Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Radio Bart

Episode Date: June 15, 2016

Bart turns 10 for the first time, and gets a couple crummy birthday gifts that he then uses to turn Springfield upside-down in a media circuit with this week’s podcast…

Ahoy, ahoy everybody and welcome to Talking Simpsons. This is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of the Simpsons. I am your host as always, Bob Mackie. Who else is here with me today? I'm little Timmy O'Toole and I fell down a well. No, I'm just kidding everybody. I pranked you. It's Henry Gilbert.

Oh, man, you got me there. Funky C, Chris Antista. Awesome. And today's episode is Radio Bart, a great one. It aired on January 9th, 1992. Chris, what happened on this epic day in history? Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby.

Hope everybody had a merry merry because rap music has finally gained enough of an audience to get its first reported arena show at Madison Squarein square gardens apple debuts a little program called quick time nintendo announces a price cut and a new advanced cd accessory for next year and jeffrey dahmer pleads guilty for his role in the murder and corpse sex of at least 15 boys finally brought to justice whoa wow what an eventful weekend i wanted to rattle that off and if you if it wasn't i've totally deviated from the original concept of the news sting. Because that was supposed to be the way Homer describes decades when he goes in the flashbacks. You mean like the most unimportant and innocuous things that happened?

Yes. We're actually saying important things. Who could forget? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I've totally lost that and gone into just cheesy newscaster. And I wanted to make that quick because the rap music thing is especially awesome.

Rap music finally has an arena show at Madison Square Gardens. I bet that made a lot of white people nervous. It had to, but then if you looked at the acts. The acts, because one, it wasn't just one act. Was it Cool Moe D. Simpson? No. No. It was Ghetto Boys.

Oh, not bad. Queen Latifah, Naughty by Nature, Kid and Play, Public Enemy, Fresh Prince, and DJ Jazzy Jeff. So pretty much everybody who could show up did. It's pretty much a super group. And that's how they got it. That arena show now would cost a Gen Xer, I think, within like $400. You'd have to see it in Vegas for sure. Or in a giant field where a million people could show up.

My question is, who is the bigger monster, Jeffrey Dahmer or QuickTime? At least one of them's dead. Yes. Hey, I love... Yeah, you're right, Chris. I loved watching QuickTime videos of anime openings all through the 90s. And really bad Simpsons clips on Geocities pages. Beautiful.

Thank you, QuickTime. Yeah, I probably hate QuickTime more because Jeffrey Dahmer, to this day, does not send me a notification to check in on him every couple of weeks. Do you want to update my jail sentence? You want to update this thing you never used? So today's episode is totally based around a product from the late 70s. And I hope you guys will at least watch the commercial which is kind of replicated identically in at least one part of it on the Simpsons

episode. It's Mr. Microphone. I'm actually surprised by how fast this episode starts whereas the Simpsons usually has a meandering half of a first act.

Like it's just Lisa's watching what looks to me like the grind but I guess that's two years off or something. It's a parody of

Soul Train it seems like. Because Don Cornelius comes out. Oh yeah. Sorry. That's very righteous. Funky C, Funky D will Don Cornelius comes out. Oh, yeah. Sorry. That's very righteous. Funky C, Funky D will be back to lip-sync another one of their hits right

after this. Hey, kid, why sit in front of the TV when you can be on the radio? We're gonna roll this truck in convoy across the USA convoy. That could be Bart.

Throw away your bulky transmitters and broadcasting towers. The superstar celebrity microphone lets you hear your voice through any AM radio. Hey, good looking. We'll be back to pick you up later. He's in for some lovin'. It's the perfect gift for birthdays, graduations, board meetings. You're fired. Bart's birthday's coming up. But order now.

Supply is limited. Limited! We saw this behavior a few episodes ago. Yeah. So this is Ronco's Mr. Microphone they're specifically doing, which, yeah, that, hey, you're looking, we'll be back to pick you up later. That is exactly in the commercial. That's like halfway through.

The commercial is just a Christmas commercial for it. My favorite Christmas gift, Mr. Microphone. Hey, what's that? Well, you set the dial on your FM radio and testing, testing. Wow. Yeah. Mr. Microphone. It's essentially like carrying around your own personal shitty PA system

that the FCC would probably disapprove of. Yeah, but no wires. Yeah. It's how, God, bridging together these decades, the FCC would probably disapprove of. Yeah, but no wires! You can just put it on your... It's how, god, bridging together these decades, it's how I connected my satellite radio to my radio. It would broadcast on an FM frequency

and you'd tune into like, 97.3! I implore everyone to look up Mr. Microphone 1978. You will find the lamest commercial for this awful product. It's like, let's liven up this party. And it's just like, no one would ever care. I still think it's a cool product.

I love the dude. My favorite of the people enjoying it is the guy walking down the street by himself and just dancing, walking. The perception this episode gives is that it has a range of several miles, which it does not. It's a couple feet well

even even in the show they're like this product is awful like you can't even use it properly but then again then bart does use it properly from again miles away and also the song convoy yeah which i've had i i sing it on occasion and i didn't realize until like gta5 when the song was in the game that i'd never actually heard that song doesn't have like several uh verses yeah it's like the ultimate novelty song. It's about a trucker on a CB radio and then a group of children comes in. We had a great big...

We'll close the episode. It was a weird thing that seemed to be in the 70s. People got into ham radios and trucker nostalgia. That's why there's that whole... What's it? Race with Death? The Ride with Death. Ride with Death.

