Ed Weiser, it's like, okay, three new songs, they can't all be in a row.
Just that's all you get.
My wife and I just had that.
conversation about like weezer they're coming to town and it's like she's like oh they probably
you know don't play the stuff I want to hear and I was like I think they're probably savvy
enough because weezer's in the cash out phase they're doing like covers they've got a cruise they have a
cruise the weezer cruise yeah yeah yeah yeah and once you're doing covers like almost exclusively like
they've done so many of them that you're like this is just this is cash out time
So Bart is told that even though he bought it with his own money, he can't go.
Homer and Marge taunt him with a bad rap back at them.
It is very cute.
Editor, drop it in right here.
Well, you are not going to any concert that promulgates think talk.
But Dad already said I could go.
Oh, did he?
Homer, you tell your son a rap show is not a safe place for a 10-year-old.
So, hon, your mother makes a very loud point.
But you said I could go if I paid for the ticket.
Boy, let me explain the situation in terms you'll understand.
You did it on the street.
Got your dad's permission, but your mom dropped a bomb, so I flipped my position.
Don't argue with Marge.
I know what's best.
The only rap in this crib keeps sandwiches fresh.
Fresh for fresh for mommy's baby boy.
Baby boy.
Baby boy.
It's much worse than Homer's Mr. Plow Rap.
I was actually cringing during this part.
Yeah, see, it was good cringe.
cringe like they wanted you to cringe then homer bart gets sent up to his room it is funny if you
freeze frame on bart barb's writing down lyrics on a piece of paper just like the character rabbit
does an eight mile so here see it's an eight mile reference right here it begins in the scene and bart
has a framed photo of homer midfall from barth the daredevil which is a pretty good joke i like yeah
probably one of the last references to that scene which was i guess for a very long time considered
the funniest scene on the Simpsons or like the most known scene on the Simpsons.
It replayed the most.
So after giving a kiss goodbye to his Krusty doll, Bart leaves out the second story window
and it's animated like he's on the first floor.
I hope somebody gets fired for that blunder.
So Bart takes the bus there.
Hey, there's an eight-mile reference.
He takes the bus a lot in an eight-mile.
So it's kind of an eight-mile.
Yeah, sure.
You didn't have a car.
So then the sign says no gang colors except red,
which would mean this is a Bloods show, I guess, is the reference there.
So Bart's in the audience.
And I do think of this as like, this could be the most black characters on screen in a Simpsons episode ever, this crowd shot of the audience.
Not one black voice actor to be found, but.
No.
If they were to do it now, they'd have three whole voice actors to every black person in that audience instead of not.
But Bart's front row and leave it to the Simpsons to have the rap that they write be about 49er, like old prospectors.
Like that is a very Simpsons reference as well
Every mind of four the night of it's stone cold
Cannava sticks a claim on my tongue
To pay my saliva
Make the holes drop the clothes like the lady could die for
Whoa
Yo cars put down my mic
Let's you know how to use it
This is old school
Not preschool so don't Dr. Suss it
I guess it's kind of like
There's this weird
That generation of comedian
We're so obsessed with like prospectors
and like gold.
I think it's funny too,
but like that would come up in a lot of stuff.
I think the writers are very fixated on the idea
that all these rap videos have women shaking it in their bikinis.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, rap videos were not the only thing to sexualize women,
but I guess that's what a lot of people really focused on.
Yeah, if you don't like it, then you're like, I don't like anything.
If you don't like rap, you're going to be like,
it sexualizes women more than anything ever.
But yeah, it's not the only thing for sure.
It's funny in the first Fast and the Furious movie came out when that was just the norm in things.
But now in any new Fast and Furious movie, it feels like they have to have at least like one section that's like,
here's girls in thongs dancing just to be like, it's a throwback.
It becomes like a throwback for the unks in the audience, if I may appropriate some terms myself there.
So Bart being in the front row is really just so he can catch.
Alcatraz has bad mic technique.
He drops the mic and unintentional.
not in a cool way, leaving it for Bart's to pick up.
And then he challenges, it becomes briefly the battle rap scene from 8 Mile,
which 8 Mile actually, I feel like tries to make it seem very real.
Like it is like a dingy, like tiny club packed full of people all screaming at each other.
And like you can like smell the sweat when you watch it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why I say in the movie it feels like karate kid because basically Rabbit gets his ass beat the entire movie.
And then when it's finally the big tournament, he beats three guys in a row from the same, like, rap dojo.
And then boom, his crane kick is saying, oh, I'm going to say everything you're going to say about me.
And then I'm going to say how you're actually rich and I'm realer than you.
And boom, that's his crane kick.
Takes out Papa Doc and defeats Anthony Mackey, Anthony Mackey clown on in a movie.
Though in this case, Bart does not attack Alcatraz, really, with his return.
Everyone's...
It attacks Principal Skinner, actually, in his rap.
And everybody's like, yeah, fuck that principle.
Everyone's excited as barred is mocking these two adult men they've never heard of.
I have to say, though, like, I don't like Nancy Cartwright's rapping in this.
I think she works much better in the Fresh Prince Happy Rap mode, as heard on Simpson Sing the Blues.
Yeah, the jazzy Jeff tempo is better for her.
I think this, well, let's just say the tempo, you know, written by Boots Riley, though the lyrics are by Matt Selman.
I think he's trying to approximate the M&M thing.
But that also was like Eminem style that pulled people in
was how he would be like
instead of like his meter or rhyme schemes
would always be like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Like he'd rhyme like 18 words out of 30 in his lyrics.
They were very creative.
I think this is trying to get that kind of pace,
but you're right.
Nancy fits much better with DJ Jazzy Jeff.
Slower flow, I think.
Why do we hear Bart win over the crowd with his rap?
Don't critique my technique.
I'm no geek.
I make the principal nervous.
My friends can confirm this.
All busts are spit wide in your epidermis.
Oh, no, he didn't.
You can trace my remorse to a supersized source.
A hungry, hungry hypocrite named Homer, of course.
My old man's pathetic.
Damn is his head dick.
The gas from his ass is carcinogenic.
Every day, I pray, his DNA ain't genetic.
Damn, this ride is pimped out.
Yo, downstairs, I got a wax museum, a famous movie monster.
Check it out if you won't get your fried on
Cheapers, it's 50 cent
Yo, Bea, I heard you throw down on stage
Want to join my world tour?
Sorry, Fiddy, I've school tomorrow.
You're right, the more you know, the further you go.
And that's when to grow on.
Does that count as community service?
No.
All right, take me to the park.
We'll pick up some dog poop.
Yes, sir.
And that's it.
That's a wrap for 50.
Yep.
The only black actor in this episode
is Curtis Jackson.
That rap was brutal.
It's like, baby, I call him.
Yeah, I mean, to be kind of Nancy, she's a great voice actress,
but this is the best rap you're going to get from a woman in her 50s named Nancy from Ohio.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, also, listening back to it, it feels even more cringe-inducing,
but yet that is not an ironic use of, oh, no, he didn't, right?
Like, that is just an earnest use of it, I feel like.
That is being said by Tress McNeil as one of the people in the audience.
It's just like, it's corny.
At the very least, it is corny.
I did laugh at, yes, Jeepers, it's 50 cents.
That part says jeepers.
Yeah.
They have a couple of fun stories on the commentary that like that 50 was there
and that in person to record with Nancy, it wasn't on, you know, over satellite or whatever.
And then they said that his bling, his gold chains and stuff,
it was reacting too much with the mics.
When he would move, it would make noise that would mess with the microphones.
And so they kind of had to ask him to like,
It was either take it off or hold it still, so it did not make noise.
This is when 50 Cent was about to make his own eight mile, get rich or die trying.
That was coming out in November.
Didn't see that one.
I think I was kind of past it at that point.
That's Curtis Hanson, too, right?
No, it's Jim Sheridan, the director of my left foot.
Whoa.
I had to look that up.
How did that happen with these two biopics?
That's crazy.
That like Curtis Hansen and then the guy that made my left foot are the,
the two directors of these movies.
And then from that on, it never happened again.
I mean, that NWA movie was bad.
I thought it stuck.
Like, that one had too much distance.
Like, I think eight mile, and I can't speak to the quality or not of Get Richard, I try.
But those were telling sort of their life stories within a decade.
