Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - She of Little Faith With Lindsay Katai

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

As Xmas meets Buddha in this week's ep, we welcome back the great Lindsay Katai, writer for Infinity Train and cohost of the podcast Teen Creeps! Together we learn about how the dangers of model rockets cause the local church to go corporate, leading to Lisa having a crisis of faith. And as Lisa becomes a Buddhist she meets a very famous actor with guest star Richard Gere. Somehow this all ends on Xmas, so go along with the podcast as we make apt metaphors. Apt! Support this podcast and get hundreds of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! Check out our new shirts on TeePublic! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Someone who always bacons up his sausage. That's Henry Gilbert. And who do we have on the line? Oh, we have, uh, Lindsay Kaysai. Welcome. Welcome.

And this week's episode is She of Little Faith. I didn't know your dad was so interested in science. Science? Uh, he didn't say science. He said pie pants. Mmm, pie pants. This week's episode originally aired on December 16th, 2001. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby. The Fellowship of the Ring is released into movie theaters. The U.S. withdraws from the anti-ballistic missiles treaty and final fantasy 10 is released on the playstation 2 just ahead of christmas time in the u.s so a busy busy time i mean well first off final fantasy 10 that was a good final fantasy though i didn't play it until a little later because i did not have a PlayStation 2 in 2001. I didn't get one of those.

I had an Xbox and a GameCube. Did not have a PS2 until I think the next year. I played it. It made me think I hated RPGs. It turns out I just don't like that game very much. And we have an entire Retronauts episode about that game. I'm on it sneaking up that podcast, folks. But I was in theaters for the first Lord of the Rings movie.

And to date, have not seen the last one. So just like for some reason I never saw Return of the Jedi until recently I never finished watching the trilogy. Is it just movies with the word return in it that you don't go to see? They don't sit right with me. I loved Fellowship of the Ring. Oh my god when I saw that in theaters that was just what I needed to recover from 9-11.

It was like god we're back to the classic good and evil world of these dark skin know, these dark-skinned orcs. They're the bad guys. They're all just evil at their core. And it's time for the lily-white people to come back. Any thoughts on Fellowship of the Ring, Lindsay? I went on a first date to see Fellowship of the Ring. It didn't work out.

I saw it with another single man. I see. And he was a friend who worked at uh suncoast and because when that movie came out people are like this lord of the rings thing i've never heard of it before it turns out there were a couple other movies done a long time ago and so they'd be on a loop constantly at the suncoast he worked in so it was like the ralph baxi one and the rankin bass one i just on a loop because there was no other thing to watch you couldn't just get the dvd yet man no that those lack vigo mortensen though the hunkiest of all hunks man he i i thought he looked really good in that movie though of course uh also i i love gay hobbits uh hugging around each other that's that's uh quality entertainment for me uh though don't watch

those hobbit movies no no if there's a good cut though my husband had never seen any of the lord of the rings movies before and i am kind of insistent that i think the extended version is the best one to watch but it takes uh it is four hours it's a very long time a couple of nights yes yeah and i i do have to explain it pause and explain a bit as well but and yes of course america's like, you know what? We want to have ballistic missiles. Forget this. Forget this treaty we signed. We want to drop the worst, meanest missiles we possibly can.

What a Christmas present for America. Yeah. Oh, God. But anywho, hey, that's what happened at the time of this Christmas episode and the last episode of The Simpsons for the year 2001. And today we're welcoming back Lindsay Kaytai of the Teen Creeps podcast, also of TV shows like Infinity Train, Wolf Boy, and Max and the Midnights. Welcome back to the show, Lindsay.

Thank you so much for having me. Of course. And, you know, Lindsay, your last episode on the show was also about Lisa in the church, though, was when she actually devoutly believed in that she would go to hell if she even stole one grape so yeah yes she was a much younger eight-year-old then well yeah how do you think this uh this episode of lisa and religion stacks up to the uh to her previous visions of hell uh i think i i i like that we're sort of getting like teenage lisa in this version becoming a buddhist um i do prefer the other episode i think it's just it's that one's a classic

it's it's teenage lisa or lisa coming home from the holidays after one semester of college is what it feels like yes that too but it's it's so it's a strange pious Lisa, who is just like the Lisa in that second season episode where she's suddenly like very invested in Christianity, where in the passing 11 years between those episodes, she seemed to not care that much. She'd be in in the institution of the church but actually like not in just the idea of belief like the easy episode to write with this is just lisa becomes an atheist as as so many a teen and i'm sure by i mean i i went through that phase as well though i didn't go to church with my family anyway so it was an easy little walk of like you know what i i don't even believe in anything that we don't bother going to church for anyway but um but then how do you shoehorn in our Richard Barrett here? She's just a straight up atheist artist. Yeah, it's true.

Like there's she should have invited on Ricky Gervais instead. There you go. A future future guest star, Ricky Gervais. And writer of an episode as well. Yes, he could do it all. And well, Lindsay, I guess you were seeing Lord of the Rings when this episode came out. Do you have any memories of the first holiday season post 9-11, which is when this was? I think perhaps I met my dad in Lake Forest to visit step family.

And it was my first experience driving on an icy road. And I sailed right into a snowbank keys man that's scary i've never and then locked my keys in the car jeez oh man that's a what a crummy christmas i'm sorry jeez and you you should have learned to give up material possessions and not wanting those things yeah you wouldn't exactly richard gear had a lesson for us all yeah this episode i want to say up front uh king of the hill beat them to the punch with a story about buddhism there's a great season four episode aired about 18 months before this it was called uh won't you pee my neighbor and it was about uh bobby becoming a buddhist because uh these monks come to town right and they think he could be the next reincarnation

of the buddha and it's a it's a very sweet story between him and connie and it's also an exploration of religion in in a better way i think uh because uh hank is worried that bobby is being lost to uh this other religion he takes him to uh their reverend and bobby asked well what is methodism and she said it's a rejection of calvinism and hank is like see he doesn't know what she's saying. It just shows that they don't know their religion any more than Bobby does. But it was a better episode. Yeah. Well, like Lindsay said, this one has to make room for Richard Gere in a big movie star. And they really do.

For a lot of scenes where he's very flat. Yeah. You know, I've I've Buddhism sounds interesting to me, i've never i i never looked too much into it i even though like one of the first things when i moved here to berkeley california was like oh there's like more than one buddhist temple around here monastery i i i'm sorry uh but but yeah i like i have literally walked by guys in monk robes uh monks i guess i should call them uh like sweeping the the front of the place so but and that was not you know in suburban florida i was not used to seeing that so it's an interesting thing for lisa though they you know what they say that they kept her buddhist

after this episode like they did with the vegetarianism but i don't know i mean i i tried to look it up and like there's there are a few episodes but it's not the same as she goes to church with them every episode after this you know well richard gear says uh sure go to church who cares yeah yeah and she says and they say so you're just you're gonna go to church you're just gonna pay lip service yeah to the faith and and she says yes and homer is like that's all i ever asked i mean i learned a lot from richard gear's many humorless points about the religion that's true yeah uh it does it feels like a pamphlet yeah as well uh i i think they try to be correct in a sense but i also feel

like i do wish the buddhist temple they visit perhaps had like a monk in it instead of just a movie star, like maybe actually show some the actual adherence to it other than just a very famous guy and then joke guys who worship it. It really had it really comes off with this feeling like Richard Gere was in the news and then they wrote this episode. Well, I think, too, they're like, I bet we could get Richard Gere on the show if we turn Lisa into a Buddhist. I bet we could do that.

And you know what? The plan worked. That was their plan. It worked out. It worked. And congrats to them. Let's talk about the writer for this episode, Bill Freiberger. And in case you're wondering out there, folks, we don't record these segments with the guest.

We do it without them. In case you're wondering, why is Lindsay being so quiet? We didn't mute her microphone. Yeah. No. We promise we never will. We don't want to bore her with all this talk about uh about this writer guy that nobody's ever heard we we used to

do this uh with guests but they just wouldn't say anything and you know i don't blame them because we're just us like listing a bunch of facts about a writer so we do this without the guests just to let you know so bill freiberger how did he get on the simpsons well he was a writer on teen angel and was a supervising producer on it as well and he wrote two of its 17 episodes and by the way this is his only simpsons that he wrote al gina on the commentary is very clear of like yeah he pitched this to me when working on teen angel and saying well if you ever do an episode uh i if you're ever in charge of simpsons again I'd like to do this episode. And apparently his big pitch was more of the rocket stuff than the Buddhism stuff. That was

apparently more Al Jean. Yeah, like the rocket stuff was his. And also his initial pitch was he wanted Lisa to start a new religion. But then they were like, well, Homer did that and then Bart did that. So we don't want to do that with lisa as well yeah it's true i i think it was better to probably go a little more but then again this episode is kind of a repeat of her vegetarianism episode it really is dare i say less successful i'd say so yeah also yeah but let's not editorialize just yet so where do you get a start well i'll tell you uh on the, The Cosby Show, where he was a writer's assistant. I see. Okay.

But hey, no, I'm not hearing about Harvard here, though. He's not a Harvard guy. You know, I didn't look that up, but I never ran into Harvard. No way would he not be a Harvard guy. In a commentary, too, he would have said, well, of course we went to Harvard. Those guys can't not to brag about it. I'm sure it would have come up. In Bob Odenkirk's book, he jokes about how he did not go to Harvard and he's kind of

tired of Harvard people. But then again, his brother did go. But and you know, Bob Odenkirk also mentions he was offered to write on The Simpsons, but decided against it. Oh, look what could have been. Yeah. So, yeah, he was a writer's assistant on The Cosby Show. And he has said in like in statements like I was too low level to even know

what was going on and he's made a few uh joke tweets about it like he has a few things from his time on the Cosby show there's like a tweet with him holding a Cosby show teddy bear saying is this worth any money these days uh so yeah that's where he got his start yeah hey uh ebay check it out I'm sure somebody would want it yeah there's i probably somebody who is happy bill cosby's not in jail now apparently one of those freaks and they want to they might want a teddy bear with the with that name on it so he has a very interesting career uh that i believe started in new york so he also worked on five pilot episodes of a proposed howard stern late night talk show for fox fox wanted howard stern

to replace joan rivers who was their initial late night talk show host they didn't work well with him they didn't like the content of the pilot so howard stern would then go off and make a local new york tv version of that show for two years but uh freiberger worked on the five pilots that were made for fox that i think you can find online, but I didn't look them up. But I know a surprising amount about Howard Stern, but I didn't know about this. Wow. That's interesting.

