Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish" With KC Green

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Cartoonist KC Green, famously the creator of "This Is Fine," joins us for the 150th episode of Simpsons that takes us back to the second World War II. We learn about tontines, old tv shows, terlets, and so much more in this action-packed elderly adventure! Listen and enjoy for at least dickety-six miles! Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons!

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I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, recorded live in rich man's heaven. I'm your host, seasoned rope tugger, Bob Mackie, and this is a chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? No, I'm not Superman.

It's Henry Gilbert. I'm actually wearing a Superman shirt now. You could have fooled me. And who do we have on the line? My name's Casey Green and I'm a low-cost outing for seniors. And today's episode is Raging Abe Simpson and his grumbling grandson in The Curse of the Flying Hellfish. Maybe if I go back to sleep for a few days, some good mail will build up. That sounds like depression to me.

And this episode aired on April 28th, 1996. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God. Oh boy, Bobby. Uma Thurman and Janine Garofalo teach us the truth about cats and dogs. Dexter's Lab and the TV channel TV Land debut on cable. And the Port Arthur massacre happens in Australia. And the country reacts with something other than thoughts and prayers.

So let's start with the darkest news first. The truth about cats and dogs. All dogs are boys and all cats are girls. That's true, right? They crack that case. That's a fine little romantic comedy. I've never seen it. It's for Gen Xers feeling romance, man,

and turning 30 like that. So that's what it's really about. Janine Garofalo, she's charming. Well, meanwhile, Uma Thurman just has to be the bimbo in it. And she roller skates a lot

or something, right? Yeah, yeah. She does do that. The dog's got roller skates on. Oh something, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. She does do that. The dog's got roller skates on. Oh, that's all I remember from the trailer. Oh, that's right. The boyfriend, she has a Frasier-esque call-in show, Garofalo does, and her would-be male love interest,

he put a dog in roller skates for a photo shoot, and the dog is freaking out. That's where the story begins but it didn't put its paws over its eyes so i wasn't sure and dexter's lab that's a that is a classic i think we we did a whole what a cartoon about it so you will not get more remembrances from me there you have to listen to our what a cartoon podcast and as far as massacres go we've covered several on the show so far and what was the outcome of that they said no more guns and then not a massacre since?

I forget the exact strictures of it. But, I mean, you can still, like, own a shotgun and stuff for hunting and all that. But automatic weapons, there was quite a major ban on that. And, yes, not a massacre since, I believe, which is five killed or more, I believe, is the definition of a massacre. I think you're allowed to own a pistol to scare off the Prime Minister. If he's floating in your pool. Andy! So our special guest is Casey Green.

And if you're a savvy nerd, you should know who he is. But in case you don't, Casey, who are you and what have you done? I'm a cartoonist online. And you probably have definitely seen that image of the dog on fire that's from my comic gun show that's got huge memed out there that's just an easy way to be like okay you know who i am maybe actually i'm kind of sad we didn't have the clip dog on fire dog on fire ready for you i'll cut it in now dog on fire dog on fire uh you also might know me as the Dick Butt Man, but I don't really deal with that anymore. I mostly do comics as he is a good boy and I write back and a lot of other stuff too.

I loved your sequel to the This is Fine Dog of screaming, this is not fine. Why did I let it go on fire this long? That was beautiful. Yeah, Casey and I go way back onto the Something Awful forums actually. And Casey did art for me for free once. I was like, I like this Casey guy. I want him to do art for me. And you did a story about, I was taking care of a sick bird that unfortunately died, and I wrote a little comedy story about it. But all the pictures were so adorable. I also, from your previous work, I loved Gun Show, which was your, was it like a daily webcomic you did? I have all the collections of that.

Yeah, it was like, it started out kind of daily and then just sort of morphed into whenever I want. It started as like a three panel strip, but then it morphed into just I want to do more than just three panel gag stuff. And then just became huge daily or update didn't really have anything to do with it. It just became a bigger thing. I think one of my favorite things you've done so far because it speaks so much to me in my own life experiences is the trade anime club. Yeah, that's a good popular one it is a perfect portrayal of an anime club at a certain point in time and i was there and i knew all those people and i was one of them i'll let you figure out who it was it should be pretty

obvious but it's like i can't recommend your stuff enough um and we'll talk about where you can buy your books and everything at the end of the show but yeah thanks for coming on the show casey no i'm happy to be here it's uh i i podcasts are always good to listen to like when you're drawing and stuff because it's very uh automatic kind of when i'm inking or whatever or coloring so and podcasts definitely became a go-to thing that have on in the background while i do it and this is even better like one that just shows you information about cartoons is pretty much exactly what i've wanted for a while and speaking of podcasts podcasts, I actually, you had a podcast maybe five or six years ago that I'm, that we are kind of ripping off with what a cartoon, it was called Cartoon

Book Club. And I absolutely loved it. And that and a podcast called Animation Dissection or Discussion. They were two of my favorite cartoon podcasts, but they both went away because you guys refused to do podcasts for free forever, you jerks. So we had to pick up the torch But yeah, I have to thank you for giving putting putting that spark in my brain back when I was just doing retronauts like oh Man, I really want to do like cartoon podcasts

I was totally happy that y'all started doing what a cartoon and and that because I was like, oh man Someone is gonna do something like that at least so, you know, it's fine. Take it take it from me It's easier when you actually know how to work like audio stuff or work next to each other instead of being on separate coasts with the other people on that show it does help to live like 20 minutes away from henry yeah i'm glad it's nice when bob just can walk to my place and then i don't have to i don't even have to i do have to shower eventually i'll stop showering oh boy that'll tear us apart. No, I am also a big fan of Casey's. I love like your Twitter account.

You just share so many great, just random drawings too, not just your comic strips. And I especially do love when you draw a Simpsons scene. One of my favorite recent ones was Homer and Barney from the Gong Show of them playing the giant harmonica together. I love that one. I also like when we do a What a Cartoon episode episode and then later on twitter i see you drawing things from

that show and i'm like we inspired him we're the greatest heroes alive you made me go back and check out dexter's lab which i loved as a kid like i watched it all of it as a child but the only going back now i recognize that that really helped define my sense of cartooning in comics. Like it's it's man, I don't know how to describe it. It was just so perfect. And I was like, wow, this is it coded inside my brain. Like everything, the joke structure, the timing and everything. And when when did you become a Simpsons viewer?

Like it? Where did your journey begin the series? Oh, that's a good one. It was always kind of a thing whenever i remember knowing what the simpsons was it was always there like it was already in syndication by the time i remember watching all these episodes and i always watched them in syndication because they were just kind of on in the background when i came after school i didn't catch up with new episodes or it was rare that I was like, Sunday night, let's all watch The Simpsons. But I did have like kind of a second,

it was around college when I when I was reading more about how Brad Bird used to be a part of it that I that I was like, well, hold on, maybe there's something to this. And then that's when I started to rediscover like actually how like low key brilliant brilliant it was instead of just a weird pop culture thing that happened around me that i wasn't that was that i was obviously aware of and i had like simpsons comics and and stuff and i liked watching them but i just it didn't it didn't really uh stick with me until i gave it a second and third watch and and when i was older well speaking of brad bird he was actually on hand to help out with a lot of this episode, which is why it looks so brilliant.

