Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Smart & Smarter With Mike Drucker

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

"Sweetie, you seem so blue. Did the last of something die?" - Marge Simpson Lisa's curse of forever being in second place strikes again when she discovers Maggie somehow has a higher IQ. Can guest star Simon Cowell help Lisa get over her resentment before a shockingly realistic recreation of the human digestive system dissolves the rest of the Simpson family? Our guest: Mike Drucker, comedy writer and author of the upcoming book, Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking Futurama, talk king of the hill, the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I hardly endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody and welcome to Talking Simpsons where we worship the goddess Ironicca. I am one of your hosts, the InstaThread employee of the month, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons. Who is here with me today as always? Henry Gilbert, also known as Floor Baby. And who is here with me today as always Henry Gilbert also known as floor, baby And who was our special guest on the line Mike Drucker?

And I do wish I slept in a racecar bed and this week's episode is smart and smarter I'll tell you what's going on. I'm taking you all out for pancakes I knew Henry was gonna to choose the pancake line. This episode originally aired on February 22nd, 2004, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby, the Sex in the City finale airs on HBO, EuroTrip and Welcome to Mooseport port don't do great at the box office and a future EGOT winner

Jennifer Hudson is performing on American Idol the week this episode has a guest star from American Idol Wow This is crazy. So you're a trip in moose port have one thing in common Recent celebrity deaths and I'm Henry shaking his head. Yes. It's true. Look, I always like to focus on what was at the box office that week to put it in time, but I'd say the most famous movie Michelle Trachtenberg was in was probably Euro Trip. And the last movie that Gene Hackman was in was Welcome to Mooseport. And here they are out at the same time when we're covering this episode. I did see EuroTrip in theaters. Welcome to Mooseport.

No, I did not see Ray Romano's attempt at being a movie star. I imagine you standing at the box office back when that was a thing and just like looking at the signs for EuroTrip and what was it? Moose Point? Welcome to Mooseport. Welcome to Mooseport. A movie that every time I hear the title, it's almost like Fleischmann's in trouble.

Whenever I hear that title, I forget it immediately. But I like to imagine you looking at both movies and being like, Eee, Eurotrip I'll go with. All I know about Eurotrip is the constantly screen grab shot of Michelle Trachtenberg lifting her top at Cars. And also how everyone for a long time expected me to know the Scotty Doesn't Know song. Does anyone familiar with the Scotty Doesn't Know song. Does anyone familiar with the Scotty Doesn't Know song? Though that's the funniest part of the movie, as I recall now, because mostly it's your

usual sex romp through places. It's made to be sold as an unrated DVD just six months later. But as we covered recently, it's a real teenage sex wager. It is, it is. But this time it's like, instead of a betting on American sex, they're betting, can they have sex in Europe? They do. But Scotty doesn't know. It's the funniest part of the movie because the song Scotty doesn't know is like this band writing a song about how this guy's getting cheated on Scott and Scotty doesn't know. And the guy who's like having sex with his girlfriend wrote the song about it but the lead singer of the band is Matt Damon

in an uncredited cameo who just appears in the movie. It's great. He was filming the born identity nearby or something like that. Is that what happened? Yeah that's why he has a shaved head in it too. Okay well while you were talking Henry I was doing some research and I noted that it wasn't just people on the internet being perverts. The shot of the Charles Trachtenberg, Michelle Trachtenberg taking off her top is the DVD cover. Yes. For Unrated Edition. Oh my god. And Unrated is going across her breasts. You have to. Though that's also like, that is a lie in the movie. Well, I haven't seen the Unrated version, but she doesn't do a nude scene. They like film around her nudity. She did not agree to do a nude

scene in the movie. And so that's also false advertisement. I do think there should be a class action suit. The Sex and the City finale. Now, of course, there's been much sex in the city after this finale, but technically this was the end of Sex and the City for a time. And now it's back, but the show has some name that is very elusive. It's I think the show is called something and then there's this, and that's the way it was. Whatever carries. And just like that. And just like that, there you go, thank you Mike.

You're not an SATC fan to not know that. Now everyone who knows me knows, I had girlfriends in the early aughts, which means I watched Sex and the City. And just like that, is that the name of the catchphrase? Yes. Okay, that never stuck with me as like, wow, that's classic Carrie. Damn. Well, Bob, are you rooting for Mr. Big or Aiden in the show? Oh, I don't even think I got that deep.

Well, hey, all of us Aiden heads out there happy now with what we've read happened and just like that, because I have not watched that show, but I like my own version and that's the way it went You're like old mom title version of something Yeah, I guess the boomers who watch sex in the city refer to the title of the new show Yeah, and yeah, Jennifer Hudson is competing on American Idol when this airs She was the breakout star afterwards, though she did not win. She made it to the final episode, but not to the final four even, I

don't think. But yes, she would go on to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. The Tony was in 2022 and she officially became an EGOT, but she's still a great... Bob, you saw Katz and even you had to admit her singing is the only good thing in that movie. Like, actually. I was mainly a fan of just the method snot acting. Yes, she earns that snot bubble. She saw Anne Hathaway's tear in Les Mis, and was like, I need a different orifice

to leak for my song to be memorable. That's all that was happening the week this episode aired of The Simpsons. And this week's guest is a returning guest comedy writer Mike trucker And he's author of the upcoming book a good game. No rematch a life made of video games. Welcome back to the show Mike Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me back on the show. Mm-hmm now Mike Is this a memoir as the French would say technically? Yes I didn't pitch it as such and I hate calling it that because I think it's just funny almost like written down stand-up bits about My life and video games. So the answer is yes, but I don't pitch it as such and I hate calling it that because I think it's just funny, almost like written down stand-up bits about my life and video games.