I didn't know. He's just one of those staff guys on a bunch of failed Howard Stern stuff. That's funny. And he got into the Fox fold by first writing two episodes of Get a Life. There's Paperboy 2000 and Roots. And he was not a staff writer. I believe he was a freelancer a pair of classics on that you know also in odin kirk's book he mentions that uh he loved the first

season of get a life but by the time he got on get a life season two he thought it was not the same and he didn't love david merkin i get from his his writing in the book i get the sense of that from a lot of people yeah but uh but but that's funny though that this guy also was right yeah i mean like paperboy 2000 with him versus the giant robot paper machine like that's a paper delivery machine that's a great episode of tv you know i was looking at some of the ones he wrote for teen angel and they sound like the tgif version of get a life scripts to me man you, you know, we should look into this one of these days. I'm telling you folks,

Teen Angel turns 25 in September. Some podcast should look back upon that failed sitcom and say, what happened? What podcast is good enough to do it? I don't know. We'll find out in the future. So from Get a Life, he gets a job on Herman's Head. Finally, as a producer

and a writer, he wrote 12 episodes of Herman's Head. Holy cow. That's a lot. That's a lot of episodes for a thing that doesn't exist. Yeah. Just like Teen Angel, I guess. Release Herman's Head. There's so much young Hank Azaria and Yardley Smith on there.

We need to see it. Just put it on Hulu. Who cares, you know? And also other credits. He wrote for the short-lived Jeff Martin sitcom Hardball. One of the many failed baseball tv shows nobody wants to watch tv show about baseball it stinks uh also men behaving badly uh the pjs there are so many simpsons guys on the pjs wow yeah man we should have maybe that

after we do teen angel maybe the pjs it's it's time for that i'm surprised we haven't covered it but yeah pjs is a good show what's not a good show and i think he was the showrunner uh drawn together oof yeah yeah no that sucks that show sucks and that's a bad show and i think no two ways about it uh yeah it's not good uh but he went from this i think to being the executive producer of the non-undergrads college mtv animated show three south oh yeah that's i mean i'd rather watch it than through than undergrads i'd actually maybe i'd rather watch under oh please don't say that three south was gross as hell it has brian posain in it you at least have that you don't have the creator doing every voice all right you got me there yeah but man it's just i remember watching

three south it was just like the one of the first jokes of the character describing a bowel movement i was like what am i watching here they don't have this kind of filth on undergrads where's the the wit of gimpy yeah gimpy just saying lines from star wars out loud now that's common and absolutely we will never cover cover undergrads please don't ask us it's awful i i think i'd do it before drawn together oh yeah absolutely if there was a gun held to my head i would i would choose uh sorry undergrads my brain doesn't want to remember the title uh more bill freiburger stuff so also uh greg the bunny uh not a great show also but also most recently he was an ep on sonic boom that cartoon that was and people said that was a good cartoon we had on one of the

writers for that yeah alan nodded yeah so yeah that is bill fre cartoon we had on one of the writers for that. Yeah. Alan nodded. Yeah. So yeah, that is Bill Freiberger. He's been in the industry for like 35 years now. Yeah. It seems funny that his Simpsons is just like a little brief layover in a very long career. And it's funny too, because his episode had all the ones this season. This was the one Gene picked for submitting to the Emmys.

So he could have been an Emmy winner for this episode of The Simpsons. A much better thing won. Yes. For Oswald, it ends well. The Futurama episode is one of the best episodes of Futurama ever. It deserved to win. And yeah, this one, I can see why Gene picked it because it is a more heartfelt Lisa one. And that's usually what he wants to go for.

With a big star. With a big old star. But yeah, though, I guess Freiberger, he wasn't chosen to be staff after this. MTV was a call-in. He ran his own show. I guess, you know, would you rather be a king in the MTV kingdom or just a serf in the simpsons kingdom you know it's uh well pretty well paid surf i would bet in the simpsons kingdom but uh but yeah

that's good to know about this fried burger fellow fried burgers uh and yeah this is the start of the al jean era as well of him taking back over the show in full but let's save a profile on that for his actual first production episode which is the next episode in the series so that way we can just get straight to the the episode proper let's put it in gear yeah hey richer gear so uh this begins with a chalkboard joke about the actual simpson cereal that did exist in 2001. It had an awful... It had a really boring name. It just called Bart Simpson cereal. Yeah, I know.

It's just like... Really? Yeah. But in the UK and Ireland, they had no problemos, and the O was like the Cheerio, and they also had Eat My Short cereal. That's so much better.

We only got Bart Simpson cereal. That's so bad. Yeah. Wow. S&P here really could not come to a conclusion no apparently it tastes like uh reese's peanut butter puffs like that cereal from back in the 90s that's that's the reports that i heard it's like peanut butter butter puff cereal peanut butter chocolate crunch yeah then i didn't eat that one but i did try one uh box of the accompanying homer cereal

which came i think months after called homer's cinnamon donut cereal which is okay it's no cinnamon toast crunch as far as cinnamon cereals go as in in my recollection of this 20 year old cereal but uh but yeah so that's why the chalkboard gag is about how bart now does honestly 2001 feels late for bart to finally have an official cereal yeah where was that in 1990 yeah when the bart craze was really sweeping the nation you know maybe butterfinger had the they're like hey this contract says he cannot promote cereals only candy only the butter that could be yeah yeah and anything chocolate related had to be butterfinger and uh so then we get an opening gag which is funny but is also the simpsons repeating themselves

because the cold open to season seven's a fish called selma is movie for a rained out ball game which then leads into muppets go medieval so this rain delay theater is the same joke it's the same joke i i do like the fake sci-fi movie reminds me of a lot of what was on mystery science theater just like very few sets uh very bad acting and special effects and i don't think kids have to suffer through just having to watch a boring movie because there's nothing else to do i I remember a Saturday afternoon where nothing was happening. Nothing was on TV. But I saw coming up next, there's a movie about Blondie.

There's a Blondie movie featuring the famous comic character. And I was like, I didn't know they made a Blondie cartoon. It was live action. They made like 18 Blondie movies. But I watched that Blondie movie because there was nothing else to do. And that's, they reminded me of that. Those days are gone. Yeah.

I mean, in 2002, imagining a black and white thing broadcast on regular television, like in no way, like kids instantly turn it off if they see something black and white on TV. But the movie in this reminded me of the Mystery Science Theater classic Phantom Planet. And, you know, Bob, every year of my life i grow more and more convinced that the wisest and the best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful if we just take the time to look at it it's good advice from that actor yeah you know bart has become like a boomer child in this episode because he wants a model rocket he's watching these old 50s black and white movies on tv which is not what a child in

2001 was doing and and soon he'll become a fanatic for cowboys like he's yeah they're forgetting they're forgetting that bart was i guess now born in 1990 yeah i guess he would have been born in 1990 for this episode yes hard to readjust that the sliding timeline it uh yeah i uh but yeah i also like you know space air flooding in, right? Goggles on. And just the dog floating in space, that reminded me of another mystery science theater one, The Killer Shrews, where it's just dogs with carpet put on them. Yeah, or like Teenagers from Outer Space, it's just a lobster.

Right, yes. Yeah. The cheapest of things. We now return to the planet from outer space captain we've been attacked by some sort of force ray space air is flooding in right goggles on Right. Goggles on! Good Lord, we're on a collision course with a monster! From space! That's just a dog in a space suit from the looks of it a male dog though i was weirded out by bart gendering the dog by looking at its penis apparently that i didn't like that it's like

and by the looks of it a male dog i was like i don't know i was that's how you show how visible the dog was, I guess. They didn't draw it. Yeah, you know what? That had to be like a 4K recreation of that movie to be able to really tell. On an SDTV, I find that laughable. It's like seeing the makeup on Star Trek. Now you can identify dogs' genders in old movies. Yep.

The higher the HD. I didn't ask for that uh and uh but yeah so after that they get a quick commercial and as usual on this era of the simpsons the tv tells them what they'll do next we will return to our film after these very loud messages hi i'm colonel chet manners five times space shuttle alternate loser do you want to boldly go where people like me but not me have gone before? Then get the Orbit King with y'all control like you've never seen. Hey, Lise, is Dad's credit card number 578-436-5343-4107-09? You know it is.

When you have a rib eye steak, you must floss it. Oh, that meatloaf tasted great. You must floss it. Floss it. Floss it great. Hey, Dad, will you help me build this model rocket? Just a second, son. I got to put on my contacts.

I wanted you to hear all the ASMR on that contact sound. It's good fully. It's like six inch wide contacts. I really love the designs on that. Bart is forgetting the all important three digit security code that didn't exist in 2001. But you know, that keeps us all safe. That three digit code. Don't tell anyone now.

You know, I tried. I checked that number that Bart says is it's enough numbers to be a credit card but i tried putting it into a an online storefront as a test it is not it is registered as an invalid credit card so don't give it a shot folks it's not a real credit card but fox was doing their due diligence i guess you know i had to input many a credit card working at a video store so i got used to like oh if's these, if it starts with these two numbers, this is a Visa versus an Amex or whatever. Because I always had to do that every, it's a retail experience. You get to memorize the numbers, the little intricacies of credit cards.

