Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Pray Anything

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

As we go deeper into season 14, we are left with this question: What if you wrote Homer The Heretic but without any of the brilliant satire or insight into religion? You'd probably end up with something like Pray Anything, where Homer sorta causes a biblical-level flood that somehow is canonical. Also featured in this episode: All male arks, weird deleted scenes, drunkenly worshipping deer heads, Maggie choking on dust, and much more in this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get over 150 bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

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now big o tires the team you trust this podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking futurama talk king of the hill the what a Movie Podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that's like a party Dick Clark would throw. I'm one of your hosts, the holy concierge Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today, as always? Jesus H. Nice, and by that I mean Henry Gilbert.

And this week's episode is Pray Anything. Okay, you got two of every animal, but only males. I don't want any hanky-panky hey hey hey cut that out this week's episode originally aired on february 9th 2003 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby martin beshear's television film Living with Michael Jackson debuts. Phil Spector is the lead suspect in the murder of Lana Clarkson. And how to lose a guy in 10 days beats Shanghai Nights at the box office. I have one thing to say. That's ignorant.

And I'm done. Yep. That special, I think, it really set the stage for how the next generation would view Michael Jackson. And I swear he must have done it to help his career. It was supposed to make him look normal by letting this Martin Bashir guy in. The premise of that documentary was, look how crazy I'm not. But it had the reverse effect because he was a truly troubled man with a debilitating drug addiction we didn't even know about at this point. Yeah.

And I mean, definitely at least one of the children who appeared in it or his family would sue him later, I believe as well. And I remember some people were saying like the Martin Bashir guy also comes off as scummy because he's just chumming around with Michael Jackson the entire time. And then later in the voiceover he's like i was disgusted you know you don't look so disgusted on camera with this guy he had a good poker face and maybe he's more famous as to british people whatever his stance is in the uk media but that was part of a real downfall of michael jackson a continued downfall of him i mean that entire south park episode wouldn't exist without living with michael jackson coming out downfall of him i mean that entire south park episode wouldn't exist without living with michael jackson coming out yeah most of my memories come from that episode yeah the phil specter thing he is still in jail for that but to give you a idea for how slow justice can

turn in some cases so phil specter is the lead suspect in the killing of this woman who died in his home in 2003 there would be a mistrial and then a second trial that he's finally found guilty of second degree murder in 2009 he's still in jail to this day oh for some reason i thought he died i had checked i think he's still in jail okay he's still alive in jail as we say before on the show he's not dead but his career is i could you know i could be mistaken though i've been corrected recently about uh all you got to do is type in phil specter first link his wikipedia it either says phil specter is or phil specter was and that then you can stop

here we go was oh you were right bob yes he died in 2021 he collided with the wall of sound his car exploded okay so this was not another ralphie may situation where i was like yeah he's still alive there ralphie ralphie may blown away what else do i have to say in the not controversial world of music meanwhile we move over to the box office yes how to lose a guy in 10 days that's the goldie hawn's daughter versus matthew mcconaughey movie she has a name and her name is kate hudson also, what's she up to lately? That's my question. She was in Glass Onion and pretty funny in it.

Right, right, that was her. Yeah, this was her real rom-com era. I thought she was in a huge bomb this year, but this isn't it. That's Le Divorce. Le Divorce. Right, yeah. And meanwhile, Shanghai Nights is the sequel to Shanghai Noon,

where basically the mismatched pair of Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan moved to England to try to save the queen or something. What I remember it for is that one of the villains in it is Donnie Yen. And Donnie Yen is one of those guys who tries to never lose a fair fight in a fake movie. If character if his character loses there's always an excuse and that's even to Jackie Chan in this movie the way he gets defeated is somebody shoots a firework at him and he flies off like Jackie Chan does not get to beat him in a fight oh interesting now I think I said this on an earlier podcast but uh Will Sloan has been on the show as a big Jackie Chan fan and he watches all the Jackie Chan movies.

And when he gets to this era, the American era, he's kind of shocked about how filmmakers thought audiences would have no patience to watch an entire Jackie Chan scene uninterrupted. So it's constantly cutting back to Owen Wilson going, oh, wow, or whatever, like in like doing wild takes or whatever. They assume that you would not just be there for the insane acrobatic techniques of jackie chan it's just edited poorly and also it's this mix of like he's getting older jackie is so he can't do as much as he did you know a decade earlier but

also like um american insurance on film sets is not the same as in the hong kong films he did and so you also like can't endanger people, Jackie included, enough for cool stunts like you could on the police story film. Yes, Jackie Chan, you may climb the ladder, but do nothing else with the ladder. And make sure someone is under you

when you're climbing it. So yes, this week's episode is Pray Anything. And we have two new writers who are only on just for this episode. They're freelancers. They were invited to pitch, and this is what they pitched. And let's talk about their history. The writers are the writing partners Sam O'Neill and Neil Bushell.

So their first script was for the short-lived Jace Richdale-created sitcom The Preston Episodes, which starred David Alan Greer. This was a Fox sitcom. Ten episodes were produced, eight of them aired, and it looks like Richdale left The Simpsons after the Merkin years to create this show, and then he came back. So this was likely part of a development deal

he had with Fox after The Simpsons. Wow, so he does ten episodes of Dag, and then he comes crawling back to David Merkin to take the next script. Merkin chucks his way. Well, he left after Merkin's years were over. And then he comes back to work with Mike Scully after he dabbles a bit in Hollywood. But I've learned that Jace Richdale, I think he is a Dexter guy.

He would go on to write some Dexters. And he may be responsible for the line that's on the inside of my wife in my wedding rings, which is good waffles. Oh, yeah. We have not discovered who that is. We may never discover it. These two guys together, they should have just, especially since I think maybe they're even still working together, but they should just be Sam O'Neill Bichelle. Yes, it is interesting how one's last name is the other's first name i've complained many times on this show where you know it's the head writer of like alf or letterman who gets handed one of these freelance scripts

so this is what i've been asking for this is relatively younger fresher faces being handed a script right yes they've only had eight years experience writing for sitcoms so they're some of the newer fresher faces that are not the usual freelancers who, let's say, were head writers for David Letterman for a decade. Or went to Harvard before Al Jean went to Harvard. Yeah, I did a quick search like this person's name Harvard, that person's name Harvard. Nothing came up, but perhaps, perhaps they're Harvard guys. So, yes, they worked on that David Alan Greer sitcom that went nowhere. Then they moved on to be story editors on the first season of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

They wrote one episode of that. Sorry, they worked with Nell Scovel then. She was showrunner of season one of that show. Yes, I assume so. If they were story editors, they were the lowest rung on the ladder or whatever. So from there, they went to this other abc sitcom called brother's keeper i have no idea what this is i've never seen it but they were also story editors and writers on that and outside of being executive story editors and writers on the first season of

american dad they are basically just guns for hire they've written episodes of things like baby blues and the mullet son of the beach the emperor's new school and i'm not sure what they're doing now but their last scripts together seem to have been for something called nella in the princess night in 2019 and that was after a eight-year hiatus in their writing careers although neil buchel alone is currently a writer on something called the unstoppable yellow yeti so it seems like their pairing has ceased as of 2019. Interesting. Well, I mean, lots of shows, you know, don't exist these days anyway. So you could tell me they wrote on a Netflix show for like five years now and I'd believe it. Yeah.

I've never heard of. Yeah, but it seems like they're not like on staff a lot. They're rarely on staff in their careers. So maybe they have other things going on in their lives. But yeah, just like maybe like three producer credits to their name and then a lot of freelance scripts so these guys did not go on to become juggernauts in the comedy writing world but this was probably the i'm guessing the highlight of their career is getting a script on the simpsons and getting nearly the 300th episode this is like what 299 are we at for them well 301 by the real count but

this is the one before the one they call the 300th episode i mean the fake count we we covered the real one which was strong arms of the ma right yeah i mean now i wish i'd have known that they worked on the mullets as well before because we just hung out with the co-creator of the mullets bill oakley and could asked him like hey what's the deal with these guys like they don't even have a LinkedIn page as far as I can see yeah I guess they were sniffing around for opportunities and maybe they didn't like the world of staff writing on a TV show so they chose to just freelance but this is them this is kind of their peak of their career and hey maybe they consider American Dad the peak of their career who knows but I feel like if you're a comedy writer getting a Simpsons

script is a big deal oh yeah I mean well and you mentioned American Dad that really this feels like more of an American Dad episode than a Simpsons episode. I also have to say, like, this takes the big third act turn that I more associate with American Dad, especially with the biblical reality of like, yeah, there's a real God. And he like that would I wouldn't bat an eyelash at that on american dad but here i don't like it in this episode uh sure things get a little crazy in this episode although i think there's a lot of american dads that are much funnier and better written than this one i'm not a big fan of this one uh i think you compared it to homer the heretic