So the answer is yes, but I don't like it. But like I said, I essentially just, I was almost inspired by the old George Carlin books I loved as a kid, which literally were his stand-up bits written out in book form. And so I kind of wanted something that had a similar vibe to it, but about video games. I read those, I was a big fan of sign language, the Seinfeld book, which was essentially just transcripts of jokes. Right, exactly. Oh yeah, the Drew Carey one, I remember from the 90s too being a really good one. So this is a throwback to the comedian books of the 90s, oh that's nice. Yeah, yeah, but it's entirely circling around video games and how I've humiliated myself with them. But if you've ever wanted to hear a story about someone getting

shot in the nuts at a paintball fight at Nintendo of America, this is probably the only book that'll do that. It's not even in Reggie's book. It's just mine. Well, when it comes to being humiliated by video games, you're in good company, Mike. We once made it our careers. We all successfully pivoted away from video games. More honorable places. The legitimate arts. Be they head writer of a comedy show or podcasting. Equals in art forms. This is an episode written by Carolyn Omine.

This is one, I'd say from a mother's perspective, I'd say. At least like a parent's perspective, for sure. And also I'd say a woman's perspective, or at least it's like Lisa and Maggie, or Lisa is being put in competition with a woman, which is usual. It also feels like it's written from a semi-wealthy LA resident's perspective in that it's about getting

your kid into a good preschool, which The Simpsons has done that before I believe children of a lesser clod Henry that started out as an episode about Basically Homer starting a preschool to get the kids into the school who couldn't go to other schools. Yeah, and also the critic There's an entire subplot about we need to get little Alice's girl. What's her name again? Oh, man She has such a cute voice too. Like, I thirst for blood. Whatever her name is, Penny. Penny! It's about getting Penny into a good preschool. So I think, I mean, everybody has the struggle of let's find a good school for our kid,

but especially in LA it's very, very competitive, and I think I see these kind of plots pretty often in sitcoms. Yeah, and I know this has been a point made a thousand times where you're like, are you, are The Simpsons rich or poor? Because it really, really, I don't, I don't know. That's a fancy school they were going to. Yeah, there was no talk of a scholarship unless they missed something. Yeah, as we've mentioned with other ones of like,

the Simpsons get box seats. The Simpsons go to a destination wedding. That it's like, I totally understand how comedy writers, they pull from the life they know. And when you live in LA and are rich, you get to do things or, you know, modestly rich comedy writer. I get it, but it makes more sense for the critic,

a very wealthy New Yorker, to him to be looking at fancy, expensive private schools. But this case, yeah, it's pulled again from just, and Carol Amine was a new mother then. Her son, I think, would have been one or two when this episode aired. So she was probably already feeling the pressure of like, the joke in this episode is pre-K.

Like, you have to immediately plan these things for your child or else they'll be screwed, apparently. Though this child will go on to just be a Simpsons writer now. So it sounds like, you know, he ended up good either way, I think. It all worked out. I do like this commentary a Simpsons writer now. So it sounds like, you know, he ended up good either way. It all worked out. Yep.

I do like this commentary because they are asking a slightly difficult question on there to like on the spot. They're asking Carolyn Amine. What's it like to have been the only girl in the writer's room? Sometimes they use the term girl. I don't use that dismissively. That's how they're joking around about it. I did like her funny story about how a writer deflected a ribald joke towards her one time. Did you catch that one, Bob?

Oh yeah, there was a dirty joke in the show, but she's the one who wrote it, right? Yeah, it was from the episode, Homer the Moe joke that a Russian sex worker has a penis and or had a penis. The line is, after turn noble, my penis is falling off and mo goes and penis is rushed in four and Apparently they got some grousing in the writers room And then it was Mike Scully pointed at her and said the girl pitched it like in case Thought it was like a bro joke. They're like hey the girl pitched it Yeah

I guess you said the biggest problem is people will always know if you're not there if you're the only woman in the writers Room if you're a man you could easily like kind of sneak out of work or show up late but it's like I guess the question is where's the woman now Mike in writers rooms these days it's not just down to the one woman you have probably like at least two now right you have at least two sometimes three I think I'm lucky and that started hitting writers rooms it's still an unequal amount of the population but I'm lucky that I started hitting writers rooms. It's still an unequal amount of the population But I'm lucky that I started hitting writers rooms

Probably in like the 20 teens and on when people were a little more aware of it but definitely like I've been on shows where there were just two or there were three and What was great was there was also usually a guy who would argue on behalf of them without talking to them first And so like there was often be, I don't wanna use the term white knight because I feel like it's been co-opted in a crappy way, but there would be a guy who maybe either meant well or wanted to be like the guy

and would be like the women don't like this. And they'd be like, hey, don't tell the head writer what we want. So you have like, it's a little better in terms of the amount of women in the writer's room. It's not always better in terms of the amount of women in the writers room It's not always better in terms of how they're necessarily treated as second citizens I also like on the commentary that this is where Matt Selman apparently falls asleep on the commentary which is very he he was having some late nights on the Simpsons

I guess yeah, yeah, I'm where they just had recorded a lot of commentaries. It sounded like This is the era in which they're kind of a lot of commentaries, it sounded like. This is the era in which they're kind of out of things to say, so it's when they like, if there's not a guest there, they just kind of talk about just generalities about their job. It does seem like on some of these commentaries in season 15, everybody just comes.

It is like 12 people. They've seemed to have extended it to, were you in the writers' room for this episode and still working on Simpsons? Let's all just hang out and party, which hey, I get that. They've talked about what a nice time it is that you get free lunch, you get to just hang out and not write and work on the show.

