Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield With Stephen Sajdak

Episode Date: April 25, 2018

We return to one of the less celebrated episodes of season 7 and find it to be a much stronger explanation of Marge's life than in most episodes. And we're joined by Stephen Sajdak of the awesome We Hate Movies podcast! We learn to live like the rich with Chanel dresses, open-faced sand wedges, and abalone sandwiches in this very class-conscious episode! Listen and learn about the country club set... This podcast is brought to you by VRV, the streaming network full of cartoons, anime and more. sign up for a free 30-day trial at VRV.co/WAC and help support Talking Simpsons! Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons!

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the entire first season of Talking Simpsons, monthly community podcasts, interviews with Simpsons writers, and so much more! Shut up and take my money! Remember, go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to get your hands on podcasts from the world of tomorrow! I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, famous for our in-your-face humanity.

I'm your host, Laboratory Linksman Bob Mackie, and this is a chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and I gotta wear this shirt with Dairy Queen gimme. And on the line we have non-sexual playboy mansion Steven Seda. And today's episode is scenes from

the class struggle in Springfield. We're not poor. Well, we're not. Oh, that's so sad. Today's episode aired on February 4th, 1996, and Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real-world history. Oh, my God! Oh, boy, Bobby.

Black Sheep beats Junior on their box office debuts. Gene Kelly passes away at 83, as does Audrey Meadows, a.k.a. Alice Cramden, a.k.a. Beatrice Simmons of season 2 of Simpsons fame, who died at age 69. I didn't mean to make a 69 guy.

Oh no. I'm sorry. So I want Steve to tell us who he is because I do want to ask a movie related question. Of course, Henry and I know who Steve Sadek is, but Steve, if people have never heard your podcast, who are you and what do you do? I am an internet troll disguised as a podcaster. No, I am, we do a

movie podcast show, a bad movie podcast show called We Hate Movies. We've been doing it somehow since 2010. We have a bunch of fun episodes on bad movies. We're right now in the midst of a listener request month that is not treating us very well.

Uh, but this year, some highlights, we did the boss baby. Uh, I'm trying to think of other fun episodes we've done in the, the jerky boys movie was really good. The jerky boys movie.

Yes. If you're a kid and you don't know what the jerky boys are good for you. But, uh, if you happen to know what they are, yeah, we just kind of, it's,

it's an improvised movie show where we both kind of review and skewer a movie and kind of use bad to somewhat less bad funny voices to make fun of them. This is a real treat for me because I am a We Hate Movies super fan. In fact, I found you guys somehow in your single digit episodes. I remember I was reading the Podmas feature and one of you was posting in the comments, like, check out our podcast because it is still hard to break into the Podmas feature on the AV Club if you're not in LA. And I don't even know if Podmas still exists anymore, but I made it into there like once or twice. It's very difficult. Oh, I was begging them to cover me. Yeah,

it was, that was my gimmick for, and I think that shook the tree for like, finding a lot of new listeners, because obviously AV Club and us dovetail nicely, but I just was the guy. I never pretended to be somebody that I wasn't, at least. I was always very upfront, hat in hand, if you're on the bus, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I have a podcast. If you would like to listen to it,

da-da-da-da-da. And I got made fun of mercilessly, but I feel like it was somewhat beneficial, because I got Bob Mackie out of the deal. Oh, yeah. Hey, it's a package deal. Yeah, I mean, I think I started with the episode The Wrong Guys, the Louis Anderson movie. Maybe that was episode six or something. But I've been with you guys since the beginning.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, wow. Yeah, back when there were much fewer podcasts. So I was like, I'll give this podcast a try. Now when someone tells me about a podcast, I'm like, I'm not doing homework. Actually, just today I went through like I listened half listened to five podcasts and i'm like well i'll get to the other one later because i need to get to the next one it's it's it's piling up i have i've run out of the things i do while listening to a podcast i'm like why i need

to find a new video game to play so i can listen to these podcasts while sitting still i need a more dishes so i can wash them now a favorite of mine, this was a Bob recommendation as well, was the Nightmare on Elm Street 6 one, because you just destroy Freddy Krueger. It's such a pointless film. My favorite joke you guys did in it was about how Tom Arnold and Roseanne are billed as Tom and Roseanne Arnold, which is so fake and phony. And then you started to a very funny bit about Tom Arnold starring in Fat Horse.

Yeah. Any time – truth be told, we're a bunch of fat guys. We're very proud of that fact. But any time anyone is – any man is slightly overweight, we kind of go to town because, you know, self-hating fat guys and all that. And I would like you to remind me, Steve, which episode is the bit about pizza insurance? And because I was like crying with laughter about a sad man going up to Domino's and saying, Mr. Domino's.

Oh, that is Traces of Red, which is a Jim Belushi movie that no one should ever see. That's right. I feel like that's the fun part of the format is like these movies, we do tell you what the movie is enough where I hope you don't have to go watch the movie first.

Yeah, I think I've discovered some great ones through your podcast. course i never i would never watch the movies because of your episodes but things like ghosts can't do it and blame it on rio like just vile disgusting movies made by like just these total passion projects by egomaniacs just like oh my god yeah just yeah we just did the uh john derrick's other look at my wife's breast movie uh tarzan the Ape Man. Two of my favorites are the ones of like the ruin my childhood ones of when I was a kid, when I was 12, 13, 14, or even younger, watching films like My Father the Hero and Sidekicks. I was like, well, these are normal films for a young man like me because they star people my age. And when you guys revisit them it's like oh this is very troubling or this was child abuse like this is filmed with child abuse here

yeah that one gets a little creepy or a lot creepy especially with gerard pardue's face i don't know if you've read nathan raybens recent review of ladybugs the rodney dangerfield movie but i feel like that could be a perfect we hate movies because it does like it's a it's a weird movie that also sexualizes the preteen for the sake of the young audience and I just was like kind of cringing reading his review I kind of yeah I think that's an absolute perfect one and also like when now I'm watching movies especially with all like which is something we don't really talk about on the show but like the Weinstein stuff and all like the child abuse stuff you might hear about Hollywood anytime like there there's the hot boy in the junior high school or the hot girl in the junior high school,

somebody had to cast that kid. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think a lot. I unfortunately think a lot about that now in the wake of those news. It kind of makes it impossible to see anything or say watch all that, perhaps.

Oh, boy. There were some crimes happening on all that. Oh, I didn't know perhaps. Oh, boy. There were some crimes happening on all that. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's terrible. Watch, yeah, no, it's sad. Watch the documentary Open Secret. You'll learn some things. So back to the news.

I did want to talk about, well, I did want to talk about We Have Movies. It's great. But I did want to talk about Black Sheep because I was there as a big Chris Farley fan in 1990. What year? 1996. For February 96. I was there day one, and I liked it. I remember a friend's mom took us, and after the movie, she said,

that was the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Reflecting on it shortly after, I was like, oh, they said Tommy Boy is a good movie. Let's just do that again, and it is sort of the same movie. I was fine with them doing it again as a kid. I was yeah i liked that movie just do it again yeah it's funny i and i like the characters i like the jokes but i do want to ask steve i hate giving people recommendations for things to do on their podcast because that's what people do to me all the time but would you consider doing a black sheep or do you think it might be tasteless to make fun of a movie with a a man who shouldn't have died so young it's guess it's kind of weird. I think that movie's in the nostalgia zone probably for, I want to say at least Chris

and probably Andrew as well. I never had any kind of love for that movie. Yeah, I think that it's weird with Farley, obviously. Probably Beverly Hills Ninja might be the one. Oh, yeah. Or even Almost Heroes, I think, which is weirdly his companion dead fat guy movie with John Candy with the other one, Wagons East.

If you're an overweight comedian, never make a movie set in the Old West. That would be the worst double feature ever, Wagons East. I totally forgot the other name of the movie. Go West, wasn't it? Almost Heroes. One of them has Matthew Perry, I think. Yeah, Matthew Perry was a Farley one, yeah.

Yeah, Beverly Hills Ninja would be the best one, I think. It's got Chris Rock before he was famous, and I was there day one for that one as well. Oh, me too. Well, I was happy to see Liu Kang of Mortal Kombat in another movie. That's right. I always thought that the Mortal Kombat – I stopped thinking this, but I thought the Mortal Kombat cast got the short thrift in Hollywood. I was like, why isn'tndon ashby in more movies you know as bob and me were both in the video game press as well so we had to watch a lot of awful video game movies i have to say i still

think the mortal kombat is the best video game movie because it's just it knows it's like a shitty uh action movie knockoff that's all it needs to be. I 100% agree. I think that's the godfather of video game movies. Sadly, right? I haven't heard anything about this new Tomb Raider movie one way or another, if people are liking it or not. It doesn't look great. The reviews I've read are just like, it's safe. It's

careful. Yeah, and I respect the Mortal Kombat movie because it was like, Mortal Kombat is hot. Let's make a movie. The next year, there's a movie. Tomb Raider has a reboot five years ago they finally make the movie up uh actually assassin's creed has not been hot for like i don't know nine nine ten years maybe eight years they finally made that movie like i hollywood used to be a little braver about video game movies though hey spoilers for that tomb raider movie i found out but who cares honestly but well this is the spoilers it does a thing that I hate.

I cannot stand in previews. And they did it, I found out reading, about what a post-credit scene is in it. So in the trailers, they have this scene that's your shout-out to the dorks who love old Tomb Raider. To be like, you should watch this. And it's where she buys dual pistols from Nick Frost. And he's like, oh, you like two guns? She's like, i'll take both of these or something like that and so i was like oh well so that scene's in the movie so cool she'll be shooting two guns i find out that that is the post-credit scene that's like teases if we make

another one she'll have two guns in it huh that is to quote the simpsons that is flagrant false advertising like hey i'm buying a ticket to this movie for the two guns scene, please. With Nick Frost, too. It also promised you Nick Frost in a movie, which he barely is in, from my understanding. Frankly, I don't need a Lara Croft origin movie. Just raid the fucking tombs.