and yeah this is kind of like uh shitty homer the heretic exactly it shows you what happens if you don't have a perfect writer like george meyer writing it actually since we did that episode i found on internet archive a original table draft for homer the heretic and there's even a few like bits like oh they even tuned it up from his original script but there's still a whole lot in that script that's on the screen and yeah meanwhile this just doesn't have much to say about religion it seems to think it's very heady with religion and but it's like south park episodes about religion go deeper than this and have more to say yeah i guess this is based on an idea the writers had because they they heard something on npr about the prosperity gospel and that's basically people using faith as a reason to excuse their riches and why they don't

give the charity and why other people don't deserve as much as them etc etc etc but really the politics of the prosperity gospel any criticisms of it are not present in this episode it's just like what if homer was extremely lucky for a long time and then god decided to step in or something I'm not really sure what's happening in this but this third act I mean it just it has no juice in it there's like Homer throws a party at the church and then the party continues until it stops the end yeah it also feels like these guys just thought of Homer's like oh yeah this is like party drunk Homer it's like boy I feel like we're back into Mike Scully episode with how much Homer

parties and drinks in this one comparatively he's even a producer on this episode so Homer singing to kiss while playing the crucifix that could be Mike Scully's fantasy for all we know no I mean that prosperity gospel thing especially when I heard that on the commentary and I was like wait that's what this is critiquing because there is so much to critique about prosperity gospel. Like, you know, a distant relative whom I have never met is one of the more evil people who preach that gospel, Kenneth Copeland. But the thing you would mock in that is that it's rich people scamming the most deep believers into sending them money. And because like, well, if you send me money, you'll get the money back tenfold. And oh, do I look like I am rich in a way that jesus wouldn't approve of it shows what you know is actually god saying i'm great because i'm so rich yeah in this episode homer sues the church for honestly

something that i would consider them at fault for you know for leaving a big open trench without any sort of like safety barriers around it so they really lose the prosperity gospel just like what if homer was really sacrilegious that's really the pitch to me yeah which is just homer the heretic which at least came with a lot of like fun you know teenage non-believer talk at the very least still not even particularly that deep talk of homer when he's a non-believer but but it's also like no homer is a believer but in his own way yeah i mean homer just wants to get drunk he forgets what his belief in praying even is this is just a week week episode this is my

least favorite i've watched this season i think and we just did strong arms of the ma when i thought like that was my least favorite one yeah at least with large marge and strong arms of the ma when i thought like that was my least favorite one yeah at least with large marge and strong arms of the ma there were things to gawk at just strange choices this just feels very very bland we'll talk about it not to give too much of a preamble but the back half has no juice so it's like homer prays for this and he gets it then he prays for that and he gets it then he prays for another thing and he gets it the story just decides to arbitrarily end when it ends and it's really hurt by multiple times in this episode they just do like the shadow of a thing they've done before or even them just going like oh yeah we wish we had this character still for this because this is much weaker without that character i also find that they just don't know

what to do so they just slam the moe button every five minutes like what if Moe did something disgusting here he is all over this episode and honestly they're the funniest parts but it feels like they added too much Moe because everything else was a little too bland. It's funny with how much Moe is in this though no Moe suicide in this one he's not so suicidal comparatively he's hornier in this one. Well he found love. Oh yes that's true the episode begins first with a chalkboard gag about spongebob squarepants being a contraceptive which really sticks it in 2003 i mean again i don't know much about contraceptives that heterosexuals would be used but i would assume this is the same thing as the sponge that elaine uses in seinfeld yeah and i think at this point they were no longer on the market.

I mean, that's what that Seinfeld was about. Mm-hmm. I see. Yeah. It soaks up things down there, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, it absorbs things. Honestly, they were never in that much use in my bachelor days. I never encountered one in the wild is what I'm saying.

We have a SpongeBob. I mean, that shows you where we're at in time here where they're just like spongebob who never heard of that thing that's a weird word spongebob and spongebob mania sweeping the globe yeah you could walk in any sun coast there's a spongebob section most malls are spongebob shrines to spongebob it's the post 9-11 spongebob boom i mean this episode also has a tony soprano reference just to let you know we're in 2003 hardcore here then we head to the wnba which i gotta say it's it's pretty mean to the wnba for an episode having one of their top stars in it as a guest star yeah lisa leslie and this reminds me of all of the other wnba jokes from this era there's one in

amazon women in the mood uh when they go to the Amazon planet and the guys complain that there's no dunking, but there are good fundamentals in the Amazon Basketball Association. And then there's a joke in Clerks the Animated Series where they cut away to a WNBA game in progress and no one is there and the players are crying and the announcer goes we don't return to rolling grace right yes yeah it was that amazon women joke that made me remember lisa leslie because i had looked up who was the first person to dunk in the wmba history and it's her she is the first to dunker and then here it's also like aljean is not very nice to the guest star in this too like even he is on the commentary going like yeah this sucks like i mean this is too very nice to the guest star in this too. Like even he is on the commentary going like, yeah, this sucks. Like, I mean, this is too many people to be in the stands at a WNBA game. He's not a fan of this. I mean, Lisa Leslie, yes, she is six foot five.

The first woman to dunk in a WNBA game. She's probably on the show because she played for the Los Angeles team, the Sparks from 97 and 2009. I looked up to see where she is today. Of course, she's a sports comment to see where she is today. Of course, she's a sports commentator and unexpectedly she is a realtor. So she became a landlord with her riches. Oof. Yeah. You hate to see it. You hate to see it. Also, you know, attendance at WNBA games, they are basically a third of what NBA games get. they're having, though, their best ticket sales of the last 13 years, averaging about 6,600 fans per game, which comparatively the average at an NBA game in 2023 was about 18K.

So, you know. Yeah. And I guess we're seeing all of these jokes about the WNBA because it basically just started in 1997. So once the animation production cycle catches up you're seeing jokes in the late 90s early aughts about the women's league but it fits that lisa would be a fan of it and would want to go to it it also did sound like aljean is mad his daughter brought him to wnba games at times to possibly growl at giant chinese ladies yeah also to hear that like this was partially aljean getting revenge for in children

of a lesser clod that they tried to get any nba star and they all turned him down and so he's like fine next time we do a basketball thing it's the wnba how do you like that nba yeah i think the writers pitched this as an nba game but aljean went a different route which i think is funnier i mean it's meaner but you don't see WNBA things on TV ever. But yes, in our first clip, we begin with Bart being admonished for his sexuality. Dad, it's so enlightened of you to take us to a WNBA game. Yeah, well, nachos are nachos. Whoa, check out Janine Giraffalo.

That's Feng Pang Li, the seven-foot sensation from Szechuan Szechuan hey, no wonder she's so spicy. Oh You're a little young to be growling at seven-foot Chinese ladies fine, I'll go back to being bored Wow, I wonder what it would be like to be with a woman like that. Mmm, far-fetched. Look! That's Lisa Leslie. She showed little girls everywhere that they can grow up to be six foot five. Lisa Leslie, you got game game i think you mean i

have game try to speak correctly you go girl yes i will depart lest your bad grammar rub off on me and of course homer was naming his favorite pokemon farfetch'd i mean that was you know we've seen many times where homer has what seems to be a sexual fantasy and then it's him eating something. But him saying far fetched that gave me a chuckle. I did like that. Not very kind to the WNBA in general. No, I mean, and also to like a joke about again saying you go girl. Like that seems a bit like let's say at the very least school marmish to say that's bad grammar and to be upset at it yeah i think even later a scene ends

with homer doing like a sassy line that feels very much of the you go girl you so crazy kind of thing but it's not really commented on yeah no it's not used as a joke he just says it's all good oh yeah yeah that's strange yeah i guess it's unusual for homer to say that i don't know i need something to follow that up and the actual tallest player in the wnba is not a seven foot sensation from sessuan which is a fun term but it's mal gorzada dydeck she is seven two so actually taller than this fantasy player was i think i think lisa leslie does fine acting here she's you know for sports guest star acting i think she sounds like a better actor than magic johnson oh yes yes i'm trying to summon his lines in my head guess i pulled a homer i don't care is that one of them yes yeah i mean incredible plane then we get our first of our mo jokes to

soften up this episode as i mean i do like that at a wnba game i don't believe they have highly sexualized mascots at wnba games like swish so i think it's a funny idea and you know what despite doing a wnba joke not one joke about any player being a lesbian no joke about that or possibly you know sign male at birth yes yeah fortunately they stayed away from all that maybe i would bet in the writer's room there were some jokes like that that they're like well lisa leslie's not gonna like that guys let's not make that joke they used all of their best material in strong arms of the maw all right yeah you're right they're all hated out for after that episode then swish is revealed to be moe's true love in this quick little clip. Oh, I can see your logo and everything.

Oh, hey. Hey, come back. Hey, I love you. Hey. Oh. God darn it. Swish was everything. I'm not.