You just get to hang and watch an old episode and sort of talk about it. Or sort of just talk about Alf for about five minutes. I think maybe Selma was asleep because these things are apparently gloriously catered so you're just stuffing yourself with carbs. It's sitting in an air conditioned room. Mike, what's the status of the free food and lunches these days on a TV show? Depending on how well the show's doing, pretty good. You can tell the show's doing well when they're like, all right, we've got catering from car mines, which is

like a very nice restaurant out here in New York or if they're like it's pizza Friday It's almost like when you can tell the difference in a budget in a school when they have their parties It's the same thing with the writers room Like if it's a buffet you guys are doing well if it's like Sandwiches from the deli next door and you don't get to choose what sandwiches they are you are about to get canceled Yeah, free pizza work usually means you don't have a union. Yeah. Oh, and the thing is, in show business,

free pizza at work means you have a union, but the union didn't specify when they need to feed you or what. I don't know, early thoughts on this episode from your guys is I do kind of like where they come from of another episode about like Lisa becomes a cynic as like a lost, gifted kid. Like that's always easy to identify with, but this episode's all over the place though too I

think yeah it does feel like a slight retread of Lisa's rival the question is raised what does Lisa do when someone is smarter than her the answer is she freaks out she becomes a monster and I kind of like exploring that element of Lisa although I'm not a big fan of the big cheat that resolves it even though they're having fun with the idea that, well, this could not have possibly been happening the entire time, so we're going to lie to you. Yes. And also it feels like some plot got removed to make space for a big guest star, I think, too. Yeah. And I was also noting this episode begins in a way that

like they kind of retread a thing or it feels like they had a pitch for an opening of the episode they liked so much they did it twice in one season because this bathroom shenanigans opening and then they leave the house this is the same thing that starts out today I am a clown also from the season except it's Maggie locked in the bathroom and then it's left all messy and then ends with an early scene of Hibbert talking to the family. So they hit two beats very similarly. And it has nothing to do with the episode in question. Yes, yeah.

It's just that maybe after the first time with Maggie trapped in the bathroom, like we have other funny things to do in the bathroom this time. Yeah. What if Homer tasted the toilet brush? That scene really goes on. That scene really takes its time.

We see that it starts with Homer trying to use an old prank on Bart here as this is, you know, a novelty toilet seat water spraying thing that when you put down the seat, it sprays you. You can still buy these for a pretty cheap price on Amazon. Though, if you want the kind with this kind of graphics, you gotta buy the old ones in dusty old packages on eBay. Well now, we're paying lots of money to get our butts sprayed with water. It's just the way all our bathrooms are now.

Thanks to the Tushy Revolution. They're not sponsors, by the way. If you don't have a bidet installed in your house yet, you're missing out. It's normal now, it's popular. You know what it is? I think that whenever you're about to go to Japan the first time, you're like, ah man, there's going to be so much food and so much culture.

I can't wait to learn about this society. And then when you come back, you're like, all I have to talk about is the toilets. All I have to talk about is how good those bidets are. It's the toilets and I can fit in a bathtub, but I have to get on an international flight. Yes. I don't think it was a coincidence that after our first trip together to Japan was when my husband was like, all right, we're doing it.

We're buying a bidet. We're getting a tushie. Yeah. Though this seems like the Simpsons are very well off because as Bart and Homer start fighting each other after Bart fails to enact the prank correctly, they're shoving things in each other's faces and the fact they have an electric toothbrush, I don't know, seems kind of swanky in 2004 for the Simpsons to have an electric toothbrush.

I think by that point they were probably, you can get a cheap one for like 50 bucks. Yeah, by 2004 it still seemed like a fancy Hollywood folks only habit. I had one and I was a college student. folks only have this. I had one and I was a college student. I didn't get an electric toothbrush until recently. Like in the last five years I became a convert to it and my dentist has approved of it. Also though for this joke to work they have to draw Homer's nostrils which pretty much, Simpsons never have nostrils unless it's for a joke and it is disturbing. There's also some hilarious child abuse of Bart being strangled as usual. There is a weird moment in that fight too, where Homer says,

Take your pants off, boy. It's kind of like, you're like, And you know it's not going to go somewhere bad, but like, you have that flash of like, Didn't it sound weird in the room at that moment? I had the video frozen on the toilet bowl POV as Homer is trying to force Bart's ass onto the seat, and my wife laughed at it, because it was just frozen on the screen for about five minutes as I was

taking notes on something else. As the water is spraying everywhere, but also the Simpsons only have a handheld shower head for this one joke. That also seems kind of swanky for them. I don't know. Henry, you need to redefine your definition of swanky. I'm saying 2004 swanky. A shower head attachment?

I don't know, that seems like a special, I don't know, the Rockefeller over here with all of his faucet attachments. I'm making it rain with my electric toothbrush and shower head attachment. Sounds like life was pretty good. Life was pretty good for you. They get interrupted, Homer says it's old lady Simpson run good gag And that's where we get the opening bit where the destruction of the bathroom is plastered over with a pancake breakfast Which it is a rare clever move on Homer, but hey I fall for it, too

I called Henry out because he is a pancake fan and we've talked about pancakes a lot on this podcast series Bob's more of a waffle guy. They're superior. I'm correct. I just bought a waffle maker and my life has improved. Again, I'm just rolling it over here. Waffle maker today. Electric toothbrush. Mike, where do you stand on this waffle versus pancake? You know, I kind of like stroopwaffles. I like those flat pastry-like waffles. You know what? I don't stand anywhere on that debate because usually when I'm getting pancakes or waffles it's because something good is going on in my life

And so I'm just happy to be getting pancakes or waffles like whatever you're offering me whether it be combed or flat I will take it They head to the pancake place and this is where we start off with a clever observation about the redressing of a restaurant This place looks familiar. It used to be the leaning tower of a restaurant. Fast track begins at birth. That's it, claw and bite for position. Only enough tuition money for two. The rest of you, better luck next life. That's a lot of pressure to put on a baby. All they should be worried about is the raspberry monster.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! You know, Marge makes a good point. Competitive schools aren't for every baby.