I enjoy Chet Manners and his brief disappointment in himself. Yes. But he says, but not me. So he never went into space, but he says but not me so he never went into space but he was uh you know in he was an understudy basically i love his his brokenness he's just like yeah now i sell i sell the rockets of the things i could never fly but this is definitely a boomer childhood thing maybe early gen x uh shooting a rock in it into space was never on the table for me no way, it wasn't really something any of us did.

Well, like, they're so expensive, too. And then it seems like just for one use, like, you're probably not going to get it back. And it just launches into space. Plus, I feel like in our generation, our parents also got rid of them or de-emphasized them because, you know, you'll put your eye out with that thing. Blasting off this rocket into space uh you know you'll put your eye out with that thing blasting off this rocket into space you know it's uh it hardly can compare to a video game which would probably in a nintendo entertainment system will cost probably equivalent to a good model rocket you can fire all kinds of rockets with that thing and honestly like even like if you live in a city there's no way even living in a suburb you shouldn't be setting it off just in your backyard yeah no this is that you need a you like grew up in illinois with like wide open spaces

or everywhere or your school's football field you know go there yeah yeah and uh and what is yaw control well i'll just read off of wikipedia here active yaw control is a dynamic stability control system that sustains longitudinal acceleration and improves lateral stability by controlling torque bias between the rear wheels and you want that yes that's apparently very important when you've got a rocket so i do love the continual selling point of its yaw control and everybody's very into whether or not the yaw control is good everybody knows the terminology terminology. No one questions it. They're just like, well, yeah, more yaw control, good.

Yeah. Not to linger too long on this. It's just funny there's a commercial for this. I know it's for the sake of the plot, but it's just like, I never saw this on TV. You would go to like the model store or whatever and you would see these in the back or something. They sell themselves.

You don't need ads on TV. But I guess, yeah, you know, putting it as part of a commercial in an old Rocket movie, you know, that's smart. That's the right audience there. The Simpsons will be right back. Fox next Sunday. One of The Simpsons is missing.

I did it. I found our dog. Now our Christmas is complete. We were looking for Lisa. I thought we were caroling. Richard Gere guest stars the Simpsons all new 8, 7 central next Sunday on Fox. Welcome to the break, everybody. I have a podcast with a ton of y'all control and a big thank you to our

guests this week lindsey katai of the podcast team creeps she is such a cool person to have on and definitely check out her podcast and all the other cool cartoons she worked on like infinity train or the new series she's working on at nickelodeon and if you're a fan of this podcast talking simpsons you only are able to listen to it thanks to the support of listeners like you at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for five bucks a month those people not only get to let me and bob do our dream jobs full time they also get a ton of exclusives at patreon.com slash talking simpsons including over a hundred exclusive podcasts of us covering shows like Futurama King of the Hill Mission Hill The Critic and Batman the Animated Series each month you get

a brand new one of us talking about a new episode of Futurama and King of the Hill where deepens to seasons three and two respectively of Futurama King of the Hill and you'll find over five years worth of exclusive podcasts at patreon.com slash talking simpsons behind that five dollar paywall so head over there now to check it all out but if you want something extra special to listen to while meditating then you should sign up at the ten dollar level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. Because you get all the $5 things I just talked about. But then you also get access to our monthly What a Cartoon movie podcast. Yes, me and Bob have a side podcast, What a Cartoon, where each month we cover an animated series.

And then at the other end of the month, we cover an animated feature film super duper duper in depth. Just like we do The Simpsons. Last month, we covered Toy Story 3, the third entry in the classic Pixar series. Before that we did a six and a half hour long podcast about Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Thank you very much. And we have a huge back catalog that covers everything from South Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, to Kiki's Delivery Service, Aladdin, to a Goofy Movie, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, Batman, Mask of of the phantasm a huge array of podcasts over three years worth of them i'd say over 260 hours as well you can hear it all if you go to

patreon.com slash talking simpsons to see what you're missing out on one more time that's patreon.com slash talking simpsons and you know fry burger says uh the writer of this episode that he did this rocket stuff when he was a kid but also i do think they're pulling a little from the 1999 film october sky the the jake jones movie are you a fan of that one lindsey i have not seen it but that is my strongest connection of a boy and a rocket you know i didn't see it either it was a movie where my mom and brother saw a movie without me and then so i remember it it's just like hey yeah we go to movies together you can't see a movie without me that's that's that it it's just like hey yeah we go to movies together you can't see a movie without me that's that's that's all my memories of october sky i probably have never

watched it out of that saying out of anger and not being invited they saw the trailer and said not a henry movie sorry lindsey no i i was just gonna say that movie absolutely held no interest for me the poster alone put me to sleep uh just this is not a lindsey movie either uh and you know what the homer in his flossing song i'm gonna that'll get me i need to make my flossing more of song based and i'll do it more often i'll be more diligent with it the homer doesn't seem like the type who would floss maybe maybe he needed a song to teach him to start doing though also it's never been established that homer does has contacts either in the show this is also a first before but yeah i don't think

they can resurface i do love a good gag joke of just giant contacts when you acknowledge the anatomy of the characters uh it's always fun yes for sure uh and so homer is uh as as we play in the opening bit he thinks this is not about science it's about pie pants which i like his laziness of it of just like pie pants like that's not a word i've just heard the word in pie and he's just he's already ming just imagining the possibilities just as long as he's not involved in any science he's that's all he needs he puts that up to the nerds and uh and yes millhouse it explodes and millhouse's beautiful eyebrows are blasted off into button chops on bart now millhouse is just like his mother with fake eyebrows that he has to glue on oh you're right yeah yeah as as we learned was a a tough thing in their divorce the uh that he kirk brings up that she has fake eyebrows really hurt her feelings and in this era they're bringing back the the three nerds a lot from homer

goes to college well not a lot a few times but it's weird to see them because they were also in faith off which i believe is season 11 and they're back here and whenever you see gary um remember he is a caricature of rich moore but they make his skin brown. And Rich Moore is now an Oscar winner. So there's a remnant of a man who used to work on the show forever trapped within its boundaries. And it's Gary the Nerd. The white man who would go on to co-direct Zootopia is the black nerd in this episode. Yes. It's an odd, odd history to him.

The only reason Homer gets better at building it is because he is jealous of netty space center on cape flandavarol with uh with net and his family i i love the animation of it carefully floating back down into the box and the box ceiling itself that's great too where are we the wizarding world uh and uh and also yes homer i just love like wow did you see that y'all control i have eyes don don't I? And he's wearing his contacts. Oh, and he's definitely going to see it. And I also just love when Homer gets the help from the nerds here. I really love the exchange between Marge and one of the nerds.

What was that? Greetings from Nettity Space Center on Cape Flandaveral. We noticed your Sky Row Technics and thought we'd join in. Ooh, looks like a perfect landing. Wow! Did you see that yaw control? I have eyes, don't I? I would really like to thank you nerds for helping me out Oh, and could you stop calling us nerds? Dweeb, Wonk, Spaz, it's all good

Who wants some Astro Lemonade? What precisely makes it Astro? Look, I don't want to start a whole thing with this Okay, the rocket's ready to go. Super. Now, if you'll gather around, I'd like to say a few words. All nerds, clear the launch area.

Let's wake my car. I just love Margie's thing of like, I don't want to start a whole thing with this. She was just a mom trying to join in, and they're like, what exactly? Like, just so good. I have certainly been the nerd on the end of someone's nice mother trying to play along and be like, you don't even know Star Wars. What are you talking about?

It's a stupid thing nerds do. I regret it. I regret it. And also, I love Homer's costuming that he decided like you know what now to take it seriously i'm gonna dress like a nasa guy in the in the 50s yeah with his uh like very square glasses and short sleeves but with a with a tie and his pocket protector he would have made a great extra on the set of apollo. Absolutely. You know, he looks like Kevin Costner in the Hidden Figures.

He also looks like Kevin Costner in the Hidden Figures movie. Yes, he does. The guy who they had to make up a scene for. Anyone doing math for space. Yes. You know, and speaking of Boomer Energy, the wife of the astronaut

is wearing like the Jackie Kennedy pink Chanel pantsuit dress thingy. Yeah, we have been talking about strange. Yeah. Jackie Kennedy was not the wife of the doting wife of a NASA pilot. But I guess it's like, well, if you're trying to imagine, say, Buzz Aldrin or his wife, like what outfit would you put on her anyway? So it's like I just it's jackie oh that's a 60s doting wife in the space age works us the same i think it's foreshadowing the fate

of nibbles who do we see him escape or i forget we do okay well we don't see him safely land but we see him have a successful uh very peaceful looking ejection okay that's right that's right it's the eject button yes i feel like that eject button joke cuts before he's eaten by something or something horrible happens to him. I could see that. A bird grabs him out of the air. But yes, it's right over a pit of lions at the zoo.

But it is the return of Nibbles the hamster. Last scene with Skinner asking him to chew through his ball sack in that other Christmas episode. That's the same hamster yes yeah and i really love the marge joke when they're talking about how he's he's leaving his wife with five children and bart says well she already ate three of them marge's response is well how sensible that's great yeah she's not disgusted in any way she's like it makes sense

you know you gotta eat kids. Better eat just three of them. If she could eat Bart, she would, just to make things a little simpler around the house. Yeah, I also was thinking, I mentioned this to Bob, it's a different animal, but adjacent. To have a hamster in the Richard Gere episode is, I don't know. Flying with fire.

Yeah. I don't know if that was an intentional mean joke on their part or not but we'll talk about it when we get to the gear section it was a gerbil yeah yeah but the richard gear urban legend is involves a gerbil no bob bob has uh has a whole history on it yeah it's it's very brief but i believe it's still interesting but you know that also with the the slow motion right stuff thing it's like i don't know that the simpsons referenced it so much that i thought the right stuff was like a famous movie or something nobody ever talks about it's a bunch of guys walk

around really slow is that the entire movie yeah yeah i again it's another one just like october sky i have not seen it but i don't think my mom and brother have seen it. Well, you know, my mom might have, but. You should see the right stuff without your brother, just with your mom. Oh, you know, well. Revenge, finally. You know what? He hasn't traveled enough. My brother has not traveled enough on Christmases.