Put the head back on. You know, actually, now that you play the clip, it's like, well, there's a ton of Moe, but also a ton of Lenny and Carl, too. Yeah, you're right. They have major lines in every act, really. I do like, so Gil, as Swish, is flirting with Moe. And I mean, that also feels like it counts as a gay joke to call the character Swish, you know. Oh, hey, you know what? I just caught that.

You know, on the commentary, Aljean says something I disagree with. I think Gil's legs could look that good in pantyhose. Pantyhose does a lot for the leg. I think he could have that sexiness of a figure. And yeah, Moe doesn't care. And you know what? I feel like Gil is halfway there to accepting this. Like, he will have sex with Moe wearing that costume, I think.

He's at a low enough place. He can just become Swish. Swish is everything. He's not. Just become Swish. I mean, the way he tussles Moe's hair, it's like, I don't know. I guess if you're in character, lots of characters do things. I don't think the San Diego chicken actually is the actor inside of it.

So if Minnie Mouse blows you a kiss, it's not an invitation. Exactly. Or if Goofy gives me a high five, the actor inside is not actually my friend. He doesn't actually think you're cool. But yeah, so they then have a little contest. And I always like a misdirect of that. Homer thinks he's going to win a contest because it's bad script writing to be like, and then the character wins a contest to bring them to the next thing.

I guess they invent the WNFL for this gag. Which still does not exist i do like how barcos no love lost there implying that there is a long rivalry between the cowgirls and the sheagles also the design on the ticket of the i believe the football is getting like a perm you know oh i must have missed that okay i mean just use use every chance to be sexist. It's fine. So instead, it is actually Ned who wins and he's going to make the half court shot. And this is where they share a fun story. Yeah, yeah. I guess recently passed away. Mark Wilmore was one of these guys who was selected out of the crowd to make the half court shot. And he said that he's not on the commentary. They're speaking for him. But he said that everyone was on his his side until he missed and then he was being harassed the rest of the night even in the parking lot i gotta say i would want to win those things but win a chance to either zero or nothing and

take a shot like i don't think i would want that the pressure if you gave me a hundred tries to make a half court shot i doubt i could make it my chances will be very slow with like a three point shot so yes yeah i i feel like you give me a hundred tries with a three point shot maybe twice i think i could do it twice also the late mark wilmore they just gave him in a recent season 35 episode they created a character like there's a group of homer with crossing guards and one is so conspicuous as to be somebody and they're like well yeah this is a guy in a raiders cap this is like of the oakland raiders wearing a hat of them and they said yeah that's raiders dad a tribute to mark wilmore so sweet ned takes his shot even lisa leslie thinks

that he's too effeminate and a loser for liking women's sports yeah he's talking about you know all the male sports he watches like speed walking ballroom dancing rhythmic gymnastics extreme choir and she's like just shut up and miss but he does not miss thanks to his prayer he makes it and he goes in the hoop it bounces for an impossible amount of time which is pretty funny bounces for long enough remote to propose to gill if only we saw if he accepted or not but uh this is also when they have some fun very down-to-earth stories on the commentary about getting to use jim brooks's courtside seat clippers season tickets yeah we can all relate to that can't we our bosses who all have courtside seats at the clippers but i guess that shows you where brooks is at though those aren't laker

tickets they're the clippers They're the next one down. Well, I actually, because my mom was a nurse and worked for doctors, we got courtside seats one time to a Cavs game. This is pre-King James era, though, so it wasn't like a very important game to go to. I saw Larry Bird coaching another team. I was like, hey, it's a big, ugly white guy that used to play basketball. He started that one video game on the NES. Yeah, that's really what I took from it. Yeah, so he makes it. He says he's going to be donating it

all to Bibles for Belgians, which makes Rich Texan so happy that he's going to give him $100,000. But he doesn't shoot his guns. I wonder if it's because he's in the same shot as Lisa Leslie. And again, they're like, eh, maybe she wouldn't like that. Maybe this giant white guy shouldn't be shooting a gun in the same shot with her. know i love seeing rich texan every time though because we just did the new kid on the block and in that they had the game over screen of the you know proto rich texan and i just love seeing how he's grown over time but yeah they then head outside and this is when ned even gets to drive home in the wienermobile which you know you know, my mom loved the Wienermobile. Like, any time it was in town, she was like, let's go get a picture at the Wienermobile.

Like, she was like, if you saw in the Santa Claus, Judge Reinhold's character always wanted a weenie whistle. My mom was just like that. Yeah, I mean, I think we would see it occasionally around town, but there were no photo ops. Yeah, I think we only really went to one true photo op, but she had a beloved weenie whistle she kept at her desk at work that she loved to love to blow into when needed but uh when there were hot dog based emergencies uh yeah yeah well it was at a law firm so you know you never know no i mean when the mood struck her to have fun but this is is when Homer just can't take it anymore. I'm sorry, sir.

Your car's still blocked in. Well, I guess Flanders doesn't have all the luck. So we'll let you drive home in the Wienermobile. Well, hot dog! Yay! That cuts the mustard with me. Oh, it's not fair. I always wanted to drive a food-shaped car.

The steering wheel is a giant onion ring it's all of everything how come all the good things happen to jesus h nice by which i mean flanders i do enjoy that homer he thinks his pun wasn't descriptive enough. While clever, it didn't really indicate, you know, entirely who he was talking about. So he had to clarify. It's nice that even he can recognize like, yeah, you know, this pun is too good for me or too sideways. Also, I mean, talk about well-trod territory. Like Homer has been jealous of Ned for eight million episodes. And this is the one where he's like, oh, I should pray.

I wish there had been a line where Ned goes, they could have at least where he's like, oh, I should pray. Though I wish there'd have been a line where Ned goes, they could have at least have him say like, yeah, I guess I am lucky, except for when my wife had died. Remember? Yeah. You know, I was thinking of that. Flanders isn't that lucky. He lost his soulmate.

And then in the future, he'll lose another one. That's right. And his entire home was destroyed by a hurricane. And the only house that was destroyed by one. But yeah, no, and this time Homer is very jealous. And I will give Mike Pulcino and his team credit for the very good animation of the silly idea that Homer is swinging. And every time he swings up, he says, dough. And like, I mean, the timing for that, I mean, it's just really well done.

Yeah, he's swinging up on a swing set to look over the fence with binoculars. Every time the swing set goes back down, he says, It's very complicated. It's even complicated to write out the action. Homer admits that the grass is literally greener over there. Marge is trying to bring up the real problem for Homer of why it's harder. He's an alcoholic who passes out all the time. There's a lot of passed out Homer-shaped patches of dead grass on the lawn.

And then there's an okay joke of homer acting mad and then it's just a hard cut to him asking ned for advice over tea you know what i like to think especially when he's listing all the things again this is just like when he explained how he was 63 years old just all the care he takes in himself yeah flossing his teeth tail and toes lots of straight guys could learn from ned about cleaning your butt oh okay is this a problem now i just based this on every now and then it will go viral on twitter of women complaining about how straight guys are not cleaning their butts the way they ought to because they are scared to you know what i'm not going to say reveal anything about myself but i run a tight ship that's all i'm going to say hey you're just

like flanders there's nothing sexual about it it's just it's clean living as god would want it's maintenance yeah i also like that homer even says it sickens me and then ned is just still smiling at hearing that it sickens him and ned describes all these other things and then he just says and a prayer now and then and that hom Homer takes away only the prayer for it. I wish he was stroking his chin and said, Hey, though, when he said it. Mike Scully wasn't fully in control. He would have.

Okay, so here was the part of the episode. And this is the surprise I have for you, Bob. Okay, so wait. I'm not going to steal your fire, Henry. Is it Ken Burns related? It is. Okay, please continue. I'm sorry.

I watched this episode first on Disney Plus because that's how I capture the audio. And when I do that, and they have Ken Burns in the scene, it sounds like this. And now, Ken Burns. A documentary by Ken Burns about the life of Ken Burns. Ew, where's the remote? Ever since he was a young man, Ken Burns has loved two things, baseball and jazz. They so consume my life, I never had time for a proper haircut. Well, if I don't have the remote, I can just get up and change the channel.

Wait a minute, I'll do what Flanders does. Oh, merciful God, who has blessed mankind with two kinds of clam chowder, help me find a remote. There it is! I've never actually been to a baseball game. The fresh air gives me hives. Die, monster! You're watching... Okay, I know what you're going to reveal here. I did not know about this. So before the recording, I told you i watched the dvd version i only watched the dvd version for the commentary

so i did watch it on disney plus and when i was done i was like uh that's hank azaria doing a very insulting impression of ken burns but then he's there in the credits and then i like double check it online it's like oh no that's him and he's in like three other episodes so i thought i was going insane but henry please reveal what's happening here so yes that's the version on disney plus and it really confused me too because i first wrote in my notes somebody needs to update the simpsons wiki and the official wikipedia page for this episode too because both say Ken Burns as himself. And I was like, no, that is clearly Hank Azaria doing a rather effeminate voice.