And this is actually Jeffrey Lynch's final episode for the show. And he would go on to do great things, too. So, yeah. Yeah. This is a animation, one of the best animated episodes I think they ever did. And this was Jeffrey Lynch's Final Simpsons. He'd go on to do two episodes of futurama and then graduate into film he worked as a storyboarder on iron giant uh again his buddy

relationship with brad bird but most importantly to me as a comic dork is that jeffrey lynch is the secret sauce of the sam raimi spider-man films because there's some bad acting in that movie or parts that definitely are dated or like oh this part sucks but I always love the Spider-Man action in it and there's a good reason why it's because Jeff Lynch storyboarded all of it or the majority of it at least and he was basically the assistant director on the Sam Raimi film so when Spider-Man was doing Spider-Man things and basically it's a CGI film that that's Jeffrey Lynch in charge of that. We should remind our listeners, too, that Jeffrey Lynch directed Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1, another one of the best looking episodes of The Simpsons on TV.

They had to make it look good and he made it look fantastic. comics as well because jeffrey lynch is a big dork for the joe cuberts sergeant rock comics which honestly i never read i never understood the interest in world war ii comics i have to say i just as a comic fan i am aware of them for from a historical standpoint but eventually it's just like i mean how many nazi plots can you watch them foil, really? It's boring after a point. I think they were just for little boomer kids. Like, my dad won't talk to me. What did he do 10 years ago? Oh, my gosh.

And also, so if you look at Sgt. Rock comic covers and then compare them to the flashbacks in this episode, that's when you'll see like, oh, Abe Simpson is Sgt. Rock in this. Like, that's the secret. That's the secret to this episode the one time abe was like heroic and cool and not a total sumback his entire life well this episode too was apparently storyboarded primarily by jeffrey lynch too which i think is kind of a uh a rarity in the simpsons where the director storyboards

most of it i think that's usually like delegated to an extent. And the director just kind of does revisions on it. This episode also is about Bill and Josh, the indulging in their love of the elderly. Yeah. And that specific version of the elderly. I remember in our Bill Oakley interview, he talked about how like,

this is his grandpa who's born like technically in the 1800s and our generation's grandpas aren't these grandpas what they're not well i guess they are i don't know i guess my grandpa was in world war ii yeah like my grandpa i don't i don't think he was he stayed home to score but uh everyone i knew like growing up who were grandpa age in the 90s like my neighbor my neighbor bob growing up he was a world war ii vet he was like in his 70s so yeah like our grandpas were these grandpas but they weren't bill and josh's grandpas their grandpas could have been like world war one vets or something like that that's true i never really knew my grandpas too well both of them kind of died when i was young um i do remember that my dad's grandpa did not like The Simpsons

and the one time I remember wanting to watch The Simpsons when we went to go visit him and family in Arkansas was shot down because my mom said grandpa doesn't like The Simpsons that's all I remember the show is so nice to old people too

I also had an Arkansan grandpa who did not much care for The Simpsons, though he humored me watching five minutes of it once before falling asleep, Abe Simpson style. And so this is an excellent opening of the show. I especially love it because... So we've seen Abe be crazy, and we've seen him tell long stories about walking birds and that football was called baseball all that stuff but we don't rarely

see him against boring normal grandpas which is so this opening further shows like no this old man abe is crazy they had to create like eight new old relatives for everybody especially in the flashbacks uh yeah i love i love old men, though, at Grandparents' Day. Let's start with Milhouse's grandfather. How many of you have a house? Right now, how many of you drove your house to school today? Huh? Well, I did.

No, I'm not Superman. I just own an RV. Me and the new wife travel the country searching for adventure. Last fall, we won a chili cook-off in Beaumont, Texas. You're living in a fool's paradise, Van Hooten. If you fell down in the shower, that thing would be your tomb. Grandpa, hush. Here, why don't you spit some more? No, I'm not Superman.

I'm a judge. Why, just this morning I sentenced my 46th man to death. Oh, no, 47th. Wow, 47. I love you, Grandpa. Yeah, well, I may not have a fancy black bathrobe and a hammer like Snooty, but I do have slippers and an oatmeal spoon. Look!

Look! We only get one uh-uh-uh out of Milhouse's grandpa, so I feel like he's got it together more than Kirk Van Houten. I mean, he's got a new wife. He's gone around the country. It's very much like old man reinventing himself sort of lifestyle he has going on. Yeah. Yeah. It's very subtle in the way he says a new wife and uh the way he tricks the kids and is saying like i do how many of you drove your home huh what those kids are

giving him the exact reaction you want of kids you show and tell like oh this is my dream reaction i was kind of waiting for i forgot about this part of the episode i was kind of waiting for a third no i'm not superman uh that that is so great the way he slips in new wife which explains like he's either a widower and remarried or they are separated and i wonder too if this is the old wife the grandmother we saw in bart sells his soul or could it be that on the other side of Milhouse's family, they also look exactly like Milhouse? I think it's both sides of the family are identical in their looks somehow. And also, as a comic nerd, I must say, Superman wouldn't drive his house.

He would just fly. Come on. Maybe in the Fortress of Solitude, he would have that. But no, Superman actually does do judge-like things of sentencing supervillains to the Phantom Zone. Though he doesn't sentence them to death. I will point out that. Despite what Zack Snyder would have you believe about Superman murdering people. Well, okay, so Nelson, we've already seen that Nelson's house is like a shithole.

Yeah. Which does not imply the grandson of a judge. That makes me think of more like, I don't know, wealth or privilege. Maybe the mother or father is the black sheep of the family, you know? I guess, but man. And it's also so weird that Abe just spits. He's not chewing tobacco. It's not like black.

It's just he's just like spitting. You got to spit when you're an old man. Yeah, earlier when he spit and then you heard his mouth sounds. As he's just like, oh, man. There's a lot of weird like texture on that tongue. Dan does such a great job with Abe this one, though. I think Marsha Wallace sounds I don't know. It sounds like she was having an off day or something.

She just doesn't sound right in this. I don't know. Maybe they had to like tamp in somebody else and then she recorded over it. But I don't know. To me, it just sounds slightly off but i can read it as being like trying to be nice and polite because there are more than just children here today i can see that yeah though i have to be nice to the grand people uh grand people except abe yeah i kind of like that position too i think it excited me as a kid watching this of just like oh my teacher is used to being the oldest in class, but now she has elders there who can insult her. And in the structure power dynamics of class, that means she has to respect them.

We had, I mean, I don't know if you guys had this. We had like a grandparents day every once in a while in our school where all the old people in Florida were like put away in chambers. No, in Ohio, it was kind of weird. My grandma would be there, and it was kind of weird to see her interact with other old people. Like, oh, this is interesting. You know, I wonder now if they can do that as much, because I feel like people are even more spread out than before. You're not expected to live in the same town as your grandparents. Either they moved away from you, or you moved away from them.

Yeah, I never really did that as a kid. I remember PTA meetings after school, but never anything during school. But my grandpa never told me stories about the Turlet. Now my story begins in 19-tickety-two. We had to say tickety because the Kaiser had stolen our word 20. I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after Dickity Six Miles. Dickity? Highly dubious.