The episode of MST3K, which is just a failed TV show that tried to cash in on the trucker boom. That's right. There was a big trucker boom, a CB boom, and we did the show on Dead Formats. We plugged in the last episode that truckers did help push a certain kind of media. And we used to go to truck stops and i used to buy like bootleg cartoons in there as well because they were all like fly-by-night stops that were just being passed from rig to rig that's where you get awful colorized popeye cartoons or something like that who sang ahab the a-raf oh god not ray stevens ray stevens that's where

you get ray stevens tapes yes but i mean but like there was eight track porn for truckers like available and like this is a novelty song that took off with the CB and Trucker movement. I forget who it's by, but it was the last thing I looked up before going to bed last night at 3 in the morning. And then I instantly see it's connected to this documentary called Big Rigs about Truckers, and I just disappeared into it. And I really want to do it now. I shouldn't recommend it.

This episode began well it began with twerking but then after that it began with the type of joke that i actually came to dislike on the simpsons which was homer has money unlimited money and just hands it to something like lisa's ask for money he's like this is a hundred dollars oh sorry he hands her his whole wallet and speaking of weird formats what is Bart talking about? Digital audio tape. My butt. When I was a kid, we had compact discs, and I don't recall no one complaining.

Damn right. The fuck is digital audio tape? A dat? A dat? Yeah. It might have been a burgeoning format at the time that was threatening to eclipse the CD, which was maybe a decade old, not even at that point, right? Yeah, I think it was funny to hear that after we did that dead formats thing

that here's Bart being an old-fashioned kid complaining to the Tracy Ullman-era barber who still is doing his job at that point. This episode is so good, by the way. It is one of my favorites. And I found out what the only connective tissue I have for this in Flaming Moes, why I love it so much,

is that the Simpsons, obviously it's just getting started, sort of, and all of the shows are so rooted and centered in a family member or two. And Flaming Moes in this episode are just like, we're branching out. You're going to see all of Springfield in this episode. Another thing I noticed, there are no beep stories

in these episodes. It's all strong A stories. You're right. At the start of 1992, September of 1992 is when I turned 10. And so I definitely watched this the first time as thinking like, is this what my 10th birthday will be? It's so special to get to two digits, 10 years.

Oh, boy. I know for some reason I bought a label maker at a... I bought a label maker too because of this episode. I thought it was the best. Oh, there's only one can of beer left and it's Bart. I put it on everything. Wrote mostly dirty words. Guys, I think we ignored one of the greatest scenes in this episode. The most jokes. Wally Weasels.

Wally Weasels. Before we get to Wally though, this is the real 80s nostalgia. This is practically dead by this time. Before we get to Wally, did you guys as kids on the VHS pause to see if Bart's name really was on the screen? I think I did. I think I did, too. Was it there? I'm pretty sure it is there.

It is there. It is there. One of the best eight bucks he's ever spent. And only eight bucks. That's not bad. Now that's like how credits normally run on TV. Yeah. Now you get like six lives and angry birds for that kind of money.

And also his, like, I liked him cashing in the things that you get for free on your birthday because that's a dream of like, oh, you saved all the coupons for your free birthday, whatever. Though now when I watched his, I thought his tango lessons were fun. I captured a piece of it. His head is buried in her crotch. But his eyes get bigger when it happens. That's like an old animation trick. Clearly Carlos Baez, man.

Looks like he tastes or smells or realizes what's happening with his faces. Those animators were onto something. Then they go to Wally Weasel. Yes.

Oh my god. There are a few things I'm really like, fuck the 80s for the most part. It was all terrible, a bunch of bad sugar and awful clothing. But that documentary

Rock-A-Fire Explosion. I love it so much, a weird little American institution of friendly robots who sang songs, for some reason, makes me really nostalgic and sad and cry. I think our younger listeners might know this better as Five Nights at Freddy's.

Yes, totally. Because it's drawing from that same nostalgia well where those robots were very creepy. I mean, my hometown still has a Chuck E. Cheese. But it's like in the same place as a fucking fashion bug whereas originally it was a it was a ross and it was a two-story chucky cheese like an enormous ball pit a giant arcade so imagine a ross filled with singing robots and arcade games god i definitely

went to a chucky cheese after watching this episode but i do think as a kid this soured me on it just like never oh yeah, it does suck. I had been there before and I was just like, they took the thing I saw and put it on TV. This is amazing because it is a pitch perfect parody of the dark, what I call the child bar era of Chuck E. Cheese where it was dark inside,

the walls and the ceiling were black. I think there was alcohol in the original Chuck E. Cheese and the parents would get hammered. It was this crazy arcade slash western saloon where my parents didn't hate going to. Kids are running on the skee-ball machines. It's a wild place.

There was this netted area where the kids were cordoned off in. Adults go over here and eat the shittiest, shittiest pizza in the world. And sit at picnic tables, basically. The one thing they got so completely right is the robot band is playing where you eat, but then there's another room where you go into privately, and the robot comes to life and sings you a song.

In my case, I think it was an Elvis impersonating Panther. See, they redid that. I have a t-shirt with him on it. It was Banjo back then. Or was the guy with the puppet hand? It's all in Rock-A-Fire. Well, Chuck E. Cheese had a ventriloquist. Watch the Rock-A-Fire explosion.

I tell you what. Do this. Search for... Bobby, anybody here like Arcade Fire? Yeah. Tunnels. Oh, I've seen that. It's amazing.

It's so good. So the guy in the documentary who tries to reassemble the Rock-A-Fire explosion also has a YouTube channel where you can request a song and he'll choreograph it with the robots. And the Arcade Fire one is so goddamn good. And throughout the video, he's injecting the robots with something. I'm like, what is happening here? I think he thinks the music is highly, what do you call it, a counterculture. If you've seen the guy, all he drinks is Mountain Dew.