That's what you're supposed to do. I'm trying to think of what the post-credits scene could have been in Batman Begins when they establish the Joker it's like you know somebody gives her oh we've been getting these robberies and they turn over a card and it's just a snake I guess

she fights a big T-Rex okay honestly I know too much about the Tomb Raider mythology though this time there's no Jon Voight in it unfortunately oh that's a good thing I think. But hey, Stephen, so what is your personal history with

The Simpsons? You seem of our generation and a funny nerd, so I can guess how you came to it, but how did you? I kind of remember just sort of vaguely watching this even on the Tracy Ullman show. Oh, wow. I don't feel

like I'm 55 years old but for some reason I I remember like just my family kind of lining up and watching the Tracy Ullman show and that the Simpsons were my favorite part of that and then it sort of was like oh my god this Christmas special and then it became my favorite show forever until I think the last obviously like most people i kind of stopped watching it's been 30 years of this my last one i ever watched was actually in andrew jupin's college dorm room we were watching i think the uh the one where it's season 14 where i think uh lisa gets bumped up to uh third grade and bart kind of stays at third grade oh yeah they meet in third grade and yeah it has kind of an uncomfortable scene in it where oh no wait I'm gonna I'm gonna get confused with the

one where she poses as a boy when they split the school into boy and girl schools in a uh yeah I don't particularly like that it's view on gender in that one to be sure but yeah in that one it's weird she gets beat up by Nelson while dressed as a boy. And it just feels very strange. They don't show it on camera. They just show her like crying in a room later after being with a black eye. And it's like, wow. I don't want my mind to fill in the blanks on that one. But yes.

So this episode, I want to say I hung on to The Simpsons until like season 19. I've come back recently to watch some episodes. But in the 10 years or 12 years since this episode aired that I watch, I feel like this is like the ultimate Marge episode. It's all about Marge. It has a female writer and a female director. There's some Captain Wacky stuff in there with Homer,

but it is also a very interesting look at class, which the Simpsons used to be about in the beginning. And they're briefly going back to say, no, this is a very economically troubled family. They have a different lifestyle than most upper class people. It's really unique in my eyes. They're upper, lower, middle class. That's true.

It comes through in this. Now, when I was a dumb wiener kid, this was one of my least favorite episodes when I would go through the VHS. And I think back on it now, I was like, well, because I was 13 and I just thought this story is about like moms being sad. I don't get this. Let's fast forward to Bart and Krusty the Clown in the next episode. I need to get to that. I've got a sad mom right here. I don't need to watch that TV.

Yeah, I think I always kind of like the Simpsons class stuff. And actually, like, it's fun how just in just another season, they like kind of flipped out on their head with frank grimes as he comes to their house and like calls it a palace which i was you know i uh lower middle class as a kid and i kind of always thought about that i live a couple bedroom apartment in the bronx and i was always like look at their house look how fucking huge it is there's like they have a yard and like the frank grime i didn't live above a bowling alley and below a bowling alley but you know i kind of saw that i actually do love when they play with this kind of stuff. Yeah, I actually have a similar experience, Steve. We're going into Bob Mackie origins now,

but I grew up fairly poor. We lived with my grandma for like five or six years before we entered the middle class officially. And I remember just feeling resentful after going to a quote unquote rich person's home. Really, they were middle class. And then coming back, like, why don't we have nice things? And then as I get older, like being very conscious, like Marge is is like i don't know how to interact with these people i don't know

what all of these norms are i'm just very uncomfortable so i really this episode really speaks to me as someone who had to like who kind of graduated classes and had to adapt i i like its view on class more now and especially though also it goes so far into marge that it kind of colors future episodes like you you get to see the the actual sadness that's beneath her sometimes or just her regret or shame that she feels and they try their best to step it back at the end of this episode but it still feels like no she feels a lot of shame it seems like it's it's kind of sad you always like why can't this lady get out you know what i mean like

it's uh you know she's she's like good looking for this show she's smart cultured etc etc it's like man she's got she just made a couple of the wrong choices and one of which is homer oh yeah that's for sure it's as as they underline in this episode and before we get started i want to put out one very very important fact that we learned from from showrunner at this time, Bill Oakley, in our second interview, is that he wanted to get the actress Stockard Channing to play Evelyn, the main rich lady. It's Tress McNeil in the final version, but he was talking about how you kids don't understand who Stockard Channing was, but she was huge. So she was Rizzo in the live action film version of Grace and also First Lady bartlett in west wing i think those are two biggest roles but when you see a picture of her you're like oh her she's the lady and stuff she was one that was always hiding martin sheen's ms in that show it always fell on her shoulders

she didn't get a ton to do on that show compared to oscar winner alice and jannie no no i also think um i actually kind of love when that happens in the simpsons when somebody backs out and a utility player gets to like kind of get a bigger role because i actually think that the voice performance of evelyn is really good yeah that's uh that was a point bill oakley made too about like it was unfortunate they didn't get a a famous person for it for like advertising sakes but tress mcneil rarely gets to be a lead voice in any of this she's just kind of until until the creation of the character suzy nagel like she didn't really have even a regular stock character in the sims or i guess agnes she had

agnes yeah yeah it's a very uh i think distinct voice for a lot of her voices blend together she always has like you know lindsey nagel voice you hear in a lot of places you hear the the cranky old lady voice in a lot of places this one is it kind of sounds like diane keaton or something like that it's very unique yeah and uh like bob mentioned this is a first for the simpsons it is written by jennifer crinton directed by suzy deeter so a woman pairing on animation which i believe the only time that had been done before this in american animation was on the critic with with the episode A Little Devil Do You, the debutante episode, which was written by Nell Scoville and directed by L.H. Damn it. Lauren McMullen.

Lauren McMullen. I was forgetting her fake name. It's very convoluted. And they put that episode up against the Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding duel. They dueled. Like the end of Hamilton, man. They dueled like it like the end of hamilton man they do yeah but it's this is a really it is something that the simpsons really failed to explore a lot is even you know i i feel like i'm just promoting our interview with bill oakley now for the 11th time but when we asked

him about jennifer crinton in her short time on the show which i also didn't know she was married to simpsons writer jace Richdale as well for a time. But when he talks about her brief time on the show, he definitely says he regrets that it was a bit of a boys club. And you see the kind of opportunities for stories that they missed out on, I think, by not having as many women on the staff until recently. And even now, I highly doubt they're at 50-50 parity on the Simpsons staff. I don't think so. But this is a very, this is the kind of episode i feel like you need a woman's perspective for like they talk about how normally the lowest writer on the totem pole would be assigned a marge script and they often wouldn't

want to do a marge episode they found her boring to write for at times yeah they treated marge scripts like boot camp almost like if you can survive the marge episode you can write for mr burns or homer or bart i don't know i think that marge on the lamb is probably one of my favorite episodes this is a sneaky really good episode like when you when you gave me the sheet of stuff to do it popped out of me not just because the title but like i don't know i just there's a lot of really good lines in this episode that wind up in my vernacular as we'll kind of go oh yeah yeah well why don't we start at the beginning then here with Abe trying to fix a television. Ay, Dios no me ama.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, I want to see what's on the other broadcast. Where's the oscillator on this thing? No, Grandpa, no. Yes, yes. Why, darn it, what is this dude? this oh i'll make my adjustments here and abe abe is injured in that he falls down with some pain in that it's pure chaos every character

is saying a different thing as he's like fiddling with the oscillator i i didn't realize bumblebee man said god doesn't love me until this wow i kind of love when i will say i don't like i'm not a big fan of ava abe episodes but any like punching down on the elderly that happens on this show that is that goes like almost unremarked on is that is my favorite it's like i love how grandpa fucks it up and they just leave him at the retirement home for the rest of the episode. And it's funny because none of us will get old. No! It's never happened.

I mean it's a nice heavy dose of Grandpa at the start of him saying all of his nonsense words and I forgot to get in the, I do love how Homer says he wants that corn so much. It looks like they're on their way to a new TV. Yay! We're to a new TV.

Yay! We're getting a new TV! Let's go to the Sharper Image. They've got a TV shaped like a 50s diner. No, let's go to the Nature Company. They got a TV assembled by Hopi Indians. We can't afford to shop at any store that has a philosophy. We just need a TV.

We're going to go to the outlet mall in Ogdenville. I got some things to say about this. So the Nature Company started in 1972 here in Berkeley. Whoa. And they branched out across America. They were rebranded as the Discovery Channel Store in 1996. And we had one of those in our mall. And by 2001, all of them shut down. So another case of hippies selling out to corporations and then being punished for it. At least people got laid off in the process. It's true. No, both of those stores, I think it's a real great observation that Lisa and Bart are into those

because they were what I gravitated to immediately in the mall. I would definitely eat the video game store first, but then a store with a rain stick would just get me right in the door. But then when I look back at them, I'm like, exactly this is just a toy i've never seen a human being buy anything from the sharper image either i don't know how that works i just feel like it's a place you lounge it's sort of like the sky mall catalog it just things you laugh at like oh that's the world's biggest crossword puzzle well my flights my flights done i'm out i want to talk about outlet outlet malls though because i was a frequenter of outlet malls because my family was very cheap

and my grandma would take me to the Grove City outlet mall in Grove City Pennsylvania where it still exists to this day and if you have not been to outlet malls they basically are very strange they have things you won't see anywhere else because they're just sent there by the distributor there's no middle man so like in the outlet mall I would go to

there would just be like a clothing brand would have its own store. Like there'd be a fucking big dog store. If you remember the big dog line of T-shirts, they would have their own store. It's like I've never seen this big dog shirt before. Despite being a fat kid, I did not wear a lot of big dog as a kid. I was more – and I wasn't a big Johnson kid either. I mainly wore far side T-shirts.

You stayed on the porch is what you're saying, Henry. You could not run with the big dogs. Yeah, I was always afraid of the big. I didn't want to invite that comparison. You know what I mean? Like, look, I look like a big fat St. Bernard. That's true. Yeah, I also went to the outlet mall.

In my area was the outlet mall in St. Augustine, Florida. But it was similarly remote to the one in Ogdenville in this episode, too, because I guess, you know, again, in the cheapness of it, you go where there's cheap real estate, meaning the middle of nowhere. Oh, yeah. You just have an exit built for you for the outlet mall. That was Grove City. And I have to say, the bookstore at that outlet mall was just like where all the bookstores sent their books that they couldn't sell. And at that bookstore, I bought my first copy of a Life in Hell book and on the same day i bought the official earnest book so one of those i still have probably a lot of copies of sign language too oh god yes uh every paul reiser book

there are two outlet store memories i remember from the saint august d11 was buying one of my first cds which was aerosmiths getrip, which could not have been cooler in 1995. And then second was we would go to the Converse outlet store because Converse was my brand. I had a black T-shirt that was just the Converse logo on it. I owned multiple of them because I was like, well, this one's wearing out. I need to get another one. And I would stock up on Converse until my little brother made fun of it saying they were clown shoes.