But then I pulled out my DVD for my next set of research, and this is how it is on the DVD. They so consume my life. I never had time for a proper haircut. I've never actually been to a baseball game. The fresh air gives me hives. Die, monster! Okay, okay, so that solves a mystery. Yeah, I wonder what happened because, you know, we know the story of how this works where someone will do a temp voice if they need one to do lip sync before the guest comes in and will match the track so it sounds like for whatever reason they got that version on Disney plus yeah I think they clearly had a temp track for some point of it and then they must have done what they often do of like well let's reach out to the famous person and I think they even say it on the commentary that Ken Burns is like addicted or he's a big Simpsons fan.

So even though this is very mean to him, he's like, yeah, I'll do whatever you want. And so he does the voice. It was so crazy seeing that on Disney Plus. I don't know how it happened, but they have the version with the temp voice, which I wonder how that happens. Like, is the version in the Disney vault the pre-air version? And did Ken Burns come in really late? I don't recall my memories of the first viewing of the except for one, which I'll talk about soon. But I don't remember what the voice was.

But maybe this was something that he came in and did the rerun. Maybe he came in to voice himself for the rerun, and they're going with the first track, but then he's in the credits, so I don't understand what's happening here. But it definitely was late. It almost sounds like Al Jean, I mean, he's still sharpening his axe about this,

which Al Jean's big problem is that it's too Yankee-focused. The baseball documentary, that's his major problem because when his Detroit Tigers tigers al jean's team when he was growing up won the world series when it gets to that in the baseball documentary he really only talks about how the yankees performed in their losing effort to the detroit tigers not who won that world series and you know i still have not seen any ken burns documentaries oh really yeah i've seen a few. They're not bad.

Well, one is, and I'll get to that. But no, I mean, the baseball one, I remember being fine. I liked his one on Anthony Johnson, the first African-American world boxing champion. I thought it was good. And his jazz one, I didn't see that one. His Civil War one, I remember being good too, though. That was a weird time. Let me just say, that was a weird time to be watching it growing up in the south i did not realize how much was

going on at that time with the people in atlanta watching it i think the thing is i saw so many parodies of the civil war documentary that i felt like i watched it but also it was never like that readily available to me these documentaries i know they aired on pbs and stuff but if they were like on streaming instantly somewhere for me i might have seen them by now but that's my excuse i mean when i was growing up as a kid in the south i look back on some moments of people talking about watching the civil war doc and there's like the episode where it's clear the south is about to lose and i now think back of like oh that teacher was mad about when the series continued for a reason i didn't understand that they were mad about the south losing it was the reverse of roots i guess is what i'm saying it was uh for some people but

on this episode correct yes yeah that's what i was thinking about okay they did have ken burns back for nedley is catch the episode where he ends up with Edna. Oh, damn. Yeah, he's back like three more times after this, which I had no idea he was a repeat cast. The Simpsons will be right back. Wondering where to go this vacation? Why not visit Springfield for the perfect weekend getaway with the Simpsons DVD collection.

Faster, Marge, faster! The snapping turtles are messing! You'll be hosted by some of the friendliest people in town. Oh, hello. Now what do you want? And don't worry, they all speak your language. While in town, check out the special DVD themed compilations featuring classic episodes. Rock and roll.

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Even if you've been here before, you'll fall in love all over again. Ha ha ha! Sucks. In Springfield, there's fun to enjoy. Again and again. And remember, don't return home without bringing back the entire collection

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slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Welcome to the break, everybody. I pray you are having a good time listening to this week's podcast. Me and Bob love doing it for you every week. And this week is no different, even when it's an episode we both think is kind of not so good but hey we're having a good time anyway and we can only have this good time and give you guys a good

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deeply and completely as we do an episode of the simpsons which often means talking for over four or five or even six hours about an animated feature film this month we're getting into the holiday spirit with the muppet christmas car, one of me and Bob's all-time favorites that gets us back into the Muppety world that may as well be animated. But the previous month, we covered a very different movie, 1986's Project Echo,

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Beavis and Butthead do the universe to Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse. A ton and ton, ton of great stuff we have on there. Five years worth of it, even 250 hours, including our longest podcast ever, six and a half hours, about who framed Roger Rabbit. You gotta, I am telling you, you gotta check it all out for yourself. So please head over to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons

to see everything you have been missing. A cartoon movies. Sign up today to see everything you've been missing. Visit patreon.com slash talking Simpsons now, now, now, now to see it all. Of course, if you want some, you know, balanced journalism on Ken Burns, you should listen to Citations Needed podcast, our pals. They have a couple good episodes about the Vietnam doc he did, which is mainly just war crime apologia for what America did in Vietnam.

Their perfect analogy is that basically Ken Burns is trying to argue murder down into manslaughter. It's like, well, it's an accident. You know, hey hey his haircut still sucks i looked it up 20 years later it's the same haircut and yeah he should get a proper haircut and did you know he was in the news recently for clarence thomas related thing oh no i didn't see this there was a new story on like there's too many to keep track of but there was a more recent story of clarence thomas being revealed to have gone on like another rich guy bribery trip or series of trips this time with David Koch and the first picture at the top of it is a picture of

Clarence Thomas Ken Burns and David Koch all together and Ken Burns had to release like a statement of like Clarence Thomas wanted a picture we were all the same rich guy summit but I'm not friends with him and I don't support what he's doing he was being gifted a golden statue of hitler i mean he doesn't like the guy the statue is to remind him about how he's bad what ken burns didn't say was like well of course i am friends with david coke like he funded my vietnam documentary great you know look hey ken burns does make some good documentaries but we're a fair and balanced podcast but yes the homer turns away from ken burns to i would suppose ken burns was okay with this joke because it is that like homer is such a low-class loser he'd hate ken burns maybe burns didn't think it was entirely at his expense yeah and homer wants

him to die so a guy like homer would not be into what ken burns his shtick is instead he's into monkey olympics like, boy, this is the monkey cheese era of comedy, is not? Yeah, I mean, especially, I mean, we just had monkey trauma award recently. And I mean, I'm glad it's off screen because it's a low class joke to go out on act one. I guess Homer's first, I guess his second successful prayer

is when the judges give the monkey figure skater a low score. He prays that the thrown diaper hits one of them in the face and it does. And in his schnoz too. At least Homer says a funny word like schnoz. He used the word schnoz, which I approve of. But no, I mean, monkeys throwing shit. I'm so tired of that joke. I mean, in fairness, even in the shorts, they did a monkey throw shit in Homer's face joke,

and you actually see it hit. I have to wonder if Matt Groening signed off on that. It seems like not his thing, but it was 1988. At least it was fresher and shocking to see on TV. But yeah, so they then go to commercial. When they come back, this feels like another of these moments where Al Jean remembers a joke they used to do. He's like, hey, remember when we did bed goes up bed goes down well yeah that and the singing of bringing in

the sheaves yes yeah it's both those things listen to just how much extra time they eke out of homer here in this repetition vengeful god loving god vengeful god loving god vengeful god loving god Loving God. Vengeful God. Loving God. Vengeful God. Loving God. Vengeful God. Loving God. I could do this all day, and I just might. Vengeful God. Loving God. Vengeful God. Loving God.

Setting up a prayer station, eh, Homer? You know, I used to think God only helped professional athletes and Grammy winners. But now I realize he helps schmoes like me, too, Carl. Makes sense to me. Oh, by the way, did you see the judging of the monkey figure skating? Who's banana you gotta peel to get a 5.9? Could not believe that.

I guess the joke there is you don't expect them to reference that weird act break joke, but Carl was there at home, upset about it. He's deeply invested in monkey Olympics, and specifically the figure skating and also i can appreciate a play on the whose dick you gotta suck line with whose banana you

gotta peel sure yeah i got away with something there and then homer ends up being correct about how colonel sanders is basically a jesus figure in heaven feeding god popcorn shrimp or chicken it's a popcorn chicken chicken yes well yes bob i looked a little into this popcorn chicken is technically is a kfc invention i mean not really but eugene gagliardi is the inventor he first invented steakums and then he invented popcorn chicken wow what a monster so you know So basically he was shopping it around. He's like, oh, what if we put a little batter on tiny pieces of chicken?

And KFC bought the idea. They first introduced it in 1992. In 2001, it became a regular menu item. So that is why Homer has it on the brain here. Okay. Yeah, I mean, while I still ate meat, I ate a ton of popcorn chicken, I feel, but it's basically making the nugget more cost effective in which a nugget meal is maybe let's say a 20 percent batter popcorn chicken is about like 65 percent batter

to meat ratio and it's lower quality small chunk of chicken than you even have to use for a mcnugget yeah you don't know what you're getting you can can bite into a McNugget and examine the meat quality. With popcorn chicken, it's all going in your mouth. Who knows what amount of gristle and beaks and toes are in that ball, that mystery ball. And, of course, I use the term invented in quotes because, guess what? Before 1992 in America, many places around the world had small bits of chicken that were battered and then fried.