I thought he was lubing up the robots like they're about to explode. No, I think he thought it was the weirdest psychedelic shit he'd ever heard. Yeah, if you think we're sad, old old aging nerds who are clinging on to our youth like watch that watch that special and you'll see like there are also people who are saying like they see they see when chucky cheese took over old banjo restaurants that that was that there was a split i didn't even know we never had they're just like it's the day the music died. I didn't even know. We never had showbiz. They're just like, it's the day the music died. They reformatted all the people at showbiz and turned the gorilla into a purple space monster.

That's when Senior Beaverati died in a plane crash. The documentary is just the sad guy, the last employee at his factory, sitting at, like, as it all is decaying. Real Five Nights at Freddy's stuff. The masks are all decaying. But he's the guy who owns the rocket. But he's nice and still believes in it like i'm selling this one to dubai and this is the last set i don't know if i'll ever make it this was a factory and i never

made anymore but but it'll happen someday like oh buddy and also that he is like the 300 like bears and choreography on the factory floor playing a banjo it's just so beautiful and he was and that he was married to an attractive woman you're like oh that's interesting and i was like oh she's the prettiest fan of rock and fire i don't know anyway yeah the beaverati joke i didn't get that as a kid but that's what i love about this and when i captured the audio because this clip is great in every one of everybody listening probably has it show up in their facebook feed one let's say once a year. I did it for my last birthday party. That was the image for the Facebook invite.

But what I love is capturing the audio. You really get a sense of how much the Simpsons kind of hate Chuck E. Cheese and how much sound they think the robots make. And they're not wrong because you do hear the whirs and the clicks and clacks. But with no visual imagery here, you can just hear it so crystal clear.

Hey there. I hear it's your birthday. How old are you? Well, I... That's great. Would you like us to sing you a special song? Oh, no. You've got it. Ready, Signor Biberati?

I'm all ready. And the ones, and the two. You're the birthday, you're the birthday, you're the birthday boy or girl. And a man comes out to put the fire out. The sounds are so pronounced. It's good. We're almost crying in this room. The funny thing is, this is so perfect because these robots were not made to put on long performances.

And I remember going to Chuck E. Cheese to parties and things like that. One is always broken. Yeah, but it's not just that. It's just like, we've played our song. We have to go now, kids. And they just shut their eyes and the lights turn off. It's like, at least put the curtain up or something.

The new one, every time I go back to hometown, like, you want to take your kid to Chuck E. Cheese? Because I'll do it. And yeah, there's a curtain now. But there's still robots. I thought Chuck E. Cheese were like glorified discovery zones now. No, it's just like,

it would make you more sad to see what the arcade scene looks like. Because it's like almost no video games, but there are people still making arcade games. You can play runner games. You can play on your phone, but for tickets. Exactly like that. And like, you know, like, well, that's just a big version of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Who am I to knock that actually?

Edit that out. That's what I want in my house actually. Replace any other furniture with that. So the gifts they gave Bart are kind of crappy and I definitely was the little shit at some point who was just like, you know, I don't like this present. I'm not hiding my distaste for this present because I'm

a kid and it's my birthday and I can let you know I hate it. Having done this many podcasts with you it sounds like you got a lot of presents. I did not. My dad was very, very, very particular and like, I'm not going to spoil you. Do you want? Yeah, go ahead. Cry your eyes And like I'm not going to spoil you Do you want Yeah go ahead

Cry your eyes out I'm not getting it for you Like you'll get it for your birthday The concrete father Yeah my mother was a little bit Of a pushover But like they were very adamant So I did

I always appreciate I don't know what it's like To not appreciate a birthday present Like this But Except for my dad Because it's like What do you want

I want a Sega Genesis I got you something better A telescope I'm like this sucks And like this sucks Even though it's like, what do you want? I want a Sega Genesis. I got you something better. A telescope! I'm like, this sucks. I'm like, this sucks. Even though it's like, this is a thousand times more expensive. And like, way better. Wow, the universe is so boring. Yeah, he's wanting you to

get a feeling of exploration instead of just playing the games Japanese people did to distract you. The label maker thing is funny. You said you had a label maker, too, Henry? I totally had one, yeah. The Christmas, literally the Christmas after this episode aired, I got a label maker from my grandma. It was one of many gifts, but I thought it was cool.

I'm like, I like Bart. I was putting labels on everything. Like, this is mine. This is mine. I'm going to organize this. It was a little self-printer thing. You could customize, permanently customize a thing for yourself. How will I know that this box full of amazing Spider-Man comics

is full of amazing Spider-Man comics? I wrote dirty words, mostly. I thought it was hysterical. I was not a bad boy like that. I was a good boy. Bart does not like his microphone. Hey, boy, how's the microphone working? Fine.

Bart! I would love to get a present like that. Here you go. Enjoy. Listen, boy, this is a great invention. Watch. We got a great big convoy rocking through the night. We got a great big

convoy. Ain't she a beautiful sight? Convoy. I got it, Dad. I got to burn through these because these are all very personal things for me. My dad also, fuck, Halloween, I guess two, three years ago, he was like,

I got something I want you to hear on the radio. I've never heard of War of the Worlds or Orson Welles, and he didn't tell me it wasn't real, and it became a thing. Oh, man. I would love to freak out a child with that. We prepared for war, and then my dad's like,

no, it's just a thing, and he showed me all about what it actually was, and whenever we're around, we listen to it every year, but this is pretty much what happened when War of the Worlds played this is bartron commander of the martian invasion force your planet is in our hands resistance is useless we have captured your president he was delicious are you little homer running through the house with a shotgun. And that Bart also agrees, like, uh-huh, while he's still stuck in Stranglemo.

Apparently in the script originally, Homer is deciding to mix Kool-Aid with rat poison to kill the whole family before the Martians invade. Oh, wow. And they thought, that's too dark, and kids might do that. And they might not get the Jonestown reference, guys. Come on. Yeah, they might just simply

feed poisoned Kool-Aid to their friends. If I was a writer, I can, yeah, there's no way a kid would come to that conclusion. The only answer is to kill everything.