What are you cackling at, fatty? Too much pie, that's your problem. Now, I'd like to digress from my prepared remarks to discuss how I invented the turlet. Turlet? Stop your stickering. I spent three years on that turlet turlet stop your stickering i spent three years on that turlet bart is horribly embarrassed they're really laying it on thick with like how the embarrassment

deal with yeah in other episodes it seems like bart is just kind of dead to the embarrassment that abe can supply i mean he should have just asked jackie bouvier to come because she could have barely talked hello children i can't talk very much it must have been harder to get to hal roach uh retirement castle i i also again this animation there's so many little ticks in this that you've never seen in regular episode of simpsons like when grandpa jumps up to say hey listen his hair. There's a lot more action to it. Same with his extra action of like, Too much pie, that's your problem. Yeah, like there's a lot of great little subtle character action

that you don't see elsewhere in the series, along with the huge big set pieces and the great action we see later in this episode. Yeah, this is amazingly animated. I love the way he moved his old crunchy leg. You can hear it just barely. he can't nonchalantly cross his legs anymore he needs to he's got to help himself with that yeah and also the reaction i felt kind of bad for martin this time where he's just like getting called fat by grandpa

it's like too much pie that's your problem he's just like oh and the kids are excited about it like whoa and those are his prepared remarks i also love uh and yeah this also feels like such a great jonathan collier wrote this one and it feels like such a great setup for a story too of just abe has always said bullshit now they finally get to call him on it like bart's like bart asked a question that they should have been saying for about seven years now just why does abe talk like a crazy person all the time why does he has to always say these stories and we've seen previous stories from him about the war but it was mainly about seducing Hitler yeah as a woman he's an unreliable narrator at best oh definitely this is the one time everything he said was true and also when

they refer to old people they call goldie they humorously say goldie hawn is old she was 50 when this episode aired yeah not not very fair now it's kind of mean to old goldie she's she's now 72 i'd say that's fair to call her elderly now i mean uh the movie overboard what is a terrible movie with a bad message that i watched like 40 000 times as a kid it was on in the bar last night and i was like how old was goldie hawn during this movie she looks so young she was like 42 in that movie wow i was like jesus christ she had it she was holding it together so unfair i say unfair that feels like a mike reese joke and also homer's pro elderly speech that sounds like straight from the mouth of john schwartzwelder yeah pants all the way up to your armpits and uh then we get to abe getting the ads

in the mail which i don't think they've changed all that much in the last 20 years no i noticed that all two ads have a reveal but the third ad they're just like here's the joke although it could have been a reveal it's like consider consider burial at sea world so he could have unfolded that for some reason they decided to not have him unfold that maybe it was just too much like just let them give them one joke for free now you can get buried with shamu 75 every time there's a new shamu death then we get asa phelps has died which in looking back on this i feel kind of bad for asa that he had his war buddy living in town all these years and Abe never hung out with him. It's a very great description of a sad, small life.

Oh, yes. Asa Felst spent his entire life in Springfield, except for a four-year service in World War II and one high school day trip. He worked at the United Strut and Bracing Works as a Mulder's boy. Until he was replaced by a Mulder-matic and died. So, a very small life. I'm sure he was happy, though. I hope he was happy. I loved the little detail of Lovejoy getting into the car and his wife already there driving. Oh, yeah.

She's just waiting for him in the car, I guess. And he's like, gotta go. Also, nobody is at that funeral. Maybe his life was sad. All of a sudden, they're dead or just had no friends. Just Burns and Abe. And they were just waiting for him to die to fulfill the tontine. But I just love, I love, too, that Asa's life was he left Springfield twice, once in the war and once for a high school field trip.

And then he worked as a Mulder's boy his entire life. And it implies that once he was replaced with a machine, he just stopped living. He's like, I'm just dead. Or maybe he took his life. It's depressing. I assume he was replaced with that Moldomatic in the 60s or something. I don't know. Well, the way Lovejoy puts it, until he was replaced with a moldomatic and died nothing more to speak of after

that yeah you know it's it's easy to miss that sound when you're watching it because just the visual of them pulling out their keys is quite fun and distracting as well ape has the crazy like uh the giant key key lanyard It's like 20 feet long. And so this implied history between Abe and Burns. I used to point it out. I think I haven't in a while, but anytime you saw Abe and Burns have a scene between each other before this, you should remember that they are each in a secret taunting

and served in World War II together. Yes, they know each other very well. Also, so going over the timeline of this uh burns was born in 1892 by the time uh this war footage comes around that we see later he would have been in his early 50s why is he enlisting i i think again the show pointed this out earlier he's working for the nazis he's there for the nazis that is true that's right he built bombs that worked for the Nazis. So I think he was posing as an infantry man

to stop them from assassinating Hitler. That is my theory. I don't know why this old man would be enlisting in World War II. So there you have it. 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. Hey everybody, thanks for listening for dickity six episodes of this wonderful podcast talking simpsons me and bob love doing it all the time and we do it thanks to you and your support at patreon.com slash talking simpsons if you sign up there you get to support me and bob doing this full time but you get so much more than that you get every episode of this podcast a week early and free and you get the same for our sister podcast,

What a Cartoon. And if you don't know what What a Cartoon is, that's when Bob and me give the Talking Simpsons treatment to a different cartoon each week. It could be Freakazoid. It could be Family Guy. It could be Kill la Kill. It could be Cowboy Bebop.

It could be Batman the Animated Series. It could be Dexter's Laboratory on What a Cartoon. You should totally listen and subscribe to it there. but if you sign up at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you get access to that a week early and ad free as well not to mention you get access to the entire first season of talking simpsons only on the patreon we have tons of simpsons interviews that you can hear including our most recent ones with Nell Scovel, who wrote the classic Blowfish episode of Simpsons. And she has tons of cool stories.

Not to mention, we talked with Mike Reese, who just put out a brand new book on his 30-year history with The Simpsons. You can see all that and so much more at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Hey, do you like streaming new episodes of The Simpsons and a ton of other animated series on Hulu, but you'd want to try the ad-free version for free? Well, you can get a 30-day free trial by

going to tiny.cc slash tshulu. If you sign up there for a 30-day free trial of Hulu, a little bit of money gets kicked back to your buddies at Talking Simpsons, and it helps support the show while also getting you a free month trial of one of my favorite streaming services. I watched so many of the shows for What a Cartoon on Hulu. It's so convenient and easy. Check out that free 30-day trial at tiny.cc slash tshulu. But then we do get to hear the first time about their deal. Well, Simpson, seven gone. As soon as you're in your press board coffin,

I'll be the sole survivor and the treasure will be mine. Over my dead body, it will That's exactly the point Oh, Simpson, can't you go five seconds without humiliating yourself? How long was that? Your clownish behavior notwithstanding We have made a gentleman's agreement And sworn on our lives to honor it

Smithers, I want that man killed see that's a great act break it's very much like the pelican dropping the fish in homer's pants where he ruins every moment yeah uh but yeah actually so in homer the smithers i i proclaim that the episode where they that's the episode where they sort of infantilize burns this could be like the last real chance for him to be evil because he points a gun at Bart for one of several times in the series. Like he's, he's, he's, he's out for murder. He's out for blood in this episode. His plan is to kill Abe.

Yeah. What he does at the end is like awful. Yeah. I mean, I think it's also interesting that this is the next episode directed by Jeffrey Lynch after Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1. So that was the most villainous Burns. So him doing this, he knows how to draw Burns at his most evil, like his most cartoonishly super villainous, which I just love it. And he Burns throughout this episode looks so intimidating, so scary at points. But I just love how

nonchalantly he's like have him killed and i've seen this episode i don't know 50 times but i always forget about this assassin subplot which is so fantastic i just love the idea of an assassin having to kill an incredibly frail old man and fucking it up yeah uh also i i should be noted at five minutes and 24 seconds that has to be the shortest act one in simpsons history that is so short yeah the as mike reese in his new book who we just interviewed guys let's do it on the patreon uh but in his new book he talked about how most simpsons episodes the longer you make act one with some weird divergence before you get into the real plot then the shorter you have to make two and three it's just a a writing problem solver in a way so a shorter act one is the

total opposite of that and this is there is no b plot to this this is just a very direct like honestly action adventure story between bard and grandpa yeah it's a real crowd pleaser episode uh but yeah so burns is looking for his assassin. Here, let's see. Lesmerists, dowsers, Luddites, alienists, Zoroastrians, alphabetizers.