So now I've watched a lot of movies without him, with my mother. Sweet revenge. They also bring up the stuff with nibbles that on the commentary they mentioned that in the real world back in that back in the day the toy rocket you could sell did have clear cockpits that you could put like live animals into like a lizard or a bug and they're just thinking like boy that was pretty fucked up in our childhoods it was like yeah exploded explode a bug in this thing but that is really fucked up i was not aware that this was based on a real thing you could do well you know they were just following the lead of

of uh cosmonauts and nasa just like well yeah you bring kill a live animal when you do this like you gotta kill kill an ape or a dog kill something and there we talk about the uh the cut 9-11 joke right all right let's talk about it yes yeah because uh i forgot about the cut 9-11 joke, right? All right, let's talk about it. Yes, yeah. Because I forgot about this cut joke. Is it a deleted scene on the disc? It is a deleted scene on the disc, yes. If you look at the rocket that Homer is shooting off, it says HJS, which seems like a very weird addition. That's his initials, Homer J. Simpson. And I was like, it's weird that just on the rocket and there's no joke about it.

Well, there was. Because when the rocket launches, a man of non-white descent named Hassan J. Salam is arrested. Yeah. Because his initials are on the rocket launches a man of uh non-white descent named hasan j salam is arrested yeah because his initials are on the rocket and we were making these jokes before 9-11 like there's a joke about hasan bin laden on family guy before 9-11 so that we were making these jokes and then this joke got cut um because it had this episode aired after 9-11 yes yeah now the uh the man is dressed in let's say traditional garb of uh of some arab nations and yes is though the joke is that the police are arresting an innocent man who is saying like no i'm innocent and so the joke is about uh railroading a man an arab man who people think is a terrorist just because of how he looks.

And they also have a joke of him saying that I need to call my cousin Casey Kasem. Oh, yeah. A joke about Casey Kasem being Lebanese, I believe. And yeah, I mean, so apparently they wrote the joke before 9-11. They get the animation back in October. And that's when they're all in shock of like, oh, my God, we wrote this joke. Holy shit. So they obviously cut it.

But now it lives forever on the DVD. And between the time they wrote it and when it aired, arresting people on just very vague suspicions became very popular. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to come out against that in post 9-11. We're like in the dawn of the Patriot Act. God. Bad times. Bad times. Bad times.

Mm-hmm. But yes, Homer and Bart watch it launch into the air. Homer misquotes the classic sonnet, High Flight, which has the lines, have slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God, not punched it. And there's a good joke of Homer doing doing a countdown but at the end of it saying blast instead of saying blast off saying countdown and then pressing oh right that's a good gag but unfortunately it flies off course uh as it's flying through the air there's some great shots of like millhouse watching and his eyebrows fly off and then we have the classic

comedy staple of the drunk in shock throwing away his whiskey bottle. But this time a businessman catches it. And so like, ooh, wine. And then he lays down in the gutter. I like any twist on the guy throwing, like rubbing his eyes and throwing the bottle. And that was like a new one 20 years ago. People still innovating on that joke now in the world of comedy. Lindsay, have you written a blinking drunk throwing away his bottle joke yet? I can't say that I have, but that's mostly because I write animated shows for children.

Well, you have to make it now you rub your eyes and throw away your vape pen. Oh, right. All references to alcohol and smoking products are not allowed. Okay, what if it was apple juice? It looked like a wine bottle, but it was apple juice what if it looked like a wine bottle and then tosses his capri sun a businessman catches it behind him uh but uh yes nibbles uh safely ejects on the commentary they're even worried of like we didn't kill this this hamster did we unfortunately like oh thank goodness we didn't but uh and then then Homer trying to shoot it down by randomly firing a shotgun into the air

is a pretty funny gag, too. I like that. But then the very short first act ends with, again, a really great line here. I have a quick clip. Now it's heading for the church. Don't worry, I plan for this. This is the worst thing you've ever done. You say that so much, it's lost all meaning.

Because Homer is always at his worst, and it's always a new low. So he's like, you know what? Yeah, it's Homer commenting on how horrible he is all the time on the show. It's a good line by old Homer there. In a way, the rocket flying into the church and destroying it is punching the face of God. You know what? Homer pulled it off you're right man that that uh you know we only see it from the outside that that rocket had to be full of dynamite or something because it it has to bounce around that church so much to destroy every single

window and burn the inside the nerds filled with nitriclycerin or something maybe you know they're at fault yeah they built it but instead homer just lets a uh an arab man take the take the blame for it and go to jail probably never to be seen again i guess this was not on uh obviously where i watched it disney plus no no no you know it's too bad that that's it's why you gotta hang on to these dvds you know disney doesn't put any of these extras on there you don't yeah don't get the commentaries yeah i feel like well so many of the classic commentaries are also al jean saying how much he hated working at wall at the disney company back in the 90s and i also feel like they're not gonna be on there no no no now he loves working there and there's no problems. Welcome back, Al.

But then the episode resumes in Act Two. The windows are all smashed out. There's a funny, funny kid's paintings covering up the stained glass that's destroyed. And this is when we get to meet all the church leaders, which now includes Kearney with the very hard to figure out line of a teenager and the parent of a teenager, which, you know, so was he six when he had a child, and now the child is 13 and he's 19? Or does he just identify as a teenager when he's really old enough to have seen the Bicentennial as previously set up in Season 7?

Well, the kid who sleeps in the drawer has grown up now. Yeah, he's gotten pretty old now that kid but but i i just like that kearney is now a community leader in the church as well dating his friend's moms yes hey she you know i don't it's not uh i guess if you view him as not actually a teenager then the statutory implications of that later joke work better than i view him as a full-blown adult i i as well yes it's a billy madison style elementary school yeah yeah he's just an adult who goes around elementary school all the time hanging out with children nothing wrong there

he just hasn't graduated yet yeah i have convened the church council to see what we should do now fixing this church should be our top priority. And I say that as a teenager and the parent of a teenager. Fixing all that damage is going to be very expensive. Yes, barring some sort of miracle. All right, we'll help ourselves. Yet again. People, we need some fundraising ideas.

Let's just write to David Bowie again. No, he's done enough for this church. Anyone else? I've got the answer. Just let me run this church like a business. It's kind of you to offer, Mr. Burns, but buzz around towners that you're, well, evil. Ooh, that's just a skip rope rhyme.

Believe me, the Lord's gonna go for this in a big way. Now, that's just a skip rope, Rem. Believe me, the Lord's going to go for this in a big way. Now, who's with me? Oh, I guess we have no choice. Excellent. Go! Oh, you'll get yours. But yeah, so they don't know what to do. Lovejoy has a fun bit of referring to the old idiom,

God helps those who helps themselves, which he is sick that he's going to have to do it again. And apparently that idiom is not literally in the Bible. There are some lines that are like, oh, this line in the Bible means that. But apparently that actually dates back to ancient Greece and was Christians took it for themselves. Oh, some different God. Yeah.

The only time they've ever done that. Apparently the original version is plural. The gods help those who help themselves. Also, apparently David Bowie has helped their church before, but they don't want to do it again. That joke is very funny. And I have no context for it. Yeah, I looked it up.

David Bowie, obviously he did charitable work in his life, but doesn't seem like the type to give money to a church. You know, the more, but yeah. And then we get a very devilish entrance by Mr. Burns. And so this is kind of a comment on megachurches, but I do think this misses the mark a little bit because yes, businesses do get involved in megachurches and all that, but usually the megachurches are, it's not that the church

leaders are then brought to by corporations. Usually it just is the cultish leader of a church is like, I have to make this bigger to be more rich myself. Like I was, I was going to say, I think that the whole premise of the episode is flawed because church churches are big businesses. You make a church bring in so much money without needing any outside help. They don't need a Mr. Burns to come in and tell them, hey, make a bunch of money. It feels like one of several choices made in this episode to make Lovejoy and organize religion in general and not at fault that you

can instead blame burns for it you know yeah it's strange when the mega church joke is like right there that like they could have just had the concept of the episode be that love joy turns it into a mega church and lisa has a problem with yeah it actually reminded me of uh what was happening to public schools in the early 2000s late 90s where they were becoming more corporate sponsored and they were putting like lots of soda machines and advertisements on the walls i i saw it more or something like that but they don't mention that at all in the commentary so yeah though i i mean and and mega church is bigger than ever i mean they already were getting pretty big around america even in 2001 when this was new but yeah it's like mega church is so big they're all they're all over your neck of the wood lindsey with uh with like mosaic and hillsong and all the ones your favorite celebs go

to yeah and i uh i went to uc irvine where we're very close to a that television station oh all right right i forgot what it's called uh do you ever have you ever run into chris pratt around there i have not i have not and wasn't that dumb where we had to like choose sides between him and ellia page who would do that like ellie right it's uh chris pratt's the the him being in a homophobic church sucks and people should judge him for that well he's garfield now we have to live with it he's garfield now he'll be president he'll be president someday i'm sure of it but yeah it's like yeah I mean in LA like it's not just Chris Pratt like Justin Bieber uh Kevin Durant Selena Gomez like

they're all members of these giant mega churches it's the it's the new hip thing unless unless you're just gonna go to your own church that you start yourself like say Kanye West or Jared Leto are doing you know they're their own they're they're cutting out the middleman on the megachurch is just getting their own cult together that's the way to go man that's what i would do they're being more of a mr burns there instead of letting it go to somebody else but uh but yes i also like burns burns saying like oh that's i'm not evil that's just a skip rope rhyme that's a a great line. And that Crucifix should have caved his old head in. You know, that's the rest of the episode is Mr. Burns is dead.