Yeah, it's like, oh, I could kill my family. Finally, the answer to killing my family. Well, that goes against everything they've been programmed to do, which is to band together

and friendship will prevail. This clip I grabbed just because this became a phrase in my school. Mama. Maggie, you talked. Can you say mama again? Sorry, lady.

Show's over. Oh, Bart. Sorry, lady. Show's over became a colloquial Tallahassee Gilchrist catchphrase. You know, I also, that Neapolitan ice cream joke, I think of it

every time I eat Neapolitan ice cream, and it's I think I maybe have like an anxiety thing of just like, well then I have to eat them all equal amounts. Like, nope, it's strawberry time. In my house, I think the strawberry was the last to go. It is always, in my experience, it is the worst of the three. Like, strawberry ice cream by itself is not bad,

but I think when it has to be put together with vanilla and chocolate, it just can't come together. It's bullshit that that's part of an ice cream triumvirate of any kind. Can't it just be vanilla and chocolate? Isn't that enough? Best fart joke ever with the microphone. Mrs. Krabappel, that was

uncalled for. Bravo! Well done, old man. I love that they had the classiest reaction to the least classy joke the Simpsons have ever done. It was nice to see Nelson just like, hats off to you, sir. Bravo, good serve.

Though multiple of his tricks do demand that Bart own extra portable i was gonna say he sacrificed the radio for that joke that's worth it i'd say in that case it was worth it but he i guess he just has to own lots of i didn't have a tv but a ton of radios as a kid they seem to be a dime a dozen even then and it only works on am radios too to make it even a worse thing. The Simpsons will be right back. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland,

we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. You like Laser Time shows? Then you might like Bonus Time, Lazer Time's weekly bonus show exclusively on patreon.com slash lazertime.

Here's a taste of what you've been missing. Man, do we all get cut in April? Is that just when companies are like, oh, we get our taxes, we don't want people anymore. Which I have not even done yet, and I'm terrified. I can't wait to see how that goes. We'll see where I end up on that. Like, whether I end up with a gun in my mouth at the end of this week or not. Depends on how that goes.

Man, do you got money for a gun? Shit. I mean, there's always... I have to stab myself? I have to fucking Elliot Smith myself? That's a good idea. Can you stab yourself with that Uncharted 2 Limited Edition? Do you still have that? Yeah, you could sell that and pay your bills.

You could probably file down that hoverboard and make the ultimate statement. That'd be just like Chris Benoit hanging himself on his workout equipment. Oh, God,

I thought you were going to say his fucking championship belt. That would have been better. No, that would have been better. Given the Nobel Peace Prize you couldn't pay yourself for. As a matter of fact, I do. Threw away all those

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you'll help us live and we'll do our best to help you never be bored again. And of course, the best gag with the radio. I love that I just called this clip Rod Todd God. Rod. Todd. This is God. How did you get on the radio? What do you mean, How did you get on the radio? What do you mean, how did I get on the radio?

I created the universe, stupid kids. Forgive my brother. Will you believe you? Talk is cheap. Perhaps a test of thy faith. Walk through the wall. I will remove it for you. Later.

What do you want from us? I got a job for thee. Bring forth all the cookies from your kitchen and leave them on the simpsons porch but those cookies belong to our parents look do you want a happy god or a vengeful god happy god i love happy god happy god yeah that's great all these pranks are hilarious all right yeah they're great ways that a mischievous kid would use all these things. I just like the prank suite of this episode. In hindsight,

it just sells it like Bart's bad. That's why he does this. No, Bart's kind of a genius. Yeah, he's finding the best way to entertain himself with this really crappy product.

I think that shows you that Bart is super smart but on things that are stupid or like not school. I used to be like that and I'm neither. This sucks.

I do like we see lisa exploring her love for cory talking about living on a pony farm yeah and then him and him and millhouse just laughing and by the way a quick backtrack i just thought it was a funny joke about how martin is corny giving him matching clothes but now it comes off as gay it does a little bit like martin is expressing his interest in Bart's beyond friendship. It's like he's grooming Bart to be his boy pal. Though maybe Martin doesn't understand those feelings yet either. But maybe I'm projecting onto Martin.

Maybe you're projecting a little bit. But then the ultimate prank with the radio and microphone. Help! Help! Hootman! Sounds like trouble a-brewin' at the old well! Help me, please! Help! Hootman! Sounds like trouble a-brewin' at the old well! Help me, please! I fell down the well! I'll get help, laddie!

A little nip at the carriage. I really love, I love all of this. I love it when Springfield comes together. Yes, we see so many characters coming together and it's time to talk about

the inspirations for this episode. The confluence of the two weirdest, least related ideas, Baby Jessica and Ace in the Hole, a fantastic Billy Wilder movie starring Kirk Douglas. Kirk Douglas. Yeah.

Every human on Ren and Stimpy for you animation fans. Every adult male is Kirk Douglas. Also, the movie is about essentially the same thing. A man, but it's actually happened in the movie. A man is trapped in a mine and it's about the media circus that erupts around that incident and the way the media exploits tragedy in order to make a profit. And that Kirk Douglas is the one of the first writers to

exploit it. And I believe, what, it's Andy Griffith who's the man in the hole, isn't it? It's not Andy Griffith. I forget who it is but it has one of the best endings that I won't ruin for you. One of the manliest endings that I won't ruin for you. And I implore you, I'm no Diana Goodman. I don't know if I can sell things as well as she can, but please watch

this movie. If you like Radio Bart, watch this movie. It's a great movie on its own, but it's also it will tell you what fed into this episode. But Baby Jessica, have you guys covered that on 302010 yet? No, no. I think it's 87. It's 86. I think it was October or something. So you guys haven't hit it yet, but essentially an 18-month-old

baby fell down a well, and it took 60 hours to free her, and she is now 30. Yeah, it felt like so long back then, though. It felt like it was on the news for days. It's all anybody was talking about. It was the start of the 24-hour news. Well, it wasn't the start. The Challenger explosion was there, too. But CNN was now in full gear.