Aha! Assassins. I was wondering, sir, do we really need to settle Abe Simpson? I mean, I'm familiar with his physical state and perhaps if we wait,

nature will assassinate him for us. Neil, I can't risk it. I won't allow that Simpson boy to take the health fish bonanza and I can't get it without his Keith ah just the man I need Fernando Vidal the world's most devious assassin hola fernando it's mb ah marion barry is it time for another shipment already this is montgomery burns oh caramba i'm sending you a photo over the fax trawler i need you to fly to springfield and assassinate this man post haste sadly eating a can of uh del monte peas in the picture that. That's such a great brand. Of all brands of peas for him to be eating,

Del Monte, that is such a specific thing for them to pick. I love that. Those are premium peas. I mean, you'd think A would be buying store brand peas. But yeah, that Mary and Barry joke, I mean, yes, Mary and Barry, one of the former mayors of New York,

had a real Coke problem. That was clearly an ADR joke. I really want to know what the original was. I say that every time. But what was the original? Who knows? Yeah. I mean, it's clever that Monty Burns and Marion Barry do share the same initials.

So that's cute. But this was, if I may talk about the Gilbert family VHS. Now, there's a couple of jokes in this that i always forget about because i messed up the master recording the first time and so i missed him going through his rolodex and every time i hear now that alphabetizer show is still feels new to me like funny i just saw like recognize that uh like minutes before we started recording i was just watching the episode again to remember that and i was i heard i was just watching the episode again to remember that and i was i heard i was just had to pay attention to the alphabetizer and then assassin and man

there's always little surprises when you don't pay attention it's a subtle little joke yeah i love it bob did you do any googling on zoroastrianism uh i used to know what it was but uh is it like some sort of outdated uh quackery yeah it's an old-timey religion and an extant of christianity and judaism like it's it's just the kind of old-timey thing burns would have heard about it gets referenced in a lot of japanese video games oh does it yeah i i need to dig farther into shin megami tensei it's like sort of like there's all kinds of kabbalah stuff everywhere like like Sephiroth and things like that. These offshoots of major religions make their way

into Japanese stuff a lot. And I also, I don't know, Fernando Vidal, that's a fun name. I like that too. Fernando has no follow-through on these. He could just strangle Abe, jump on top of him and strangle him. That's all I have to say. What I like is that Mr. Burns

feels the need to accompany him with all of these assassination attempts. It's like, no, you're a 104-year-old man. You're going to slow all of this down. He's showing up in the window with them to poison his teeth. It's like, why are you there, man? He's too much of a micromanager. He's like, I have to be there for it.

Also, part of the appeal of a contract killer is that you won't be implicated in it because you didn't do it yeah you don't want to be on the scene and yet he's here for all the assassination attempts ah he's more clever than he looks. Abraham Simpson, your family is here to visit you. Ah, diggity, my family's come to visit me. Wait a minute. My family never comes to visit... Don't. Not again. a minute my family never comes to do not again i can't take much more of your blundering numbskullery

i'll be in the car dudes oh boy uh yeah so uh i also pulled out a hot diggity they're trying to make that grandpa's catchphrase for a long time and i love it like hot diggity uh i also i think one other time he says hot hot diggity damn. That's the one for me. Yeah. I also just love just the animation on him putting that clock in his mouth. I wonder if he does that every morning, his grandpa's morning. Though I think at some point he put his dentures back in his mouth.

They must have still had some residual poison on them. Maybe. Never know. And that their dress up as the Simpsons plot was just a knife and once the knife misses he's like i'm done all right i failed no one questioned this we're leaving yeah i really liked that he had a muzzle mask yeah that's true he did he didn't really need that but he wanted to have an unmoving muzzle mask over his mouth it's not really clear why why Smithers needed to be there as Barts. But those are great.

Like, I love Burns in Marge's dress with the wig and everything. It's a great image. Yeah. And it pays off even better with the callback of, and you were there? And then his final attempt is, it's funny enough of the smash cut to him pretending he has a big plan which is just shoot his gun a whole bunch yeah i have to say with the timing of the port arthur oh yeah uh but i think it's like it it's animated beautifully like an action sequence and when the nurse is like doing her one-handed pump action shotgun stuff that was

like out of the fucking terminator that was amazing yeah again i love the smash cut from them just studying the map of the retirement castle and then smash get to the door being kicked open and him just firing wildly at everybody just killing you i feel like the nurse with the shotgun telling him to be quiet kind of makes that whole scene yeah because beyond that it's just like he was just terrorizing this old man and many others were were this not a television series like he he misses as much as anybody shooting at the a team but yeah in the real world he would have killed every person in that building it would have it would have been all over the news. So Abe, Abe needs help. Ah, let me in.

Someone's trying to kill me. Sweet, merciful McGillicuddy. You gotta open the door. Who is it? It's Grandpa. And it sounds like he's gotten into the horseradish again. And then a knife flew at my head. And you were there. And you were there.

And you were there. Uh, Grandpa, maybe I should moisten your washcloth. It's plenty moist. Listen, Monty Burns is trying to kill me, and it's all because... Uh, um... I can't tell you what. Well, I'm sure you'll make up something. Maybe you just need more of my classmates around. I gotta hole up here for a while.

They might still be after me. Wow, he's even more agitated than usual maybe we should let him stay but where are we going to put him arch room parts room parts room dumpster the family normally dumps on lisa but i like them all teaming up to dump on bart yeah he's the only other person who has more than five lines in this whole episode. For a second, I thought, oh, is this one of the ones where Marge doesn't say anything, but she gets a couple lines here that save that. I love her, it's grandpa. She's just shocked.

He doesn't come to us, we come to him. She couldn't recognize his screaming. It's great how the next scene opens with Bart looking forlornly at a dumpster outside the window yeah so many great like jokes on the cutting like in the edit and i also do love marge's cute euphemism euphemism of horseradish for uh drinking uh my old great aunt called it tonic she was having a little too much tonic and uh needed to go lie down yeah that and bart is just like done with abe at this point he's got no more patience for it and this is when we finally cut to the sergeant simpson stuff which the first shot of sergeant simpson that is straight a sergeant rock cover like that's just lifted directly off of his joe cubert joe cubert is

underrated compared to say like jack kirby or i think he's only really under jack kirby of his era of dudes who doesn't uh who gets credit like he also started the joe cubert school of arts of comic art like the first college you could go to for drawing comics which i i have heard uh different things about its quality i was gonna say was that a scam because it sounds like a scam i actually visited that once when i was in high school uh i went up to massachusetts with my mother and uh we were thinking about college and that was a cartooning school and i didn't really know joe cobert that much but it seemed like not really my thing but it was the only cartooning school beyond maybe like SCAD in Atlanta.

And then we tried it and it was nice. It was during the summer. I didn't go to it, obviously. You did not great. Come on. And so then we get the first of Abe's war stories. Burns is after me because he wants the hellfish banana look if you're gonna stay in my room could you at least stop making up gibberish gibberish a

then what's this wrinkly gibberish I got this in the Second World War two back then I was known as sergeant, and I commanded the Flying Hellfish, the fightinest squad in the fightinest company in the 3rd Fightinest Battalion of the Army. And we were all from Springfield. There was Police Chief Wiggum's father, Iggy Wiggum. Um, if anybody finds a grenade without a pin, that's mine. Our radio man, Sheldon Skinner.

All right, very funny. Well, I didn't join this service to make friends. And watching our backs was private fifth class Arnie Gumbo. Then there was also Griff Asa Oxenetch. So yeah, we get a lot of the Simpsons grandpas are popping in there. Of course, we have to ignore the Skinner lore. That's actually his father. Yeah.