And then we went to a Barnum & Bailey circus and one of the clowns literally had on oversized Converses. And I was like, well, I'm ruined. I can't. Time for Vans. No more Converse. Well, those are the shoes that sock the hedgehog. They make you cooler.

Yeah, just a classic look. I think my... I would never... No more Converse. Well, those are the shoes of Sonic the Hedgehog. They make you cooler. Yeah, just a classic look. I think my... I would never... There was a outlet mall called Woodbury Common in Long Island, but my little kid, what I think my outfit is going to be was those old Looney Tunes shirts that were black

that had the colored ring and then a single character on them. I tried to collect those and thought that that was going to be my brand. Would they be wrapping or perhaps scratching a record on those shirts? No, no, no. Those,

those I avoided. Although those were all the rage back then. I love the ones of Tweety bird saying like, step off. Everyone was like crisscross for some reason. No, I think I had those. I had one of the Daffy duck,

but it was just as bill and the eyes on a black t-shirt i had that oh yeah stark and interesting the sentence will be right back if Sipowitz supported this podcast on Patreon would you do it too I know I would if you went to patreon.com slash talking simpsons just like Sipowitz you can support us for just five dollars a month me and Bob do this full time that's how we get awesome guests and do so many cool podcasts, not just Talking Simpsons, which we offer a week early and ad free to Patreon supporters, but also a ton more like our weekly show. What a cartoon.

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Give it a listen. they get to the gray market superstore which that's quite a sign guy man i i think i used i called a in a sorny playstation for many years thanks to this line look at these low low prices on famous brand-name electronics. Don't be a sap, Dad. These are just crappy knockoffs. I know a genuine Panasonic's when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox and Zorni. Listen, I'm not going to lie to you.

Those are all superior machines. But if you like to watch your TV, and I mean really watch it, you want the Cannavale. It features two-pronged wall plug, pre-molded hand grip well, durable outer casing to prevent fall apart. So, you wrap

it up, I'll start bringing in the pennies. Oh, I love to prevent fall apart. He's trying to be technical about it won't break. Yeah, well, it has an outer casing that keeps parts inside of it. That's all he's saying. What an innovation.

It's like those old DVD, when you get an older DVD, it'll be like, it has animatronic menus or anamorphic menus. Like, wow. It's like a pause box. Yeah, this DVD has chapters. Yes. I love that line. And I also, I remember when i watched this originally as a kid being

disappointed that they got the same television yeah because i was like oh this is the time when the simpsons are going to get a brand new tv and like i was on bart and lisa's side i guess i kind of wanted the big fancy tv for them and then they just got the same one and it's also cool in the beginning here with the tv shopping you get the first clues of their station in life, their income, because like Homer is paying for the TV and saved up pennies. Marge even says we don't have enough money to get a cool TV. You're getting all this right up front. And then we also get to see class-wise where the Simpsons are above,

we get a nice appearance of Cletus and a debut here of a character. Oh, goody. Honey, I don't think these clothes are us. Who are they? Hi, Brandy. You can wear that shirt to work. Oh, Cletus, you know I gotta wear the shirt what Dairy Queen give me. I love that.

That is great. Yes, the Simpsons are at least above uh Cletus and Brandy so that is the first appearance of Brandine first off I want to correct the Simpsons wiki oh no the Simpsons wiki has says her first appearance is 22 short films it is wrong that is her right there and even named Brandine so it's not like you'd say oh she's a different character she is drawn and looks like the Brandine we know and in episode, Cletus is recommending her another clothing item. Yes, a pair of boots. A pair of boots, right.

Which, a woman of more distinguishing taste. And Brandine, in case you don't know, is the wife, mother, sister of Cletus. Thanks to the number of flanderized jokes on Cletus, she's basically every type of relative that he can be to her it'll be a few years before we get to diabetes oh god i love that it's so weird that they have to obscure the chanel suit name on there i feel i wonder if it was like they're worried about getting sued by chanel or if they had a rule of like you can't advertise a real it'd be considered advertising if you put a name brand on this i don't know maybe they can say chanel like you can say you can say pepsi but you can't

show a logo because the logo is trademarked you need to pay for it or something something like really like legally like that or i've heard that like well if we say that pepsi a thing if they put in a pepsi then coke who's advertising is like hey yeah but we fucking paid for advertising on this i don't know who's going to advertise four thousand dollar dresses on the simpsons now so it's it's a nail on the thing here okay and we get to see shuh on the on the billboard but we never see the full word on it though i as a 13 year old didn't know what a chanel dress was so i i guess i learned i learned something that day but we get to see how how the dress does look great on Marge. I love how they draw it on her.

And that you should just buy a... If I saw that deal, even if I never wore that dress, I'd be like, this is $90. This is marked down 98%. I'm going to buy this. And you're right, Henry, that if you go to other episodes where they try to dress up Marge or make her look different, like if you go back to Marge Gets a Job, even on the commentary, they say Marge looks like

a monster in this pantsuit. She looks terrible. But again, it's a woman director. This is how a woman should look in a nice dress. Yeah, and also we continue our weird obsession with Jackie Kennedy because it is a very Jackie Kennedy dress. That is true.

No, yeah, it's a very, it's a good look on Marge and it's i guess it's a difference you can tell in the deleted scenes for the springfield connection in that one they draw a scene where like marge take you see margin of bra is just like well okay this is what happens when a man draws marge maybe when a woman director they they won't it's a very it's a very lacy bra too somebody's having fun with that scene. But also I love this scene here, but I'll play it in sec,

but the Marge and Lisa, they don't get much interplay on the show to this point. So it's, it's also pretty cool. That feels like another feminine choice. I don't want to say everything like, well, a woman wrote this with her vagina,

so they must have done this. But I think that Lisa comes across really kiddy in this episode in an interesting way. Like, it seems very much like every interaction you remember with your parents when you were being kind of stupid. You know what I mean? Yes. You don't see a lot from Lisa, but she does get a lot of that in this episode. Oh, you look so sophisticated, just like Mary Hart.

It's like a dream, too. But we can't afford $90, even if it is a bargain. It wouldn't be right to buy something just for me. If it were a suit we could all wear, maybe then. Come on, Mom, you never treat yourself to anything. Oh, sure I do. I treated myself to a sangka not three days ago. But this is a real fine. Just buy it. You don't have to rationalize everything.

All right, I Just buy it. You don't have to rationalize everything. All right. I will buy it. It'll be good for the economy. Yeah, I love Marge rationalizing. And also just a glimpse into how selfless she is. Like if it was a suit we could all wear, then maybe. Well, I mean, my mom never. My mom also, she didn't buy stuff for herself very often.

I don't think I ever really saw her buying stuff for herself until like maybe a Leon Redbone cassette she could listen to on the way to work. It was pretty rare. And I like that Lisa is kind of her gal pal here. Just like, come on, get yourself a dress, treat yourself. And in case you don't know what Sanka is, I assume it's still being made, but it's the most disgusting form of coffee. So A, it's decaf, gross. B, it's freeze dried. So but it's the most disgusting form of coffee. So, A, it's decaf. Gross. B, it's freeze-dried. So, that is not a treat for Marge.

She had the worst form of coffee. But somewhere in the Simpsons cabinet is Nescafe, which she's very, very sorry about. That's right. Yeah, you know, we're standard. She hates Nescafe, but Sanka's is high as a treat for her. That's weird. She had the most exotic flavor, though. Montreal Morn. Montreal Morn.

Montreal Morn. And I have to say, I'm not a woman, but I have had similar reactions to buying a clothing item and being like, this is going to change my life. It's going to really turn things around for Bob Mackie. This jacket is really going to do it. I don't know why that has that effect on me, but I've thought that several times and i've always been wrong i get that way about like thrift store stuff and anything i find on ebay i found a a 1989 joker t-shirt from the first batman movie and i was like people will stop me in the street and just compliment me all about this it never happened i wore it and i had to like beg people to look at it pretty cool huh right yeah it was a 70 t-shirt, which was insane.

It's an insane amount. Actually, I bought a t-shirt. It's part of the only the Dennis Miller ratio will understand the joke, but it is a t-shirt of Smithers from the Simpsons arcade game juggling bombs because in the arcade game, he is a mad bomber, as he is in the show, of course. To date, no one has recognized that shirt even at our live shows. And when I was walking to the train from our live show, a drunk on the street walked up to me and said, Hey, man, food, not bombs. And I was just like, you could have at least said Smithers.

Somebody get this joke. I paid $30 for this T-shirt. I love that shirt so much. I also bought my own and ripped off Bob's style. It was a different variant of the shirt, though. Well, as a wrestling fan, I have a lot of t-shirts I can't wear because one of my favorite factions in Japan is the Bullet Club.

And now you walk around with a shirt that says Bullet Club, it's like, you don't know what this obscure group is. I look like I just love guns. Did you bury all of your Chris Benoit collection? Those I didn't own any shirts of, thankfully. My favorite wrestler is the Stars and bars like

no you can't do it oh god uh and so Mary Hart that's uh she was the longtime host of entertainment tonight she did for 29 seasons of its first 30 and retired in 2011 then I didn't know I bet you did I think you mentioned this before actually Bob, but the stories of Mary Hart's voice giving someone seizures, that was an urban legend or half-true thing at one time. And it popped up on a lot of sitcoms and cartoons because she was sort of like... It's fun to make fun of seizures. I guess so. But I guess she was sort of like a Kathie Lee Gifford figure

in that she was annoyingly chipper at all times and she was too perfect. Well, she's a former beauty queen and then became a tv show host i i that reminds me that's uh that seinfeld episode obviously where that happens to kramer oh yeah that's right they just got it right out of there okay uh but that yes and also when lisa demands marge not rationalize it she still does she can't she'll be good for the economy so uh then she shows it off to homer which i got this scene because i bring this up every time usually depressingly on the show but when marge and homer's relationship reminds me of my parents it's always in a bad way and this one especially my my dad had this

reaction to the idea of going anywhere and doing things you look great really you? You like it? Oh, I'd love to wear this someplace special. Spurlock's Cafeteria it is. What about the symphony or the theater? Oh, gosh. What's the point of going out? We're just going to wind up back here anyway. Spurlock's Cafeteria really puts an image in your head. Just a gray, bland, awful place. Me and my fiance went to to uh rural pennsylvania

did like a bed and breakfast thing and we drove past this enormous cafeteria that we thought would be a lot of fun to go to but we went to the parking lot and a the line was around the block but b we just got so intimidated by the the people there that we were like do you want to go anywhere else like yes let's go anywhere else. Was it mostly like surly truckers or what was happening there? Yeah, it was a very like, it was a lot of families. Like everyone was looking at us

as we were getting in line. Like there was a lot of church groups, a lot of gun groups. The bumper stickers were out of control. So it was just like, yeah, where this is sort of like, it's like fun, but then it's like this might turn into green room at any minute you know you're in trouble when you go to a place in

the parking lot there's a car where someone has turned that into like a message board for their insane beliefs and you're just trying to figure out like what their agenda is like so not enough space for more bumper stickers yeah too i went unironically to at least one cafeteria as a kid but my family more preferred buffets because cafeteriaias like, I don't know, you pick and choose, but you just you're limited to what you pick that one time on a buffet. You can get all the slop you want all day. You just pay up front. The only difference between my dad and Homer in that scene is my dad never complimented my mom. That's one.