Are you saying my daughter can't cut it just because I owe you $14,000? I'll show you. Come on Maggie, you're getting into that school. I will hire a collection agency. Which one? Tri-City? Omni-Pay? Insta-Threat?

I've beaten them all! Good gag about dodging your creditors though. 14,000 is that's 2004 money again there. That's pretty small for medical bills these days. I really love that gag about the repainted building because I wonder how intentional this is or if I'm just making an extra leap but to me two restaurants you always know when they redress them, are International House of Pancakes and a Pizza Hut. And this went from a pizza place to a pancake place. And Taco Bell as well. Oh, that's true. Yeah. And you know what? The Wendy's, you can tell when something used to be the old Wendy's with the hanging

glass window box dealie they had. Yeah, that's what I thought of too, is like, I think I just thought of Pizza Hut because we had so many of them around when I was a kid. And so many did become like a diner, and you're like, this isn't a diner. Yeah. Not with this route, or worse, when it became like a bank, and you were like, what are you guys even doing here?

There is still one Hut-style Pizza Hut in Vancouver that I know of, and I'm dying to go, but I realize I will be wasting a meal on the weekend by going Hut style Pizza Hut in Vancouver that I know of and I'm dying to go, but I realize I will be wasting a meal on the weekend by going to this Pizza Hut. It will be a bad meal, but I'll get to just eat it in a Hut style room. I mean, I know why the Pizza Hut stopped being that. It mostly is because they realized like,

delivery was their big business anyway. So why pay for more real estate than just a storefront that can be in front of your kitchen? Like I get that, but it seems like at least based on Millennials crying on the internet you would think there's a big market for still the throwback dining Pizza Hut experience for people who miss it Yes, some Millennials are crying about columns and statues. Others are crying about Pizza Hut's no longer existing And weirdly the Pizza Hut ones are probably the more socially healthy ones. Yes. They just want to drink out of a red plastic cup. They're not blaming feminism for that. They just want a big plastic cup. And this is where we

also get, this is the problem when you give a character babies is that Apu's children are now somehow older than Maggie despite being conceived when Maggie was the same age she is now in the show. As they are like, they're walking around, they seem to be more verbal than Maggie is in the show, even though again, Maggie was fully the regular Maggie when Manjula was not yet pregnant.

The Hibbert here just showing up. Lisa should be a little more upset seeing Hibbert after he very recently killed her cat. That's right. She'd be a little more bothered. Hibbert after he very recently killed her cat. That's right. She'd be a little more bothered. She's deep in denial, let's say. And yes, here's our big guest star of the episode coming in. And you know, I had forgotten because of his character design, I thought he just played

himself. So I give him credit for it not doing that. Oh, I think somewhere along the line, it was lost that this wasn't supposed to be him. Because, I mean, he's cast to play a Simon Cowell-like character who was called Henry once. And I think they just forgot that it's not supposed to be Simon Cowell, so they just draw him. And, I mean, as a joke in the Simpsons world,

Simon Cowell could be coming in to judge the children. So it's weird that it's not him, but then he'll come back later to play him. Yes. Himself. Let's hear our first taste of the guest star. The pig says, oink, the chickens. Look, stop right there. I could go to any Chuck E. Cheese in America and hear what animals say.

Do you know what I say? I say, next! You're a poopie! You nurse with that mouth? And what's your name? Maggie. I'm sorry, but why are you answering for her? Maggie doesn't talk yet. Not a word?

Oh no, no, she says lots of words. Like when she wants something, she says, Maggie, we're not a mime school, so we can't take a non-talker. But here's some good news. The Gap will always need sweater folders. I'm sorry we wasted your time, your lordship. Now I did find a 2004 BBC interview with Simon Cowell,

which I think explains why he looks the way he does in this. In terms of how he's drawn as himself in the show? Yes, yeah. So this is what he had to say in 2004. It's genuinely my favorite program. When I got the telephone call, I thought it was a windup, but it was true. It was the most intimidating thing I have ever done in my life. I only had one condition, make me handsome and make me young.

As you can see, that's been achieved. So there you go. It was clearly his direction of draw me as me and I better be in very good shape. That's funny because make me handsome and make me young is what he tells his cosmetic surgeon. I don't know if you've seen him lately, but he has really turned into a cat person

as most people do when they kind of dive in a little too deep. Yeah, yeah. Although there is something a little sweet to imagining Simon Cowell being nervous about a gig. Mm-hmm. Like, you know, like, you don't often get that side of him. And look, I'm not like a Simon Cowell fan or something, but he doesn't strike me as someone who would just like say that in an interview to be nice. It sounds like an actual like the one thing that freaked me out thing, which is sweet to me.