Well, so he did say he called Iggy Wiggum the father of Chief Wiggum. But he says, and then our guy, Sheldon Skinner, he does not directly say that's Agnes' husband. He just says that's Sheldon Skinner he does not directly say that's Agnes's husband or he just says that's Sheldon Skinner that's it it's very great how he gets the other people out of the way who are not related to current cast members like also these people Griff Asa Ox and Etch like they're all the dudes who are just in every war film it's very very uh stock like war characters like the tough guy uh the farm boy uh the big dumb guy and the brainy guy saving private ryan still like two years after this still had all those characters

those stereotypes in it yeah like you said they they show burns and he would have had to been 53 then i do think the j edgar hoover line establishes why he was busted down to private for obstructing a probe, as they say. Which you get that with Hoover. He was a very closeted gay man. That's the joke. Was that true or was that a rumor people spread to discredit him? I've heard a lot of stuff. I believe it was true.

I think it was. The wearing women's underwear, that's one thing. No, that's probably not true. But I mean, he he had a longtime companion. I do know that. I was a big part of Clint Eastwood's movie about it, which I didn't really see. But he even busted out a private. But let's and he also saves Hitler's brain, which a great a great reference to the 1968 B movie classic.

They put in a gorilla or a robot or a robot gorilla? I think that, yeah. Okay. But here's the rest of the war stories. But every unit has a troublemaker. Ours was a cocky little private named Montgomery Burns. Haven't you won the war yet? Hey, you said you was dead yes dead tired but i'm quite refreshed now

thank you you bossed around the richest most powerful guy in town how come you were a sergeant and he was only a private well he got busted down for obstructing a probe from j edgar hoover and we got stuck with him bart is the audience there too just like yeah yeah how did that actually you're just lying this is a lie just like all the others and uh so then we get to the creation of the taunting hey he found some pictures wait a minute we ain't supposed to steal from civilians you want me to report you to commander flanders just leave them burnsy leave them for whom the germans the folks who shoot at ain't supposed to steal from civilians. You want me to report you to Commander Flanders? Just leave him, Bernsie. Leave them for whom? The Germans? The folks who

shoot at us all day? Let's just take them. We'll all be rich, rich as Nazis. Whoa! Think of what a guy could get himself with that kind of scratch. I could buy chicken dinners three times a day. I could buy a brand new Studebaker with a fan on the dashboard.

I could buy my brand new Studebaker with a fan on the dashboard. I could buy my way into high society. Well, I don't feel right about it, but I could use a nest egg for retirement. I'd hate to wind up in one of them old folks' homes. Then it's agreed. Of course, we can't sell the paintings now. We'd be caught.

How many of you are familiar with the concept of a tontine? All right, Ox. Why don't you take us through it? Essentially, we all enter into a contract whereby the last surviving participant becomes the sole possessor of all them pretty pictures. Well put, Oxford. Now, remember, you can't all sign with an X. I love that final line.

Yeah, I love Rich's Nazis. Is that the line of the episode? Uh, yes. That's the joke. And how everyone is on board when it's like, we'll be just like Nazis. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. I want to be Nazi.

And also, I just love the reading of, we ain't supposed to steal from chivalry i remember someone on the commentary saying the same thing like they just really that was their favorite line it's like an even more marble mouth wigum and i i did i kind of wished i could have seen commander flanders in this flashback though too oh boy god that'd be great oh man yeah it also that ox stands for oxford that's pretty great he's secretly smart he was the he was always the smart one in the platoon they just called him ox you think he's ox like moose in the archie comics but though he still says damn pretty pictures 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 electric island.ie but um outside of burns and abe they all suffered pretty ignoble deaths but uh ox died carrying the crate of paintings out of the castle died of a hernia pretty bad and then the other five died in a float accident at the veterans day parade in 1979 so what happened were they all crushed under a float or yeah there was a fire but it's like they all they all got wiped out pretty quickly well it was burns it was burns i think it could be burns i also imagine 1979

barney gumbel chief wiggum and and well not seymour the real seymour skinner they all watched their fathers die together in a horrible accident. They had to scar them all and unite them, wouldn't it? Just like, man, we all watched our fathers die in that accident together. Remember that? Maybe they knew. That's why they made Barney's Bullerama. The proprietor is the uncle, not the father.

Yeah. And I wonder if Wiggum was thinking about that when Barney stole his position in the B-shards. Wow. Yeah, oh, my God. So we can't acknowledge any of this history anymore, but their fathers died together. But the idea of a taunting, on the commentary, Bill Oakley says he got it from an episode of Barney Miller. And I have that very episode right here. It is from an episode called The Taunting, so easy to find.

His cousin, he won a chess game. What chess game? The game we played to see who got the money. What money? The money from the taunting. Taunting is basically an arcade form of life insurance. A group of subscribers who are usually from the same family pool their money and then buy equal shares and then the years pass by

and people start dying off and finally the last remaining survivor collects the entire pot. Really? Well, that's what Dietrich said. He was just stealing that from Dietrich.

Sort of like the free parking space monopoly in a way. Though also, an episode of MASH had another taunting plot, and this scene is actually basically the exact scene from The Simpsons. I wonder if they took it from both.

Any of you know what a taunting is? Yes. A taunting is a pledge. Give that man a cheroot. The five of us made a pledge. We'd save this bottle. Let some legal eagle stow it for us. And whoever turned out to be the last survivor of the group, well, he'd get the bottle and drink a toast to his old buddies for good or bad you're looking at the last survivor i got the job when grusky passed on in tokyo i like how both clips uh have someone going what's a taunting well that's kind of the simpsons

giving credit to their own sitcom forebears they are just stating into the same way like what's a taunting like nobody knows i think now thanks to the simpsons we all know what a taunting is bart still doesn't believe him until we get confirmation from burns himself ox was the first to go he got a hernia carrying the crate out of the castle. Five more men died in the Veterans Day float disaster of 79. Now with Asa gone, it's down to me and Burns. Great story, Grandpa. Could have used a vampire, though. Night.

Oh, my own grandson thinks I'm a liar. Don't kill me! I've tried to meet you halfway on this simpson but you had to be little johnny liverlut now give me your key to the hellfish bonanza oh wow there really is a treasure whatever you do don't give him the way bart's in the animation is covertly picking yeah pocket like you get to see it there i rewound that was very i mean you can't really tell what he's doing unless you know what he's doing because he puts his hand like up on his pocket oh shit i can see it yeah a lesser show wouldn't have animated that a lesser episode of simpsons would have been just like, look, you get it.

He stood next to him. That's enough. We don't need to draw it in the shot to see him put it in there. And just Burns' arrival through the wall is so great. It's so terrifying. Again, supervillainy. I like how inelegant it is. It's like he power-tooled his way into the house,

and now he's on a cherry picker, presumably driven by Smithers. I would think so. Yeah, it's just so unsub cherry picker, presumably driven by Smithers. I would think so. Yeah, it's just so unsubtle. He's like, that's it. I'm done. Just give it to me. Then he smashes into Lisa's room. Which, on the commentary, they're like, Lisa should know that's not Santa.

But I take that as just she's bleary-eyed from waking up. And also, it's, duh, a reference to How the Grinch Stole Christmas the how the Grinch stole Christmas I do like Lisa's Santa it's cute and then Burns just Abe is ready to give up and I do like that Bart helps Abe get his mojo back I guess Burns is finally

gonna be rich not without the keys he isn't hey you got the keys now we can get the treasure. Oh, what's the use? Burns would still find some way to take it from me. I can't believe you, Grandpa. The sergeant in that story you told would never be scared of a dork like Burns. You gotta get that treasure. You gotta do it for Ox and Asa and Griff and Burnsy. Well, not so much Burnsy. You really think I can do it? Yes.