It was hardly kfc that started it with popcorn they called it popcorn to give you the idea oh light and uh healthy it probably is more unhealthy than just a big like drumstick or whatever absolutely then homer accidentally well i'm pretty sure he kills two men in this don't you think in this car crash yeah but then he invents candied bacon so i guess their lives were not spent you know unnecessarily so this fudge bacon sort of exists as a buyable item in universal it's a mash-up of two later and by late i mean season 14 and 15 references so basically at universal you can buy farmer billy's choco bacon bar which my mom did buy for me when we first went and i mean it's fine it's like bacon jerky with chocolate on

it it's all right yeah i mean it's an easy equation you put chocolate on anything that's savory and it's perfect it works it always works no matter how weird it sounds so it is sort of this but also in the pie man episode in season 15 there's also farmer billy's bacon factory and so it takes farmer billy from that and then puts it together with the fudge bacon in this they couldn't get the johnny bench sponsorship for this you know farmer billy is funny and all but i preferred farmer bench no johnny bench the actual baseball celebrity then that's why it's not yet uh that's why it's not universal they'd have to pay that guy yeah i guess the joke is he did a lot of like odd sponsorships in the 80s johnny bench i know about johnny bench through scolar brothers

bit about him oh okay they are the jocks of old podcast comedy yeah i'm glad they changed the name of their podcast because it used to be called a sclarbro country like a pun on scarborough country the county or whatever that republican tv show the msnbc republican do we remember joe scarborough everybody i think he's still on tv i think okay but i would tell people about the sclar brothers podcast which might still be running and they'll be like oh you listen to that and i would have to say no it's like comedians making fun of another podcast name but or if it's still running it was called dumb people town afterwards i suppose that's better you know it's a very mid aughts late aughts choice in podcasting of being too clever with your podcast title it's one we tried to stay away from when we named this yeah we had a lot of proposed names for this that did not indicate what it was.

So we wanted to go for the most easy to recognize name. So after that prayer works and Homer getting free choco bacon or fudge bacon, then he is praying for Bart's help, which Bart is reading about the shorebirds of Maryland, which is a good weird thing. And I also like, Bart's kind of like angry look at Homer. It's a funny drawing.. And I also like, Bart's kind of like angry look at Homer. It's a funny drawing. I chuckled at that.

Then Homer's trying to unstick the sink, which I just recently did this. I bought a brand new plunger and I didn't even need to pray. I just cha-chunk. It only took like one pump and it unstuck my sink. What was the culprit? I had some burnt up stuff in a pan that I was like, oh, the garbage disposal can take this. The garbage disposal could not take that. hey it's all good now it's almost a it's all good i'm proud to report that dumb people town is currently available wherever fine podcasts are sold or got for free good for them i wonder have they started a patreon yet or are they still in the

ad sales world well they're not on earwolf anymore but i don't know what is i mean earwolf technically still has i think it's just how did this get made now i think that's the one show they still have because definitely even conan conan really used them as a stepping stone he's like he signed like a two-year deal with earwolf and then after he learned everything he could and could hire away as many people as he wanted. He's like, well, see you later. I mean, hey, smart on him. So then Homer prays, and I like when Marge does the call for him. He calls her an imperfect vessel. Yeah. He's like, I'll just call a plumber.

And he says, thank you for working through this imperfect vessel known as Marge. I guess this episode was really hard for me to get through because a lot of new things weren't happening. And it feels like from this point onwards from act the end of act one onwards it's just like homer he prays for something and he gets it and regardless of any supernatural intervention it just happens and it just like over and over and over again it just feels like so meandering well and he forgets why he's praying for stuff to get it even and i mean yeah a ton of it does not make sense also like it doesn't give him like new vision on what his religion means to him or anything it's just it's

homer learns no lesson he basically even at the end of the episode that's the joke he goes like yeah i actually didn't learn a lesson other than to fear god like no no other lesson was learned which is the end of homer the heretic but then he's told to like no no it's not just that listen more homer then when the guy comes to check it this is when he says there's tons of roots in there which more roots than a top rated tv list which it still is one of the highest rated tv shows of all time is in half of all people in america with televisions when the finale aired of the miniseries watched it yeah i was looking at the list of the top rated tv programs of all time in terms of nielsen ratings and if you discount sports roots part eight i believe the last part

of roots is tied for second of all time with 100 million viewers and the thing it's tied with is a 1983 movie called the day after but of course number one is the finale of mash the day after was a big deal because i've heard scott ackerman on podcasts talk about how people you know viewed it as like oh yeah this is how the end of the world's really going to happen it was a movie that was about leading to the post-apocalypse i think it also had oh everybody's getting a barcode wait the barcode comes up six six six yeah i'm looking like where i can even stream this online and weirdly i mean it's available to rent places i think actually it might be on youtube for free i'm looking this up now just see like how do i watch i'm seeing it now it's legally uploaded just to watch for free which is the best

way to watch it what i mean roots uh i think the book is still like one of the most beloved books i feel like the the miniseries is not talked about as much these days i mean i feel like references to roots are sometimes used for offensive jokes perhaps like no it's a roots reference not to go too long about roots but i'm watching next generation with my wife nina because we're listening to the we hate moviesies podcast about Star Trek. And it's weird to think that on the show The Next Generation, LeVar Burton is by far the biggest star. More people have seen him than have seen Patrick Stewart or Marina Sirtis or Jonathan Frakes or any of those people. He's such a big deal.

And then he was Mr. Reading Rainbow to us. I didn't even see Roots until much later in life. I have never roots but i i assume it's good yeah it's good i mean obviously you know i would figure americans should still be reading and watching roots to understand a lot more about you know a racist past and present that will i mean it's like america's original sin we can never really move past it well in certain states i'm sure that's impossible because those events simply never happened isn't it crazy now well i mean i feel like these type of movements were in response to stuff like roots but to know that roots was like such a huge event on television and then meanwhile today that you can't read roots

in some schools like it's a banned book. Yeah, I mean, given, I like to think America has gotten less racist, but I'm still kind of shocked that, given what our country is, that so many people watched that program. And also, like with Roots, it's crazy you don't hear about it. I feel like now in the post-Peak TV era, as in, first we had Peak TV, now I feel like we're in post-Peak TV, where it just feels like there's 8 million TV shows and none of them are important. But either way, on lists of greatest TV shows ever or even greatest TV events ever, I feel like you don't see Roots like you used to in it. Yeah, I think it has slipped off the top 50 at least.

You know, the only other times I hear about Roots is how O.J. Simpson is in it, which was a big deal at the time. Okay, this is news to me i just know about his role as i believe nordberg oh yes yeah we both know him much better for nor like later just a few years after we were introduced to nordberg we're like wait he was a football player and he might have killed someone god we're going on a long time about this but when i watched the original police squad i was shocked to learn that nordberg is the very tall man who you never see his face and he's just like dropping food on everyone from above right right they really did man the woke police made him instead of black guy

and then they pushed him down the stairs a bunch but yes we also see the reveal that maggie is choking on drywall dust which okay yeah there's some weird gags in here I mean it's funny how Homer's like you know I'm glad social services didn't see that aren't I like doing baby talk but Washington crossing the Delaware on the wall it just seems like just so random I thought it was going to be like oh it's the last supper is going to be revealed or something but it seems like no it's just another painting it should be religious or something ominous about the direction Homer is going yeaher should view it as a religious sign also this episode kind of forgets like so wait the simpsons how destroyed is the simpsons home you know like i

feel like we need one extra thing to be like oh our house is uninhabitable you know but instead they head to the church this is where you know the sign at the nativity scene is fun at all like it's like you know it's a parody of real things but it reminds me of the back to the future sign of like your future home in hill valley when he goes back in time they even have a guy with a fedora and a suitcase walking away from it looking back and smiling like he lives there which i think was a nice little gag yeah like he lives in the nativity scene but like you said bob this is the church's fault they have a giant hole in the ground without safety stuff around it a person will fall in it and it's their fault and even if

it's maybe 18 inches deep if you're not looking you could like break a foot or an ankle or a leg or a wrist or something. It is dangerous. This is such an early 90s complaint about slip and fall people. At least, well, all right. Well, here, let's see the introduction of a character that could have been recurring, but based on the Simpsons wiki, is not recurring. Dad, are you hurt? I think my leg is broken.

Slip and fall? Can't go back to work? I'm Larry H. Lawyer Jr., and I will fight for you. I also habla leg is broken. Slip and fall? Can't go back to work? I'm Larry H. Lawyer, Jr., and I will fight for you. I also habla espanol. So that's your answer. I'll sue the church. Homer, we can't sue the church. They'll poke fun at us in the church bulletin. It wouldn't be the first time.