Yeah, I have no opinion about the guy. And frankly, I missed American Idol as a phenomenon because I just didn't watch it and nobody I knew was watching it, but everybody else was watching it. And I've been doing year in review podcasts for my other podcast retronauts covering the 2000s. And I forgot just what a stranglehold American Idol had on American culture because throughout all of the 2000s, the Wednesday show and the Tuesday show was on twice a week. They're almost always in the top three and the only time they dropped out of the top three was in the 2011-2012 season when they were in slots four and five respectively. So this show was just the most watched thing for over

a decade and I'm sure it's still on. It's still on right? I think it was off for a beat and then they brought it back. I believe that's right. Yeah Yeah, I learned the history of it by watching the great theme park channel Defunctland did a special on the American Idol experience that what used to be at Disney World I mean it was so big it was a theme park attraction. That's just how big it was and yeah I mean, I totally it's corny now I mean it did have Simon Cowell play himself and it's like but he's reviewing babies and it's his Absorbic wit but it's toward a baby like you know it was a major

phenomenon like one of the biggest things of the odds is being judged by Simon Cowell specifically as well as Ruben and Not no way Ruben star was the one the winners. Sorry sorry but Paul Abdul and the guy who called everyone dog yes God oh why can't I remember his name dog man Randy something oh boy this is gonna just have now we just have to look it up okay let's pause Randy Jackson thank you Bob yeah the rest of the judges will have to wait until 2010s episode judge me tender where Moe becomes an American Idol judge. They got it in the small window when Ellen was a judge on the show, so Ellen guessed in the episode as well. Oh, good. Though another bit I had forgotten from Simpsons Meets American

Idol history was that there was an American Idol charity event in 2007 called Idol Gives Back where the Simpsons also appeared on that and it's on the Simpsons the movie Blu-ray so whoa okay so they animate the Simpsons performing on American Idol and and interacting with Simon Cowell so three times Simon Cowell has interacted with the Simpsons and they said they directed him over the phone from London. Minnay also said that he was very excited and nervous, though when she subbed in for Marge for acting in a scene, he then said her version of Marge was terrible and still

gave some critiques. He was doing the bit. I can respect him for that. I wonder how Lady came in. That's the other thing I wonder because the Philippa woman in the scene. She basically functions It's like he took all of her lines when she shows up later Like she's the one who like puts Maggie in and she shows up alongside him at the end It almost feels like he was added late. Hmm. Yeah, I don't get the purpose of her character

Maybe just to show you he's not some demented man alone in this building. He has a staff. And do people like meet him in this world and say like, you know, you really are a lot like that guy, Simon Cowell, who's very famous on television. You ever get dressed the same? They learn Maggie has no future because she can't talk. This is when they head home. And I like that Marge thinks Maggie has no future after just being told this and they're throwing out there, you know, maybe she'll marry a bag boy who steals. The important thing is to steal from work.

That's what Homer knows. And then we also see that Homer gets rid of the rest of the family by distracting them with tacos, leaving Lisa and Maggie alone here. This little bit here with the toy blocks this to me felt like they were pulling from like classic there's the flashcards and the alphabet blocks that both were used in the earlier seasons to show that Maggie is smarter than a regular baby. Yeah and I think

she was like playing music on a xylophone. That's right. And I hope she didn't recognize it as a classical piece. Yeah it goes all the way back to like the first Bart. In Bart the Genius she is spelling words that would put her at a genius level IQ. Not to mention she's great at shooting people. She can shoot a gun with me with intent. That's how smart she is. But in this case, Lisa realizes that through clever wordplay of turning ice to rice to price that Maggie is actually quite smart, and you know, a clever writer too. Yeah.

So they bring her back, and this is where Simon Cowell still is not convinced. Well, look who's back. Pippi Num Talking. Just because Maggie can't talk doesn't mean she's dumb. Einstein didn't speak till he was three. And even then he could only speak German. Fine, I'll give her an IQ test, if only to extinguish all hope.

Alright, my quiet American, how many eyes do you have? Go on Maggie, you can do it. Well congratulations, you're now as intelligent as a pig. Let's see if you can move up to dolphin. How many people in your family? Woohoo! I got that one right too! Okay, last question.

Arrange these four arrows to make five arrows. Remind you, you only have 15 sec. Oh. Now I don't know how long he looks away there, but how could Lisa possibly have shown her how to do that arrow problem? Well, the answer is she didn't. But there was some way it happened. Psychic, psychic messages.

Yeah. From Lisa to Maggie, I think. This is getting to the end of the episode, but I mean, I appreciate just how over thetop It is that it's impossible of a twist Yeah, they didn't make a joke about how it's a huge cheat when she's making the shadow puppet of the American condor or whatever The bird is I guess she did a shadow puppet of the exact way to figure out that that word puzzle as well Or that little I guess it's more like a professor Leighton challenge really that's what it struck me. Yes. Yeah Mike I know you worked on Kid Icarus.

Did you work any on the Professor Layton localizations? I wish I did. I was always so jealous of the people who got to work on them, because it also, you'd see them working on it on their computers with Professor Layton screens and French landscapes and nice music. You're like, oh, that must be nice.

It must be like a vacation to work on that game. It's calming. Yeah. Clever bit calling her my quiet American, a reference to the 1955 novel by English author, Graham Greene. Also say, pippy non-talking is a good joke. I like that.

Makes me laugh. It's a good sharp joke. I like it. And you know, when I tried to fact check that Einstein didn't speak thing Mainly if you search that it comes up in articles that are about should you be worried if your baby's not talking yet? Because like it's like three different articles It's the first thing in it You know

They say that Einstein didn't speak until he was three or four or five one of the articles even said but as for that Actually being true that's in contention by Einstein biographers. It's mainly just mained as it's a classic way to just tell you like, hey, relax, parent. That's all it's really for. Though I'll also tell you this IQ thing here, when I try to see if IQs are really even good for measuring things anymore, if they're just entirely misused and poorly sourced, or it takes me to websites that basically I ended up on a Reddit page like, so why are they controversial? And then a burning cross appears in the comments saying like,

Oh, well it's controversial because certain people don't test well in it. Yeah. Most of the answers can be found in r slash eugenics. Yup. We actually did. I wrote the Adam Ruhns Everything episode that talked about this. And I have never received more hate mail. And I also wrote an episode about the weight loss industry.