I was only four, but I have vague memories of my mom watching this or having this on and asking about it. It was always on, which, like, I don't know. I have vague memories of my mom watching this or having this on and asking about it it was always on which like I don't know I feel like that's a f-ed up thing for a four year old to see of like oh babies can fall down a well and maybe starve to death that's screwed up

if you look at the 24 hour news cycle what I remember happening this seems like a relatively brief period in hindsight 24 hour news cycle happened but of course the networks have their own news when big news happens and they know like well what are we going to do? Cover it at 11 and wait? Someone else get our scoop? That, like, all channels had a ticker of a big news event

during the day. Like, here's an update. Or during commercials, the news team would come live. But it's the classic... And that's what happened with Baby Jessica. That's the classic news thing of, like, a white baby is in trouble. Oh, no! And she survived, of course. And I read that all that happens is she lost a toe.

And she's got a scar on her forehead from where the pipe or whatever was pressing into her. But she's living an okay life. How did she fall down a well? I guess she was unsupervised and just was wandering around. Really, it's the aunt's fault. I hope she went to jail or something. It reminds me of this American life story that was about a guy who fell down a well and these kids who found him and decided, let's not tell anybody, but come visit him every so often. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. That's creepy. Was it the show This American Death? There was a really good episode of American Dad that revealed. This American Dad. Why isn't that happening? On American Dad, they reveal that the wife on the show, Francine, she was a baby Jessica type in her youth.

But the firefighter that saved her died. And so she is hidden from her family because she feels total guilt over his death. But then they find out that he didn't die. He's been hiding from his family the whole time and he's now a crazy person who is played very well by will forte when will forte does voice work it's great american dad a good show but anyway you hear that people this is a mcfarland hater black haired wiggum is back i think this is the final black haired wiggum appearance the well is 34 inches so unfortunately not one member

of our city's police force is slender enough to rescue the boy. By God man you're a bunch of marshmallows. Why don't you go chief? Well I'm too important.

You know until this viewing I didn't catch him say I'm too like he almost says fat like I just yeah as a kid I always just heard he is like i'm too

important it's weird that they had to get cops fatter than eddie and lou for that scene because they all have the homer body i that's the only reason i could think why they took eddie and lou out yeah but they will appear later they'll be there later so it does make you like well then wait then why aren't they going down this is damn it i do love all these proposed solutions to get me out of the well. It's always too dark to see the boy. Timmy has told us his foot is trapped under a rock. Thus any attempt to

pull him up would snap him like a twig. In desperation, the city is considering more unorthodox solutions. Grasping the child firmly in his talons, Socrates here will fly him to safety. Just watch. I don't think he's coming back. That was the perfect beat before that joke, too. I didn't think that would work in audio,

but it's just like that far-off scream like he's gone. And another classic Frank. Frank doing his Frank thing. And we need a wacky scientist. And an awesome Quint reference from Jaws. With this hook and this hunk of chocolate, I'll land your boy and I'll

clean him for free. Although we can't reach the boy, we can freeze him with nitrogen so that future generations can rescue him. I love it. It has to be like a scientific standby. Well, I can't do anything about the problem, but maybe we can. I like that they can now

just cut to Frank, like, here's a crazy solution to this problem. And I also do like that Bart becomes, like, a very good voice actor in this episode. Like, is Timmy O'Toole...

He becomes Nancy Cartwright. Exactly. He becomes Nancy Cartwright, but that he... I mean, I love the way he gets everybody to turn on Skinner. Like, tear me away

because of my shabby clothes. That boy's a liar. Timmy O'Toole's really, like, a more put-together Ralph Wiggum in terms of his voice. Yeah, pretty much. The best solution for getting Timmy out of the world. Period. Oh, yeah. This song.

This fashionable cause. There's a hole in my heart as deep as the well for that poor little boy who's stuck halfway to hell. Though we can't get him out, we'll do the next best thing. We'll go on TV and sing, sing, sing. And we're sending our love down the well. Oh, yeah. All the way down.

We're sending our love down the well. Down the well. The animation is fantastic, too. It's so good. Rusty. The scene that makes me laugh immediately is Sideshow Mel and his veiny hand being lifted up. His posed hand is so funny. There's a ton to unpack in this part. What really disappointed me, though, is there was not a full version of the song on either of the Simpsons soundtrack CDs.

Now there are three of them, I but they didn't make a full version yeah i think they yeah i think they just recorded that a little bit but so that yeah okay first off it's a very clear parody of we are the world though what in most they also said they were inspired by when desert storm began when desert storm began they had uh they did a tribute song to the troops, but the troops were done by the time the song almost was out. And then also they wanted Bruce Springsteen to be the singer on this. He said no. Wasn't Sting part of We Are the World?

I would bet he was. I think he was. Dan Aykroyd got in there. Yeah, how did he get in? I don't know. But they wanted Bruce Springsteen was their first choice, and they realized, oh, we could do Sting. And they said Sting was really funny. Yeah, how did he get in? But they wanted, Bruce Springsteen was their first choice and they realized, oh, we could do Sting and they said Sting was really funny.

I would bet a better sport than Bruce Springsteen would have been. Bruce Springsteen just seems too earnest to me. He doesn't seem like a funny guy. He knew 9-11 was coming and they need to be super serious in there for us. They should have said, hey Bruce, this is a working class family who needs your help.