I couldn't help it. Those pews are so comfortable. You have rights. You deserve financial compensation. He got me $60,000, and I was driving drunk in a graveyard. Now, you're my first client who actually is injured. According to this book, that's a big plus. Homer, please

don't sue the church. I'm asking you as your friend and neighbor. Can I borrow your pen to sign this deposition? Oakley doakley. Why do I always give in to him it's his skull it's hypnotic i laugh that's just a weird line yeah larry h lawyer jr it doesn't work for me because the name is a shrug and that's supposed to be funny but i thought you know give him a funny name and also he's about 93 carl his voice it didn't hit me until listening to it just now like no that's just carl but i mean they can't do lionel hutz that's the be all end all of it so

they had gil be their lawyer many times but this time they're like all right let's make up a new lawyer who i guess this guy is like lionel hutz was an 80s crooked lawyer. This is an aughts crooked lawyer who, you know, says, I will fight for you. Or, you know, and also I speak Spanish. He's kind of like Saul Goodman a bit. I mean, before they conceived of Saul Goodman. But I do think the funnier joke, I think it's funnier than the character is how Dr. Nick is there to give the testimonial that you would see in the commercial. He just appears. that's good but also the guy admits like oh you're actually hurt so this is a big bonus for us on this but it seemed like larry h lawyer could have returned in more episodes but he never did apparently was in a comic book but that's it i assume that like whenever they have

a lawyer now it's just gill or something like that uh it's also uncomfortably funny on the commentary when they're talking about all of this suing churches thing and i believe they recorded the commentary not long after the stuff that was the basis of the movie spotlight came out yeah i mean the show is really wishy-washy about you know whether or not it sides with a religion i guess it's who's in charge of writing it who has oversight i don't think they're saying you know we are a religious show but i think they also want you to think like homer's suing the church he's gone too far in my opinion it's like no hey church pay your fucking taxes i don't care who sues you you just get free money all the time it doesn't matter to me i don't care about this i don't care about homer hanging out in the church

and drinking from a keg in the church and stuff. Just like, yeah, it's a building that serves no real function and doesn't give anything back to, like, you know, if you sell a product that doesn't really work, you still have to pay taxes. But you don't even have to have a product. Or I guess your product is praying together on television. Yeah, yeah. Just tax all these people. That's all there is to it. I agree. I like that Selman chuckles it off.

But the joke about how, you know oh we're not a synagogue you know obviously now i'd want that joke to be we're not the catholic church which has endless deep pockets for lawsuits all the time it's slightly lovejoy being anti-semitic which i do like how they when selman is mockingly mad at the anti-semitism of it then they go like no it's a compliment and he's like oh okay well also speaking of things that feel like anti-populist they also set up that like oh homer would only win if there was a jury of idiots on there affronted by cleatus like only they would give him money for it's like no homer really does deserve the money he got injured

yeah and he's suing a church so i don't care in the first place but yes this is when the jury finds in his favor even after watching the video which again it's like they did that joke in the credit crossover of homer saying give that man ten thousand dollars though i guess now america's funny some videos are still on at this point right yeah bob saget was not the hose i think it was like john fugel saying or something like that right when it became afv we know about it because multiple mst3k guys went to yeah well trace and frank i think yeah i think just yeah frank and so instead they decide they're going to give homer the church instead because they don't have a million dollars which like i mean that church come on like lovejoy is not just running the church by himself.

There's money in the church for a million dollars from the Episcopal church. Or I guess the Presbylutherans don't have a lot of money. There's got to be. They have to have some sort of bishop figure or cardinal figure that is like the boss of the boss that could bail him out or something. Some church elder has been saving up. See, like we said about more scathing episodes in bart sells his soul just that joke of like but why would they lie what do they have to gain and then the cut to the money being yeah i mean i think merkin was hardcore atheist so he had a lot more cutting

jokes about religion i think there's still like a lot of catholic guilt in aljean even though he doesn't like church and he thinks religion is wacky and this commentary really brought me back because this is probably like 2010 this commentary and it's when you could say wow that ricky gervais is so insightful it really was a different time right right god you you are bringing me back now but they're mentioning like yeah ricky gervais makes this joke about like, why do you actually thank God after the football game or whatever? Just all like surface level things you think of in eighth grade. So then after that, they move into the church and this is where Lovejoy moves out. Look, this church is our only option.

Don't you kids want to live here? Anything's better than that dump we came from. And there's so many places to cloister myself. The dog's on board, too. Aw, he thinks he's painful. Well, the court has spoken, so here you go. The baptismal font tends to run. You have to jiggle the handle.

Oh, and Wednesday is garbage day. Sweet. I'm so sorry, Reverend.end oh it's not so bad we'll be staying with the flanders and rev you'll be bunking with me oh boy what you know why is ned wanting a married man to sleep in his bed instead of with his wife yeah i guess there's just some loneliness he needs some human warmth in the bed after so many years of being without maude but also i mean the love joys don't live in the church they have their own separate home we've seen him multiple times this is leaving them homeless for some reason that is true yeah they don't live in the church i think they're also forgetting what religion this denomination is because yeah they don't live

in the church and also later in the episode homer is wearing like priest robes like catholic priest robes actually the dog comes out in them and they've got the communion cup as well i'm not sure what's what what that's doing in the presbylutheran church again i don't know much about religion but i thought getting away from communion was the whole point of non-catholic christian churches right? Well, there's a lot involved in Protestantism, but this communion cup too, I noticed, they use it a lot and it's like diminishing returns on the gags. And I think it's supposed to be shocking, like,

oh my God, can you believe they're doing this to the communion cup? It's supposed to be full of wine and old people spit, but it's on the dog's head. Homer later has it as a cocktail glass. Homer's filling it with beer. There's like five gags involving this thing thing i think they just ran out of religious props or s&p was like okay homer can play the crucifix like a guitar for this one scene and that's it also like he thinks he's papal like that is you know it's the turn on the old oh he thinks he's people about a dog but

it's a clever pun i'll give it that also i feel like this episode halfway forgets that lisa is officially a buddhist now because i mean later she will bring up buddha but this point when she says like actually i think this is the work of satan which is when homer says it's all good like she shouldn't believe in satan like she's a buddhist now well she's interesting in cloistering herself is it just because now they have access to the church that they're going to do this like i wonder but it was very nice to hear that maggie roswell was brought back for that lovejoy line she's back to being hell and lovejoy yeah yeah she's finally back for production season 14 i think there was like one

wonky lovejoy recently but now she's returned to the role yeah i think they tested it out with the treehouse that started this season and now they're like okay she can skype in in 2003 we'll stop being dicks about this okay here's another issue i have in this episode when homer's dancing in the church aljean says that like the censors were mad at it and i'm like maybe they were but that's the exact story mike scully told about the scene in home mega man Man in Treehouse 8, that Homer dancing naked in the church had the censors. Oh, yeah. I forgot Homemega Man did all the sacrilegious stuff. And it was, yeah, Homer dancing to, like, dad rock in the church, right?

Yeah, and better dad rock than kiss, I'd say. And then, well, and also, like, and he he's naked in it so it even is the like the notched up version of it too it's more sacrilegious that yeah he's got like a cartoon boxers on in this one right yeah honestly they're too cartoonish these boxers like this is more cartoonish than they normally are in designing homer wearing boxer maybe that was the concession now i can tell this story it's been 21 years it's about a relationship I was in that's now old enough to drink. So this was the first girlfriend I had outside of high school. We were very young and living together. I guess I was 21 at this point and she had just turned 20.

And part of our regular Sunday night activities involved watching The Simpsons because, of course, I carried that with me from the very beginning of the show. And I wasn't going to stop even though I just got mad at the show after I watched it. And one thing I learned about her after she broke up with me is that she was religious. And that's one of the reasons she could not pursue a relationship. The other reason is she wanted to have kids. And I was like, well, you're 20 and I'm 21. So no, I think that's another reason. I'm not sure what she's doing now. She's probably very happy. We were very young. But when we watched this episode episode this was too far for her she was very offended by this and i was like oh this is not going to last long i was tugging my collar much like when the meteor is approaching in springfield kind of thing or like love joy in this even in this episode too yes so hey this offended somebody

directly in front of me while i was watching it so congratsats, Aljean. I thought it was very tame. There was no Christ on that cross, so it could have been a lot more offensive. I'm sure Peter Griffin would be like coming in the holy water and putting the cross up his ass and like humping the pulpit and stuff four years later. Yes. Yes. No, I would think so. I mean, it's funny to think that this joke, even at this point, there have been much more sacrilegious things on the show. But boy, I guess that's a good early out or red flag in your relationship of like, is wearing some pedophiles robes you know not a big deal yeah i'm not putting anything on lovejoy but lovejoy is not a priest but these are priest vestments you know what it can do far less damage if you take it out

of their hands and put it in homers yeah and i think they're even joking on the like you said henry it's like well yeah churches are getting sued now for good reason it's like we're not on the side of the church it just just feels like, I guess, to watching the rest of this episode is just the shock value of seeing these religious things used non-religiously, but it's just so boring to me. And I mean, there are many non-Catholic Christian churches that also cover for horrific crimes done to children.