We gotta act fast. Where are you two going at this hour? On a treasure hunt. Oh, can I come? Only if you're ready to stare danger in the face. Put your manhood to the ultimate test and take... Pass. That's great.

There's a little animation joke at the beginning of that clip where Abe absentmindedly takes off his glasses and puts them in his dentures glass for no reason. I had to rewind that to make sure I saw that right of him pulling his glasses out of the water. Yeah. I was like, that's so good it's just such a natural movement of just like well time to put my glasses down but puts them in his danger water which is not just regular water it's treated water too and and i also like how long it takes abe to recognize that bart has the keys like not without the keys he's not one two three four you got the keys his brain is a little slower yeah the other thing is uh so i feel like in this in this season towards the end like bill oakley One, two, three, four. You got the keys! His brain is a little slower. The other thing is, so I feel like in this season towards the end,

like Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, the showrunners, are trying to challenge themselves a bit by leaving Homer out of things, where in the last episode, 22 Short Films, it was very, very light on Homer. He had one segment, Lisa is the anchor. And with this one, you think at first, oh man, Homer's going to go on this crazy adventure with them. But's like no he's staying home sorry guys act three's coming so many episodes have a moment where homer says oh can i join in and then he'll be in the third act because they would not be afraid they would be afraid to not have homer in the third act which he isn't and in this one homer just gives up like nah you're not getting me in this and uh you know we keep praising animation so much this does look beautiful but

i will say it's not the best sandwich they've ever drawn that plate that sandwich homers weird looking sandwich it looks like one of those crackers that had like cheese in the middle of it but it's huge it's plate-sized cheese cracker they make me hungry uh and yet so then from the entirety of act three is i don't even have a ton of clips from it because it's just like it's an action movie yeah it's so much fun like this feels like more films action films the 90s should have ripped this off of the 10-year-old boy teaming up with his war hero grandpa to then go on a World War II adventure.

I especially love them working together to borrow equipment. Boy, you borrow us some diving equipment while I borrow this boat. Well, how do you do this, stranger? Couldn't help but notice you're stealing my boat. I'll bring it back you ever operated a powerboat no know anything about water safety no what do you need

it for it's a secret cool sounds fine tingly dingling just promise you'll have a good time mod boys come on up we're gonna have a little camp out in the dinghy just like homer ape has a real knack for taking advantage of Flanders. Like, that thing you own, it's mine, and I'm taking it. Okay. I love the extra animation on Spine. Ooh, sounds Spine.

Tingly dingly. The way he kind of raises up his hands. Yeah. Ooh. It's a great little dash of Flanders where you don't expect him. Oh, he's so happy for them. That's what's the best about his character. He's always happy

for Homer and any of the Simpsons. I also just love the Indiana Jones type scene of the activation of the light and them turning all the keys and then the light turns. Though, from a continuity standpoint, I have to ask, who buried this if not the

Hellfish? Neither Abe nor Burns knows where it is and two who built all this stuff if it wasn't the hellfish like i'm gonna say uh burns hired a third party who he later killed but then burns forgot yeah okay all right i'll buy that i also do love do love Abe's talking to his dead war buddies and talking about rich man's heaven. Yeah, you can visit me at rich man's heaven. Rich man's heaven. And yeah, this episode,

it needed just a little Flanders in it. The little like sprinkling of other characters in this is a lot of fun. And then we also get this great, another great little joke about, I guess Abe's Odc or something here it's just weird insanity with numbers now remember the plan boy if you run out of air tug on the rope 64 times no more no less got it oh no 63 times if you're out of air 64 is if you

found the treasure gotcha hey grandpa do you think I could have been a flying hellfish? You're a gutsy daredevil with a give-em-hell attitude and a fourth-grade education. You could have made sergeant. How disingenuous the lines are, but told so heartwarmingly.

That would imply that Abe, who was the sergeant of the hellfish, had only a fourth grade education explains a lot and i also just love when bart's wins underwater it's just like it's just like an underwater sequence and like the deeper jaws it's just cool there's a special like layer they put over the animation to make it look like distorted which is all done in in like in the physical real world there's no computer effect they're adding to it so it's like expensive like anything in this episode anything with traditional animation adding to it, so it's expensive. In this episode,

anything with traditional animation with shadows or these filters, it's more money and more time spent making sure things go right. There's a lot going on in this episode. And we get a nice little blinky cameo too. Again, I have to say, I think it's a bad

idea to store priceless art underwater. I just don't think you can put it in a lot of places. Maybe not underwater. I don't know. Apparently that was a watertight, well, maybe not after Bart got kicked into it. It's not watertight. Is there anything to that Photoman joke where Bart goes by that thing that says, Photoma, class of 78 rules?

I just read it as a senior prank that happened in 1979 that they just took a... A photo mat? A photo mat stand, or one of those stands of a photo mat and just dumped it in the river. That's what I read it as. I don't know if that's a specific thing that happened in 1979. I'd never heard of those photo mats.

I thought it said Photo Man or something. Well, it just cuts off after the a so i don't know what it is i had assumed a photo mat i never my family would always get their photos developed at like uh the drugstore so i only know of the photo mat style things from uh pete and pete me too yeah ellen worked in one of those i think okay i'm looking at one right now that's exactly all it is. And then Bart gets back up there. They open it up and wow, they're all there. All the pictures are still fine.

And then we get like, it's not funny. It's just wonderful and dramatic. The reveal of Burns here in this scene. He's downright spooky looking. I like that they kept the 64 tugs joke. I like that it was just a one-off thing but he was actually counting for like however long it takes for parts of the tugs 64 times he still made him do it he's like 63s i've killed my only grandson 64 yeah i love they kept with it uh Yeah, but this reveal burns. I just love this.

Well, thank you to stop pinching my butter jelly. Looks like I didn't need the keys after all. I'll take the masterpieces, thank you. God darn it! You coward! You're an embarrassment to the name Hellfish. Who am I? No, look! Take the art if you want! Just don't hurt the boy! Hmm. I'd rather do both.

AAAAAAAAHHHH! So long, Sarge! See you with the reunion in november terrible fate for bart but i was just thinking like burns just held a gun to bart in the greyhound episode a year ago like oh yeah this just happened to bart it's like this is not uncommon even the gun cocking sound is very similar that's and that's i guess a nine millimeter i think that's Burns' favorite dainty gun of choice. Although he had a much bigger gun on him in part one. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But I really like when Bart lights the flare and Burns is there.

It's a great reveal. He looks just so menacing. That's great. Someone on the commentary, it may have been Oakley or Weinstein, just said, damn, that's cool. And I was just like, yeah, no, that's just really good writing. It's so cool. I mean, Burns, even though he's evil, he's also a badass in this episode. Yeah, that's true.

And just that reveal that he somehow snuck onto their boat like a Dracula or something just appears. And the way he's lit in red. A live-action film, a serious film should steal that. And one thing I think we're forgetting is that Burns is already extremely wealthy. He doesn't need to go to all this work to get more money. Abe needs the money. He's a poor man living in a retirement home. Like, it's great how Burns has like no real motivation just only to become more rich.

Yeah. Well, it seems similar to his motivation in Who Shot Mr. Burns as well. Just like, somebody else getting rich? No, no, no. I'll just take that money. He can't stand the idea of that. I love, I forgot to mention that when he said it in there.