But like the NWA doc, like straight out of Compton, like Ice Cube is old enough that his son plays him in the movie.
So there's much stronger nostalgia.
in there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there's a reference in this scene to the show,
Pimp My Ride, which was then pretty new,
and it created the joke format.
We put a blank inside your blank so you can blink while you blank.
Yep, absolutely.
The Pimp's cars, I watched some,
look, I put on MTV a lot.
I watched many episodes of Pimp My Ride.
I watched more episodes of...
Cribs?
Cribs, yes.
The Wax Museum thing reminded me...
I just always liked on Cribs where the crib stuff is more later,
but the Wax Museum thing reminds me of when
It was more with heavy metal guys or like the lead singer of corn.
They would go to their houses and you see what like big nerds they were.
And they'd have like their giant comic collections or like their life size,
a creature from the Black Lagoon or whatever.
Their microphone stand made by H.R. Geiger.
Right.
Yeah.
I think I'm wrong with that.
It's the guy that did the alien thing, not H.R.G.
Well, that's him.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Oh, it is.
Okay.
Good.
I don't I got it wrong there.
But yeah, Jonathan Davis's microphone is one of the funny.
your thing to a guy who was into corn like right away early on when they were playing like small
clubs and stuff like that it is so funny to me sometimes to see how like with heavy metal guys
you know we talk a lot about m&m on the podcast still about like his hair that is jet black
very jet black i'm sure his real hair like hair for his age yeah yeah or like Lars olrick's
that just grew.
Like,
they grow as you get older
because he got huge veneers.
And like,
it's just really weird
to think of like a guy like Eminem.
Caring if he has gray hair is so strange.
Like, there's no reason to dye it.
It's fine.
You're of an age where you have gray hair.
He doesn't even perform live.
That's the fucking thing.
He doesn't even do anything or go anywhere.
He just has jet black hair to sit around his house.
Well, and same too.
He's perfectly kept.
beard you guys mentioned as well.
It's like managed with like a ruler every like 12 hours probably.
Yeah, it's just really, it's a really strange sort of like older these counterculture characters
getting older and then doing the same stuff that you mock celebrities for doing.
You know, and getting the surgery and getting the hair and stuff like that.
See a punk getting like a hairline that almost touches this upper lip.
Yeah, I'm reading an article now.
probably generated by AI that's about
Eminem's beard transplant, what we know.
Having Jet Black hair at his age
is the funniest thing in the world.
There's nothing funnier than a guy
that dives his hair Jet Black to me
because it's just, it's the most obvious thing
in the world when you see it happen.
A couple more funny stories they have
for meeting 50 Cent.
They said that Carolyn O'Meigh brought her then
like little kid, child Kai there who had just got like booster shots.
And Matt Selman joke like, Kai just got his shots and you've been shot too.
Would Kai write for The Simpsons with his mother?
He's about to, yes.
Yeah.
His Kai soon to be, I guess he has written, but the episode's not aired yet.
Yeah.
And then they also said that the audio editor did not like 50 cents enunciation.
They quoted the audio editor saying that his speech style was, quote,
a shit salesman with a mouth full of samples.
Yeah, I guess in this clip he does sound like he is just like sucked off a vape pen.
We were vaping in 2005, but you understand.
Some sort of smoke.
I mean, he was shot in his mouth, wasn't he, in one of the places.
Was he?
Oh, forgive it.
He was shot nine times.
I know that.
He was shot nine times.
I think he did get hit in the face.
Though what I do know is that this was apparently to people younger than us was felt like a big event.
Apparently, I referenced previous Talking Simpsons guest who has a great video, many videos about
animation, TuneRific Tariq, who is a little younger than us. He, I believe, was like eight or nine
when this episode airs. And he has mentioned multiple times that this felt like a huge deal to him
and his friends. And Tariq, everybody should watch Treek has a great video called Get Animated or
Die Trian, an analysis of hip-hop and animation with a lot to say about this episode of particular
and the 50 Cent appearance that check it out. If you'd like to do,
like to hear what a younger a person who is black feels about this episode compared to us 40-year-old
white men. But yes, they got 50 cent. Bart is a big hit and is driving around with Al Katras and gets
dropped off at his home. He's called a little yellow cracker. I chuckle with that. Because what is
white in this world? That was weird. Yeah, that's an interesting question. We just covered
Bart's girlfriend again, and that's where Jessica calls Bart a cheap yellow trash. So,
Yeah, it's true.
The argument of 8 Mile is, and the general, I feel, argument of Eminem is that Eminem can transcend race and be popular with black and white fans and hit that kind of mainstream popularity because he is poor enough to identify with his black neighbors in Detroit and isn't racist.
So that lets him transcend that.
And he pulls it off.
At least in 8 Mile, he pulls it off.
Certainly.
Yeah.
Brian, you mentioned this group of their biopic.
Homer also references them in this little clip here.
Bart's gone.
I checked everywhere.
That little sneak disobeyed us and went to that hip-hop festival.
If that's true, he's going to be like NWA.
Not without ass welts.
Well, time to face my punishment like a man.
Or lie my way out of it like a kid.
that got a laugh out of me not without ass welts i like that bart sees what he's in for
homer is slapping the belt in his hand and marge is like doing the fretful hand ringing next to
homer that has to be the closest homer has come to referencing the inward on the show right
i'll say this about that i had this experience once
where i snuck out of the house and i got home and i saw my parents were awake and i had to
come up with a reason i wasn't home like at seven in the morning they'd been sitting up and i was
like, oh no, I got up at six and went to the mall.
Oh.
They were like, no, you didn't.
You haven't gone all night.
It's an early bird Thursday at the mall.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It was just something.
It was anything because I snuck out and didn't come home until early morning.
I only once or twice stayed out past a curfew that I got caught out.
And the one time I can remember, I stayed out at a friend's place.
But my friend's place was like a block away from my home.
So my mom literally like drove up to his house and saw me there.
It was like, hey, you're coming home right now.
Yeah.
My parents were just like more, we'll just wait until you get home and then scream about it than going to look for you.
Because they, he's got to come home sometime.
He's got to eat here.
And this is where Bart comes up with his plan.
He also takes off his murder for life, I guess the basketball jersey.
Sure.
Jersey.
Yeah.
This story is over.
Forget everything you knew about rap.
Hey, it's coming back for the last two minutes.
Yeah, I guess so.
And now it becomes a story about Wiggum.
And it's like father like son, Bart like Homer and Burns Baby Burns thinks the solution is phony kidnapping.
Yeah, you're right.
Oh, my God.
This is just, it's them calling back.
They just do the thing that Homer pitched as an episode.
But it's more of the big Lobowski in that Bart kidnaps himself.
You're right.
Yeah.
To get ahead of it, Kirk Van Houghton is a Lobowski-type figure that he's a loser.
Not as chill, but a loser.
Yeah, what's going on?
First, all I remember him from his race car bed.
Now he's really living in...
This is the deep in divorce, Kirk,
and he's about to get remarried to Luann.
They didn't like that change.
They got him back together and less interesting as a result,
but still kind of a loser.
Yeah, I mean, people didn't really goof on divorce guys back then.
That's a fairly new thing we goof on.
Well, I think to the Simpsons writers who wrote him to...
getting divorced were mostly newlywed guys. And I think by season 16, the guys who are writing
divorce jokes, half of them have gotten divorced and don't probably aren't as into jokes about
these sad divorced men. What losers? The next broadcast season is when they put them back together.
It's in production order. It's actually in the same production season. So I wonder if they get him
solo in this episode that they're like, Al Jean goes, that's it. We got to get them back.
Yeah, I guess it's eye pulled out by a bird.
He's on the chair playing video poker in his underwear.
He's happier in prison than at home.
So Bart throws a rock through the window.
They then reference a joke they already...
It's the 16-year-old show at this point.
I get it, but this is the same joke as when the rock...
Bart throws a rock through Burns his window and he thinks the bird got flash petrified.
But this time, they think that Bart is kidnapped.
Marge instantly freaks out.
Matt Selman, who is a dad when they record the commentary, says,
oh, these jokes of Marge's reactions to the fake kidnapping feel realer to me now as a parent than it did then.
Though your child is not fake to kidnapping yet, Brian, right?
No, no, she can't.
She's 21 now.
She missed the window.