And that got a few influencers mad, but the IQ thing. Basically our conclusion was one, the IQ test was originally designed for something completely different. Basically the original, original one that was developed in France was kind of more of like an educational tool just for a certain level of kids. And also there's a lot about the test where like, you know, obviously it's culturally biased, but it also doesn't test things like there's a difference

in our intelligence and how fast we process information or how we store information or how we can apply it. And so having one score, actually, it's more like we have an attribute sheet in D&D with how we use our brains then we do have like a total score because someone can be able to retain all the information in the world but be dumb as fuck at like accessing it and processing it and being critical of it and someone could be very good at processing information very quickly but not know anything. It's a terrible way to measure intelligence or intelligence potential because it basically flattens everything out to one skill number that doesn't quite make sense.

And people don't like that. Well, that's all good, Mike. But have you read a very important and great book, The Bell Curve? Because I think you'll learn something from reading that one. Oh my fucking God. Well, I remember as a a kid I took an IQ test and I did well on one of like the block puzzles and the proctor was like oh you really got that and I was like well I played a video game where they had that same type of puzzle before and they

were like okay. But I was like that even then I was like doesn't that factor in somehow that I have experience with this very test or no? Yeah also to I've been thinking about a lot IQ test lot because a certain man who ruins everything these days he loves to talk about His over 160 IQ and how which I'm sure is real and recently tested and you know He got it off some fucking like CD ROM program in the 90s that had like a bullshit test Oh, you see I have written down like, micro was head writer of the Bill Nye show. He probably covered that. I should have realized it was Adam Ruins everything. That's where you'd have covered it. Oh, well, thank you. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Hey, I give you a high IQ rating on my Henry IQ points for that knowledge. No, I don't know. Did you guys ever remember? I feel like I took some sort of online IQ test once or something. I mean, I tested into gifted studies, but I don't remember numbers. Not really. Never IQ test, just standardized tests. I think those are just so easy because I just understood the game. It's like, well, two answers are obviously very wrong and one is kind of wrong. So it just was so easy to solve that kind of a test. Yeah. I mean, like, I think that, I don't know, because I liked puzzles and games and shit, I think I was already pre-prepped to be good at these tests.

Oh yeah, me too. You know what I mean? Versus if you just drop me in blind, having never done something like that before. So I don't remember what score I got, but it's also never really mattered. I know I didn't get into Gifted, but I also think that was because I didn't get into gifted, but I also think that was because I didn't really want to be gifted and didn't pay that much attention during the test.

Yeah, people put so much of value in that score. It makes me sad that Lisa is being a little bit of an Elon Musk here of just knowing what her score is and feeling like it's a Dragon Ball power level below Maggie once the test comes through. I guess her excuse is that she's eight, so we can cut her some slack. Sure, instead of in her 50s. Yeah, it's a difference.

So yes, Maggie not only tests very well, but as she comes into the room, the head of the school, we find out that she is actually higher at 167 than Lisa's 159. It's amazing for a Christian, according to me. That's a good dark joke about it too. That's some nice early-aughts Christian bashing. Yeah. Also, hey Mike, you know, you escaped Florida and didn't go there, but I enjoy this reference to the Seminoles Mike if I can believe what I found on the internet you went to NYU and you escaped going to one of the big Florida schools I only applied to two schools I applied New York University and the University of Miami because I knew I could probably get into the University of Miami

So if NYU didn't pan out I was like all right I'll just go to the school that'll give me. My parents wanted me to do more, but I was so burnt out by the end that I was like, I'm gonna apply to two fucking schools and let it fall where it may. Well, I was rooting for the Gators, not the Seminoles. That was my section of Florida I grew up in.

I applied to the commuter college seven minutes from my home. Yeah. It worked out. So yes, Lisa is very saddened at this information, and this is where now Homer meanwhile views this as as eventually if they had another kid they could build a time machine to go back in time to never have children. I kind of wish they'd explored a little bit more of Bart like Bart Mocking Lisa that she's now part of the others that like, let Bart and Lisa befriend each other now.

It's like, oh, you're not the good kid anymore. I guess it would have been interesting to see Lisa realize the path she could be on, but that's a little close to Lisa the Simpson for me, so I'm glad they didn't really embrace that. But that episode's about Lisa realizing, well, she has the misunderstanding that I will one day become stupid.

So she's just like trying to hang out with Barton Homer and not really meshing with them. Man, you're right. And this also, I mean, separate vocations. I was getting feelings from that one too. Yeah. Look, it's 15 years in Lisa's smart. You're going to do stories about it.

So it's not, I'm not saying like, Oh, what hacks they did this five times in 15 years, but I enjoy Lisa becoming cynical as a smart person. But in this case that now it's pointed at Maggie, I do feel like Carolyn Omine maybe or somebody else on the series remember like, you know, we have written jokes that Maggie is very smart. Like why don't we have, it's also though usually ignored by everybody. Now they finally like deal with it. So that is fresh. That's a fresh move. Yeah. It's almost like I wish the story was inverted, where it was almost like Lisa thought

that she was coaching Maggie because she felt bad for Maggie. And then it turns out Maggie is a genius, versus Lisa feeling like she's left out because Maggie's a genius, then finds out she was helping her all along. The reverse, where it's like, oh, I'm her mentor. I'm almost like taking pride in being her teacher and then realizing that Maggie actually didn't need her, I think might have been a sweeter turn.

Because I kind of agree with you guys. It rehashes the Lisa doesn't get to be smartest girl anymore, so she goes through a bunch of personality changes then comes back to it. I really like that turn, Mike, your proposed turn, because I mean, Lisa loves her sister, obviously, but she's so insecure about her status as an intelligent person. There's no way she would subliminally or subconsciously help someone appear smarter than her. Right. Goes against just who she is and her big flaw as a person.