He wrote a song about my hometown, so I hate him. Did he? Yeah, Youngstown. You don't need to write a song about how this town sucks. I know it. Yeah, I prefer Billy Joel's Allentown. We're living here in Allentown. And how appropriate is it that Lisa is the only one to catch on that?

It's Bart playing the part of Timmy O'Toole. It's such a good animation sequence that I just kept the sound in. I was trying to gnaw my foot off, but I couldn't get through my sock. Good night, everybody.

Bart Simpson, the thought of a boy trapped in a well brought out the kindness and love of the entire community. When they find out you've been fooling them, they're going to want to cut you up with rusty razors. Oh, yeah? And how are they going to find out? The police will catch you sooner or later. The police?

They couldn't catch a cold. Maybe not, but I bet you're stupid enough to have left a Property of Bart Simpson label on that radio. Oh, this reveal is so great. That's one of my examples of like, those are the things Simpsons doesn't do anymore. Setting things up like that far in advance. Yes, callbacks, but also just like to pan in that way, like just to create this all new sequence

of revealing something. Yeah, just to have the cameras zoom around like that. I feel like they wouldn't do that now. Custom musical cues. I just don't see that when I watch the show. They had to work a lot harder. But then it all brings it together. Like the thing introduced in the first act

is his downfall to the second act and that leads him into the third act. It all causes that. It's great storytelling. John Vini, credited writer. Great job there. Fantastic. And, oh, though we did miss, like, that is Mel's first time he ever spoke.

He never spoke again. Oh, you're right. He never spoke before that. And I think Dan Castellaneta's even joked about, like, that was a one-off joke, but that's just the voice of Mel now. I guess it was supposed to be a surprise. Like, oh, that's what that other love, dignity-free character has. That is why it was so hysterical to me in the beginning.

Because we hadn't seen him speak yet, yet he has this booming singing voice. I'm going to whip you myself. Now, and speaking of visual flourishes, in the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, I do love the animation of the way the crocodile eats Scratchy. Like, it sucks up his tail like a spaghetti. I don't know. It's beautiful. Immediately after that, Lisa has a pose that I've never seen from her before. Say like, that's funny and awe. Yeah.

I don't know. You're right. The animation touches in this episode. The nuance is beautiful. It's really great. It was the first time they ever played their ripoff of the Axel F theme on the show. Yeah. Which they would play again in the Separate Vocations episode.

Oh, that's where it came in again When I hear that song I don't think of Bart going down a well I think of the opening and closing Of Walkers And of course Bart has to go track down the radio And get it back out because it's got his name on it But then gets trapped for real Help! Help!

I fell down the well! Tell us something we don't know No! My name down the well! Tell us something we don't know. No, my name is Bart Simpson. What are you doing down there? Look, I'll level with you. There is no Timmy O'Toole. It was just a prank I was playing on everybody. Bad time to be honest.

Well, you sure fooled us, kid. Hey, I got an idea for a prank. Let's go home and go to sleep good one eddie i thought that too but somebody alerts everyone well so the clip there is they add in see the scene from thanksgiving episode where uh lou and ed Eddie are telling them that they couldn't find Bart at the soup kitchen. They then reuse it because I would bet somebody said, well wait, then how did

Marge and Homer find out? Okay, let's add a scene of Eddie and Lou. Let's just add in that one and redo the voice. There's another reused animation scene when Homer's talking about buying Bart's love and zooming down on him. I think it's from Lisa's Pony or something like something no it was it was from saturdays of thunder his fat little belly it didn't match up with the voice that much now i feel like they were used in one other time but they're just like we gotta have another scene of bart's talk of homer talking to little marge who

are so i'm afraid your son is trapped down the well you must think we're the worst parents in the world. Yes, that's pretty much the feeling down at the station. And so then when they go to the well and people are turned off by it and they've gone sour to a boy in a well, then like, oh god, just the bureaucracy stuff. I love that Mayor Quimby

like when Mayor Quimby was like sick of boys he got Homer trying to force his way out. Yeah. And then Wiggum. They cuff him. This is great. Nobody likes Bart. I like the other boy.

So polite. What are you doing to save my baby boy? Well, ma'am, we've located a piece of machinery in Shreveport, Louisiana that could pop him out lickety-split. Well, why don't you get it? Well, I'm afraid we've got a budget problem, Mrs. Simpson. Your boy picked a bad time to fall down a well. And he did it at the start of the fiscal year, no problemo.

You're telling me that the city won't pay to get a boy out of a well? Well, they would have for Timmy. People love that little guy. But your son, well, he kind of played us off for a bunch of saps. So it seems we've all been the victims of a cruel hoax perpetrated by a 10 year old hooligan the time has come for finger pointing and most of them are squarely aimed at the boy's parents it's not our fault we didn't want the boy he was an accident uh could you edit that last part out mr samson we're live coast to coast it It's a pretty big deal for Springfield. It's pretty big for his local Emmy award-winning news.

I think that's funny that they say that this is Bart's birthday episode, and they reference his birth there. The episode after we see Bart's birthday, literal birthday. We see that he was an accident, too. Yeah. It's described there. So it was a nice matching up of continuity there. The joke about how they can't save Bart, I appreciate more as an adult realizing how

many things are tied to the fiscal year. I wanted to just interrupt the clip. I'm so sad. I know what that means now. I heard that as an excuse for so very many things. And I also like that Quimby officially says he's flip-flopping. Like, so I'm flip-flopping. Yeah.

Yay. And also the, man, did you see that? Hot of hot takes town to well, boy. No more free food. Oh, I think I missed that. Well, that was the news reporter dude's headline that he was working on before he gets the news about Abraham Lincoln's squirrel. Oh, yeah. We see so many reporters.