Hey, you know, Al Jean is back running the show. And that's why Burns is here. That's right. He's out of the plant, but he's, you know, on the scene. And then in our next clip, Burns, he can start a business, but he really needs modern business of 2001. So he calls on a modern businesswoman. Step one, let's sell some ad space. Reverend, how would you feel about wearing this robe? Conflected.

Too bad, you've already signed the deal. Actually, he hasn't. Oh, well, we highly value your input until you sign the deal. Let me handle this, Marty. Good idea. I'll be hiding behind that tree. Burns is really bumbling as a villain in this episode, and later

when he tries to escape with a smoke bomb, it doesn't really work out either. I like, too, that Burns is like, he is sexist, but he also is like, you know what? No, this may be a woman, but she can be just as evil in a corporate sense as I can be, like, to give her a chance, you know?

True feminist. Yeah. So Lindsay, what do you think of the most famous Lindsay on the Simpsons being so evil as, as Lindsay Nagle is? Uh, I just, I love seeing, uh, girl bosses. And so I was very excited and flattered. It's a, yeah, she does show that you've, you know, the chick ladies can do it too. Like, uh, yeah. she does show that you've you know the chick ladies can do it too like yeah and as we always point out she is named after sue nagel the future holly hbo executive and a super agent and i think

she just stopped running some part of annapurna or something she's sue nagel still very powerful in hollywood so uh that's uh lindsey nagel was a a fun joshing of somebody they knew. I believe she was at least some of the writer's manager or agent at one point. But yes, the evil. By now, Lindsay Nagle is so well known in the show that Burns just goes like, I have to tell you her name. It's not just this. And they're not making up a new name. You're like, nope, it's just Lindsay Nagle again. We're just bringing her back in.

Also, just too bad you've already signed the deal actually have it oh well we we value your input like uh yes i i'm sure in the in in your corporate world of animation lindsey you've never dealt with any situation like that uh i will say the the friendly faces never stop even after you've signed the deal even when you're being told something you don't want to hear. Wouldn't you rather they'd shake their fist at you and then taunt you? You look at yours. It certainly makes it less confusing if they would just do that.

Lindsay, I've really appreciated a lot of your tweets about the New Deal for Animation push on social media. I've learned a lot through through them and others it's very important we are still unfortunately in negotiations i really wish that the amptp would just sign already so we don't have to do a strike vote well hey you know by the time this comes out in june maybe everything turned out great and you got everything you wanted and it's everything's yeah i'm sure i'll be making just as much as a wga writer by then yes no like a simpsons writer you know uh lindsey i also we've we've sourced it many times but you're i did not know about all these uh wonderful rules about what a season is right

right in the world of streaming so thank you for that yes that is uh that was a real eye-opener and i am still dealing with that in my current job unfortunately well well anyway hey speaking of disappointments lisa is disappointed by this change in the church which i don't know man i mean it's like what does lisa care about disappointed that marge wasn't disappointed it's it doesn't seem very like marge to be behind all of this yeah she's so into the comfort of it. Yeah, she's into the pew comfort. And I agree. I mean, I went to Catholic school.

Those pews suck. Soften them up. Get some cushions in there. I agree. I mean, yeah. So, I mean, I do love. Put some hair on those seats. It should be torture.

I just love the line. We prefer a faith-based emporium teaming with impulse items and lisa said i feel like i want to throw up then my work is done like this this again also know that this is al jean still dealing with his anger towards the at the time in the late 90s disney executives he had to work with at abc like just just know that that's what he's he's putting out there when they enter the place this is when uh there's the second deleted scene that's in the episode which is a quick little joke about how there are sky boxes now for the rich uh at it okay and so they look up rich texan is in

there and he's saying i'm closer to god than you are and instead of saying yee-haw, he says, Yahweh. Interesting. You know, I saw him in the skybox in the background and I was like, there's got to be a joke for him. Yeah. Apparently that, you know, I'd have kept him saying Yahweh instead of yee-haw. That's a funny gag.

That's very funny. I also, yes, again, there's a literal money changer in the temple, which is of course part of the uh the famous jesus gospels of the cleansing of the temple and i'm kicking the money changers out but that it's a literal money changes all that crap you've heard it you've seen the movies uh the giant neon uh jesus that's shaped like vegas vick with like the thumb and the lasso he He's all man. Also, credit to the Simpsons artists who drew the Last Supper in Simpsons style.

That's not easy. That's a tall order. Money changed. Get your money changed right here in the temple. That could not be more blasphemous. Where's Bart? Do a nice one for Grandma. Fine. These new pews are so comfy.

I am not going to be taken in by all of this. Lisa, don't sulk. you're on the jumbotron adorable and uh and also you know what they smartly just reused a bunch of old logos they're like every logo that you see from the zip boys to the frying dutchman to the singing sirloin all from the series 13 years before this. So economical use of signs. Don't make up new funny sign gags to fill out the place. Just use the old funny sign gags.

I'm working in CG right now as opposed to 2D. And you do have to worry about things like that. Do we have that asset already? Or are we going to have to build that model just for this one gag? And I'd be like, we're reusing them all. Great. Uh, that,

you know, just have it be a hot dog again. We, we already have the hot dog. They're easier to render. Uh, but, uh,

but yes, there's then also, it turns into a bit of a TV commentary is burns is a TV executive forcing love joy to say his lines and saying like, he'll, he'll say it or I'll bust him down to Thursday night Vespers. Yeah, it's like Sunday morning is prime time for Lovejoy. But like Thursday night services, it's like you don't want to be there.

It's the best part. No one goes to that. I also, as a kid, I was mesmerized by those turning ad things. Like if we went to a baseball game as a family i was not watching the game i was watching the ads of like have i watched every turn how many sides does this have i want to see each ad and know that i saw them all played you like a fiddle those advertisers you know that ad for ally mcbeal it was uh all for not because the show would be canceled in may unfortunately they only ally mcbeal in the last five seasons it burned right and then it was all for not because the show would be canceled in May. Unfortunately,

they only, Ally McBeal in the last five seasons, it burned right. And then, then went away. Her carefree attitude could not exist after 9-11. Just couldn't buy it. That is a show that does not hold up. Have you seen an episode recently?

No, no, I haven't. Is it available anywhere? Me and the infinity train writers room started watching season one of ali mcbeal it is available on hulu okay it is bad it is a bad show that is bad for society not uh not as feminist as people remember it perhaps no what if a woman wore a skirt like just like fat phobic transphobic racist sexist all the ists it's it's best left in the 90s i guess that it sounds like yeah and then comes up on stage you know it almost feels like

a family guy or south park thing but i still like seeing the the actual living noid appears and walks on to the dais he's taken aback by el's outbursts. The Noid had a lot to say about deliciousness. He was going to have a lot to say. Matt Selman loved the Noid and wanted to shove him on there. And now let us rise and... He's not going to say it. Trust me, he'll say it or I'll bust him down to Thursday night vespers. And thank Crazy Larry,

whose big screen TV prices are insane-ane-ane. And now to deliver a special sermon on the sanctity of deliciousness, the Noid. That's it! Yeah, Lindsay, we asked, the last time the Noid came up on here,

we had Nick Weiger on, and so we asked your the last time the noise came up on here we had nick weiger on and so we ask your writing opinion too how hard would it be to get on a very weird reference light and specific like the noise into your tv show um i think i could make it happen i could make it happen because i currently writing on a very silly comedy and i feel like my team would support it it just depends on whether or not your team is supportive of your specific dumb reference that's good i i think you know i think people still need to know about the noid and that he that he hates pizzas i but but yeah he he is shocked at lisa and this is when elisa has uh this was my most memorable line of the episode

is this one too i think I think for everybody here. Lisa, it's still the same basic message. We've just dressed it up a little. Like the whore of Babylon? That is a false analogy. No, it's not. It's apt. Apt!

Don't you see what Mr. Burns has done to this church? He restored it from nave to nothex. He supersized the pews for the zaftig believers. He put ice in the urinals. Those are all wonderful things, but they've cost the church its soul, and I, for one, will not be a part of it.

You want your hand stamped so you can come back in? No, I'm leaving this church forever. Oh, no. I don't know how to feel. You should be very upset. Got it. How is that?

A little much. Oh. Yes, I do enjoy the screaming of apt apt yes just apt it's apt analogy and all the people are gasping uh so real quick here the noid returned to cheer us all up during covid in 2021 he returned in the form of limited merchandise from dominoes and he made an appearance in the crash bandicoot mobile game right um so this was last year i don't remember this but uh you know what he made an appearance in the Crash Bandicoot mobile game. Right. So this was last year. I don't remember this. But you know what? He made COVID go away.

Man, you know what? Well, now, Lindsay, you could pitch it as like advertising within your show. Like work with Domino's to get the noise in your show. Yeah, maybe. I'll check with Nickelodeon. I mean, I also I think Lisa using an analogy with the whore of babylon seems also slightly misogynistic for lisa as well i think but yeah it seems a little well certainly now lisa would be pro-sex workers she would she would not use the whore of babylon as a negative

reference for sure yeah by the way in the background there's a uh a very elaborate background guy called the 10 suggestions and i wrote them all down but they're not funny so i'm for sure yeah oh yeah by the way in the background there's a uh a very elaborate background gag called the 10 suggestions and i wrote them all down but they're not funny so i'm not going to say any of them one of them is don't smoke crack and that's the height of it wow that's the funniest one no uh well i i did look up that a nave is the central part of the church building and the narthex is the antechamber or large porch of a modern church. So nave to narthex, that's a clever line by Mel. Oh, I thought he was just, I thought nave was like short for navel. And that narthex was like a just different body part name that I was unaware of.