But I could see a very smart person being like, well, since I'm still helping them seem smart, I'm actually not the mastermind in an evil way, but I'm still in control in my own mind. We come back from the break, and Maggie has gotten a ton of gifts, which, like you said, Bob, no mention of a scholarship here. How are they paying for this? I don't know.

Honestly, there's another thing they could have done something with here where Lisa, I think, would be justified in being jealous if she's like, hey, I was tested there. We saw it in the Lisa Sacks episode, but she could just say, hey, I could have been in that smart baby school when I was Maggie's age, but you didn't have the money for it.

Now you're doing it? That isn't part of her jealousy. It's just, it's only about pure, just brains. And we get a good joke about support our troops bumper stickers, a very 2004 one. This is an election year, they're slamming the Christians, they're slamming the troops or the people who are jingoistic. In this era, in the year 2004, I had a support the magnetic yellow ribbon industry

bumper sticker. And I was happy that no one keyed my car slash my tires. That's very funny though I didn't even know those existed That's a very funny bumper sticker. That's great. And yeah, that's brave Bob You know, I lived in a red state too And I did drive around with the Carrie Edwards bumper sticker that was it in 2004 I wasn't gonna say sorry one second I think at that point Ohio was purple I want to say there was still hope in 2004. You know it did go for Obama in 08 I remember that I forget Florida also went red for Kerry

as well 04 was a shitty year not like this year. I do like that Homer dumps support our troops immediately like or by 2004 he's like I don't need that anymore troops are fine. Homer dumps support our troops immediately like or by 2004 he's like I don't need that anymore The Simpsons will be right back At last the pressures on Simon Cowell then he gets the role of his life. Finally, a real celebrity. It's a one-hour Simpsons event where the competition heats up. How many people in your family?

You're now as intelligent as a dolphin. Woohoo! I got that one right too! An all-new Simpsons, part of a full hour at eight, Fox, LOL Sunday. Welcome to The break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert, who does not know his IQ, but he does know that our guest this week, Mike Drucker, was great. And we always love having back on Mike Drucker, a very funny writer and comedian. And you should check out his brand new book, Good Game No Rematch, a life made of video

games, full of hilarious writing about his life and experience with video games. He's such a funny guy and we loved having him on to talk about his book too. You'll find a link to it in this episode's description so please check it out and follow him on social media too. Thanks again Mike, we always love having you on. And if you enjoy the Talking Simpsons podcast, cromulent exploration of the Simpsons' history, then you should know that we're only able to do this because we have supporters at Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons who pay us to do this as our full-time jobs.

And supporters there not only get a ton of bonus features, they also get ad-free podcasts. If you don't want to hear ads like this or the other ones in this podcast, it's all gone when you listen to the week early released episodes of Talking Simpsons on the patreon Plus you get a ton of bonus podcasts each month You get an episode of Talking Futurama and Talk King of the Hill We go into those shows just as in-depth as we do the Simpsons and you can hear the entire back catalog of over 200 podcasts of us covering all those Futurama King of the the Hill episodes, plus every episode of The Critic, every episode of Mission Hill, and many of our favorite episodes of Batman, the animated series.

Dig into our collections page there and you'll see all the awesome stuff right at your fingertips at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And if you want something nicer than beating up Simon Cowell, then you should check out our $10 a month premium level at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. It comes with all of the ad-free stuff at the $5 level, but you also get our mega-sized bonus podcast each month, What a Cartoon Movie. We cover an animated feature film just as in-depth as The Simpsons. It's like three podcasts in one as we cover about five to six hours on the history of an animated feature film just as in-depth as The Simpsons. It's like three podcasts in one as we cover about five to six hours on the history of an animated feature film. Last month you would

have heard us talk about 1986's An American Tale and how Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg produced the biggest hit animated film of that year. And this month we are covering our annual April tradition of doing a live-action cartoon film. This time around it's Looney Toons back in action, which has a very interesting background to it in history and you will learn all of it if you listen to that podcast at the $10 level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. We've been doing what a cartoon movie for nearly seven years now. And if you signed up today, you'd get access to all of them right now of us covering every

Disney Renaissance film, bunch of classic Disney films, a bunch of Toy Story movies, a bunch of Batman movies, a bunch of Studio Ghibli films, so many things you will find right there. So many different movies you'll see us talking about. I would say over 250 hours of content right there just for that. At the $10 level at patreon.com slash Talking Simpson.

So please check out everything you're missing out on at both of those ad free levels once more patreon.com Slash talking simpson Also, you know whoever sent those shirts they're just trying to cause problems here. They're breaking apart this family. They're fostering this rivalry. I like how we kept talking about reused ideas because it totally sets up the next joke, which I think is a really funny joke. I've got the clip right here.

Sweetie, you seem so blue. Did the last of something die? No, Mom. We got the clip right here. I already have one of those. Well then, find a new identity. Your mother's right, honey. Katie Couric didn't just become the world's most famous dwarf, she escaped from the circus and went for it. Alright, if I'm second rate as the smart kid, I'll find a new raison d'être. That still sounds like the smart kid.

Right, right. You're right, Bob. At least with this joke, they recognized, hey, we've written her into a corner where it's like, is she going to realize to have faith in herself? Well, we did that already. So they just, they put it right in front of you here. Yeah, I guess there would be no Lisa stories if she would just look at that note every time she was down. It's true. I like they know you probably know it, but they do put the picture of Mr. Bergstrom

right next to it just so in case you're not super Simpsons freak. Important to note again, we said it when we did that episode, but John Vede later revealed there's supposed to be an exclamation point after you are Lisa Simpson, but he and everybody else missed it up until it was color animated. They're like, I think it works just great with a period, but I like the period more. I don't know. Maybe I just, I'm just used to seeing it.