There's Dave Shutton, who's the guy who writes up the Lincoln Squirrel thing. We also have... Who has a laptop? Yeah. I do, too. I just thought that would be weird. I mean, a grayscale laptop. It looks like a Commodore 64 in his lap. But we also have Scott Christian and Stephanie the Weather Lady in the We Are the World parody.

They're all together. That's right. I forgot, Stephanie. I just... In the We Are the World parody, my eye was immediately drawn to Princess Cashmere. I was like, who invited her? She's a famous whore. She's a dancer.

Not later on. Isn't it established? I spent last night in a ditch. That's Lurleen Lumpkin. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. Man. Why are you guys trying to defame Princess Cashmere?

The last time we saw her, she was just having a night of consensual and perhaps not paid sex with a poo. Yeah. You can't prove it. And even if it was sex work, who's to judge that? Show me the receipt. Jesus Christ. Are you ready to come down off your high horse and talk about The Simpsons?

No, this is now taking a real turn here. That's what the podcast is really about. Abraham Squirrel. I do love that. I've been assassinated. That shows you their real feeling about the media to the media just a bit like well we got tired of blaming you so oh there's a squirrel well we're going this way literally distracted by a squirrel it's really meaningful

i sort of hate having to discuss this like this because this just talking about the recollection of a baby jessica and how fast it was but how quickly it took over the news cycle because the show is sort of exactly about that. And I use as an example, what this did turn out like was the balloon boy fiasco from about eight years ago. But that was a hoax, right?

It was a hoax. Timmy O'Toole was a hoax too. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Like, like this. And I was in Italy,

obviously previewing a game with the only way you could do that. Yep. How else could you know about Assassin's Creed 2? So I missed it. And the whole world was enraptured with this Balloon Boy thing. I had to go like, there wasn't even really a YouTube yet that I could go, what are you talking about? Yeah, this kid is stuck in a balloon.

We all believed it for like 24 hours. The whole world went nuts. I was happy when I found out it was a hoax. I laughed at a lot of Photoshop during the event. That's how fast the cycle went on the Timmy O on the kimio tool saga and that balloon kid weird and our new number one hit i do believe we're naked by funky see funky do replaces we're sending our love down the well which plunges all the way down to number 97 90 still's still charting, though. I like his head move on like 97. That's a little flourish as they don't do no more.

And I also now think about the reality of like, as a kid, I was like, oh, Bart's in a well. That would be uncomfortable. And now I think like his leg would hurt. He'd be covered in his own filth. Yeah, where's he using the bathroom? Are there bugs crawling on him? I mean, they're giving him food

so he's eating and drinking food down there, so it's gotta come out. There should be a pee bucket. I love that joke. You'll grow into it. And then we get another first in the episode. The first of their jokes of this person's buff.

Is it the first time Willie rips his shirt off? Willie rips his shirt off and it's the first time we've seen his buff body they would redo this joke with flanders so both him and flanders have buff bodies and it would come back again like in uh grease me up woman oh yeah that is him you see his awesome bod then and when he wrestles the wolf oh and when he wrestles the book a wolf and in the uh yeah very late season for us episode with the uh homer stealing grease and he's like god i put him north kilt town and he's just yeah in his he's in a towel the whole time and that's where he strangles homer till homer's eye pops out another scene where willie is covered in grease yeah they love

that it they're working through some stuff on the Simpsons. I guess so. I don't know. But yeah, this is the first setup of that joke of... So does Willie start digging or is it Homer? It's Willie. Homer starts digging

and then everybody catches on. And then Willie goes, I didn't know you could dig. Come on, come on. It's an old-fashioned hole digging. By gar, it's been a while. I love it.

By gar, it's been a while. I love that Jasper can be that guy. My favorite joke from this as a kid, and probably still is, the canary. The canary goes out of the hole! Gentlemen, this canary died of natural causes. Back in the hole! My favorite part of the joke is when they scream running back into the hole.

And just, I was watching this with my dad, like I did with all these episodes. I'm like an 11-year-old boy. I didn't get the joke, and he told me about it. And then in little kid media, all of a sudden, it's just one of those things like, oh, I get like 18,000 jokes now. I didn't know about the canary dying first. When you're digging down and if you encounter methane or something. Gas leak or something. It'll kill you, but it'll kill a canary first. It'll kill the bird first. When you're digging down and if you encounter methane or something. A natural gas leak or something. It'll kill

you, but it'll kill a canary first. It'll kill the bird first. And if you see the bird's dead, get the fuck out. That's before they had actual instruments to measure it. Where's Waldo pictures made sense all of a sudden? It was revelatory. Obviously, I think even for our parents' generation, that was just

a saying. It was just an idiom like eating a dead horse like oh yeah this is the canary in the coal mine telling you things are fucked up like this thing died so you better change or whatever but uh and also what stings second appearance i love it like he's a good digger not while one of my fans needs me. Actually, I don't know if I've ever heard Bart play one of your albums. Shh. Marge, he's a good digger. I love, okay, so Sting essentially

rescues Bart, and he appears in the hole and Bart goes, Sting! And then Homer shoves him out of the way, and that's the last we see Sting. Such a great, mean goodbye to him. And then Bart's just like, Sting! Mom! Dad! Like, he just... It just washes over him like should i question this no no well he's probably going crazy at this point yeah about it but yeah that

he got the sting sting's appearance i think was one of the funniest guest star ones but it is of a guest star type that i came to dislike of oh you're the famous person and now you're just doing like you're just hanging around the simpsons yeah at least they have the bridge of sting working like he knew crusty and he's still in springfield i think they did enough work to justify it they were still worried that uh you know this is a way for a celebrity to come and come into the world it's not the same as it's not the same as like oh lady lady gaga's here hello not like that so how long was bart down there like three weeks six it implies one night at least but the i know all the other goings on of like like the the song dropping down the charts yeah much longer at least a week and the production