It's like, yeah, just, you know, if you disappear, it's because she left.
So we come back for the commercial break, and Kent Brockman is really rubbing things in
for Marge as he asked her an insane question,
which I love Marge's reaction of like,
should be happy or if he's had never been born.
And she just has a normal reaction.
Like, what a horrible thing to say to a mother.
Then she does a free ad for the Hawaiian getaway week on Channel 6.
They were doing a lot of like ads on the news jokes at this time.
Yeah.
It's weird to even see somebody talking about like the news in 2026 because we don't really
have it in the same way.
Like local news.
I'm just, I mean, obviously.
people watch the local news and then get terrified about stuff and then act like maniacs about it.
But like everybody watched the news then.
Like you got to, I would get up in a morning and watch the local news while I was getting ready and be like, okay, that's what I'm going to be afraid of today and then move on.
And suddenly it is a Wigam episode like we hinted at earlier where Wigham is on the case and he, he has fallen pretty low too.
No one expects that he will actually solve this.
They want to plan for the funeral before the investigation even starts.
Yeah.
They're all laughing in his face,
as people should do to all police officers.
Right.
But yeah, Wigham,
this episode is more than about
the appeal of hip hop
to a young man.
It is about Wigham realizes he's a joke
and he can't take it anymore.
Like, it's one of the sitcom character
wants dignity type episodes.
And I mean, the bit too with Wiggin,
like, I mean, what a crazy thing too?
They're like, what's your big 50 cent episode?
It's the one about a cop.
Like, that's the, also nuts.
I don't know if we've passed it or whatever,
but the scene where he talks to Andy Griffith or Andy Griffith.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's another thing where like people my age didn't watch the Andy Griffiths show.
I mean, I get it.
It's like it's done.
I think it's funny watching that remembering like how pop culture was done by like older, more cynical people before like, I don't even think it's much better now.
don't hear the, or it's because I get all the references because it's all pitched at me and my time growing up.
Could be a little at too. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
This bit here, actually, to speak of another old thing that is popular now, like we get a reference to Columbo where Wigham remembers, misremembers that he solved a crime that Colombo solved in an episode.
Yeah, and that Colombo, they show you who does the murder at the beginning of the episode. Wiggum's point is, but you have to remember.
Yeah, yeah, that was a good line.
And I think this is a specific episode of Colombo where the murderer is a conductor.
If you want to look it up, I believe it's the season two episode Today in Black.
A Tude.
A Tud.
Yes.
I've seen it.
And the conductor is played by John Cassadet.
And it's actually a pianist and not a cellist that gets murdered in that one.
Okay.
All right.
See, they got it wrong.
Well, let's say Wigam misremembered it.
Yeah.
Well, Bob, you're more of a Colombo watcher.
Are you familiar with that episode?
I've not seen this one.
I got both box sets and there's a lot of essentially movie length Columbo's, I think, 70 or 80.
So I've only seen a handful.
And I'm just like picking and choosing based on the guest stars.
I've seen like, fuck and maybe they're separated seasons on Peacock.
So I think I've seen like up to four, maybe halfway through season four.
Me and my wife watched a lot of it.
Well, and Peter Falk is like a Cassavetti's guy.
So this is like, that's a big crossover.
That's like having like Robert Downey Jr.
star and something back that. It's like having Robert
Donnie Jr. play Dr. Doom.
Yes. After already playing
Iron Man.
That's going to save the brand.
Obsessed. You've never been.
I'm just trying to figure out.
The runtime isn't out yet, but just
trying to figure out. Because in my
mind, the movie is just going to be a series
of guys being like, hey, remember me?
And then walking off. Maybe they'll
like shoot a laser or something. I think at this
point they've already filmed six movies worth of
movie. I wonder the length of the movie and how it's at all possible to have this many people in it.
I think that's what they're banking on. I don't think they're banking on making a good movie.
I think they're banking on people like me who think it's going to suck showing up to see how it sucks.
I would assume Doomsday is going to be three and a half hours and then Secret War has got to be four hours.
It's got to be.
So I read something on an episode we did this.
guy said there's no way.
He goes, there's no way doomsday is less than five and a half hours.
Just like, dude, they're not going to do that at the movie here.
They're about to repackage and re-release endgame with a couple of new scenes to connect to
doomsday.
And that movie already is three and a half hours.
And now they're going to add scenes to it.
No possible way I'm going to see that.
Not even a tiny possible chance of me going to see End game in the theater again.
And then we.
cut to Millhouse being sad and alone.
And this is some fun stuff, much like the
Sideshow Bob Rake joke of him just stepping on rakes and it's
a bunch in a cycle. They cycle for 24 more seconds.
This is really killing a lot of time. It's sort of like, I think,
I forget which episode it was, like season three episode where
Bard and Milhouse were broken up by parents because Bart's a bad
influence. And Millhouse is like alone on the seesaw.
This is like an escalation of that where he's playing Frisbee with himself.
They repeat it so many times.
He then says he misses Bart.
He used to watch me while I did this.
And then the reveal, I still do.
This is where Millhouse learns that Bart is okay
and they need to come up with a new plan.
This is no fun without Bart.
He used to watch me while I did this.
I still do.
Are the kidnappers after you?
Well, some kidnappers might be after me.
It's a big world.
But in this case, I think.
the whole thing.
Why?
Are you mad at me?
No, it's not about you.
Oh, it's never about me.
Look, I need a place to hide out until the heat is off.
In my dad's apartment, the heat is always off.
He made a coat out of all my stuffed animals.
The drawing of the stuffed animal code is pretty good.
Yeah.
It reminds me of our pal Nick from Sound Footage Fest,
did this as well out of Alf puppets.
from Burger King Outfuss.
There's a consistent theme with his.
Meanwhile, these are just a hodgepodge of stuffed animals.
Like, Kirk is very sad here.
He's living in Bachelor Arms, swimming pool now corpse-free.
And he's not even home because he's defending soybeans as a living scarecrow.
This is where Bart is going to hide out while this is going on.
Then we cut to Wiggum in his office.
And I love this headline joke like four headlines of him sucking.
And he's like, well, I should have read the.
headlines a long time ago.
He just thought news about me. Get all these framed.
And you know what? I got to say to Wiggum, like, in my
heavier days when I was depressed, I have eaten a bunch of pancakes and
been very sad. He is.
This is a term that we should use more often. Wiggum is
Dan in Real Lifing. If we've seen the poster to Dan in real life,
the man with his head on the side and sleeping on the
pancakes, he's doing it.
I don't know what that movie is actually about. I know it must be a lot of
pancakes. I don't think that happens at all in the movie. I think
That's a Photoshop of just someone like twisting Steve Carell's head and popping it on a guy with his head on pancakes.
False advertisement.
That's what's even funnier, yes, that it's terrible Photoshop of Steve Carell's face.
Why I can't keep a Bisquick package in the house.
I can't have it as an option.
It's just no bisquick.
Henry, in your darkest days, did you ever Dan in real life yourself?
No, no.
I just eat pancakes until I was sick and then I sleep the rest of the day.
You know, these were happy times for old Henry.
But don't worry.
I'm better now.
I was hitting the Antimima bottle as well.
Now, this all comes from, we mentioned this earlier.
Brian brought it up, the appearance of Barney Fife, the character played by Don Knott's.
Here it is Dana Gould playing Don Knott's playing Barney Fife.
And this all comes from Dana Gould's stand-up.
And the premise of his stand-up bit was, what if Barney Fife said dirty things?
And it's good that he could do a really good Barney Fife because it is a funny stand-up bit.
But this comes right from his stand-up.
I'm sure he was doing it in the room so much.
They just said, let's put it in the show.
I am surprised they could wait
four years-ish of his employment
before they finally let him do just Barney Five on the show.
Actually, I have the stand-up routine
from that album here.
How would you like to be so famous
that you were a prisoner of your own voice?
Donnots.
Very likable man, extremely talented man.
He can't make obscene phone calls.
He might want to.
He might be up at four in the morning.
morning in a dirty bathrobe?
Well, I've been looking at you through the bedroom window.
Is this Don Knott's?
Blu!
He said that Don Knott's daughter told him that that was funny and liked it.
Most of her content, that's Karen Knott, I'm assuming, who does a one-woman show called Tide Up and Knott's about what a crazy life it was growing up with your father's Don.