That Simpson kid getting rich. He thinks of Abe as that Simpsons kid. He's probably got 20 years on Abe, I'm guessing. Though I think they're set up as like 10 years apart in the uh the one with the loch ness monster when uh they when burns officially becomes the oldest man in springfield they set up that like abe is 90 ish in that but still not as old as burns his age is more floating than like homer and marge as as march says god only knows god only knows uh and and also watching the water fill up on bart is like a legitimately tense scene yeah it's like

he's he's facing his own mortality in that little box that is what gets abe's mojo back seeing bart in danger that's when he he spits out his dentures and dives in head first and to save bart which he should have done the swimming in the first place yeah really he maybe part couldn't operate the machine i don't know but the uh and and i also love the it they at least get one little visual gag in there of bart's not wanting he would rather drown than have something in abe's mouth put in his mouth yeah the way the bubbles just look like diseased germs coming from his mouth from that, I think really sells that idea that

like, oh no, oh ew, gross. Well, we just rewatched Fooly Cooly the anime for our other podcast. This has a lot more meaning now. The shared kiss. Between the object and the people. The same thing. So so Bart is saved though

and now Abe is ready to get back on track I'm sorry I cost you your fortune grandpa oh the fortune doesn't matter boy the important thing is you're safe now let's get that fortune! They're gaining on us, sir. We'll have to jettison something.

It's been an honor to serve you, sir. That's the most perfect visual joke. Burns looking at him like, okay, you know what to do. And he's more than happy to do it i just love smithers kind of just limp body of like he's not even he doesn't even take a second to like look where he's jumping he's just like well just fall out of the back here that's the fastest way i was given an order yes yeah it's he's definitely uh despite the fact that he quit

burns because he was too evil this in this episode he's like nah i'm fine like yeah killing one old man is not quite as evil as you know darkening an entire town i suppose not in stealing candy from a baby not not as evil but uh i i and i love abe's like push from like uh you you for a second think that the moral of this episode it's going to end there on the moral of the episode is like bart is the true treasure my relationship with my grandson but he's like no let's get that treasure they totally subverted that also at the very end oh yeah joke which is like perfect also and uh and castellaneta is so good as abe here this is one of his best abes ever that he has to both embody the Abe who just makes

weird sounds all the time. But also be an action star. And play him at different ages too. Yes. Yeah. God, he's so good. This Dan Castellaneta guy, he's got a future. Where are the engines on all of these boats? Good point.

Shouldn't it be right in the back and everything like that yeah at least i'm like birds there should have been a motorboat thing on the back yeah yeah like when he when he when he harpoons it and starts like getting closer i'm like shouldn't there be an engine right there maybe for at least his small boat but then abe would have been chopped up when he got to the boat so they kind of just have to ignore that i guess yeah that's fine that's true i i love that the the harpooning of the boat it it works both it's just a silly thing of abe like jet skiing on his slippers but then in his moment turns to like no abe is is mr action star he's like he's pulling himself towards the boat yeah

it's like the most action we've seen out of Abe Simpson outside of that scene where he's wheeled out, like pushed out of the ambulance. And I pose that he makes when he's on the boat is like total Sergeant Rock. Yeah. Oh, it's such a great pose.

I love that pose. And I also love though, the, even when it's the comedy of him, water skiing on his slippers, they keep a continuity to it as well like he loses one slipper and he has to balance on one and keep like wrap his unslippered foot over the other foot because otherwise that leg will sink below the water and so he had it's

just the they they keep in mind the idea of balance like it has it has a physical consistency to that section which i just love so much other episodes wouldn't bother doing that i i've said that so many times but that's why like just doing this one i can't believe how well animated it is yeah i could see them going like do we have to show his legs that's a lot of work and i mean silverman i think on the commentary even talks up that like, because this was Jeffrey Lynch's only episode this year, he got to be a lot more focused than he normally would because most Simpsons directors do multiple episodes. But so the boat chase ends in dramatic fashion.

Don't kill me. I ain't gonna kill you. That'd be cowardly. Monty Burns cowardly. I just wanna watch you squirm. Yes, sir. Is this to your liking? No.

Now, Burnsy, there's one thing we don't stand for in the Hellfish, and that's trying to kill your commanding officer. So consider this your dishonorable discharge. You're out of my unit, you're out of the Tontine, and that's trying to kill your commanding officer. So consider this your dishonourable discharge. You're out of my unit, you're out of the Tontine and that means the paintings are mine. Private, you are dismissed.

How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You're looking up. I love the sound of Harry Shearer squirming. and your world brighter find our net zero hope at electricireland.ie i love the sound of harry shearer squirming like i could have used more squirming from burns though there's only so they they have only 10 seconds left in this episode basically they gotta speed it up it races to a close yeah though abe i think has a good like attempted murder case against burns and he just kind of lets go yeah i mean burns owns the police and the courts that's true yeah burns has already

very publicly attempted to kill abe three times in this episode and nothing ever happened so and even even burns seems like like resigned to like oh i guess i am technically out of the taunting oh well yeah and the simpsons are waking up to a lot of property damage in their house yeah wait a minute i forgot that though i they didn't wreck his boat flanders boat is it's beached but it's not destroyed he'll get it back homer did much more damage to uh flanders boats when they were best friends what are the odds uh but the i also i like that burns respects the hellfish so much that when the his real insult from bart was when he was said he wasn't he wasn't

fit to be in the hellfish he's like how dare you maybe despite working for the nazis it was the one bit of like uh virtue he has in his life to say to say that he fought for america that's true he's been advertising himself as a war hero all this time but the and just their punching and the spinning out of the boat is just it's all so great i mean like our show cannot do this episode justice because of this whole third act just the glorious display of animation just done so well yeah it's just it's so fun to watch then in a very Schwarzwaldian kind of ending, well, it felt like a Schwarzwalder Anna Merkin-style FU of just like, oh, you won, but you don't get to keep it.

It's taken from you immediately. And then I say Schwarzwalderian because it feels like a John Schwarzwalder writing of the State Department and bureaucracy are evil and they take everything from you. They're there like immediately. Immediately. And they're like immediately. Immediately. And they're like, we've been working with the Nazis for 50

years. We've been working with the Germans for 50 years. Meaning 1946. Yeah, I mean, I think we're like they're hinting like, oh, these are the descendants of Nazis. But it is such a well, here's the wonderful ending.

U.S. State Department. We'll take those. We've been helping the German government search for this stolen art for 50 years. To avoid an international incident, we'll be returning it to the descendant of its rightful owner. Baron von Wurzenberger, on behalf of the American people, I apologize for... Ja, ja, ja.

Mach schnell mit der Art sing, sa? I must get back to Dan yeah, yeah. Mark Schnell me to art things, huh? I must get back to Dance Centrum in Stuttgart in time to see Kraftwerk. Hey, Undumkov, watch out for the CD changer in my trunk, huh? Idiot. I guess he deserves it more than I do. Well, at least I got to show you I wasn't always a pathetic old kook. You never were, Grandpa. Oh, I'd hug you, but I know you'd just get embarrassed.

I won't get embarrassed. I don't care who knows I love my grandpa. Hey, fun boys, get the room. Yes, so the art goes back to its deserving owner. Yes. I mean, the Hellfish did steal it. They're thieves. True, true. But thieves of Nazis.

Yeah, I like the realness of that. Like, no, you have a weird adventure, but no, this technically belongs to some german family i like the the really observational little touches like the cd changer in the trunk that was a sign of like luxury and decadence in the 90s like i can put multiple cds in my trunk i don't know there's some losers switching out cds i if i want to have a random mix from five cds at once i can do it i I'm that fancy. Did any of y'all ever have a car or have access to a family's car

that had one of those? No. I had a friend, but I didn't really understand it. I remember one of my sister's first car was a VW, one of the new Beatles, and it had a six CD changer in the car.