Like, it's not just, I don't want to just single out the Catholics, but it's just insane to me the Catholic church still gets to exist. It's like, its first job is to cover for sex criminals. Like, that's its main job. I'm in Canada now, and there's a whole lot of things happening with the Catholic Church here based on some things that were dug up.

Oh, yes. Let's say children's bodies. Ooh, boy. It really sucks. Like you've said a million times, Henry, they should not exist anymore. It's insane. But also insane that this scene ends with a literal record scratch. Like, oh, come on.

That's too corny, guys. Yeah, yeah. They're not top of their game with this story. Also, this song, it's weird in my head because I don't think of the real version of this song. I think about how this song is used in one of your favorite movies, Bob. Moulin Rouge. Oh, great. Yes.

That movie is just like, do you want a migraine? Here's five minutes. Hey, I enjoyed that migraine quite a lot. Have you seen it lately? It's been a few years that I've watched the entire thing in one sitting. Yes. Yeah. Check back in and then let me know how that feels.

Well, you know what another thing that religion is good for is housing aa meetings and this is where i'm gonna be keeping a watch on this if this is our last time seeing sober barney because this is them throwing him out of aa i guess sideshow mel is also an alcoholics anonymous i guess well i know sorry sober barney disappears and i'm spelling as fast I Can, and I think that's coming up very soon. That's the second to next episode. Yeah, Barting Over is the next one, yeah. But yes, Barney gets thrown out of AA. If it weren't for Alcoholics

Anonymous, I'd still be sucking the juice out of glow sticks. Oh, yeah. I'm so sorry for all your horrible problems, but this is our dog's room now. Wherever shall we go? You can come to my church.

And what church might that be? St. Paulie Girls Cathedral. Okay, let's go there. Homer, that was not very Christian of you. You're right, Marge. I'll make it up to them by throwing the bitch in this beer bash this church has ever seen. Yeah, I guess they want you to be like Ned in the next scene of being like insulted and like, oh, this is so horrible. A party at the church.

But my opinion is like they're using it to have fun. I don't care. Now, I mean, less damage is being done to society with this current activity. It is cruel to throw out the AA meeting because it's the dog room. That's not nice. And I feel like that Moe is always waiting behind the door at that AA meeting. He does that every week. Moe is just hiding behind every corner in this episode, I feel.

Waiting to give another line. Yeah, you're right. I do believe this is the end of Sober Barney. He hits a real low later in this very episode. Then we cut to Barney's bull-a-rama, which I always like seeing that, but I don't know. Like, look, he's trying to preach during the bowling. It's okay. It's all right.

Yeah, it feels like it needs to be elevated. It doesn't feel Simpsons-y enough. It's just like a ball runs over Lovejoy's foot, and I guess Krusty is the one who threw it. It has to be more extreme or more clever than something that would just actually happen. Yeah, it just feels like what a regular sitcom would do. It doesn't feel like another step up. I mean, I like Dr. Hibbert laughing at getting a cute kitty, or Krusty calling him a padre because he doesn't know Christian religion at all. Yeah. And I guess like one shout out goes to the very boring name Best Way Linen Supply because they're doing this impromptu church at league night. That's good. I do like that. And so then Lovejoy gives up. He's going to move out of town.

I also feel like, I don't know know why don't we follow lovejoy on this why does lovejoy just get to magically reappear later in the episode this should be his story at this point we need to find out his helicopter flying lessons where those factored in yeah instead again this is a worse version of that episode with marge is the listen oh yeah in march we trust yeah and not to skip ahead too far, but it's just so weird. We have this like, you know, the church being misused in quotes for this kegger and then Ned losing his faith and then just like a serious emotional act break. Yeah. I mean, I do like how I'll give credit to Shearer, I think, doing fine with Ned being like, why do you lie? Like his crying is is nice but otherwise it's kind of weak yeah and we've seen his faith tested before and i don't really buy this testing his faith though in the next scene is when he sees that the party is breaking every commandment when it comes back kent and

arnie pie i do like anytime they remember that arnie pie hates kent brockman i like that he's coming back in a big way my only gripe is that, you know, we're doing this podcast. We have the right to gripe about this, is that Kent says, let's go to Arnie Pie in the sky, where it should be. Let's go to Arnie Pie with Arnie in the sky. So he gets close to actually making the pun that the title of his segment is intentionally avoiding, which annoys me. I agree. You're right. They got distracted from the joke that his entire existence is built around that's true this is where he gets called out his soul is black as the ace of spades then we also get the return of the technical difficulties joke yeah this one's fine it's just the condor flying into a broadcasting tower i like the ones that imply the cameraman is drunk or you know a puppy

has pulled the cord on the camera i like those a lot more than this or the kent brockman has gone insane but though this technical difficulty sign does give me a reason to play a sound effect i haven't played in a little bit everybody hates birds right i think specifically it is a california condor so it. So it's killing an endangered species as well then. So yes, then they throw back to Moe and he comes to the party and I feel like he forgot to do his Johnny Carson intonation. Is he saying, would you believe? Yeah, yeah. Is that Don Adams?

No, you're right. It's not. It's not Carson. Would you believe blank or whatever? Yeah. Yeah, you're right. He should be saying it like Maxwell Smart. That's right. Yeah, it feels like Moe. Like, I don't know. I guess a pigeon stuffed with spam is conceivably a meal because people do eat squab. People eat meat stuffed with other meat. But rats not generally eaten and cough drops are not considered a good stuffing for meat. That's an extra low, yes.

But this is when Ned decides that he's going to have to pray with his children alone. Am I sending these people home? This housewarming party's been going on for two days. Hey, hey, you can't throw us out. I just made a Cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops? They've broken every commandment except one.

Hey, Letty, covered some more chili fries? You bet! That's it. The whole shebang. Lord, this town may have turned its back on you, but not the Flanders. Wherever we are, you'll have your church. Are you with me, boys? Speaking in tongues. What great kids. Did you capture this from Disney Plus, this section?

Yes, yeah. Okay, got it. Because for some reason, it might be my speaker setup, but Lenny didn't say you bet. It was in the captions, but he didn't say it. So it could just be my end. I always think Nancy Cartwright does a great job at speaking in tongues. Whenever she's asked to, she does that. Hayden's fine there, but Nancy does it best.

Yeah, Nancy really blows her out of the water. You know, Pamela Hayden's great at lots of things, but the speaking in tongues, Nancy's got her beat. All this commandment comedy, again, it feels like a worse version of the stealing cable episode, I have to say. And then you immediately come back for more Moe. It's like, Moe joke.

Back to Flanders. How about another Moe joke? What's Homer doing? I don't know. Moe's funnier. What if Moe sexually harassed Barney? What if that like which I guess it's a reversal of in season four we are deep into Barney hitting on Moe and for

a little while they would like that Barney wanted to have sex with Moe I guess it was just an easy go-to in the mid 90s like what if this character was suddenly gay but Barney going yoo-hoo to mo is not as gross to me as mo watching barney undressing him saying slowly make me forget my troubles i'm like oh well things didn't work out with swish so barney is available jesus that's very dark also too like what happens with you're seeing it in the background but they barely talk about it until the very end they're cutting down a forest next door and burning it all the time like i mean you can see willie has not cut down trees and is putting wood in the bonfire but it is not clear for the line that comes later when lita mentions that i was thinking this just a statement about springfield

in general or was this party doing something that was the closest I could recognize it to the party doing something but really I think it just was like no they just decided I mean again South Park this is wannabe South Park like South Park would say like oh these three things happened that caused a you know impossible weather event and maybe it was God but they're not doing even the shoe leather that a south park episode would do to set that up here's another clip i do like that not all of the false idol comedy but just this realization from carl here full house jack's over twos read him in strip bond slowly make me forget my troubles. Oh, I hate this game.

Look at all this. The great food, the party, the sunshine. It's hard to believe one god came up with all this. Well, there's probably a lot of gods. Yeah, and some of them's gotta be chicks. Yeah, with like a thousand boobs. Hoo-hoo! That's the god I'm gonna worship.

Well, there's only one god for me. Your dad's old hunting trophy. Ondesha, Ondesha. Man, I must be wasted. Very weird but funny. I feel like Apu should be on hand to talk about how sometimes there are multiple gods.