Don Knott.
I wish my dad was Don Nott's.
He passed away in February of 06, so he could have seen this.
on his deathbed.
Also, talk about gambling with a reference.
Like, well, play the clip,
but part of the joke in the clip is,
is he dead or not?
This joke, what if he died,
like, within a month of this airing?
Like, they'd have been screwed.
They'd probably have to cut this scene.
Yeah, thankfully it's not important.
It's the Donnott's 9-11.
This is where Wiggum is haunted by Barney Fife.
Rise and shine, Chief Wiggum.
This pity party is over.
Officer down.
Barney, Fife.
Y-E-S spells, you got it, Buster.
And I'm here to tell you
the feelings you're having are common
for every brother of the badge.
Well, my fat grew over my badge.
Oh, sour mash.
It's time for you to roll up your sleeves
and get the old crime sniffer out on the street.
You're right.
I got to buckle down and do some police work.
Now that's the can-do attitude
that puts dudes in the can.
Well, I'm wanted back on the set.
Set? Are you the character or the actor who plays him?
Now I must go.
Wait a minute, now you're a ghost?
Avenge me.
His character game is just lost immediately.
That's a great joke.
And if you're wondering what Danigold is doing now,
he is the co-executive producer of Henry's favorite show, Ted.
And he's made a few appearances in Ted.
I just watched the season.
Season one episode where he appears on screen
his first time as a...
He's the local priest for
the TED characters in the series
Ted. Yes, it's...
He wrote... The first episode I watched that he wrote
is where they try to rent their first
porno in TED.
Ironic Ted enjoyment is turned into
real Ted enjoyment. I don't know if you know
this, but I did a mini-series about Ted.
I watched a half hour
of it every week with a different
guests who wasn't allowed to watch the rest of the movie.
So I
have seen Ted and Ted two
and half hour chunks
over like a bunch of
weeks. Ted and Ted two
rough movies with a couple funny moments
of my opinion but not good. I wouldn't call them
good movies. But then
the Ted TV show, Ted
should have just always been a sitcom basically is
what I'm saying. Like it actually works much
better as a sitcom than as in trying to
pretend that it's like a real movie with like
stakes or a love story
or anything like that.
Yeah.
I believe that.
Though mainly it's just so Seth McFarlane can like hang out on a set with beautiful women.
Talk to them.
In a like skin-type bodysuit, I think.
It's part of the, I feel like it's a kink of his.
Wait, who's wearing the body suit?
Is it, is it Seth?
At least on Ted 1, and I think for Ted 2, he is the director and star of the film.
And for them to do motion capture on the set, he is directing, wearing the body suit with the ping pong balls thing on it while directing.
So he is like in it basically walking around like news.
kind of on set while doing the TED character.
Well, he knows Milakunis by now.
They made each other a lot of money.
Though Milakunis did not come back for the second Ted,
and they say scheduling concerns,
I wonder, I wonder.
If you're a regular Andy Griffith show viewer,
that is good writing for the character of Barney Fipe.
Like, that actually is how he talks.
And they just wrote good Barney Fife.
They're really not heightening it that much.
They're just kind of just pulling out his lines
in this general sensibility and working into
the show with a great impression. Old things stuck around longer. That show, they were playing
Andy Griffith show when we were kids still on TV. Oh, when they started whistling, I was off
that channel so fast. It was like, I got to get out of here. Bring back Charles in charge.
That's what I'd be watching, I think. And Andy Griffith would come on. Or wrestling would end,
and it would be Andy Griffith. It's like, oh, this sucks. WWF superstars over and then just
Do do do do do.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yep.
Well, I think also on the commentary to show what fans they are,
Al Jean gets into deep Mayberry RFD lore as well,
which is basically season 10 of the Andy Griffith show,
just a new guy takes over as the lead of Mayberry RFD.
Andy Griffith leaves,
but everybody else kind of sticks around.
I think Don Knott's left before Andy Griffith did.
I think he departed at someone.
He was like the Steve Carell of the Andy Griffith show.
Right, yes.
And then Gomer Pyle leaves for him.
his own spin-off, so it's got to be Goober takes over as the lead pile of the show.
They talk about how, like, they wrote off Andy Griffith from Andy Griffith show in the first
episode of Mayberry RFD. Andy Griffith gets married and is on his honeymoon, but Barney Fife
came along on his honeymoon too. And then meanwhile, the RFD guy, like, kind of inherits Aunt B,
like, she just moves in with them. I'm just like, I live with you now. Aunt B doesn't leave the
show. And so this also is like Five telling Wiggum, hey, we're both sitcom cops. Let's both like, we know
what's going on.
So this is when Bart makes a phone call
to let his parents know he's still
alive to keep the lie going.
Homer just wants to see Bart's fingers
wrapped in today's newspaper.
Yeah.
While Marge is in tears
crying about it.
And then Bart feels, I like
that Bart feels bad for just a second
and then goes like, but they'll kill me if you
don't do this. Yeah.
This is where
Wiggum has to do actual police
work for the first time. He's in the
evidence room, which is where they keep the Christmas decorations.
And he's listening in. First, he thinks it's hail on a tin roof.
But the headline lets him know hail drop continues, tin roofs, undented.
And in the previous scene, he saw Bart or Kirk popping the chintzy pop.
Oh, it's Kirk.
Yeah.
It's Kirk.
Bart's popping his popcorn.
He's stealing his popcorn.
Which is weird, because then later he's eating it.
I get where it would be confused.
But, yeah, Bart is making the popcorn when Kirk runs in.
This is where popcorn saves the day.
for Bart and the Gets Kirk arrested.
I need the name of everyone who buys Chincy Pop popcorn.
Chinsie Pop is the worst legal popcorn.
Many of the kernels are baby teeth.
There are only two idiots cheap enough to buy this crap.
You and...
Oh, baby.
Is there anything better than video poker and chintzy pop?
Whoa, I'm looking at an inside straight.
Oh, someday I'll hear them winning music.
Someday
Drop the corn, tidy, whitey.
What, I didn't do anything?
Well, let a judge be the judge of that.
Yo, Chief, we found the kid.
Wow, for once I did everything right.
What's going on?
I didn't know he was here. I swear.
Uh, Chief...
Is Millhouse's dad gonna be in trouble?
He's not really a bad guy.
No, no, there's no need for you to defend your captor,
Braddy Hurst.
We're putting you in a dirty,
little cell. Not as small and dirty
as this apartment, but, you know, it's still
pretty bad. I really love
the video poker joke. It would be funny if
Kirk was celebrating a win on a little
LCD video poker machine, but it's funnier that he
didn't win and has never won.
Yeah, it's a little
crappy, like, video
poker was around in 2000.
I mean, poker was hot at that
time, believe me. I mean, he
doesn't have enough money to have a laptop
to play it online or even
a desktop. It is the kind of
you would buy at a quickie mark next to the cheapest popcorn legally allowed.
Yeah.
I mean, I do like a good joke about like the cheapest popcorn.
Like you can't afford jiffy pop, so it's chintzy pop.
Somehow baby teeth are cheaper than popcorn kernels.
That's true.
I mean, because they're just falling out all the time.
On popcorn brands, you know, most recent popcorn brand I had was Jolly Time Simply Popped,
which is like the lower calorie less, less oily and salted.
versions of it. It's them getting
any health brand. Did you have a jolly time?
Is the question? I was eating it while
watching mean streets on 4K, so you know
what? Yes, I did have a jolly time.
Okay, yeah, that's a good time to eat popcorn.
You know, Pop Secret was my
old favorite brand. Back when I wasn't reading
labels and counting calories,
Pop Secret movie theater butter, that was
my favorite of them. I don't
eat enough popcorn that like, when I
do, I just am like, I want
the maximum amount of butter on
there. Please.
Like one's called Butter Lovers or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like I said, I think the last time I had popcorn was seeing Predator Badlands the day it came out.
So I'm very, I'm between popcorn.
I love my popcorn game because I bought a stovetop popcorn popper called the Whirley Pop.
It costs like 20 bucks.
It's worth it.
And then you just throw that in with coconut oil and this special chemical called Flavacol,
which is what all the movie theaters use.
And you will never eat popcorn out of a microwave bag again.
My life has changed.