of the song takes time you also don't pay for themselves but and then to dig the their very complex structure of digging they did too of just like that's weeks like as as a grassroots effort so bart was down there way longer than it first seemed like like it he missed a lot of school is what i'm saying and this episode wraps up so quickly just willie pounding a sign to the ground that'll do it's so great i wish it worked in audio it's yeah uh and there's just one last thing to talk about with this i think which is on the commentary they are still bad they didn't win an emmy for this one yes what won the emmy for this so it was a primetime emmy awards of 1992 and they had won best original animation the year before and they just will charm me or i was

principal charming i thought so man and their feeling was that after this year, they thought this episode's great. The lesson they learned was that this wasn't touchy-feely enough. And you got to have ones with hearts to nominate to get those old buzzards at the Emmys to do it. Like, this is why when we get to the Brother Can You Spare Two Dimesimes when they're really shitting on the Emmys it's because of this they're mad they lost this and they lost it to well the winner

I don't know all the nominees but the winner was Will Vinton's Claymation Easter the 1992 Claymation Easter which I don't think I even watched I own it I believe it has the voice of Jimmy Stewart oh wow do you own it just because it's has the voice of Jimmy Stewart. Oh, wow. If I'm not mistaken. Do you own it just because

it's on the Claymation Christmas DVD? No. Well, I used to have a... Website's down right now. We'll put it back up. A cartoon Christmas where we would recount Christmas specials.

And I thought, I'll just keep this going all year round with different holiday specials. And then I started to watch Valentine's Day and Easter specials. I'm like, this is not happening. It's Arbor Day coming around.

This is awful. This is awful. You don't have the warm fuzziness of Christmas. Jesus, not for Easter. The most exciting thing about Easter is that in San Francisco they race big wheel bikes down Lombard Street. That's the only Easter tradition that's cool. Well, that just shows you how godless we've become.

We're not an Easter man. I want Easter like I want to eat a big ass ham and chocolate in the morning, big-ass ham in the afternoon, and then I'm just dead in the evening. But yeah, Will Vinton, the creator of Claymation, the trademark term Claymation, I believe. Yeah, true.

Don't call it Claymation if it's not a Will Vinton production because you're wrong. You technically can't. It's stop-motion animation. Yeah, stop-motion. But he created the California Raisins. The California Raisins is most famous, I would say. Yeah, though, I mean, we, I think all three of us, watched the Claymation Christmas special

eight million times. It's a super bummer that's not on TV anymore. That was, before you could buy VHSs, it was like, dude, it's coming back on this year. I can't wait. There's a reason to get excited. I can't wait. But they're not fans of Will Vinton, though,

in the Simpsons office. Still a little salty. So, yeah, that was Radio Bar. One of the best episodes I think we've talked about so far. So great. This is Flaming Moes. I implore all of you, once again, go watch Ace in the Hole. You may think an old movie.

I'm going to. That's boring. I swear to God, it's a great old movie. Let me know, Chris, if you like it. Let me know, folks at home, if you like it. I've been Bob Mackey, your host. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I also host another podcast called Retronauts.

It's a classic gaming podcast. You can find that at retronauts.com or usgamer.net. I got to be on one of the episodes recently about Nick Arcade. You're going to be on an upcoming one that might have been out by now on GameProTV. Spoilers. That's lots of fun. So much fun. It's about the same era, I guess, that we're talking about.

Almost exactly. Yeah. Same year. It made me appreciate Nick Arcade a whole lot more. We didn't say it. This is The Simpsons ushering in 1992. Yeah. This is the first show in 92.

It has begun. Yes. Wow. I turned 10 as well. See you later, H.W. Bush. And you're still hanging on, though. Bill Clinton and him are both around looking weirdly aged.

Anyway, yeah, hey, we do LasertimePodcast.com as well as to all of our great stuff. Like if you like this backwards talking about history stuff, there's 302010 our podcast time machine where we talk about the events in a given week in 1986,

1996, 2006, 30 20 10 years if you like the new segment in this in talking simpsons at the top how about a show with three segments of that oh it's beautiful you end up with so many collective talk topics bob you've heard 30 2010 of course yeah can you guess who has been on the header image the most uh it can't be johnny five no tom cruise it is tom i thought yeah. Two in a row for him. It's an epic Johnny Five. Last week, Top Gun came out. The one week Top Gun comes out and is the highest grossing movie of 1986, and then the next

week, Mission Impossible comes out in 96. I'm not sure if I explained the concept of the show very well. He's going to bury us all is what you're saying. Yes. You can say some bad things about him, but he has stayed famous for a very long time. He's the most- A couple episodes before that, 06, Mission Impossible 3. Yeah. and bad things about him, but he has stayed famous for a very long time. A couple episodes before that, 06, Mission Impossible 3. Also, if you want to listen to the

first season of Talking Simpsons, that's all on patreon.com slash SlicerTime. $5 a month will get you access to that. A boatload of our special podcast that's only for Patreon users. Bonus time. A bunch of like 50 movie commentaries that we've done

and a bunch of cartoon commentaries if you give $10 or more a month and the season two wrap up of Talking Simpsons. And now we're over the hump. Season three is... Yeah, the hump. So good.

This is the 13th episode. I just mean that like season three is closer to being over. We're slowly running out of good episodes, Henry. Don't say that. We've got, like, three more days. I know. We'll be here for a while.

Thanks for joining us, everybody. We'll be back next week with The Simpsons take on the Super Bowl. Later. Wow. Infotainment.