Yeah, you know what? That would make a better multicultural episode or at the very least like that was one of their smartest moves in homer the heretic that they credited to james l brooks he's like no it should be multiple religions save homer's life it shouldn't just be christians and say like oh christianity is the one true faith but here when they're describing how there could be many different gods and not just one marge is looking on in horror of like no yes and i think we're supposed to think like oh they've gone too far as like the good semi-christians watching this at home i feel like we're supposed to be on marge's side where it's like yeah some people are polytheistic and actually i don't care

yes yeah let him worship lenny's dad's old hunting trophy. And maybe eating a bunch of food in front of a fire is good, though probably they're getting salmonella from that half-cooked meat they're chopping on there. Sure. Trichinosis, you name it. But yeah, this is where you can see the trees being cut down in the background, and then the sky starts to fill up with clouds, which again, this feels like a treehouse, you know? Like, this is just too big a turn. When the flooding starts, was thinking like where is this going is this going to be like the end of simpson bible stories where they go to hell but like i forgot the ending of this but it's very abrupt homer starting a fire in his home through bad actions like that's very believable now the way the house is fine the next week that

isn't believable but that's a believable problem that could happen however a giant flood happening in basically two hours in springfield that destroys everything by the way did i would guess everybody got a big fema grant at the end of this episode yeah this is before hurricane katrina so we didn't know how unreliable that service was this is when the clouds start forming. And here's the thing I do like in religion or in talk about religion in this episode, where Homer's like, ah, God's all good. And then Marge is like, see, I don't know that he is. Like Marge is pointing out that like, hey, you know what? If you actually believe the Bible, this guy's mean. Yeah. I mean, Homer even came to that understanding. And I think Iried Marge where he's like, oh God, he's always happy.

Oh, no, wait, he's always mad. And in this case, the rain ramps up so fast, Homer gets zapped by lightning, but he's fine in the next scene, of course, breathing comfortably, as you would say. I do like as there, as the problems are happening, that's when I believe it's Rod says, let every evil lung fill. He's gleefully looking forward to the deaths of these sinners. Finally, the sinners are going to take it.

This is where they drive away with the ark full of only male animals who then are doing gay stuff, which four months earlier in air date and probably written a year before that is Futurama's Crimes of the Hot. Yeah. There are some parts of the bible I like and others I don't. Yeah Randy has only male animals on his ark for a different reason than Ned does. I didn't check that the other day but I immediately thought of that better joke. I mean I do like Ned like hey cut that out like but they're up to biblical flooding you know it's just like all right I get it it's noah

but they're not even going all the way with it though then again maybe al jean just loves flooding springfield because he did the exact thing in mom and pop art oh you're absolutely right i'm looking at my notes they think they're getting a lot of mileage out of homer like being very reverent like oh lord show us me the way you know like speaking in these very reverent tones but again it's the same thing over and over and it just gets very boring. Well, this is where Homer's prayers are not working at all. Oh, wet and wonderful God, your flood has driven us to the roof of your church. Surely this has proven whatever point you had.

Oh, God's ignoring me. Dad, maybe you should stop praying praying see if that makes it happy this heretic has doomed us all yeah i say we skin him alive and set him on fire yeah that'll appease god peace who now let's get biblical yes let's get biblical is that like could be like a reference to like let's get medieval or something or that's what i figured yeah yeah i figured that but i mean appease who now that's okay and i did chuckle at bart saying how about you stop praying and see if that helps and he calls it god it's like see if that makes it happy oh yes it's good we're all about to kill homer and this is when love joy returns for no reason and then his prayers just

work and this should have just been like you said bob the simpsons bible stories just have it be like okay this ending makes no sense and this ending will make it clear that this is not a real episode i also think that there's like a weird timing issue on this joke uh and it's not even a strong joke but i feel like the spotlight is supposed to hit homer they're supposed to be maybe like a few seconds for you to wonder like oh is god speaking to homer is a light from the heavens hitting him and then you see the helicopters there you see the light and then less than a second later you hear the helicopter you pan up to see it i feel like there was some miscommunication there or there was some mistimed gag there you know the execution of god

pre-jones like that works so much better yeah well so there's a little deleted scene here before the ending which i think i don't know i actually chuckled at this more than the ending we got so basically homer says in the deleted ending from now on he'll only pray for the common good out of fear for God and then they cut to Ned driving on the ark and he's complaining that the animals are eating each other and then he says Todd where's Roddy that would have been the original ending

hey I kind of like that more I prefer it to just the wackiness of cutting to I think Al Jean likes cutting to God too much I think he likes ending episodes with god and get ready for las vegas style action at bet mgm the king of online casinos enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same vegas strip excitement mgm is famous for when you play classics like mgm grand millions or popular games like blackjack baccarat and roulette

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EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier and your world brighter find our net zero hope at electricireland.ie this is exactly how homer the heretic ends as well with an appearance by god speaking yeah and uh i guess buddha is there as well this is where lisa tries her best to explain how this ending is at all possible let us pray dear lord please spare this sinful town they were misled by a demon in blue pants i guess i learned something here god is capable of great anger and great mercy, but mostly great anger. There are perfectly logical explanations for everything that happened. The bonfire sent soot into the air, which created rain.

And with all the trees cut down, a flood was inevitable. Yeah, but what made the rain stop? Oh, Buddha. Hey, they've suffered enough keep that popcorn chicken coming colonel not bad i think it's about time for you to tell me what's in those spices yeah i wrote grown in my notes because it's like a joke about the secret herbs and spices in 2003 I guess written in 2002 still doesn't really work for me and then when did you learn something Homer and he says yes God is capable of great anger and great mercy but mostly great anger and I'm thinking of the ending of Homer the heretic where he says the same thing and then

he's correct and like well Homer you see God helps you through, you know, your friends, be they Christian, Jewish or other or whatever the line is. And then miscellaneous. Yeah. Miscellaneous. There you go. Which is a better ending, which is like more meaningful in a discussion about religion and whatnot. But here it's like, what if heaven was wacky town?

And that's what we went out on. Yeah. They're like, oh, you're supposed to be shocked. They're like, hey, God and Buddha are in heaven together. Buddha is the one telling God to give it a break. And yeah, the 11 herbs and spices thing, which, by the way, I looked it up in 2016. I'm not going to list them all for you. But in 2016, somebody discovered what is likely the 11 herbs and spices. And it's mostly like salt and pepper and flour. I assume it would just be like one chemical solution that they just sprayed on the chicken at this point. At this point, sure, yeah. But I believe it was that somebody took a picture of like Sanders family recipe and it was right there on the page and nobody noticed it when it went out publicly.

So look up the recipe for yourself. I don't know. I'd have preferred to see the ending where Rod gets eaten by a lion or something instead of uh instead of buddha and god and colonel sanders all hanging out in heaven and hey this is our thanksgiving episode i guess it's like spanning the thanksgiving holiday so don't eat popcorn chicken for thanksgiving maybe you can make your own popcorn turkey try that at home oh that sounds tasty man i just bought my frozen turkey breast i'm gonna be cooking up for thanksgiving i was gonna visit my mom but she's going to the beach yeah that's not a thanksgiving locale she can enjoy

her retirement however she wants she's you know i skip canadian thanksgiving i could potentially have two thanksgivings here if i want to but i choose not to for my own health as a boorish american you're gonna force american thanks Thanksgiving on Canadians, though, right? Of course, of course. I'm making it my mission to change the day because early October Thanksgiving, I don't think so. I like the nice slide from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Just my mood improves, things get better. Thanksgiving really signals the holidays are here and it's time to have fun for about five weeks.

Also, in the early October, it's like the air isn't crisp enough yet especially with climate change it doesn't feel like fall has fallen yet yeah there are still summery days but i guess we're getting off topic because we don't want to talk about this episode that's not very good we just enjoyed the dad who knew too little not too long ago and to some extent i mean the strong arms of the moss seems like a very funny episode compared to this this is just i won't even say it's aggressively bad it just is so tepid that i had problems just like doing my normal notes because it just was the same kind of gags over and over a few standout lines a few desperate mo lines but like you said henry i think this is the low the low light of the season so far yeah it is to me too i feel like even the

animation is kind of they're doing their best but yeah this needed another rewrite that's for sure like these young guys and by young i mean probably like 28 at the time 29 i'm guessing like 35 but it could have used another rewrite and i just don't feel like they this shows you where the difference between having george meyer on the staff merkin on staff i feel like they have stronger things to say about religion than al jean does no offense to jean aljean is still a little afraid of god too much of a believer that's the problem he needs plausible deniability in case any of these episodes are shown while he's at the pearly gates and he needs to back himself up right well it wasn't too mean i agree uh the weakest episode so far this season we shall see if i stand by that I really thought Strong Arms of the Maw was going to be my lowest one this season but nope

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but you can also access one mega long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level or higher. And what is that, Henry? Bob's talking about what a cartoon movie podcast we talk about an animated feature film super in depth just like a crappy episode of the simpsons but this month it's not animated so much it's the return to our pals the muppets to start the holidays right with the muppet christmas carol The Muppet Christmas Carol. And last month we covered the classic 1986 anime film Project Echo. We have passed five whole years of What a Cartoon movies. We have over 200 hours of exclusive podcasts for $10 and up subscribers there. And you get all the $5 things Bob just mentioned.

We've covered everything from Akira to a goofy movie, Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse to Beavis and Butthead to the universe. Please check it all out for yourself at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and i've been one of your hosts bob mackie you can find me on twitter as bob servo and my other podcast by the way is called retronauts that's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games you can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts and sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month and i have a new book out by the way if there is a gamer in your life who demands a

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Yes, I am. Oh, you coughed up some drywall.