You just put your favorite six CDs in there and you don't have to change it all the time. It's a pain in the ass. You have to go in the car and you just put your favorite six cds in there and you don't have to change it all the time but when you do you get in the ass you have to go in the trunk and like go under your spare tire or something yeah yeah it was a real pain in the ass but it's like you just have to pre-load the ones that you know you're gonna listen to on a long trip and uh that this character the baron has been has been been defaming Germans for like 20 years. He's just such like a, they call him pig-nosed on the commentary. He really is.

He's like Eurotrash, right? Yes. Yeah. And this song is a real song, folks. I was wondering. I looked it up. This is DJ Keoki. Here you can hear the original.

Wow, I feel like I'm playing Wipeout or something. That is called Caterpillar Rabbit in the Hole. Of course it is. Sure. Though DJ Keoki, he is not German. He is a Salvadorian American. So it is what would be playing in a Euro trash place for sure. It's the perfect song. And I wonder if they had to pay some or a lot of money for it.

Because this episode, the credits, inexplicably, the Dragnet remix of the theme is this episode the credits inexplicably uh the the dragnet remix of the theme is playing over the credits from marge on the lamb i noticed it this time for the first time like oh they've used that before it's i mean i guess because the law just showed up it's kind of appropriate maybe they wanted a more war like kind of like arrangement but they could they couldn't afford to have even more music in the show or like another arrangement or maybe they were considering playing this music over the credits the dj koki maybe there's like oh it's too much yeah this is too much yeah or yeah perhaps uh perhaps al clausen ran out of time he's like i can't write a new ending for this too i would have liked this like a stirring

hellfish war anthem at the end like like all of those uh old marvel records had anthems for all the characters that were very like warlike oh yeah from that era well they all had survived the war so that uh you know actually i meant to say it the guys backing up the uh the platoon in the platoon for sergeant simpson as well they kind of more remind me of the howland commandos of sergeant fury's howling which that was just jack kirby's answer to joe cuberts it's weird They kind of more remind me of the Howland Commandos, of Sergeant Fury's Howland Commandos, which that was just Jack Kirby's answer to Joe Qbert's rock. It's weird. I've read none of them, but I'm more familiar with Sergeant Fury, maybe because of Sergeant

Hatred from Venture Brothers. Basically the same guy. You know, this is the first time that clicked for me. I did not... Hatred and Fury, it all... Oh, my God. I can't believe I was the one to get that henry come on retire well he's not drawn to look like uh nick fury nick fury types have eye patches

though in world war ii he did not lose an eye yeah although i should say uh casey is on a very um uh a very good episode of our show this is our 150th episode because it's the 150th episode of the simpsons uh to date uh in this timeline in our current timeline so we've done 150 of these man happy birthday thanks yeah this is i mean this is quite an episode to do 150 on just to look this great uh this one i think on one commentary uh the one for homer palooza oakley weinstein talk about how they run out of steam near the end of the season usually but this is near the end of the season and this does not feel running out of steam at all

I think it's light on jokes so maybe that's what he's talking about but the art really like makes you forget that there's not a lot of amazing jokes in this one and that Homer is not even in it at all really he's there to complain about old people and to turn down the adventure.

Yeah, I'm glad they gave the animators room. Like if I feel like another episode, they might've been more worried of, ooh, we haven't had a laugh line in about 20 seconds. Let's cut this scene a little shorter and we'll have somebody say something funny. I mean, I can guarantee you this was an awful table read. I bet nobody liked the table read.

It's like, and then Burns does this, and then Abe does this, and then they fight fight and then this had like there's not a lot of dialogue in this third act yeah it's yeah it all mixes together though so well and it's just like yeah it's not very memorable with all the lines but it's just it's a pleasure to watch all the time it really is yeah and they and uh in their seasons they were trying to do new things and i feel like this like high this high adventure sort of caper that was light on jokes, but more about the action and the animation. I feel like it's sort of a new thing for the show at this point. Yeah, and I think really committing to a story like this that's action-y, I think, is different for them, too.

This is a kind of conceptual thing they wouldn't have tried in other seasons i really like that like i can't think of another episode of the show that is like a full-on action adventure like this they'd even have like some homer fighting bart's new big brother throughout town like that is a big they live style action set piece but it's more just about how much time they're wasting and it's about gags just like all gags that's true i also do love the hey fun boys is one of my favorite fun boys i mean it's homophobic but i was a gay man i laugh the joke is on the shitty character who's making fun of a grandpa and his grandson embrace yeah and it just it takes away any kind of like sincerity that it

tried to have with bart going, I never thought you were. And it's like, yes, you did, man. It is. In another sitcom, they would have just ended with like, I don't care who knows I love my grandpa. Like, that's just sweet. And so then we get a trademark treacle cutter of the Simpsons of, hey, fun boys. And I like to. It makes it even better that Bart's the

only one who is burned by it. Like, Abe doesn't react to it. Bart's the only one like, what? I'm sure he doesn't know what it means or what the guy is saying. He's like, I do have fun and I am a boy. That's right. So, Casey, thank you so much for joining us on Talking Simpsons. You have a lot going

on. You do a lot of great stuff online. Can you tell us where we can find, like, your work and where you can find your comics and everything? I have a main site, kcgreen.com. Dot com spelled out and then dot com. You could easily Google me and find most of my stuff. I'm on Twitter, K-C-G-R-E-E-N-N, two N's. But your listeners might like my other Twitter account, Screen Shows, a little more. I just started posting on there more often.

That's where I take screenshots of a lot of cartoons or sitcoms and weird poses that I find fascinating and post a dumb joke along with it. I was a really big fan of when you were watching, for some reason, the later seasons of Family Matters, the ones that I didn't see. I'm like, what is even happening? Are there pirates now? What's going on? That was just done on my own account. I was watching all of Family Matters,

including the last episodes, and they were awful. They teleport to France in one episode, I remember. And I wonder what's more unbelievable, that he built a teleporter or that he would actually fall in love with Laura. Or that Laura would fall in love with him.

They gave him Laura at the end, yeah. He earned it, he wore her down as he had promised. Let's say... That's his catchphrase, I'm gonna wear you down. Teaching young boys in the 90s so many great lessons, television. But yes, we'll do our own plugs off the air when we're not with you on the air, Casey.

But thanks so much for joining us. Thank you both for having me. It's been a pleasure. So thank you for listening, folks. And I'll tell you all about our amazing Patreon that pays the bills and lets us do so much work here at the Talking Simpsons Network.

If you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, check it out. We got so much going on there at many different levels. The $5 level gets you so many bonus podcasts. We do a lot of stuff that's just exclusive to Patreon, including interviews and exclusive miniseries. So please check that out. I would definitely point folks out to listen to our newest interview where we just interviewed Mike Reese about his new book,

Springfield Confidential, and his 30 years on the Simpsons and we also have a special bonus podcast for what a cartoon about one piece that goes into the history of the show why we like it so much and why you should not be afraid of it so yes that's all at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons as for me I've been your host Bob Mackey you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo please say hi to me and if you if you like my podcast here, check out Retronauts. It's my other podcast. That's a classic gaming podcast every Monday at retronauts.com or look for

Retronauts in your podcast machine. We've been going on since 2006. There's so many podcasts you should be listening to right now. So check it out. Thank you, Henry. I'm at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter. You can follow me there for updates on when all these episodes go live and other surprises that come to our Patreon.

Check it out there, folks. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week for Much Apoo About Nothing. Wow. Infotainment.