These are all important parts of the church that are very relevant. Look, we all, I had to Google google it too i didn't know these things uh though also like the ice in the urinals bit uh that feels like uh one of many mean gay jokes about patty that she that she would pee in the urinal because she's mannish and it's uh you know mean mean jokes implying yeah implying that her her true sex is male yeah this guy sucks but hey you know why you know why they keep ice in the urinals to prevent odor and apparently it's it's a bartending secret interesting yeah that's that's why if i've i've rarely seen them in a bathroom uh but occasionally i have and i always wonder like what's the deal with that apparently

it does uh prevent odor so but uh why wouldn't you just pay for a urinal cake? You got to refresh all the time. You know, the urinal is going to sound like a joke, but I prefer the Splash Hog. It's a device called the Splash Hog. I've not heard at the bottom of urinals. You're not reading the things that you're peeing into, Henry. I read the Kohler brand on stuff. That's as far as my eyes go.

Well, I got it. I recommend the Splash Hog. Splash Hog. It's a real device. OK. It does what it says. It hog I recommend the Splash Hog. Splash Hog. It's a real device. Okay. It does what it says. It hogs all the splash? It does, yeah.

Not to get too blue. I also like that the act ends with Homer and Slash and Castlonetta trying out different line reads. Like, how about this? That's good. And also, you know what? This is a runner at this time. A hand stamp joke there was a similar joke about not wanting a hand stamp when leaving uh ned's b amusement park he made

a tribute to maude flanders so a real hand stamp uh era lots of parents taking their kids to lego land at this time and yeah so act three begins and it's 11 minutes long very long for an act three we're more used to short act threes but it seems like they wanted they wanted the first commercial break to be oh no the church is destroyed then they want a second commercial break oh no lisa has left christianity so then it's just a very long third act about like lisa becomes a buddhist and then it's a christmas episode so because that's the real story the ads the ads like i put in one of the retro everything else is just leading i put one of the retro ads into the for the listeners here in it and they advertised it as richard

gear in the christmas episode and like it's 14 minutes before it does feel like the second act break should be not very christmassy yeah it does feel like the second act break should be very Christmassy. Yeah, it does look the second act break should be like the first break. Then the first act will be in 11 minutes. And maybe Fox is telling them like, no, we want a commercial sooner. Like maybe that maybe it was the demands of that. They just like the church. They had to give into commercialism and the demands of the market. But but yes, I like that that this act so many episodes are

like homer and lisa disagree like this episode is so similar to lisa the vegetarian so i'm glad that they instead make it not that homer does like her being buddhist either but the real drama definitely leading the charge yeah it's it's a mother-daughter thing which you know it doesn't simpsons doesn't have a ton of mother-daughter episodes you know i guess lisa the skeptic was kind of the same dealie yeah actually that's very similar to like marge marge is a believer lisa is not see now you brought up that skeptic one i'm just like well wait yeah why this is elisa who thinks it's a joke to believe in an angel why would she be the one telling reverend lovejoy like yeah i used to

believe in church and you gave it up it's like wait you thought you thought angels were stupid and your mom was dumb for believing in them it's an awfully then there's that episode where she doesn't want homer stealing cable yeah she believed it has an arc she she loses it over time and then occasionally gets it back. But I also love Marge, Julie Kavner's saying of like, Woo, why do you have to be so different? Funny, funny delivery by Kavner. Lord, I'm not turning my back on you.

I just need to find a temple that's free of corruption. Why do you have to be so different? Always making a big deal out of everything. Oh. Mom, I know it's you. I can't believe you're eavesdropping on my prayers. Oh, honey, I'm worried about your soul. I want at least one person from this family to go to heaven.

I still believe in God. I just think there's another path to him or her. Her? She's just kidding, Mr. Lord. After reading Religionhood and rejecting Methodism, which she thinks is stupider than eating a heart like she then she then moves on uh and then we have a quick like had to be the sixth time they've done a long weekend parody also on her walk there they do that so many times i just like long weekend you mean lost weekend lost weekend i say long way i think i do this every single time it was it was i also don't know what lost weekend

is though i so apparently i was watching a parody of something, didn't even know it. It's where you see all the neon signs. Yeah. Okay. They parodied it a ton of times. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But eventually, after walking by signs like Church of Latter-day Druids, she ends up at the temple in Springfield where Lenny and Carl reside. Though it feels like lenny is just following

carl around yeah he doesn't really follow it yes yeah but but yeah not to mention at least according to google most adherents to tibetan style buddhism at least do not drink alcohol which is not the life of lenny and carl so indeed not yeah but. Real dark jokes about being with Mo on Christmas, in fact. Oh, yeah. But yes, first, let's hear a quick clip of our big old guest star. Lenny and Carl? You guys are Buddhists? Oh, yeah.

If I didn't have inner peace, I'd completely go psycho on all you guys all the time. Well, I'm looking for a new faith. One that isn't so materialistic. Well, you've come to the right place. Buddhism teaches that suffering is caused by desire. Richard Gere? Oh, the world's most famous Buddhist.

What about the Dalai Lama? Who? You know, the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha Avalokiteshvara. Who's Buddha? It's a good thing Buddhism teaches freedom from desire because I've got the desire to kick your ass. Mr. Gere, I was hoping Buddhism could bring me inner peace. Or is that just a pipe dream?

We all have dreams. Mine is of a free Tibet. That would be so great. I dream about meatball sandwiches. All you can eat for two bucks. Good luck. This pamphlet contains the teachings of the Buddha. All things are impermanent

and are empty of inherent existence. Hey, Richard, in an officer and a gentleman, did you really do all those sit-ups? I wish. I did one and they just showed it a thousand times. Oh, he sounds so bored. Yeah, he's not the highest energy when he was just recorded at his home in New York City.

Yeah. It doesn't help that he had certain stipulations. He wanted his role to be informational more than comedic and uh the free tibet he pulled that off yeah yeah and the free here it the free tibet line is just like a clunker because it's just like here's my belief and then let's move on to the next joke that was the stipulation like he needed to say that in the show it's like it's cool that he stood for his beliefs but it's also uh the comedy show is kind of buckling under them yeah one and i you know i'll give it to him too that he him standing for that belief still is also why you don't see richard gearing movies that much these days because they all have to be sold in china yep and and you can't it's why he's become more of

an indie darling these last uh couple decades uh real gonna say i wonder what disney like i'm surprised disney plus is showing that line i i was a little surprised i looked it up as far as i could tell it's not one of the censored in the hong kong or chinese disney plus versions so so real quick uh dribble stuff so urban legend about richard, he puts gerbils in his butt for sexual pleasure. Obviously not true. We're not saying that's true in any way. Uh, I can tell you where this pre-internet meme came from. I did some research.

So this myth was applied to other people before him. That part's not important, but it was being put onto other people. He was not the first one. This stuck to him because around the time of Pretty Woman's release, someone was circulating a joke fax around Hollywood. It was a fax, uh, supposedly from the ASPCA claiming Richard Gere was doing these things. And it was being circulated. That was pre-Twitter.

That's what a meme was. You would get a joke fax. Like, oh, a hilarious joke fax came in. This circulated to the point where the comedian Sam Kinison included it in his act. A bit about Richard Gere putting gerbils in his butt. And then that was part of his act for a while and then the first TV show reference to that

was in 1992 on In Living Color and from then so many other TV shows did it The Simpsons did it with Troy McClure and his fish thing so everyone was just doing it based on what we think is the origin being a joke facts about him.

And that's it. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was something a little more nefarious than that, but that's like really, he must be really irritated, but I would think so. Well, I mean,

it also is like, it's homophobic cause it's, he's, he's a handsome man. And so it's like, yeah, he's a gay dude who'd put a gerbil in his butt. Yeah.

That's the, yeah. And like he, he was in the Broadway show. I think it was called, I forget what it was called, but you played the, like the of the gay holocaust or something he was playing a gay character in that as well so people were saying it might be related to that but i think it was just like wouldn't it be funny if the the biggest actor in 1990 we said this about him and people believed it and it happened so no one has tracked down the writer of the joke facts

but uh that's the story and you have to bring it up so yeah i didn't remember hearing about it until the late 90s though i thought it originated in the late 90s and then like it was just like everywhere well bubbles up but all from time to time just over and over again even now as we're talking about it too i you know uh richard gear he also in this episode did it as well because he has a uh he had a stepdaughter right still has a step yeah like hannah his stepdaughter hannah well from the old marriage yes yeah but though she actually hannah dunn uh her biological father is griffin dunn the star of american werewolf in paris uh or london and her mother is uh actress model carrie lowell who was in a bond movie and also was uh law and order for a couple seasons and they the two of them went through a uh

her uh carrie lowell and richard gear went through a very bad divorce which went all the way to the new york supreme court uh mainly just about just about money. There were no other bad allegations, just like one, but it was a battle over money. But Hannah Dunn, don't worry about her. She's a movie star now who stars in stuff. She's 32, was in that Mozart in the Jungle show on Amazon Prime. Richard Gere's still braiding her hair occasionally.