Yeah. Yeah, I definitely, my wife doesn't let me buy kitchen gadgets because I'll just buy all of them. But that was when I was bought. I was like, look, I'll make us popcorn all the time. She doesn't know you won't. You'll definitely not. It's totally worth it. And like I said, this is not an ad. But it's 20 bucks and it rules. It rules. In the 90s, because I saw it on a Price's Right episode, I got one of those like air popper things where it's like, you know, it spins around and heats up the kernels and like vomits it out the top. I got. I got it.
Not one of those.
Yeah, I had one of those and fuck those things.
I hate them so much.
You'd end up with some very burnt popcorn in the bottom because it can't spit out every.
It's just dry and it gets popcorn shrapnel all over your counter and floors.
It never hits the bowl the way you wanted to.
Though, I never did stovetop popcorn like that.
My mom always feared it would start a fire.
Like, she would never want to.
Your mom is wrong, and I'm saying it here.
Let her know.
She's on better anxiety medication than when I was a kid.
So maybe she would...
Technically, anything can be set on fire with the oven and stove.
Well, don't tell her that.
I knew a guy that wasn't allowed to leave the house if there was laundry going
because the dryer might light the house on fire, which is strange.
But maybe you should leave while the dryer's going
so that you don't get killed in a fire.
It took some time to convince my mom it was okay to leave the house with the dryer going.
That's also...
Or don't talk on the phone when there's lightning.
There was a joke on The Simpsons where Marge is anxious about something,
and she says to Homer,
Oh, I didn't clean out the lintrapp in the dryer.
What if people break in and do laundry?
They could start a fire.
I had a buddy that was like that.
My parents didn't give a shit.
So, like, they were just like, but I do believe that the Jiffy pop.
I think we weren't allowed to do that.
I think my stepmom thought it wouldn't start a fire.
I've never done it.
It seemed like a right of passage for like people at some point.
But, yeah, I've never been able to do it because my parents wouldn't let me do it growing up.
And I forgot about it until just now.
That maybe I got to try it.
It also does seem more wasteful
in an environmental sense
than even... It does? I'm confused.
Well, because it's a one-use pan.
Oh, the jiffy pop. Okay, yeah, that's true.
Jiffy pop.
Yeah, sorry, I thought you're talking about just stovetop in general.
No, never.
Kirk gets arrested.
He has an eyepatch the rest of the episode two.
And this is...
I'm just thinking about it too recently
because they did a recent episode
in the new season that canonically made Kirk
someone who is diagnosed bipolar
and takes medication
for it. And so like this is a different, it changes things for me in depressed suicidal Kirk jokes in the past.
When you make it too real. Now I've seen people say after we talked about that episode that they felt it was not as nuanced to portrayal of bipolar disorder.
Well, I just think in retrospect, every Kirk joke we've laughed at, we've just been ablest and we have to shut down the podcast.
It's true. You're right. Even in this episode, we've been too mean. I don't mind. Don't worry about it.
People, we'll just take them all out, you know. Donald Trump's.
a freaking president. Also,
we're all crazy too, so it's fine.
So then we cut to home. Bart
is returned to his family,
and Homer shows that he bought a tombstone.
And this is such a great bit they were
doing it this time. Like, I'll play the
short clip of this.
They were really into using just a
canned use of i.carumba
to, like, punctuate
a scene. And it's like the same. I don't
think they got Nancy to record like a new iCaramba
for these.
Oh, son.
Taking your tombstone back to the store
will be the happiest thing I've ever done.
Icaramba.
Yeah, it felt like ironically, they wanted to bring back
Icarumba as a catchphrase.
It's like, we're 16 years in.
What if Bart just said a bunch of catchphrases again?
Why not?
Yeah.
Oh, this joke, this like on-screen text joke,
it needs an extra, like, punch to it.
Okay, Bart says Icaramba.
We'll just play it.
We see that Wiggum is being approved by everybody
and even Lou isn't upset anymore.
He was the one writing letters to the editor to try to get Wiggin fired,
which note how, like, Eddie doesn't talk until one scene in this episode.
Like, Harry Shearer is on, like, Eddie boycott.
He won't do more than one Eddie line per episode.
It's why all the scenes are just Wiggin'em talking with Lou all of the time.
I think it's just Harry Scherer backing away from doing any, like, third-tier character.
I swear, when he signed his deal for, like, the 2003 or 2002 expansion of their contracts,
like he had just an unpublicized deal of
you get like 14 lines from me per episode
and it's where you choose where the 14 goes.
He is a main eventer.
It's like Skinners, Flanders, Burns, Dr. Hibbard,
I'll do that for as long as you want.
Anyone below that, you get like five minutes.
And I get the bonus.
Like you get the Eddie bonus.
If you make any talk, I get an extra $2,000 or something.
Yeah.
We go to a big parade.
Keep the rose pedals coming.
I almost stepped on a regular ground there.
Yeah.
And there's even like a huge float of Bart being saved from Kirk by Wiggum.
And Bart is very sad.
Meanwhile, Millhouse is begging him to tell the truth.
We find out that Millhouse gets scared by Harry Potter,
but actually he wasn't scared.
He was just peeing.
Yeah.
That was a good lie.
I was just peeing.
I'm a big fan of sash humor,
and Bart is wearing the kidnapee sash in this scene.
That's a good sense.
And speaking of repetitive jokes involving Millhouse,
They spent a very long time with this band marching over him when he falls off the float.
I think the constant cuts back to Bart are very funny, and I don't know why.
Yes.
It punctuates, oh, back to Melas, back to Millhouse.
This is them saving money in a way that made me think there was a missing joke.
The band that marches on Millhouse all look like Marge.
They have Marge hair hats.
I was like, why is this?
And then I realized they're reusing character.
designs from a joke they did and it's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad marge in season 11, where Marge
escapes from jail and hides in the marching band in her orange jumpsuit.
They just had a bunch of marching band figures in a character pack and they decided to use them
without realizing they were created for the context of looking like Marge.
It just makes you think like, why is Milhouse being smashed by Marge lookalike?
It was just to save them trouble on having to design an entirety marching band.
I'm not calling them lazy.
Smart move.
Don't make a whole new march.
Very smart.
Animate smart, not hard.
So we come back and now Chief Wiggum is the not just the police chief anymore.
He's the commissioner.
He's the police commissioner.
Checking the Wikipedia's, I think this is the first time the police commissioner of Springfield
has been mentioned by name as a position in town.
Like there's the mayor and there's police chief and there's no in between.
Like that is the two levels of bureaucrats in...
I only think of Batman when I think of police commissioner.
so I don't know if they're real or what they actually do.
Yes.
Whatever Commissioner Gordon does is what a police commission must do.
They operate the spotlight on top of police headquarters.
Yeah.
It's also that they resisted.
They have all these commissioner jokes and they resist any references to the Adam West Batman show.
We hear that the fake thin size for Wiggum is a 44 regular.
I'm happy to say I am under the Wigham fake size now.
Well, I bounce between 42 and 40 these days.
just to give you my fit size.
Pants wise, my pants are so big on me that, like, I just, I buy, like, really long, big shorts.
Oh, yeah, I appreciate you, you know, publicizing the big short lifestyle.
I'm into it.
I'm wearing a 38 right now, but they come all the way down to my shit.
I have a 32. This is not a contest.
Boo.
Now that he's the police commissioner, he's assigning new jobs to everybody, which he says that,
Lou now gets promoted to Chief of Police, and Eddie is promoted to Lou.
Then Eddie actually has a line like, uh, nice, who's going to be Eddie?
You don't need it, Eddie.
Eddie is kind of useless.
Again, he barely talks anymore in the show.
And so this is where Bart tries to confess to Chief Wiggum, and he gets alone,
and this is where Wiggin finds out like, nope, his one success is a hoax.
But he is trying to tell Bart not to spoil things.
And it's so great.
Boys, even though I've been made police commissioner, don't think I've forgotten you.
Lou, you're promoted to Chief of Police.
Sweet.
And Eddie, you're promoted to Lou.
Nice.
And who's going to be Eddie?
We don't need an Eddie.
Commissioner Wiggum, I need to confess something.
Is it that you're proud of me?
I lied about being kidnapped.
The whole thing was a hoax.
A hoax?
A hoax?
Oh.