That's a difference there. But he definitely, my dad would, he would go out to eat places. That was, he actually went out to eat to dinner most nights, especially after he retired. That was the only time he left the house, though. People would go like, well, you could, you know, join a book club or you could do these things. Like doing anything was, my dad suffers from depression as well, I think, undiagnosed. That sounds like, that sounds about right.

Yeah. But so then we get to see Marge. The PBS opera is quite a cute little gag, and just her vacuuming and her thing. It's a sad look into her life as a housewife of just like, well, I guess I'll wear this during my routine then. And running errands too. She heads to the Quickie Mart, and I do love Apu. Apu only now decides like, oh, you've got some money.

Time to upsell you on these things. Yes. In fact, another thing I thought of was, so in the episode Sweet Seymour Skinner's Badass Song, Apu's Quickie Mart is obliterated with the new gas pumps put in. He didn't learn his lesson, I guess, after rebuilding. He's like, no, we'll have these gas pumps. This time, no rockets will hit them. Yeah, I was kind of confused by that.

I was like, I don't remember this being a gas station station but i think it's a sometimes gas station i guess if it needs to have a gas station it will pretty much i think maybe four times ever it has gas yeah if it's there for a joke and if it's there to be exploded or for a plot point like an old friend of marge showing up might i interest you in some of our impulse items here by the cash register? Perhaps a crazy motorized wiggle pen. Look at the craziness. Attendant, I'd like some gas. Yes, I'm sorry, I do not speak English, okay. But you were just talking to-

Yes, yes, hot dog, hot dog, yes sir, no sir, maybe, okay. Well, I can't pump it myself. I'm calling triple A. I used to be a little overwhelmed too but it's not that hard i can show you march is that you march bouvier from high school um yeah hi hi evelyn how about that march you look wonderful and to think i heard you married homer simpson I did marry Homer. Come, you must show me the palms.

That's great. Also, the wiggle pen things, I thought of how huge they were when I was in sixth grade and seventh grade. Everyone had a wiggle pen. They were so cool. And then they suddenly went away, and only later did I realize, oh, yeah, kids are using those to masturbate with. So that's probably why they took them away. Oh, man. My thing is I love – this shows you how great of a person Marge is because I would – I actively avoid anyone from high school as best I can. So if somebody came in, I would like go to the back of the cookie mart until they left.

Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't mean to judge anyone out there. But whenever I hear someone's like talking about going back home and seeing their old high school friends. I'm like, do they know something about you that you need to keep this connection alive? Like I could not imagine keeping those friendships alive. I don't particularly want to either. But I had that experience until I moved away from my hometown at age 25. But until then, I worked at an AMC theater in a blockbuster video. And I would see people from high school multiple times there.

And I felt he I was working a job everybody works jobs so I don't think I shouldn't have felt bad but I did every time I was like yep I work here hey I'll take your orders yeah I kind of feel the same look I have friends from high school that I still talk to but yeah like if I see somebody that like I'm not prepared to judge my life against I will avoid i'll take the next train i'll take the next elevator whatever it takes and it's great acting by julie there especially like hey evelyn just like she's she's she's uh sheepish she she's immediately sent back mentally to high school and feeling inferior to evelyn and it's it paints a real picture of marge being the have not

to evelyn and the other preppies' haves, especially her line about home shoe repair course. It's like she was the girl who had to learn to fix her shoes or to fix her clothes because she either had hand-me-downs or she can get new stuff a lot. And it's a bummer, but funnily, humorously presented at least. Yeah, at least Marge has some basic life skills unlike the spoiled rich that we see in this episode. Yeah, that's true.

Apu doesn't get many jokes where he isn't the butt of a joke. He's using his otherness to be like, fuck you lady, this is self-serve. You get your own gas. I liked that. Just a very knowing joke that he went to that mode immediately. Here comes this white lady that's just going to bug me about whatever, and I'll play into what she thinks.

And he has a little sigh right before, like, yeah, I don't speak English. But the self-serve sign is so huge in the background. Like, she should know to pump her own gas. Yeah, that's a bizarre, like, there were, like, full-service stations. I don't even know. I mean, they have to exist in some places. I've never lived anywhere with a full-service station, but I do believe New Jersey, like,

legally is a full-service state, isn't it? I live in New Jersey. You are not allowed to pump your own gas. It's just too dangerous. They will shoot you in the head if you try. I mean, we've all seen Zoolander. We know what happens. But yeah, I do want to say

that in uh bill oakley and josh weinstein season season seven and eight they they treat apu a lot better i mean he is still uh the victim of a lot of othering jokes but in this one we see uh he's using that otherness to his advantage and then we have an entire episode about his immigration status later this season they're treating him like as a human instead of like this weird different person with a weird religion i do like how tress plays evelyn in that she's kind of she's definitely the idol rich and she's not active unlike some other women in the show she's not actively out to hurt marge make march feel worse she's she's more innocently damaging to march she's like oh well we can be friends now right i don't see a difference between us we're just women right and that it's it's played with like a kind of like clueless

effervescence of somebody who's she also after marge pumps her gas for her she then just drives away she doesn't even pay she's like well what do you don't pay for things it's just it's gas i just got it and i she might have treated marge differently if marge is just dressed in her in her green dress maybe she's like oh you're you're wealthy like me we have we have stuff in common we can talk to each other. She can see her face because she sees she has a fancy clothes. That's true, yeah. I had read that this episode was cut down, or the script was cut down

significantly, and I was kind of curious if Marge ever tries to talk up what Homer is, or has to either lie or avoid what you know, because like you say, I don't know, I would be pretty impressed if somebody worked on a nuclear power plant, I think. Yeah, I think so.

As long as you didn't say what Homer's role was. Yes. A nuclear safety technician sounds impressive. Although he has put the entire town at risk several times. He should be famous at this point. They should all know, like, yeah, Homer, the famous. I mean, like three episodes ago, he a chernobyl with his big fat ass like everyone should know about this and at the beginning of the season there was a manhut for

him so yeah wait a minute we can't acknowledge continuity on the simpsons podcast it's dangerous well the what evelyn is such a wasp i could see her not knowing any news yeah oh and then we get a cute little burns joke he knows how to drive his old timey car not the car that smithers drives for him if it's a current car he can't drive it but if it's one that needs vulcanized tires and petroleum gastylate what's the petroleum distillate i think yes and i think uh vulcanized means to like harden the rubber of tires for like a sulfur based process the listeners need to know this i love i'm sorry just one of those weird little jokes that makes me like,

I can't not laugh at that anytime I see it. And the outfit's adorable. Yes. Just a driving outfit. It's so beautiful. So Marge gets invited to the country club, and no one else has Chanel, but they dress up as best they can in their Sunday best.

Homer, I don't think you should wear a short-sleeved shirt with a tie. Oh, but Sipowicz does it. If Detective Sipowicz jumped off a cliff, would you do that too? best. please lisa we so rarely get to do things like this and everybody everybody please be on your best behavior but no grifting oh raspberries he's got some sort of device in his in his wrist too very impressive bart that seems almost too smart for bart his grifting ability though he'll later learn about grifting in that episode with ed harris in it which ends with a surf contest because they couldn't figure out an ending i think you mean ed norton oh it was ed norton one of the many hollywood eds there's too many eds i tell you i wonder if homer likes that sipowitz uh because he was played by sipowitz in the fox original movie homer bad man uh was he wearing the short sleeve shirtleeved shirt and tie in that portrayal as well? Not the tie, but he was

wearing the Homer clothes. Dennis Franz, I'm talking about here, folks. I love looking at Dennis Franz's character from NYPD Blue as a style icon. Like a functional alcoholic and an abusive cop. You're like, that's the guy I want to dress like. But he got his ass on TV.

He was a pioneer. It's true. Very true god i also love that lisa lisa gets some great lines in here with her distaste for the higher class and i especially know that marge's main objection is that she uses the word hotbed apparently all the time he's like stop saying hotbed it's gross uh so they arrive at the place and that's where they get the we're not poor line which is just like marge wearing her uh heart on her sleeve of just like please we're not poor don't judge us like though the second those rich people see that their car they're like these are poor yeah these are the poor it's evidence and they also almost run over crusty which poor crusty gets a lot of hits in this thing it feels though pays off for the pretty great gay yeah so this next scene which I call Marge meets the ladies who lunch

it's um it's very it has to break a record for the most women in one most female voice actors in one Simpsons scene I'd have to say Marge you made it and you wore that lovely suit. Karin, Gillian, Elizabet, Patricia, Robert, Sue, meet Marge. Pleased to meet you. You look like such a happy bunch of people. That's the trouble with first impressions. You only get to make one. That reminds me of a funny apron I saw. You know, Marge, your family doesn't have to stand in the alcove. They're free to enjoy the club. Come on, kids.

Let's go sit in a car until your mom's done fitting in. That's great. And Bill Oakley complains on the commentary that no one gets the joke behind their names. And I mean, I think we all do. But the joke is they're all like yuppie variants on really normal white lady names. Like Karin is Karen. Gillian is just Gillian. Elizabeth is Elizabeth.

Patricia is Patricia. And Roberta is Roberta. And Susan is just Susan. Like they just dressed up their names in like a fancy way. They had fancy well i think some of them uh maybe came from lesser status and then married rich so they have to they're like well i can't change my name but let's just let's pronounce it fancier like how when somebody gets richer they start talking with a new england accent or a british accent i will out myself for only getting that the last time i watched it so but it is a great joke because yeah it's just sort of trying to exoticize themselves even though they have

these kind of like bland ass they very they very much do i love the character of sue sin yeah she's quite a they give her all the best lines she really it is some real cutting stuff she says she's like a real dorothy parker type susan you know man if i could recast that role as a famous person christine baranski that's who i think would play that perfectly that's the only uh steven if i may suggest a movie for this uh but bad moms 2 or bad moms christmas not good not very good at all but the only thing i like i I missed the whole Bad Moms franchise, actually, unfortunately. Is the first one good? Better.