Also, fun fact, his daughter Hannah, when this episode aired, she was 11. Richard Gere's current wife, she was 18 when this episode first aired. So, yes, that was a fun face. If only you listeners could see Lindsay's face. But he married his current wife when she was in her early 30s. So, you know, and he, of course, was 70, 73 now. She's 38 so you know also my my kind of rule about about a wide age gap is just are they still keeping it tight if so then okay

i mean gear still looks pretty good i'll say he's not himself good it's all that temperance it's all that uh buddhism uh so yes lisa is handed a pamphlet i did laugh they're like oh here's a pamphlet like oh how do you like that uh i'm surprised for somebody who wanted to be so informational he's like i'll just give you a pamphlet on the buddha i'm not giving you a book he was okay with that joke yeah it's like i could feel uh they didn't give the pamphlet a funny name because of him oh yeah you know yeah i bet they had some mocking stuff about buddha in there they have to be we'll say lisa's knowledge of buddhism is definitely pamphlet deep yes yeah i you know she bought a bodhi tree what more do you want from her she i which although that feels

like materialism to me but i hey look i'm not a buddhist i don't know but i planting a tree is always good i do feel like though something that makes this a little bit of orientalism is like again it's like get in of actual monk in here have it not just be like richard gear apparently runs this temple and he's the one guy there like i don't know and lenny and carl are surprised if you go to a lot of if you go to a lot of buddhist temples it is it is a lot of white people okay well it's like mostly white people i see some los angeles anyway you know around berkeley that at the at the temple we have here i see i see not a lot of non-white people that it's but uh but yeah so lisa fully buys in that gets uh ned satan sense tingling which of course is a reference to Spidey sense, which is that of course Nirvana is achieved through right views and right speech

Positive actions lead to happiness and negative actions lead to unhappiness No creator gods, just the pursuit of enlightenment I'm a Buddhist! Hey, I'm a Buddhist! My Satan sense is tingling Into the root cellar boys when can we come out maybe never and uh ron and todd flanders they're excited that they're never gonna leave that root cellar again but but then we get a very funny misdirect uh you think homer is giving a speech to lisa but he's really telling Bart to put butter on his bacon

and then bacon up that sausage as Bart is having heart problems. I love that bit. I do love this bit quite a bit. So you think you know better than this family, huh? Well, as long as you're in my house, you'll do what I do and believe what I believe. So butter your bacon.

Yes, father. You'll do what I do and believe what I believe. So butter your bacon. Yes father Mom dad my spiritual quest is over. Oh that thought bacon up that sausage boy But dad my heart hurts I'm a Buddhist. That's it. No more chat rooms for you. You know, Lisa, around here, Buddhists don't get any desserts in their lunches. A Buddhist wouldn't want any. Lisa then announces it.

That's when Homer does tell her, like, no more chat rooms for you. Like, I do think our parents were a little correct to be worried about the chat rooms we were entering into on the internet you know some some some did lead people the wrong way not not towards buddhism though usually that wasn't the wrong direction in those chat rooms and yeah also meanwhile marge has already turned off to it she's trying to bribe lisa with with dessert but lisa's not biting we have a quick bit also this episode is entirely i guess i should have played this at the start of the episode. I'll play it now. Our jingle, because this entire episode is about being mad at Lisa's beliefs.

Take that, Lisa's beliefs. Except Lisa is not proven wrong, right? She gets a win. She gets a win finally. It shows you Mike Scully not in charge anymore. So it's not about proving Lisa wrong, as usually happened in the Mike Scully era, and making her cry or feel bad.

Or proving someone wrong, at least. Sometimes Lisa would show Homer he was wrong. But yes, first we have a quick joke of Bart. Bart attempting to be bullied by the bullies, which also you reuse as a joke from Homer the Heretic of like, they describe a guy that sounds like Jesus, but then he's a Jesus that already, it's the guy who drove a blue car in Homer's story.

I like how it leads them into a fight. Also, it's weird that this little scene is about Bart being picked on and not Lisa for her beliefs. Yeah. But the story is drifting away from Lisa. Already. Like, yeah. Technically, it's called She a Little Faith.

And it's like the first act is all about Bart building a rocket. And now here's Bart even still stealing focus from Lisa in her third act. Hey, he's got that new cereal. Get Bart on the screen. We need to move some boxes. You don't want the implication that they were about to beat the shit out of a little girl. That's true. I love the satisfaction on Bart's face as he's joining in on beating up Kearney.

It's revealed that Kearney has been dating Jimbo's mom. I guess we saw Lisa being bullied in Lisa the Vegetarian where they tell her she's going to marry a carrot. Yeah, that's true. We already saw that scene. Actually, there's no time for girls bullying her in this episode though you know unlike in the marry a carrot bit there lisa then plants her bodhi tree which does appear in the season 30 episode my way or the highway to heaven as well as a playable item in the simpsons game and simpsons tapped out so her bodhi tree does have some history to it after this. They stick to it.

Again, they don't stick to it as much as vegetarianism, but they do stick with it. I also like that Marge thinks it's all about impressing a boy. That's how shallow Marge is. Like, this is about a boy. That scene cracks me up. It's a very mom or general parent assumption. And she's threatening Lisa with a bath like she's three or four years old. Yes.

Yeah. That's her only reprisalrisal like you're getting a bath tonight it probably works on but not so much pretty small mom arsenal and uh and lisa then does the mantra of which is apparently a mantra for compassion that is one of the most regularly used in tibetan buddhism apparently according to again according to google all right i didn't i didn't which is apparently a mantra for compassion. That is one of the most regularly used in Tibetan Buddhism, apparently, according to, according to Google. All right.

I didn't, I didn't read a pamphlet. I read Google, but it's, so if I am wrong, I apologize. Take it up with Google. Richard Gere is basically the wiki how for Buddhism in this episode.

Yes. Only better drawings in this. Uh, so as the next scene begins back at the church council, Kearney has band-aids on his head to reflect being beaten in the previous scene. So the good news is church revenues are up 1,073%.

And when will the church see any of this money? When hell freezes over, suckers! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Go with it, but just take it. Well, next on our agenda, Marge Simpson's devil daughter. She's not a devil. I just don't know what to do.

Well, Christmas is coming, huh? Yeah, and Santa doesn't leave presents under the Bodhi tree. You think we can bribe her back with Christmas? Marge, you can save more souls with roller skates and Easy Bake Ovens than with this 2,000-page sleeping pill. I like Burns saying, well, like, that they're never going to get their money. And he runs off, and then since he failed running off, he then throws money at them. Yeah, Burns is off his game in this episode he's just failing yeah i mean all he had to do was open the door what made him throw the money i wonder if him throwing the money was somehow their cover of like look the church is

gonna look back to normal in the next episode maybe if burns tosses off that money at them then it goes back to normal maybe but also like what was their general concern about resetting anything that's true episode well you know this is gene starting back up so maybe it's at the start of his new showrunner time so he's like guys we have to care about this we gotta at least explain why it's gonna be reset by the end of the season i don't think he's no no and uh you know i think most church gatherings are about guilting each other about their children i think uh so it feels realistic of them going like oh what's lisa been up to and they're your devil daughter so then it's 17 minutes

and 13 seconds into the episode christmas is said for the first time this becomes a christmas episode out of nowhere and we launch into operation xmas to remind of how good is yes yeah a great line i i also love marge being told marge actually doesn't want to bribe her with it but she has to be told like marge you can save more souls with roller skates and easy bake ovens than this 2000 page sleeping pill like lovejoy believes in the bible less than marge does but very funny joke and another from lovejoy you know in the next scene lisa's wearing a jacket that's again their way of going like actually it's winter now guys they've been dead they've been dressed non-wintery the entire episode but now lisa's got a light jacket on because it's getting cold the other day

she planted a tree in the soft warm ground today it's winter yep well then again this is not too long after the episode homer the mo where it just becomes the thanksgiving episode and like uh also in like 18 minutes in so uh emergency holidays are launching in the third act and uh their first attempt is putting an angel on top of the bodhi tree which the animation of the dancing jerky angel with while doing the jingle bell bark is so funny to me as is Homer's dancing to it. I love that bit. It's really good. Then Marge dumps fresh cookies right in front of Lisa into the trash, which is certainly

a very mom passive aggressive move there. That's for sure. They chose the perfect thing for bart to accidentally eat and be concerned about oh god the the disgust dog lid is very dangerous it's like sharp food lid sharp and covered in dog food yes swallowable will kill you probably bart need to go to the hospital right after that i time to begin operation x must Remind of How Good Is. Just do it! Do it, do it now! I think this tree could use an angel.

Well, at least it's tasteful. I was just making Christmas cookies. But since you don't believe in Christmas anymore, I guess you don't want any. Well, they do smell good. It's a pity. All right, trash cookies. Uh-oh. I think I ate a dog food lid.

There aren't any other deleted scenes on the DVD, but there are some deleted or unused sketches. Apparently there was a joke of Abe Jasper and the old Jewish man dressed as the three wise men for some reason. There's character models for that in the DVD, but apparently it got cut. Which, you know, an old Jewish man, I'd feel bad for him being forced to be one of the three wise men. That's against his religion. He doesn't remember. I guess so. And so their first couple gambits fail. being to force me when the three wise men that's against his religion he doesn't remember i guess and so uh their first couple gambits fail uh they're then wearing their fun holiday sweaters

you know i want that that homer one i i could dress up like that next christmas time i kind of want that holiday they were fun holiday sweaters i wish there was just like a little like lead into christmas you're right it's just like we run into the brick wall of christmas there's snow outside everyone is dressed up there's a tree there was just like a little like lead into Christmas. You're right. It's just like we run into the brick wall of Christmas. There's snow outside. Everyone is dressed up. There's a tree. There was never talk of like, oh, the holidays are coming, Homer.