Bart, please, you can't take this away from me.
How would I explain it to Ralph?
That kid can't understand where the world goes when you close the drapes.
But what about Millhouse's dad?
Hey, this is the best thing that ever happened to that loser.
Women love famous felons.
You are so dangerous and misunderstood.
You kidnapped my heart.
I love the way I've heard of you.
So, Bart, as you can see, from what I just said, everyone is a winner here.
This is such a good joke about cutaway jokes.
I really like this.
Like he mentions that Kirk is popular with the ladies now.
And then when it cuts back to him, he's like, so, as you see, from the thing I just said.
I love any joke about what happens to the other character while one person is telling a story or flashing back?
Like, what do they see?
What do they know?
And they have to dig deep for single women who want to be with Kirk.
They've got Ruth Powers there.
They've got Lerling Lumpkin, Cookie Kwan and Lindsay Nagel, and then just random ladies who I don't think have appeared.
And this episode is a little misguided.
It's a little all over the place.
But I kind of really like this third act because it has a fun anti-moral.
Everybody finds a way to cash in on this kidnapping.
So they just let it slide.
Kirk is happier.
And not only that, like, he is getting laid.
Like, no woman wanted to be with Kirk for 10 years of the show almost.
And now getting regular conjugal visits with insane women.
Which I don't know.
Yes, you do watch those shows of like, or you watch documentaries about prison.
and people in prison.
And yes, they can find ladies.
Some of those guys, they make some pen pals.
I do think it's overstated in pop culture, probably.
There is a phenomenon, though, in which it's called hybristophilia,
in which women are obsessed with killers.
I guess it's overreported, but it does happen,
and people are in jail for killing.
They get a lot of letters.
I think I remember they dig into it a little in the Warner Herzog film,
Into the Abyss.
That's mainly about just the death penalty and comes out against it.
but he also talks some with women who were our partners with,
it only started dating a man incarcerated for murder in the film.
It's a...
I mean, it is fascinating that it happened.
I remember Herzog questions like,
well, you're pregnant with his baby,
but you're not allowed conjugal visits.
How is that possible?
And she just laughs.
She won't say how it happened.
Lisa then, with Bart convinced not to reveal things,
this is where Lisa has to come into things
where she finds that Murder for Life jersey
that we all forgot about
for the last 15 minutes of television.
Wait, Bart likes rap?
Okay.
Wait, what happened there?
And this is where Lisa has to turn to adults for help.
Bart was never kidnapped.
Lisa, I'm very glad you brought me this.
I'll see that it gets to the proper authorities.
Why did you do that?
Hollywood producers have paid me a fortune,
which I've already lost.
for the rights to Bart's story,
so I have to destroy anything to prove that story's not true.
Third.
What shirt?
I don't see any shirt.
The truth.
Burn the truth.
So you see, Principal Skinner, that's why I had to come to you.
Wait, why did your father burn his pants?
It doesn't matter.
The point is, only with your help can I expose Bart's lies.
A chance to bring down Bart Simpson.
Simpson, our school's second most wanted criminal after the mysterious El Barto?
Sign me up.
There's so much going on in this episode that Homer quietly became rich and then wasted all the money while all these other events were transpiring.
An entire other storyline happened.
And we're not going to see the real story of Bart, the TV movie version.
Again, another great joke about jokes.
The cut to Skinner, Lisa told Skinner about the jokes Homer did in the scene.
with the fireplace.
And then I'll also talk about longtime callbacks.
This is like the first El Barto joke in forever too.
Yeah, maybe dwelling on Icaramba made them remember El Barto.
Something that's never been really explored in the series.
It's just a background joke that Bart is using a very obvious alias and no one can figure it out.
I mean, I knew El Barto.
Did you and your violence gang ever spray-pigant El Barto?
I don't have a violence gang.
I had a group of my friends that I hung out with that I was the leader of.
Our vandalism was more stealing.
and breaking, then I don't think any of us had a creative boat.
I mean, now, it's funny to say it now, but I don't think any of us had a creative bone in our body.
So it was like, let's go steal a car stereo.
Just doing straight crime.
No one authorized public art displays.
Yeah, nope, we didn't do that.
None of us could spray paint.
None of us had any artistic talent.
So we just did the other kind of vandalism.
You were like all the friends in eight mile that, like, burned down a house.
Yeah, I mean, we didn't burn down a house, but we did some pretty fucking wild shit.
Like stuff that you're like, what the hell, man?
You didn't have to, like, when I think about it now, I'm like, oh, what?
And a burn down a porta potty to the fucking ground.
A melted porta potty.
It was just crazy.
We were dumb.
If you could gamble on your phone back then, you would have just stayed inside.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's possible.
because obviously we did nostalgia guys
and they make me insane.
We used to drink out of the water hose
and all that crap is so stupid.
We were largely unsupervised
but I got to tell you
I think there are other kids out there
that are largely unsupervised too.
You know what I mean?
Like now that's still happening.
They got kids running all over my neighborhood
and crazy stuff.
Yes, they terrible.
I live downtown and there's kids everywhere
running around riding their bikes and stuff.
It's not like a true thing that like people aren't doing that anymore.
But, you know, these are a lot of these guys, these nostalgia guys don't have kids or whatever.
And they're just like, these kids, they have helicopter parents.
The close I have to the, sometimes my version of drinking from the water hose is saying like, well, you kids don't know what the old internet was.
That was the good internet.
Or you had to catch it on TV when it aired or you weren't going to get to catch it again.
Like, that's another one that people think is internet.
We had to wait for shows to start and then post at least three death threats every day on the internet.
That's how things used to work.
We cut back to Wiggum.
He's meant to remind you of the film The Untouchables, especially the doing his business while getting a shave and also, basically, the De Niro's Al Capone character in The Untouchables.
He has meetings, one while he's getting a shave and another while eating a steak, and they just shove them together.
Okay, I had no idea this was an Untouchables reference.
They have not referenced that movie in like a decade on the show.
I love seeing him wipe his brow with his steak.
It was Burns with the baseball bat.
That was the original reference to Intouchables.
We all like baseball, don't we folks?
Yeah.
So Homer, he brings together a team.
Homer thinks he's got a bride Maggie, which can happen.
But Lisa, she's just too good and too morally right.
And Kirk describes how he's getting laid all the time.
And this is where they've decided they're going to work together.
and they've made cover-up 2005 jackets.
I love that they're dated.
They're made in the style of the Simpsons crew jackets, too.
Yes, Brian, I don't know if you know this,
but if you, up to a point,
if you were a guest actor on the Simpsons,
you got a crew jacket for the Simpsons crew,
like a very nice jacket with your name written on it,
and they'd send you patches every year to add to the jacket.
How many of those ended up on eBay? None.
Hey, I'm glad you asked.
I actually did some eBay research on this.
Right now, listeners, if he got $4,000 to $5,000 burning a hole in your pocket,
you could get, who's to say these are truly true?
But eBay says that this is Michael York's real jacket that was given to Michael York,
the actor, who I guess we would know him from Austin Powers movies, Basil Exposition.
His jacket is on sale for $4,000.
You can get Jane Casmarix for $5,000.
But if all of this eight-mile talk got you really excited,
that same $5,000 can get you Kim Basinger's
Simpsons crew jacket signed by her ex-husband, Alec Baldwin.
Signed by her ex-husband is very funny.
I'm looking at this Michael York one.
It has a number of patches on it.
Yeah, you get a lot of the patches,
and it's addressed to Michael York and Pat York.
I'm going to guess that's either a son or a wife.
I didn't look into Michael York's background.
But, yes, that has to hurt for Simpsons.
like I don't think this is Michael York selling it.
I feel like Michael York sold it to somebody
and now they're selling it on eBay, right?
Or he's 85 years old and they're just taking things from him.
Could be part of Elber Abuse.
That's his wife, I think, Henry Pat.
Okay, okay.
But yeah, the Kim Basinger one,
I also went seeing Alec Baldwin's name written on it,
like their divorce was so bad,
Alec Baldwin wrote a book about it.
How much he hated her in that divorce.
So they head over
to Alcatraz's crib.
We get to see a big old mansion
and, you know, now without cribs on TV,
how do you see, is it just unlike social media
is how you see how a popular musician spends their money?