It's better. I mean, Kristen Bell, she gets to be really funny. And Katherine Hahn, very funny, too. But so at Bad Moms 2, you get to meet the moms of the moms who are even better. Wow. And it's Christmas time. The shining jewel of the movie is Christine baranski because she is just great as like the alpha mean mom and there's a scene in it for no reason her character is not established to be good at singing and dancing in any way but but there's no way you're gonna get a broadway legend christine

baranski in a movie and not make her sing or dance so when she sings a song it's really i love that scene you know i wanted to see bad Moms. What's it about? I have no way of knowing. Who could guess? I just don't. Well, the funny thing is that is the same sequel, which I think came out the same year as Daddy's Home 2 or whatever that. Yes, basically the same concept. And now you meet the dads of the dads and the moms of the moms.

Same deal where they, and same similar thing. We're like, well, what's a famous older woman actor that could conceivably be the mom? Well, we got her. We've got Susan Sarandon and the wife from Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Cheryl Hines. Cheryl Hines, yeah. Which she's actually pretty good. It's all great funny people in a film that they just are like, we've got to shove this shit out for Christmas.

It feels like they filmed it three months after the last movie was done guys don't go anywhere we got one more movie to film yeah christine baranski is uh what on a list of people and properties that i love that are being held hostage by a cbs streaming service that i will never purchase nope yeah hate it oh that right. She's on a spinoff show of the... Of The Good Wife. I think it's The Good Fight. That's right. Yeah.

I remember The Good Wife ends with her being slapped as kind of a torch passing to her being the star of the new show. The slap in the face was, by the way, you're only going to be on streaming. Poor Christine Baranski. She deserves better. I feel like the writers pulled all their fancy pants harvard friend names out of this for all the all the wasps in there because i don't think many of the simpsons writers came from like too high class

themselves but it's hard to not see at least like they got to end they got to operate in that world to a degree when you go to Harvard. You're a Harvard graduate. You're part of that world a little. You meet all the legacy students who shouldn't be there. You also get, and I'm always uncomfortable when I see Ken Brockman's daughter. She looks too much like Ken Brockman for anyone's liking. It feels like he forces her to have his perm.

It's so weird. And we don't see Mrs. Brockman unless it is Stephanie the Weather Lady, who he married. Oh, and I also love Marge trying to be fun with them. And that reminds me of a funny apron. These women don't own aprons. They've never bought one. They don't know what it is. I love all the rich people being horrible and not realizing how horrible they are

oh yeah yeah like like in this scene i won't eat anything unless it shipped overnight from vermont or washington state we order our steaks through the new yorker i have a sneaking suspicion that ll bean and eddie bauer are selling me the same honey. I get food through the mail, but in a different way. Every month, good housekeeping arrives in my mailbox, bursting with recipes. Sometimes the most satisfying meal is the one you cook yourself. Hmm.

That's very true, Marge. One night, Whiff and I came home late and we decided not to wake Iris. And instead, we microwaved our own soup. Of course, it was a horrible mess but iris didn't mind cleaning it up good they're so worthless this scene actually reminds me of just whenever i'm with a group of new people and i don't know them and i want to fit in even if they're not rich i'm just like i'm gonna rehearse this thing in my head over and over and I'll say

to them, they'll be like, well, here's my fun perspective on this thing we're talking about. Just like nothing. Yeah, just empty. I got to compliment Roberta in that she supports Marge. Everybody could have just let that go so flat, but Roberta

is like, yeah, I made food once. Yeah. Her husband Whiff. Whiff, Whiff. And then the other one, Thurston. Like, those are just such great names. I just love that.

And it took me a second in this new viewing of it to remember, like, oh, Iris is their butler. They're not talking about a child. They didn't wake up. I do wonder, do they wake her up to clean it? Or do they leave that at least for the morning for her to find? I think it's implied they do they wake her up to clean it or do they leave that at least for the morning for her to find i think it's implied that they did wake her up to clean it they inconvenience their live-in maid because they couldn't microwave soup at first they wanted to not they she wants credit for not waking up iris and then deciding no we will wake them up

and they're going to clean right now because not only can they not microwave soup they can't clean something up with like paper towels it's just it's beyond their knowledge and skill sets possible oh god and just even the idea of reading good housekeeping to them is like this is insane yeah i just yeah i do love the kind of pinpoint accuracy of really nailing someone that has no idea what like what cooking is what like living in a house is or relating to a person who might do these things yeah it's not it's not that all of them like hates the poor but they definitely like you're an a they're you're alien to them it makes no sense it's it's not a particularly hateful look it's as nice as it can be to the richness i would say because like they're just innocent they're innocent idiots mostly at best they're naive yes yeah i also like that homer stole a bunch of towels i feel like he would have

stolen many he stole many more things there i still don't know what to do in that situation with the guy in the bathroom and i always hate when that happens like oh can you please just leave i don't want to have an i don't have any interaction in a bathroom like none at all i am not a bathroom conversation per week at the place bob and i just left just when i say just i mean nine months ago uh but when we left there we had a manager there who was just like he was a bathroom talker and if you went to the bathroom and he was in there he's like hey how's it going so let's talk i was like i really don't want to talk i need to pee and i don't want to talk to you like Like, please. Understand this. I'm in a kind of vulnerable state right now, releasing my waste into the sewer.

But I do feel bad about the attendants who have to, like, they have to smell shit all day. All day. That's the thing, but then I also don't want to, like, go into my wallet in the bathroom and, like, what if I don't have cash on me?

It's a bad situation. Yeah, it's uncomfortable. But then we get to see another bit of Marge's class envy and class anxiety. I thought it was so opulent, like the Playboy Mansion, but non-sexual. That place is weird. A man in the bathroom kept handing me towels till I paid him to stop. Should have held out longer, boy. The rich are different from you and me.

Yes, they're better. Socially better. And if we fit in, we can be better too. Oh, it's cutting. Yeah. Marge is immediately like, yes, they're better. Like, yeah, like, duh, they're different from us. They're better.

Boom. She has to walk it back a little bit, but she realizes what she says, and she's like, oh, wait, no, no, no, I have to clarify this. I know. That sounds sort of monstrous. But she's been jealous of them the whole time and she didn't realize it or maybe she's had to bury her jealousy because honestly she has no friends marge is usually written to have no friends yeah which i that again feels like a very like male perspective on the show of just like well if i'm writing my mom i don't remember my mom having friends so why would i give her any well i do wonder if that's if that's somehow tied into what she's like striving for

here like here's a group of women she could just go and talk to kind of doesn't exist anywhere else that's true she finally has this outlet and if whether they're rich or not she's like i have a person to talk to who's not like creepy maude flanders the beginning of the episode really underlines how she has nowhere to go and nothing to do and just sort of just is it at the house or running errand she has no social life and this is giving her a social life uh then we get the difference between a bologna and an abalone sandwich and uh then the bit of lisa falling in love with ponies it felt like it was the writers remembering oh yeah lisa liked ponies we haven't done that in like 100 episodes. There are a ton of callbacks to season three and season seven and eight, and that's definitely one of them.

Yeah, that she loses her class conscience when she realizes, well, the rich do get ponies. Uh-oh. We all have our thing that makes us lose class unity here and betray our class. Like $70 eBay t-shirts exactly exactly or flights to tokyo to see pro wrestling shows all right next up i love this gag here that they finally finally do a homer brain joke with marge yes and they do like the perfect bit with it i i just love this huh We've got a winning hand. We can take the rest of the tricks. You better be careful.

The purpose of this game is to make friends. You don't make friends by winning. Still, there's nothing more popular than a gracious winner. Don't ask me. I'm just here. Your head stopped 18 inches ago. Queen of hearts. I believe all the rest are ours well played we could have stopped them if you

had changed to a different suit i thought perhaps changing suits had gone out of fashion a marge oh no ouch yeah it is the perfect marge brain joke but they can never do another one and they might have tried but i also like the fact that Marge is sort of fitting in she's less awkward she has like witty bon mots yeah and that hair I'm just hair is quite a great thought of Marge's too. It also it shows

how much smarter she is than Homer because she at least has the social understanding to try not to win to win over your betters and that's like Homer's whole gag in this episode. yeah it's true trying to destroy burns and she's good at gambling unlike homer who's too slow to even uh bluff properly and uh so then we get the big guest star of this episode who i have to admit if it wasn't for the simpsons i wouldn't know who the hell tom kite is i don't care who tom kite is i did look it up and he had a very long and

successful golf career though he holds uh he's tied for the record of most appearances in the masters tournament without a win so he's he's just like the villain of happy gilmore he's he's no lee carvello i wonder if they ended if i wonder if really the lee carvalho joke is because they asked Lee Trevino for this episode and he turned him down. Maybe. Then they're like, well, let's make fun of him. But yes, here's Tom Kite. You know, Homer, the traditional way to cheat and golf

is to lower your score. That's one way. I'm PGA Tour Pro Tom Kite. How about I give you a few pointers on your game? Now, you don't want to overthink. Not an issue. Keep your head down. Huh?

Pretend there's no one else here. Ugh. And just go at your own pace. Wow, very impressive. You're a natural, Mr. Simpson. Really? Uh-huh. All you need is your own set of clubs.

And stay the hell out of my locker. There is that awkward introduction line that we will hear in many later episodes. Like I'm this person and this is my profession. I feel like that was, they were being very self-conscious about that. Like, well, people, I, most people probably won't know who Tom Kite is. I mean, not all, not everyone's plugged into the world of professional golf. Certainly not. I do love the line. You can keep the shoes yeah i did i missed that bit there yeah you can keep the shoes it's he has a nice little twang to him that makes those lines funnier it also feels like homer being a savant at golf is its own episode and it's almost

a wasted b plot here it feels like in a rewrite somebody said we need more homer in this you know we got to get more Captain Wacky. It really was the Captain Wacky equation. I love the side plot, but it is like the exact opposite in tone to what is happening with Marge. So they find a fun way to connect it, I will say. Oh, for sure. Yeah, it is weird to sort of like, and it also comes late too, right? We're like, I don't know, seven, nine minutes into this episode and you don't expect to be like,

oh, I guess we're just going to sit with Homer while he has fun on the golf course. Deep into act two is when it shows up. Yeah, it's kind of it is it is late for a B plot. You in Simpsons in the Simpsons time frame here. Some dude executives like pull up, pull up. It's almost all about women. There's too much Marge. Too much.