Yep. I was shocked this was a Christmas episode. And again, they marketed it as a Christmas episode. But yeah, it's like it instantly snows. It becomes Christmas out of nowhere. Lisa doesn't really care. And also to make this feel like Al Jean has come back on with a throwback. He's like, you know what? Lisa loves ponies again. we're back to that we lisa hasn't given a shit about

ponies in like eight seasons but now it's back to like yeah lisa loves ponies and she really wants one she she cared so little about ponies that when bark got a horse two years ago she didn't even interact with it that's right yeah yeah yeah when they adopted that racehorse in saddle sore galactica with the uh this the killer jockeys lisa didn't give a crap that's shocking to me because part of lisa's dna to me is that she loves ponies it was in all of our childhood advertisements of most of most t-shirts with lisa on it were some reference to a pony a penny saved as a pony earned as bob's vintage mug says failed catchphrases for lisa i do love clip clop i love clip clop it's fun even on the commentary they forgot the joke was that it's ralph and millhouse in a costume i forgot the

joke too very funny it reminds me of that little sebastian horse it's so small yes an adorable pony like a miniature one that they could actually keep in the house unlike you know uh wildfire or not sorry princess wildfire is the song not to linger too long because we're running short on time but it is funny that uh millhouse and ralph are at the simpsons on christmas eve and they're going to be eating out of a bag of sugar in the kitchen that's pretty funny and they seem really excited about it yeah hey if i was a kid and an adult told me bag of sugar's right in there eat all you want i'd be like hell yeah yeah also i'm disturbed by lovejoy saying lick it like that's like but i also love something had to be disturbing otherwise what was going to set her up

i just love how mart says like we're not trying to pressure you and then she like nudges maggie with her foot towards towards lisa and so lisa runs off into the night which again they barely give any time to this to actually feel the worry of like oh was lisa lost what's gonna happen to lisa like it's really just it goes to her in the temple and then she's back home there's not not much time for it and also you know what's funny when she gets to the temple and here's uh lenny and carl's uh mantra about short shorts that song it appeared twice already in the series in homer the heretic and the mysterious voyage of homer both of which were spiritual episodes so short shorts the short

short song and spiritual episodes go hand in hand and somehow the these writers just it's inextricably linked to uh their souls which i mean you know in their soul is the thought of the 1957 novelty song by the royal teen short shorts about the about the brand new fad of wearing slightly shorter shorts than most people would normally wear. They're a little north of the knee. But yes, Lisa on Christmas Eve bursts into a temple and rudely interrupts meditation in our next Richard Gere clip.

My family tried to trick me into celebrating Christmas. You know, we are meditating. Oh, sorry. That's all right. I was only about to achieve enlightenment. But who'd want that? Who likes short shorts? I like short shorts. Those guys are way off.

Anyway, your family didn't have to trick you. Buddhists respect the diversity of other religions, as long as they're based on love and compassion. What? It's true. So why don't you go home? I'm sure your family really misses you. I can really celebrate Christmas? You can celebrate

any holiday. And you know, my birthday is August 31st. Oh, I'll send you an email greeting card. Sweet. Now I really should be getting back to my family. Yeah, I'm spending tonight with my stepdaughter, Hannah. I do her then she does mine we're gonna go spend christmas with mo you know so we don't have one of his christmas accidents hey you can't do much without this i'm glad they got a dark suicide joke in here just at the end yeah man again i not to not to

like be a broken record here but boy like he's playing this kind of flat but also kind of real where i feel bad he just feels uh genuinely annoyed by lisa and then it feels like it feels like his insistence to point out no lenny what lenny and carl are doing is incorrect yes yeah he has to make sure we know yeah yeah i mean also too that he it's a very american way for me i think to say like well sure you're you're a buddhist but just do whatever you want just go i mean go to church who cares like and it's these are actually like wow like that's a very mo wow she didn't read the entire pamphlet i think it would have covered that uh that's that's in the the actual book not the pamphlet she never she never bought the book and uh this august 31st

richard gear will be turning 73. So let's all send him an e-greeting card on that day. But yeah, this resolution is even exactly the same as Lisa the Vegetarian. It's just telling her live and let live. And it's just like, I guess it's at least less of a guilt trip than at the end of that, of Lisa the Vegetarian, where it's like, actually, you're mean to your family and you should forgive them, even if they were a jerk to you. like i guess this this is more of just like i just be compassionate whatever go go it's said by a less famous person in this one yeah it's true yeah and

and richard gear is quite famous but hardly paul mccartney famous yeah but yes mo mo christmas and suicides it's it's a follow-up on the classic No Funeral. Right, right. I guess he just tries to use the same rope every time. Well, you know, Moe... He has access to no other rope. Well, if he used the rope that he uses for his belt, then he'd be in real trouble. Not to linger too long,

but it sounds like Moe doesn't have a lot of ideas because when someone jumps out a window, he goes, out of the window, of course yes it's not creative about it but but yeah so lisa heads home uh the family was involved homer thought it was an episode about saving their dog which was pretty funny while bart thought bart was just apparently knocking on doors and caroling uh well i mean again this is such a rushed ending that i can see why the other characters are like, oh, wait, yeah, Lisa was missing. I didn't catch that either.

They're just like, oh, that's right. But I guess she left at night and it's now day. Yeah, so she's been gone all night. So they've, you know, that's a pretty crappy Christmas for everybody involved. But yes, we have one last clip here as the family reconnects. You came back!

Yeah, I wanted to spend Christmas with you guys. So you're back on the winning team? No, I'm still Buddhist, but I can worship with my family too. So you're just going to pay lip service to our church? Uh-huh. That's all I ever asked. Well, I'm just glad you're back. And don't worry, honey, I'll pray double hard for both of us. Now let's get you some Christmas cookies. Thanks, Mom.

Hey, where's my pony? Yes! Merry Christmas to us all. I'm serious. Make with the pony. And a happy, healthy new year! Here, Clip Clop. Here, Pony Pony. Happy, happy new year! This is almost like the promise of hover bikes. Yeah, hey, you're right. But I think Lisa should now just be like, you know what, fuck your church.

You did lie to me. Fuck your church. I ain't going. I'm not even giving you the lip service. had a really passive aggressive line i'll pray for both of us yes yeah i mean it's it's condescending for marge she thinks i mean just like the vegetarian is a marge in a realistic to apparent way uh sees this as a phase and a joke and not serious and and just something she like tolerates from her kid. Yeah. It's a happy enough ending. At least it explains like, oh yeah, Lisa will pay the church lip service, meaning she will appear in church scenes from now on

and still celebrate. It won't change how the show is written in many ways. She'll still be at the church and all that. Yeah. A brief final thoughts for me. I feel like it's inoffensive, but for an episode that's supposed to fundamentally change a character,

I think it should have had more attention paid to it in terms of just the plotting and lisa's journey and everything it doesn't feel as substantial as lisa the vegetarian which is trying to be in terms of uh the transformative nature of the storytelling i think that episode believed in vegetarianism far more than this episode believes in buddhism as well and i think they really just believe in a guest star and the religion that is attached to him but uh it feels like the rocket gets as much time as buddhism yeah yeah yeah we learn more about y'all control certainly yes yeah i'm more familiar with that principle based on this episode but you know what they got they got uh lisa said the right

mantra and stuff they didn't uh they get a couple things right on a google level not attacking buddhism and holding it up is like the religion for her but not very in depth no no i i think uh in future episodes of buddhism i think they at least dig a little deeper yeah maybe you know what i think a sad fact is if richard gear wanted to spread the word about his religion more his celebrity actually got in the way of doing such a thing in this episode that had to do jokes about him and his career and his move his most famous movie officer and a gentleman i guess is his most famous movie i I mean, what else would you say? Nah, Pretty Woman. Yeah, I was like, what?

All right, fine. But you're right. But yeah, I guess, you know, Lindsay, any other final thoughts? I would just say I think this episode has some good jokes, but story-wise it feels a bit phoned in. I feel that. Lindsay, thanks again for being on the show. Please let us know where we can find you online and what you're currently doing. If you can talk about it.

Yeah, you can find me online. I'm pretty much just on Twitter at Lindsay K. God willing, I will find the strength to give it up in the next year. And I can't talk about what I'm currently doing now, but I will say, you know, support the new deal for animation on your on your various social media channels uh the public speaking up about it is making a difference to us in negotiations and we really appreciate it no that's great you know i i i understand you're you're wanting to get away from twitter but i really i i do appreciate that you've you've used your twitter to inform a lot of people, including me.

And I try to pass it along about a lot of the nuts and bolts of the unfortunate business side of things in the world of animation. So we really appreciate that. And also your podcast, Teen Creeps, we're fans of that as well. Yes, yeah. Please check out where you talk about why i pulled fiction from the 80s and 90s by authors like christopher pike carl stein lois duncan and more and man i hope you know someday i hope both of us can ride that simbad ride again by the way some of my favorite episodes of of podcast rider are you talking about this right thank you very much

one day delightful they'll let us all back into japan one day yeah no i don't i'm making bob feel excluded here because he has not written this in bed right yet unfortunately i've only heard the stories someday but uh but thank you so much thank you lindsey thank you guys thanks again to lindsey katai for being on the show please check out her podcast teen creeps as for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these podcasts one week at a time and add free please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons sign up for five bucks a month you get just that but also access to everything behind the five dollar paywall that includes over 100 bonus full-length podcasts and monthly access to new episodes of both talking futurama and talking of the hill only behind the five dollar paywall only at patreon.com slash

talking simpsons and there is a $10 level as well. When you sign up for that, you get access to everything behind that $5 paywall, but also access to one extremely long podcast once a month, only for patrons of that level or higher. And what is that, Henry? Bob is talking about the What a Cartoon Movie podcast. For our premium patrons at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, you get to hear me and Bob go super in-depth on an animated feature film,

just like we do with The Simpsons. but that often means we talk for over five hours or sometimes up to nearly seven hours like we did on who framed roger rabbit which you can get access to along with last month's what a cartoon movie toy story 3 at the end of this month we'll be doing a brand new one and there's over three years 250 250 hours plus of What A Cartoon movies in addition to all the $5 stuff Bob just mentioned. That $10 a month subscription will get you our entire back catalog that covers everything from a Kira to a goofy movie and everything in between. Check it out at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

As for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And my other podcast, by the way, is Retronaut Knots that's a classic gaming podcast about old video games you can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retro knots sign up there for two full length bonus episodes every month and Henry how about you you can follow me on Twitter at h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g I'm tweeting up a storm there and you can also follow the official Twitter account of this podcast at talk Simpsons pod and if you're looking And you can also follow the official Twitter account of this podcast at TalkSimpsonsPod. And if you're looking for an easy-to-follow

back catalog of all of our free episodes, go to TalkingSimpsonsPodcast.com. And you know, again, if you follow at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter, you stay up to date with all the cool stuff going on in our world on Patreon or on the free feeds. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next week for Season

3's Like Father, Like Clown, and we'll see you then. Son, we are about to break the surly ponds of gravity and punch the face of God. Five, four, three, two, one, countdown.