Yeah, I think they, you know, on TikTok,
I don't think you see it as much,
but I think on TikTok they probably have it.
And on Instagram, they're posting their, you know.
My version of Cribs these days is seeing
Guillermo del Toro's house full of all of his,
basically,
you know, house of wax music.
Yeah, I was thinking of him.
Yeah. Though, hey, speaking of auctions, he's been auctioning off some of that stuff because like Alec Baldwin, he is divorced too. And I think he's needed to sell a few of those items. He can't keep every part of the original haunted mansion. Yeah. I'm learning now that there were three eras of Cribs. So Cribs has come back a few times. There was the original 2020, 2010 run. And then we had 2017 and 2018. And then 2021 to 2023. So as recent as three years ago, you could still see how people, how the other side lives on Cribs.
Wow.
Really?
It's hard to imagine someone watching MTV in 2020 to me.
The ridiculous.
I don't even think kids were watching it, and we didn't like it at that point.
I remember also in cribs, they would have like Blink 182 or something.
They would put a lot of work into having a joke crib of like they lived in a shitty house or that they have an ugly fridge full of stuff.
I'm just looking at the recent episodes, at least recent as 2023.
And one that aired in December, TV personality Jenna Jameson opens her doors.
to her home in Las Vegas.
They're really, I mean, Jenna Jameson in
2023, this is an OG Cribs episode.
This is not something you revisit
25 years later.
The conservative porno lady, all right.
Yeah, that's bottom of the barrel there,
man, geez.
Yeah.
When I say that fully 100%,
my daughter has no connection to MTV at all.
She graduated high school in
2022, I think.
So, like, I just don't know
who was watching that stuff.
Like, I have no clue.
You know, she has friends come over.
We talk to her friends.
I hang out with her boyfriend and stuff like that now.
He doesn't know anything about MTV.
These possibly could have aired on one of the worst streaming networks ever, Paramount Plus.
They could have been made for that.
Oh, it sucks.
I have it.
And I'm every day, like, I need to cancel this, but I forget to do it.
Because there's nothing on there.
It fucking sucks.
I feel like Paramount Plus, yeah, you might be right, Bob.
The Paramount Plus, I think, like, launched with Gen X and Malay.
millennial old people television,
like, because they also had like real world reunion,
like the first season cast all comes together
for a new season of stuff, I think.
I believe they did that.
But I missed watching it.
I wanted to see what,
how is Julie still a Mormon?
I wanted to know still from the Seattle season.
This Cribs comedy here,
you know, they did not have a joke about crystal champagne,
which is how I learned about that as a brand was it became a thing of like,
here's my crystal, like everybody shows off the crystal in their opulent fridge.
And then they head inside.
I feel like Lisa's only teamed with Skinner because Skinner is the lamest guy to hang out with cool rappers.
It's got like rapping granny vibes.
Guy like Skinner out of his element, though, in this world.
This is where Skinner and Lisa figure out the truth.
Homer is a fat love.
Not yet.
Can we verify exactly what time Bart was at the show?
If only we had the exact date.
Bingo, thank you, Mr. Alcatraz.
Ain't nothing.
Uh-uh, uh-uh, it is nothing.
It's idiomatic, Biage.
All right, hand over the tape and nobody gets hurt.
Ah, this is hopeless. My gun isn't even loaded.
Ah, nuts. They're gonna release that tape and our hoax will be exposed.
Well, I guess I'll go back to Baltimore and sell ribbon with my daddy.
Ribbon, get your ribbon. Great for presents.
That feels so specific as to be a reference, but I don't know what.
It's just a good...
A very specific, lame item to be invested in as a family business.
It's just a weird job.
And hey, it's like a Steinbeck thing.
That Thursday the 20th thing has become a meme.
So when it is Thursday to 20th, you can actually post this online and get a poultry
amount of like so this August will be the next Thursday the 20th so get it ready
download it today okay we're recording this on Monday the 20th it's not good enough
not good enough yeah that's my calendar now though yeah it's Thursday the 20th you know the
gold chain version of that is that the biggest meme that came out of this episode I think
it's the is it the only meme that came out of this episode I would say that for a lot of the actors
it's probably they're happy no memes came out of this episode
Zeria would like us to not replay that
it's idiomatic, Biocch.
Yeah, yeah.
Biocch. I mean, come on.
So where they have a bit of a Mexican standoff here,
Homer then comes into the room,
and I'm going to play the deleted scene first
before we get to the big party ending,
but Bartz and Homer are trying to convince Lisa
to not spill the beans.
And as Homer tries to convince her to be cool,
this is where there's one more deleted scene
for a new, one extra line,
when Homer knocks over the 200-inch TV that's in his sneaker closets.
Come on, fool, be coolly, cool, cool.
If you shoot me, you'll hurt the shoes.
You'll put away your glocks, man.
I lost enough casual footwear to gun violence.
That.
Yeah.
Good cut.
Good cut.
Though, you know, the sneaker closet was a big part of the Cribbs episode, too.
That's what I know that pro wrestlers have too much money is when they start their videos of sneaker collecting as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, they are that one vodka or tequila that they all had.
I was telling my wife about it.
I was like, this is like a, I point it, the big white bottle with like the blue ornate stuff.
I can't remember what it is.
But for like a year, every pro wrestler had it in a background of their social media.
Right, right.
Henry, do you have a Simpsons shoe closet?
I have three Simpsons shoes in.
my closet. I wouldn't call it this.
But you have more Simpson shoes throughout the apartment, right?
Well, okay. If you want me take a couch, let's see.
Two of them I got for free, those vans ones we got.
I got my donut van sandals and van slip-ons.
Then my husband bought me two Mr. Plow shoes.
You have two feet, but you got to get two shoes.
Well, two pair, I should say.
And I believe, boy.
Oh, and the Bart's sneakers.
So, okay.
Did you buy the poochie shoes?
That's five.
shit you're right I have the poochie shoes
okay unreliable narrator I think you need a Simpson shoe closet to keep track of all of these
all right just didn't even sell I just gave them to goodwill three pairs of corn shoes
so I know the feeling and you don't mean Adidas you mean she like they were Adidas
oh okay they yeah Adidas did a collaboration with corn oh perfect and I bought all the shoes and shirts
because that's I think one of the first ways I learned about corn was a friend saying
Like, you know what Adidas stays for?
Yeah, all day I dream about shoes.
Yup.
Yes.
So Alcatraz, they're all stuck in the middle.
This is where Lisa gets her big speech for our final clip here.
As they admit on the commentary, they have no ending.
There are times in life when the truth ain't black nor white, but a subtler shade of gray, y'all.
I want the path for justice is obscured by the fog of uncertainty.
There is only one solution.
House party!
Corruption and deceit we've witnessed,
how could everyone just party?
Lisa, the world is a very complicated place.
And when you give right down to it,
Kenyon Ball!
Do you think there's a place in the hip-hop world
for a 40-something elementary school administrator?
Hell yes.
But I'm already paying a guy for that.
Get her?
I order you to step off, dog.
I think they're making fun of me,
but my wife is very sick.
And yes, they eventually kill off Superintendent Chalmers' wife.
It's explored in the season 23 episode, Bart stops to smell the Roosevelt's.
So hang on to your seats, folks.
We'll get there.
And now that, like, Chalmers being like a widowed father to a troubled teen is like most of his character in current episodes.
That makes my wife is very sick joke much funnier, I'd say, too.
Like, oh, yeah, she's about dead now, then.
That line is very funny, too.
I don't think I would have kept him said, step off or whatever it was doing.
They're doing like a very cheesy sitcom thing.
Like, what if this guy used like street lingo?
But then he points out, I'm doing this because like I have to.
I'm paying for my wife's medical bills.
Yeah.
They're humiliating me to make fun of me, but I really need the money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like snow?
Actually.
Yeah.
This basically turns into like the house party music video, the typical house party music video parody.
They have the giant chalice, one big enough for Wigam and Bart to be in.
It did remind me too that like, what was the big hit for 50 cent?
It was his sexy song at Candy Shop.
I don't know why, but I thought of pumps and a bump.
If you've ever seen that video, it's an MC Hammer video where he has a fucking huge boner through the whole video.
He's in Speedos.
And he's at a party outside, like with bikini ladies and stuff.
And in the whole video, he's just got a huge boner.