All the boys have turned this off already, which I was turning it off as a young boy. So maybe my made-up straw man of an executive is correct. So then also Homer's reading a book, Our Caddies, Ourselves, which is a parody of Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book about women's health, first published in the 1960s. Just to explain that reference to everybody. It's a parody of Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book about women's health, first published in the 1960s. Just to explain that reference to everybody. I feel really bad for Marge that she stays up all night to alter her dress. Like, one, that suit, she loves that suit. Like, it's her best outfit, and she's destroying it or turning it into a good but different suit out of just, like, out of fear.

And it's just, I feel so bad for her it's really it's it's a it's a real tragedy there's a lot of desperation happening and she clearly cannot just find another suit like that no way no but she's she can make that pink suit in anything though not that people didn't notice love your outfit marge the best says let's have lunch but the culottes say you're a pain. Why, thank you, Roberts. I found something more fun than complaining. Marge, your family is fitting in perfectly here. If all goes well at Saturday's ball, I'd love to sponsor you for membership.

Oh, that would be a dream come true. I'll be there with bells on. Bells? Where exactly will you be attaching them to that mangled Chanel suit? Oh, don't worry, Marge. Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing.

I'm sure you'll be a smash at the ball and I just know you'll have a lovely new outfit. that is a mouthful about her idea of whether Chris McNeil really sells it and I love that Sue sin is always having a drink with her it's very like she's very catty yes she's a functional alcoholic really Susan and she's she I don't think she leads a very happy life no she can't I also like the weird the implication in I know you'll have a new outfit it's like get a fucking new outfit yeah evelyn evelyn underneath it all is saying like buy a new outfit you must have you

have to have a new one these are the rules i'm implicitly telling you well the weird thing i noticed in this kind of re-watching is the plot hole of like okay so they can get into this club but the membership has to be extortionate right like that you know yeah i'm sorry go yeah yeah they couldn't afford this could they no yeah that's like a twenty thousand dollar however like much a country club membership costs yeah that's true sponsoring for a membership doesn't mean paying for it it means that they just let you in and then you can pay the dues that's why i mean that's why why jerks at Donald Trump's things pay all those dues so they can take a dumb photo with an asshole.

Yeah, I mean, that is kind of a plot hole, but maybe Marge is so like bent on this and bent on this idea of like, I want to have friends, I want to have social obligations and things like that, that she's pushing that very real concern out of her brain. Like, let's do one thing at a time. I want to get in later i'll get a business loan later but also then we get to see homer being a lavatory linksman getting bank shots into toilets which again this is a skill that homer's never had again it won't be remembered like him and bart should really get to get like bart should help him with his putting game because bart is a master putter. You're right. As well.

I'm going to call this bit here in line of the episode because I do. Honestly, it's hard not to give it to Burns every episode. That's the joke. Who is that lavatory linksman Smithers? Homer Simpson, sir. One of the fork and spoon operators from Second 7G. Well, he certainly got a loose waggle. Perhaps I finally found a golfer

worthy of a match with Monty Burns, eh? Oh, his waggle is no match for yours, sir. I've never seen you lose a game, except for that one in 74 when you let Richard Nixon win. That was very kind of you, sir. Oh, he just looked so forlorn, Smithers, with his, Oh, I can't go to prison, Monty.

You'll eat me alive. Say, I wonder if this Homer Nixon is any relation. Unlikely, sir. They spell and pronounce their name differently. Well, schedule a game and I'll ask him myself. Oh, man. The Burns thinks he's Homer Nixon and that then Smithers can't tell him he's wrong. So he's just like, they spell and pronounce their names completely differently

But you're not wrong That's a great way to weasel out of telling someone they're wrong I should try that in real life That has been I think that's actually my number one Actually quoted Simpsons line Of we spell and pronounce our names differently Because I get

Are you related to Pat Sajak so often That's kind of been my stock answer is to no. Wow. That is very true. That is useful, man. Also, you're friendly on Twitter. He's a real crank. No, he's become, him and Chuck Willery are like the alt-right guys of the 80s, game show host of the 80s who are now dicks.

You'd think like 30 Wheels of Watching a Wheel Spin would mellow you out. You would think. You would think. Yeah, just wake up laughing you're pat sajak you've made billions of dollars doing nothing you watch somebody else turn letters and spin wheels that's all you do he's not even turning the letters no helping someone dispel not even helping but judging someone who's yeah we get of bed. We get to hear Burns' Nixon impersonation, which is almost as funny as his Elvis one. I love his Elvis one more. It's a great thing to ask an actor to do a character doing an impression, but Harry Scherer really nails it. It's great to see Burns and Smithers having a little joke together and sharing a laugh.

It's very cute. I do like that. And according to golfing for dummies, a waggle is a motion with the wrist in which the hand stay pretty much steady over the ball and the club head moves back a foot or two as if starting a swing. That is a waggle folks. And it's also a gay joke when Smithers is appreciating Burns's waggle. Yes,

exactly. I, I'm starting to wonder, man, if this is that we've had that Smithers is only gay because they wanted to make fun of some executive toady and be like, you're so gay for this guy. You're so gay for this Fox executive. Ha ha. We put it in show. And now Smithers has just become a gay icon on the show. How about that?

He naturally evolved. But then we get to hear like you said earlier, Homer believes that defeating Burns will make really beat him good. That's going to get him that raise. And then we get kind of a real tragedy for Marge here again

at the act break. If I beat Mr. Burns I mean really wallop him bad. I'm sure to get that big raise I've been gunning for. All right, all right. But if you win, don't make a scene and dance around with your woo-hoos, please. We can't afford a single slip-up. They're judging us.

Mom, did you like horses when you were my age? Because I heard... I don't know. Lisa, tonight is very important. Mommy has to alter her suit so it looks like a totally new one. Mom, do you want to know the 15 reasons I like horses better than cars? What? A horse never has to pay for... I really need to concentrate on this, Lisa. Would you mind just...

You know how a horse goes like this? Mom! I've already altered this so many times. It's nearly impossible to... Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Lisa, please! Hmm. Lisa, please! No, no, no, no, no! That's really harsh.

It is, yeah. And it makes me think of being a kid and, you know, annoying my parents about some dumb Nintendo thing or some TV show show and they would rightfully get mad just be like i don't care but i can't get you to stop unless i yell at you yeah no i it reminds me of as a kid explaining what sounded like the greatest comic book i ever read explaining it in detail to my mom and my mom and she was like i i gotta drive i gotta focus on driving we'll talk later but don't you realize how important this comic book was? I just read it. Yeah, we've all been there.

It's a really well-seen bit. I also really love the bit when Marge just, after that moment, it's a quiet second where she goes, it's times like this you can only just laugh. And then she does not. And they kind of hold with her for a really long time. I love it. Yeah, and that is the act break, which is like act breaks going on a big a big moment or like a like

a gut punch but this is just like a very sad underplayed sad moment marge is staring into the distance of like well i've lost everything yeah i won't get this and the way dramatically this works that you're supposed to think lisa is going to cause marge to screw up by distracting her and if you're looking forward to her destroying the to cause Marge to screw up by distracting her. And if you're looking forward to her destroying the dress, which it definitely feels like is about to happen on first viewing, you think Lisa is going to mess it up. And then Marge yells at her too much.

That would be the normal thing. So I like how they mixed it up of like, no, Marge yells at her for no reason other than just that she's annoying. And then she destroys it through her own action so she can't even be mad at lisa she can only be disappointed in herself it's it's a great it's a great change up on that there uh so then marge goes to get clothes i think she was very very stupid to go to patty and selma it's like she should now i i do like the few outfits she tries on yes and their commentary

about it. Well, one of them would imply that Patty and Selma are twice as thick as Marge, which is like, look, they're heavier than her, but they're not like an ogre. It's true. That dress could have been from a darker period in their lives. Who knows? And another one of my favorites is

this started off as a Halloween costume but worked its way into my regular rotation i love that and it is like uh tight on marge i don't i want to know how like how patty and or selma squeezed into that could they possibly wear that it it is way too tight on margin it's yeah it's it's a crazy outfit i it also though reminds me of just like well patty and selma are they either like frigid old ladies or are they dressing like um uh in very revealing clothings at nightclub all the time which which are they i think uh selma is at least man hungry as man hungry all the time as we know patty had celibacy thrust upon her but uh but yeah the hell i just love that halloween costume thing but then uh we get Burns versus Homer on the links.

Beautiful day to be outside, isn't it? Rant on, Simpson. But your vainglorious boasting will only add savor to my inevitable triumph. Yes. Huh. Ha ha ha. Woo-hoo! Oh!

Yes, you're in deep dough now. So I had to point this out again. We can only do each episode once, so we have to make sure to get every reference. So I had to look this up. Burns says, quit cogitating Steinmetz. Steinmetz was a mathematician and engineer, and he was responsible for the

development of alternating current. And he died in 1923, so Burns is very old to know about him. Yes. No 104-year year old was alive briefly with him he was a contemporary scientist when burns was like a young man yes yeah and he worked in the electric field which you know power that's he's related to it but i'm glad you looked that up because i i thought that as well but unfortunately there's a golfer in the in the it almost tricked me i was like oh there's a golfer named steinmetz that's

who he's and i was like no they won a championship the first time in 2007 so obviously it's not a reference but i was just like those were a lot of words yes yeah i i love that reference while meanwhile open face club a sand wedge is just it's real sweaty i'm not a fan of it it's sweaty but i appreciate how much work they went they put into finding every appropriate i don't know twist on words there i guess so yeah there's there's only so many jokes you can do with homer by season seven yeah we're working hard for that one i know it's burns has to talk in ways he never would of just like an open-faced club a sand wedge the okay so when i watched this the first time,

I'm not saying I'm the smartest viewer of all time, but when I watched it as a kid for the first time, the second I saw Smithers, I was like, well, he cheats for burns. Like that's not even a mystery. He just,

he does that. Anytime burns does anything. It's true. Yeah. It's, it's so it's weird. They pass it off as like, Oh,

what a surprise. Uh, here's part two of the golf game. Oh, a cunning stratagem, sir. It's curving right toward the green, and it's there. He got to the green in one shot? Oh, can that old man hit so far? Now keep your head down.

Ignore all distractions. Ah! And Tom Kite just runs away. Also, even though he's cheating, Burns is suspiciously not super weak to at least get the ball out of sight on his own. For it even to go 100 yards, this isn't a guy who can't crush a paper cup.