That's why he had to put the big pants on when he lost the big pants.
He should have wore him on that video.
Now, in the 50-cent video for Candy Shop,
which when he's talking about a lollipop guy,
it's a euphemism.
But it's funny, he wears such baggy clothes.
But then part of the bit in a 50-cent video was
when he whips the shirt off, like, he is built.
Like, he is a very good-looking guy in, like,
this is before every superhero movie star was taken HGH.
He was built like groundskeeper Willie.
Yes, yeah.
Put into the lingo our audience can understand.
I didn't clip it out, but the bit of Lisa is saying, the way I was raised, by mom.
Like, that's a good.
Homer did just threateningly brandish his fist at Lisa.
So I understand.
This episode is such a mess that I don't mind it has an anti-ending because I think it's mildly clever in that
Lisa, well, of course she has to lose, but it's all so everyone else can profit.
And ultimately, this crime didn't matter because people found a way to, like, find some way to
monopolize it or, like, to engineer it to their own benefit.
They all realize, like, well, it's a crime that helps everybody.
Why the truth hurts, helps no one.
Like, who cares?
I'm with them, too.
Like, Lisa just needs to make sure to wet her beak a little too in this.
Or at the very least, Lisa can sit on it for 10 years.
And then in, you know, 2015, write, you know, an online essay about the real truth behind this.
Then boom, hit the news all over again.
Get a whole other cycle out of it.
Selman and Al Jean admit on the commentary, this is a BS ending where they had.
no ending for it, but they have fun
with it. And though, yes,
it's back to more hip-hop cliches
at the end of the episode that they are
sort of making jokes about, but also just
doing straight up, like the bikini
girls with the big booties, that's not
a joke, they're just doing it.
I mean, insumation for me in this episode,
this is more of a Wigam episode than the
rap episode or 8 Mile.
There's tiny kernels of rap
stuff that actually feels like
all right commentary for the time, but
they really needed more than one black writer
on the show and more than zero voice actors.
Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed that the rap got away from them,
and I thought this was going to be a purely rap-focused episode.
I've seen it before, but I forgot that it's not really about the rap.
So, yeah, like you said, Henry, I wish there was more than one black voice actor,
and I wish you got to talk for more than 15 seconds.
That would have been nice.
They have cleaned up their act in recent years, so this is just, it's of its time, let's say.
I got to give Selman Cread for like Boots Riley of the Coo,
which is not like a popular, they're hardly a major name group,
like you actually did have to know hip hop pretty well to have heard of them i think so that buys
him a little cred a little brian any final thoughts no i mean it was good i think like i can watch
any episode of the simpsons and get some laughs out of it and it's 22 minutes where it's like that
i think is always going to appeal to me but yeah i thought there was some good stuff and i think like
most of it was probably stuff that you got like the millhouse throwing the
frisbee to himself sort of thing and there's a few of those gags i think you guys are probably
way more used to seeing than i am so i got a lot of laughs out of maybe scenes that
real fans of the simpsons probably were like yeah they do this every two weeks or so i can't
believe he said i carumba yeah yeah yeah or the el barto scene got a laugh out of me it's only
because i remember el barto from way back when i was a regular watch it's an episode with a lot of
stuff. There is some good laughs. We've been going on for a while, but I will say, last thing I'll say is that there was a 2007 Simpson's album called Testify, in which they compiled a lot of music from the series. This final album, these songs did not make the cut. Was it just to not pay boots, Riley? But that probably was it. I wonder. Yeah. Oh, man, and doesn't it also, sorry, that's reminded me, too, that like, this was them not getting Al Clossin to do it. And part of the firing of Al Clossin was them doing another hip-hop episode later. And they blame.
him for not doing a good job on the rap songs than that one as part of it.
Yes, that might be the great Fatsby, which is from 2017.
It was part of the firing of the late Alph Clause, a mistake on all part.
An ugly chapter in Simpsons.
So this episode being their hip-hop episode, having nobody's fired over it, a better and long tail on it.
Well, thanks again, Brian, for joining us.
Let us know where we can find you online and more about your podcast, guys.
Just search for guys.
Guys podcast.
It will be there.
I'm Murder X Brian on Blue Sky.
But yeah, just listen to guys.
Go to Patreon.
Patreon.com slash guys podcast.
We do a lot of stuff.
No, we're big fans of guys.
We had Chris on a few months ago, a couple months back.
He's my enemy.
Oh, I'm sorry.
We're platforming or bully.
We've, so.
Yeah.
I'm kidding.
Don't get mad at Chris, everybody.
Wait, we just joke around.
And thanks for all of your insight into everyone.
Eminem Guy. If people want to learn more about Eminem and the guys who love him, listen to the
Eminem Guys episode, that's a good one to start with listeners. Yeah, it's one of the free episodes.
You'll love it. But thank you so much, Brian. We've loved having you on. Thank you. Thanks for having
me. Thanks again to Brian Quinby for being on the show. Please check out this podcast, guys.
And as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get these podcasts ad-free
and also access a huge back catalog of bonus podcasts. Go to patreon.com.com slash Talking Simpsons
and sign up there for five bucks a month. You get ad-free podcasts. But also,
over 200 full-length bonus episodes covering shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critic.
And that level also gets you a new episode of both Talking Futurama and Talk King of the Hill every month.
That is a great deal for just five bucks a month. And it's all happening at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.
And we have a $10 level as well.
When you sign up for that, you can access all the $5 stuff, of course.
But then you can also access one very long podcast once a month for patrons of that level.
What's going on at the $10 level, Henry?
That is our mega-sized podcast of What a Cartoon Movie,
where premium subscribers get all of the $5 things Bob mentioned,
and then you get basically three extra podcasts a month
because we go as in-depth as we do an episode of The Simpsons into these films,
which means sometimes five or even six hours long,
and we have a ton of fun talking about them with tons of secrets and lots of research.
We do so much work on them.
This month you're going to hear us talking about 2011's Winnie the Pooh,
the last 2D animated film from Walt Disney feature animation.
And last month we did in April, our usual April fools of doing a live action cartoon
where we covered Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of the U's.
And that's just the most recent stuff.
Out of many years of what a cartoon movies, hundreds of hours of us covering tons of Disney films,
Warner Brothers films, Pixar films, anime films, junk like Cool World or Shrek,
we've covered tons of things and we're doing new ones each month at the $10 level.
head over to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons looking collections.
You'll see everything you're missing out on there.
And if you sign up at the $10 or $5 level for all of the ad-free bonuses you get there,
know that you can save a little money by going to the annual level at 10% off.
If you sign up there, and you can even switch your monthly to annual as well to get that same discount
at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons.
And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackie.
You can find me on Blue Sky and Letterbox and many other places as well.
Bob Servo and my other podcast is called Retronauts.
That is a classic gaming podcast all about old video games.
You can find that where you find podcasts or go to patreon.com
slash Retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of bonus stuff as well.
And Henry, how about you?
You can follow me on Blue Sky and on Instagram as Talking, Henry.
I am always posting up some fun stuff there.
And don't forget, you should be following the official account of the podcast at Talk Simpsonspod.
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whenever new podcasts come out, whenever we've got stuff happening in our Patreon, or other fun announcements, you stay in the loop if you follow at Talk Simpsons pod.
And don't forget that all our previously released free podcasts for Talking Simpsons and what a cartoon can be found at Talking Simpsons.com.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
We'll see you again next time for Season 6's Grandpa versus Sexual Inadequacy, and we'll see you then.
All right, people, we've got a situation here.
Your daughter's going to blow our whole deal sky high.
You leave Maggie to me.
No, Lisa.
Not her.
She'll hunt us down relentlessly.
Like a bloodhound mixed with a student loan officer.
Hey, I can't leave this place.
I get three square meals a day
and trailer time with Springfield's craziest chicks.
Hey, I got the most to lose here.
I just printed up 10,000 business cards.
How am I going to pass all these out before she catches me?
Give me a call some time.
Give me call some time.
Oh, ah!
Ah, here comes to panic.
People, please. The only way Lisa can bust me is if she finds someone who can prove I was at that rap show.
And I know just where she can find that someone. Let's go cover our asses.
Wait, before we go, I took the liberty of making these embroidered conspiracy jackets for all of us.
Wow, those jackets are beautiful.
We must never wear them.