Exactly. Yeah, the emery board hurt. Yes, exactly. But I do love Smithers. Smithers' way of talking is just so great. I'm like, no, it wouldn't. He has to narrate in some way that could possibly land on the green in one hit, which no 80-year-old could ever do that. It's just so ridiculous.

But it is very much like a little kid, like, wow, you really did it. It's on the green right now. Good job. And also I love the bit, well, it's an understated joke that I only know because I play a lot of golf video games. Oh, me too. As long as they star Mario, I'm going to play it. But then Homer, I believe, has only one of each type of club.

He has one wood one iron one wedge and a putter and those are the only clubs in his bag like that's how cheap he is or where i don't know where he got that bag of clubs from but i also think making an animator draw every single club in a bag that's moving is a lot of uh a lot to ask which is why like in every christmas special they're like we're doing four doing four reindeer. We're not doing nine reindeer. I appreciate when they animate the nine reindeer and stuff. Like in Rankin Bass one, I'm like, that's nine reindeer. You did it.

Are you pausing a bit? Okay, yeah, alright. It's good. Quality production. So we head back to Ogdenville, which is a very sad place. As folks may remember, it was one of the cities destroyed by the monorail, though that's

not the one Marge visits in the episode. But Ogdenville, Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook. It did not hit the outlet mall, thankfully. Thank God. Or it rebuilt in the dark times afterwards. But we get another quick appearance by

Cletus here, which is a pretty great callback yeah miss miss do you have a chanel suit or any other high quality clothes no ma'am but we do have a shipment of slightly burnt sears activewear coming in this afternoon oh i give up what time and how, Bert? Yeah, Cletus is constantly hunting for deals for Brandine. He's a very attentive husband, brother. I think he just lives in Ogdenville, and he just never leaves that store. Yeah, you might want to wear this on your job interview. He's always looking for stuff. Yeah, that's true.

He's real supportive. You're right, Bob. He's always trying to help out his sister, Mom. And yeah, then we also get to see that Homer is really great. He's basically Happy Gilmore in this. Especially his drive shot is just like, this feels like a Happy Gilmore reference. The only reason I know it's not is because these writers would be too good

to reference Happy Gilmore. They'd be like, no way. Also, I don't think the film would come out yet in February 96. I know, Steve, and you, you know the pain of being corrected by things on a podcast, so we don't want to get this wrong. You can't let these sons of bitches

have one little thing because they'll come right all over you. Actually, February 16, 1996. Whoa! It was right, this episode aired right before Happy Gilmore. We should keep in mind it was written nine months

before the air date, too. Yes, yeah. No, no. But that's clearly, it beat Happy Gilmore. We should keep in mind it was written nine months before the air date, too. No, no. But clearly it beat Happy Gilmore, too. So if anything, I'd say Adam Sandler ripped them off. Well, Happy Gilmore and Black Sheep in theaters. What a splendor of riches. Cinematic gold. I have to go back to the beginning of this episode when we found out that Black Sheep beat Junior.

That has to be the only time that arnold schwarzenegger was thwarted by a comedy yeah yeah it's it was his mistake to try comedy again like i think losing was the announcement of like no it's the 90s now like you guys danny devito and arnold schwarzenegger aren't number one anymore with a comedy it's not the 80s anymore it's the rocking 90s people want to see rob lowe and you want to talk about sweaty my god that entire movie every little joke yeah jesus oh god uh but uh so then uh we get this is a little bit of a long clip but it is burns getting caught what are you doing with this ball and all those other balls nah nah there are no other balls uh just these uh reptile eggs oh

step away they're endangered these aren't reptile eggs you've been cheating no matter where mr burns hit the ball you put a fresh one on the green cheating for me good lord smithers that's patently unnecessary i'm one of the world's finest golfers. In all the years you've caddied for me, I've never lost a... No, you're not the best golfer here. Wait till I tell everyone about this. You stink. Homer, Mr. Burns holds a lot of sway at this club.

If you would keep quiet about the alleged decades of cheating, I'm sure he'd support your application for a membership tonight. Well, Hunky, I don't care about joining this stupid club. But does your wife? I knew my kind wasn't welcome here. Oh, no. He's talking about clowns, of course, right? Yes, of course.

Clowns are famously not allowed in country clubs almost positive that's cut out in syndication it's such a great joke obviously the joke is that crusty is jewish and that he's uh that they don't allow jews in clubs nor in waspy clubs until relatively recently i also uh i just love homer's dance it's such a kid dance is singing every word it's so beautiful uh tell everyone about this i also love burns's masterstroke does he have like a dossier on homer about what is going on currently in his life like yeah your wife wants to be in this club and we we have the information that's true he uh just a few minutes ago thought he was homer nixon and now knows that his wife wants to

get into the club he should really remember again that uh he thought uh homer killed or tried to kill him too there's a lot there's a lot going on here we can't acknowledge he has definitely forgiven maggie for shooting him at this point that is for darn sure and and although so cartoony in this scene is the lump on smithers head it's the one thing i'm like you don't have to draw the same or it's just very distracting the rest of the scene he has a big like basically give when goofy gets hit with a frying pan type of lump on his head it's disturbing like poking through his hair too that's weird i also am curious like they really went to town on that foley artistry of a golf ball in the mouth like that is just it's a brand new sound man somebody went somewhere with it yeah

they're really good the sound folks on the simpsons are really great on getting specific sounds for that kind of stuff especially on our podcast when we just hear the audio you pick up on a lot of things that you don't when you're being distracted by an image it's pretty great and and that homer homer would have happily killed a an endangered reptile egg in this test here. And two, I like the lawyer speak on Smithers where he's like alleged decades of cheating. He's not admitting to it. He's like, maybe. And the Homer-ness of forgetting the reason why he's playing with birds in the first place was for a promotion.

For the promotion. Man, this Homer isn't very smart. No, not at all. Wildly out of character. So then Marge drives to a seemingly Rodeo drive to buy fancy. It's true. It's like Capital City,

do you think? That would fit. That would work, yeah. I like that in the continuity of the show. And man, is it a nice dress she gets. It's a very well-designed

fancy dress that definitely looks like it costs over three thousand dollars well she said it cost thirty three hundred dollars there's a specific amount uh because that's the store credit they'll get later that's believable for 1996 oh yeah say and uh she debuts it and nobody nobody is doubtful of it she but she's already so, she's on edge immediately. I also love that Bart gives her the three snaps from Men on Film, which is pretty great. But so, yes, this is Marge debuting her new dress. Oh, Mom, you are looking fabulous.

Yeah, you look great. You can do anything with that sewing machine. No, I can't.'t come on let's go you mean it's a new dress where did you get it the outlet store wow two finds in one store what are the odds call it fake let's go how much did it cost a dollar let's go we taxed her without without let me go so we tax how much was it why do you always have to question everything i do you look nice is all yeah it's funny if funny if you go back to just the dialogue there. At first, Marge does not want to lie to Lisa.

She's just like, she kind of gives a white lie. It doesn't. My sewing machine doesn't do that. Let's move on. You know where this is going. Lisa keeps asking questions. She's just getting madder and madder. Like, why?

Why do you have to ask this? I feel guilty. I just spent our life savings. I didn't want to do that. Like, why? marge knows she's she's being very selfish here which it's uh you know i i get it she she's never had friends before like she's got she can't lose them there's so much at stake for marge she she and she dreamed like i did like that line about you had you had your debbie top balls and skinny dipping

that marge knew she do both did both of those things just like you were you were you you were aware of those things and wished you did them it's like i feel bad for marge she never skinny dipped in in high school or college yeah it's a little bit of like trying to re regain that too like just specifically evelyn you know what i mean like this specific woman's point of view means so much to Marge at this point. Yeah. And so then they arrive there and Marge doesn't want them to drive up so everybody will know how poor they are. So they're forced to walk there, which she's going to ruin that dress on those sprinklers. Like they're right there.

That's a bad idea. But then she yells at the family in the low point of the episode. I'm going to regale everyone with my anecdote. You know the one I tried to say on the radio? Who's going to bleep me this time? I'm going to pose as an Italian count and get some old lady to leave me all her money. I'm going to ask people if they know their servants' last names, or in the case of butlers, their first.

No, no, no. Not tonight. No vulgarity, no mischief, no politics! Just be good! I'm sorry, Mom. I'll behave. I won't say anything controversial. I just won't say anything, okay, honey? You kids should thank your mother. Now that she's a a better person we can see how awful we really are even maggie gets it in that clip just for just for the pacifier just making noise like yeah i

i do love homers who's gonna bleep me this time yeah i i love this episode i think it's a very well done episode but i feel like the one line that makes me cringe is homers um clearly done after the fact adr off-screen line about uh marge you know now she's a very well done episode, but I feel like the one line that makes me cringe is Homer's clearly done after the fact ADR offscreen line about Marge, you know, now she's a better person. It feels, it feels like it was recorded on a different day and it feels like it was put in after the fact.

And I feel like it's too, it's too self-aware. I mean, Homer should not be this smart. I, at least in this situation, the commentary, they say they changed it real late.

Yeah. That it was, I think originally it just was in the music and you can feel marge's change of mind as she approaches the place she then realizes i don't want this but maybe my theory is that they realized that it wasn't obvious enough they're like no we can't we can't leave it too unspoken we got to have a a line from somebody has to make her realize it so they just kind of cut to homer off screen saying a very clear line that like it doesn't sound like homer means it he's not like passive aggressively saying yeah large but it's

still it's it's emotionally a different a little uh doesn't work as well i'd say oh no that's the weird thing is because the last thing that she hits is Maggie. She turns around, then Homer says something, and then she goes back to Maggie first. You know what I mean? So the movement of the scene is her feeling bad about snapping about Maggie. That's true, yeah.

That's true. They should have kept it on Maggie. Maybe if she'd even heard the pacifier noise behind her, she would have realized, what am I doing? I just yelled at a baby about that. That could have been the original cut. Let's petition Fox to change this episode. Make it better. First, we'll get the Snyder cut of Justice League. Get that out of the way. And then we'll get this cut. We've got a whole manifesto here. We got a lot of things to go through. No, you can keep that Snyder cut.

Oh, you can keep that Snyder cut keep it all but he yeah so I kind of wish it was a different realization but I do like when Marge comes back she she apologizes to everybody and I especially like that Bart doesn't realize he's kind of being insulted there with like I like Bart I like Bart and he just kind of smiles like yeah that makes me think of the the first aired, the Christmas special, when she's writing to, I forget who she's writing to, and she can't think of a thing to describe Bart with. Oh, yeah. It's the Christmas letter. Well, we love Bart.

Yeah. That's true. It's a bit of a callback. But Marge explains why she changed her mind. Homie, I like your in-your-face humanity. I like the way Lisa speaks her mind. Iie, I like your in-your-face humanity. I like the way Lisa speaks her mind. I like Bart's... I like

Bart's. And I like my old green dress. I didn't have to spend our savings on this stupid game. Don't worry, I saved the receipt. We'll have a $3,300 credit at Chanel.

Come on, let's go. Don't worry. I saved the receipt. We'll have a $3,300 credit at Chanel. Damn beer and gum, right? Come on, let's go. I wouldn't want to join any club that would have this me as a member. It's okay. Those snobs never would have made us members anyway. Well, I wonder where Marge could be. She's missing her own initiation. I hope she didn't take my attempt to destroy her too seriously. Where's Homer? Oh, and to think I spent all afternoon baking him this cake. Boy, you know, Sue Sin is very troubled.

She's a very troubled woman. She says it out loud. She's like, oh, I was trying to destroy him. Like, yeah, destroy her. I also like that cake must taste so bad that Smithers, he would hide it if he could. But even he's like, like his involuntary like. He can't feign enjoying the cake. It's great.

Yeah. I wonder what Burns pickled the figs in. It's a tremendous delivery by Harry Shearer. Like, yeah! Noise. It's fantastic. I love it. I kind of, like, what I love about this ending is it,

it turns around, like, I just, for some reason, when I was watching this, like, the married with children way of ending this would be, like, going back and fighting the people. They always end in a rumble for some reason. Or like going back and like telling everybody off. It's like, no, they just kind of have their own.

Those people aren't involved in your life. You just move on. That's true. Yeah. Most of them, most of married with children would end with like, this would end with a pie fight. Or like someone humiliating a rich person like yeah stripping them naked or something and i think ultimately sue sin was the only one who was actively uh trying to destroy marge the rest were just sort of naive rich people who marge had to spend too much money to fit in with i did want to

list uh two references here before we forget them so marge saying uh the thing about any club that would want this me as a member reference to famous groucho Marx line. Yes, that was appropriated by Woody Allen in the film. Annie Hall? Thank you. Yes, Annie Hall. That is the famous one. I was sure as I started that sentence, I'm like, I'm going to say the name of it. And we didn't say what this episode title is based on, which I neglected in my notes.

It's the 1989 movie Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills, which I have never seen. Me neither. Nope. Directed by Paul Bartel of the film Chopping Mall. Whoa. Whoa. Now I want to watch this. He made Chopping Mall and a movie about social commentary?

I'm sorry. He's a cameo in Chopping Mall. My apologies. Man, I was wondering if Garrett Graham would have been in that too, just like chopping them all. But yeah, also, I guess Evelyn, it was nice of her that she was going to let Marge in. It felt like kind of an undercutting of the idea of like,

yeah, no, the Wasps were ready to invite them. It was not going to be a Carrie-style humiliation of Marge. I mean, I guess they're okay and naive, but also they still think Marge is rich. If Marge had revealed any part of her actual life to them, I think they would not be as welcoming. She's done a very good job of hiding the car, teaching her family

to act different, not revealing too much about her personal life. That's true. But now that he's got the goods on Burns, he can actually extort Burns for the membership fees itself, so he could have done the whole thing. That's true god we missed that yeah well now homer has no reason not to tell everybody that birds is a cheater at the club so though i'm sure it just disappeared from homer's mind after this he immediately forgot it but so then we get the ending which honestly squeaky voice teen kind of shits all over the message at the end of this here i love just how long he goes

on yes hey did you guys just come from the prom sort of but you know we realized we're more comfortable in a place like this man you're crazy this place is a dump. Oh, man, I'd be anywhere except this place. That's for sure. That's great. Yeah, I feel like, again, I think we all mentioned this, but it's one of these episodes that, when it aired as a kid, you're like, well, this was a rather boring, stale affair. And now you're an adult, you're like, oh, okay, there's a lot of nuance on this. I can enjoy the Homer

golf stuff, too, but I really like this portrayal of Marge, this examination of Marge's fairly empty and sad life and her attempt to fix it as a 13 year old after seeing sideshow bob almost blow up the entire city with a nuclear bomb this is a much quieter type of episode that was hard for me to enjoy as a kid it was definitely one that i maybe wouldn't fast forward through it would just be like i'm waiting for this episode to end i don't like this ending but now as an adult i i appreciate it a lot more like this was not this was not an episode for a kid like this this isn't which may be why they were uh weird about it as well because as bill oakley said many times like this was secretly a kid show yeah this was not adults weren't watching it simpsons wasn't cool

uh cool to adults that time yeah it's a real like there's a lot of meat on the bone on this one which i really appreciate again as a kid yeah i would probably i would want more uh more homer golf or more or anything like bart doing more stuff at the country club but i really just sort of it it feels like an episode that wouldn't be made in the later seasons where and not as kind of stale or dry as the early, early episodes, but kind of nice in the middle where there's a lot of those great snappy season seven jokes, but also enough weight that's like, oh, it's a real episode of television with acts and stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of self-control in that they don't let Homer take over the show when he easily could have been. He could have been the resolution. There could have been a lot more of the golfing stuff. They felt it necessary to have that more wacky stuff in the show,

but I feel like there was still some self-control involved. I mean, in multiple scenes, Homer is literally standing back from the scene. Just like, well, if he was standing next to Marge, he would have said a funny thing to Evelyn. They kind of need to keep Homer separate from all of the ladies because then it would just be them going like, what a disgusting man.

Get out of here. You're gone. He's sequestered for a reason. Well, I mean, you remember that time when Marge tried to make friends and Homer ran in with a skunk like, oh, he's making a funny sound again. Oh, he's doing it. And a No Fat Chicks t-shirt while being sprayed with a skunk.

Classic. But yeah, a great episode. So Steve, where can we find you? I know you've got a Patreon. And again, Henry and I, we love We Hate Movies. I've been a fan forever and I can't wait to see what you guys do next. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, we are at

WHMPodcast.com. Our show is called We Hate Movies. You can find that on Apple and Stitcher and all sorts of stuff. We do have a Patreon where we give it. We don't give anything away on the Patreon. No, you pay for it. No, the Patreon, we have an animation damnation

for people who like cartoons. We do a monthly kind of take, We Hate Movies-esque takedown of a classic kids' cartoon show that we grew up watching and or if you can go to a higher level we do a whole nother episode of a movie we've done

some on one on bright on Zack Snyder's Man of Steel a bunch of stuff there so patreon.com slash we hate movies yeah actually I liked how when so you guys did an episode of Bobby's World for animation, Damnation. And when I tweeted that we did one for our cartoon show,

you responded with, Ew. It's a gross one. It's kind of... I watched so much of that show as a kid, though. Oh, yeah, me too. I feel like I felt special because I think Ew is a very familiar Stephen Sade catchphrase on We Hate Movies.

And my other favorite one is 24 by 7. The mangling of 24-7 that you've made your own. I think Andrew uses it. Two crackheads were arguing outside of my apartment. And one said that she was always, someone, some unforeseen third person was always harassing her 24 by 7 well you'll be happy to know i use that in my everyday speech and i just confuse the hell out of people that's wonderful so yes thanks again to steven sadak and i can't stress this enough people i cannot stress this enough we hate movies is i think the best bad movie podcast and there

are like literally 300 episodes you can download at this point so like just go in dive in if you've never heard it before uh they're all good guys i think they put on a really good show and steve was great to give us some of his time they're very busy too oh what a fun guest i liked him a lot but yeah so yeah i am also now a we hate movies convert it is my favorite bad movies podcast bar none it's so good so yes as for us i have been your host Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo and my other podcast is Retronauts, which I was happy to hear that Stephen likes. That's great. That's great to hear and you can find

that at retronauts.com or you can look for Retronauts in your podcatcher. It's a classic gaming podcast. We've been going on since 2006. I say dive into our catalog as well. We've got 300 plus episodes covering almost everything ever. So just download something that looks like something you'd like and you probably will like it.

And I can also say that this podcast is completely supported by Patreon and our lovely patrons. So if you go to Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, what you'll get at the $5 level, a very popular level, is you'll get Talking Simpsons a week ahead of time and ad free. That also goes for the What a Cartoon show. That's our discussion of every cartoon ever. So every week we do a different episode, a different cartoon. If you subscribe to the $5 level, you'll get that a week ahead of time

and ad-free as well. And Henry will tell us the numerous, numerous bonus podcasts you'll get on top of that at the $5 level at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Oh boy, Bobby. There is a bevy of exclusive things there i'm going to start with our most recent exclusive we do talking futurama where we're going through the entire first season of futurama you can hear the first episode free on this feed the free

simpsons feed but if you want to hear all the other 12 they are released every friday on patreon.com slash talking simpsons and you get access to that for five dollars or more a month and you'll also get access to talking critic where we went through every episode of the critic all 23 that includes the awful webisodes and there you can listen to our awesome interviews we talked about the bill oakley second interview many times but beyond that we interviewed mike scully former executive producer of the show mimi pond the first woman to write an episode of the simpsons and the first episode of the simpsons not to mention dan grainy the creator of the word imbigin who wrote on this season and 22 after that

and so many more awesome interviews on there not to mention if you like cartoons we also interviewed ian jones cordy the creator of okko and former executive producer on steven universe and also there's more if you go to ten dollars a month you get access to our monthly special video where uh the most recent ones we have gone through the shorts the original shorts of the simpsons all three seasons we only have one uh video left to go through them all and uh and also there's the season wrap-ups we went through every at the end of each season we did a wrap-up of our favorite episodes ads that aired during that any news that happened during it it's really fun and starting with season five and six we did a deleted scenes roundup as well where we went over the deleted

scenes that are on the DVD. That's a lot to go through. It's only going to get longer, and Henry will probably die during one of these plug segments. But I have to say, one other thing about this, though, that makes it easier than ever to listen to podcasts is that when you sign up for Patreon, you get an RSS code. You plug that into whatever you use to download podcasts, and they will just download automatically just like all of your other stuff.

You don't need to listen to the Patreon app. You don't need to listen through Chrome or Netflix. No, Netscape. Wait, no. No one uses Netscape. Firefox. I call it Nutscape. Nutscape.

Microchef, Internet Exploder. I'm on the internet in 1996, by the way. But yes, it's so easy. Once you sign up, you can just integrate it into your podcast life, and that's the best part about Patreon Podcast. But thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next week for Bart the Fink. Later.

Wow. Infotainment.