I can also say, I just realized that if you did not know that reference before, it almost works as a non sequitur joke because it just seems like you have a note frame next to a picture of a man that says, you Lisa Simpson. So like if you had no knowledge of the previous season you just saw that you'd be like what? Like it kind of still works as a joke. And this is where they get some meanness in here at television anchor Katie Couric who she's 5'2 I don't know or at least that's what the internet tells me. It's not that short. If you search Katie Couricite you can find funny pictures of her next to very tall celebrities, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar just towering over her. They're a funny combo. That's professional writer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

That's right. Does he have a PhD as well? I think he does, yeah. Doctor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And he's a ventriloquist as we saw in The Critic. That's right. How can I forget that? Katie Couric's current status, she has been a podcaster just like us since 2016. She's been doing a weekly podcast since 2016, so I give her credit for the longevity. She didn't do these like seasons or anything. It's not one of those deals where they sign you for 10 episodes and then they make it for you when you don't follow through.

Her workmanship from doing daily news reporting has stayed with her as a podcaster. I was scrolling back through it and it's like, I don't think she's missed a week. And she also, in addition to her weekly podcast, does regular video interviews, which as a YouTube people must be a separate team from her podcast people because she has a proper mic for a podcast. But it's like her interviewing important people in the news, but it's laptop mic audio I in a zoom room. We should step in as producers and help her out. You should take her out one million dollars That's it. I mean not take her out

Take her out. Don't take out Katie Couric. Well, hey, we'll take a consulting meeting and we'll end her bid anybody else on that But like seriously Katie correct literally runs a media organization named after herself and is worth at least $100 million. She should not be using a laptop mic to interview you know, like former members of the White House. This is not COVID lockdown. And even then these millionaires had no excuse. Don't tell me they couldn't find a microphone. Yeah, it was funny to hear stories from lockdown of famous people having to be mailed a Yeti

mic just to appear on a podcast and they were confounded by it. They needed those mics so they could sing Imagine and then we could all hear. Katie Couric here mocked us as a very short person. So we head to the next scene and Mike, how do you feel about this scene as a, as a professional standup? No one is a happier or more well adjusted that statement. Well, that statement's a very funny joke, but the sweatiness of coming prepared with a stack of jokes and the first joke not working and then you going, Oh no,

I now realize too late that none of these are good, is such a real feeling. And it's a feeling that you will still go through, that I still go through today when I'm trying new shit. It's so funny the way they did that, cause that's genuinely like how, when you first start doing it, you kind of act, you're like, oh, oh God, oh God.

And you really do like, you're just like, does anyone else have any? That scene almost gave me flashbacks to being 22 and going to the New York Comedy Club and just bombing my ass off. Was there a skinner in your life who just would walk by to shoot down any attempted humor by pointing out the logical fallacy?

That's Twitter now, actually, if you make a joke on Twitter. That's Twitter now. That's Twitter. Although there was you make a joke on Twitter. That's Twitter now. That's Twitter. Although there was definitely a club manager at the time who, or a booker rather, who was kind of like that. He'd be like, let me talk to you about this. You know, it doesn't make sense. His joke logic was never good.

It was just like a man who wanted to find a reason to criticize you because he sucked at comedy. But he's dead. Oh well. So it's fine. It's fine. Last laugh. Last laugh.

Last laugh. I do like that Lisa, her first thing is, you know, I'll try to be a stand up like that after being a cynical gifted kid. And I also love that her outfit is basically like I saw the Tim Allen stand up outfit in her. They like as an eighties Tim Allen stand up. Is she wearing jeans? Because they should be acid wash jeans if so. Or Paula

Poundstone maybe. Well a dress down Paula Poundstone. Yeah. Mike does anybody wear a tie to do stand up now? Yeah, certain people do. Certain people, I mean certain people do who are kind of like the more traditional older guys sometimes do. But there's also a subset who when I I say over stylized, that's not a criticism. I just mean like the way that their aesthetic is to like do very, very good suits as like part of their onstage personality. So you do have that sometimes. I'll also say I will defend Lisa's joke about stuffed cabbage. It's actually kind of the germ of a good bit. Like the idea of like they made cabbage worse is not as bad of a joke as they make it out to be she deserved more than just Milhouse laughing but Milhouse is the comedy nerd type who would laugh at something the general audience would be if we do two

over their heads yeah actually on comedians dressing up I really like your pal Mike Lawrence who we've had on I saw he for, I believe it was the Golden Globes recently. And it was great to see his behind the scenes photo because everybody is so dressed up for it like, you know, amazing dresses and tuxedos and stuff. And he is wearing a blazer over a secret wars issue number 10 covered t-shirt. I complimented him on that. And he told me like, oh yeah, I got to set a 12 t-shirt set of each cover of a secret wars and that was the next one in So he's the only man who could pull it off

I think Lisa well, it's hard not to think of Dana Gould here with the stand-up stuff first They literally shout out David for a different bit here I mean as a guy who is a stand-up and then left the show to keep being a stand-up So Mike has your work ever brought you in the the orbit of Dana Gould ironically not my work but I am on a text so he's a very nice man he loves dr. Zayas the man loves the planet of the apes more than anything but I happen to be on a text thread with him and a couple other comedians and it's mostly just about like old movies but very nice man no notes's perfect. No notes.

I mean, technically we performed with him seven-ish years ago. He was one of our first live shows. That's right. We got to interview him about how much he loves Mo the bartender. Before he did a stand-up act in a museum with terrible acoustics, which is probably a great place to do stand-up. They didn't try that again. Oh man.

You know what always fails to bring any response? Is me mentioning Gex or Gex Remastered. That has so far failed to elicit a large response. I think I got a really passive aggressive response from him on Twitter once. Many, many years ago. Maybe over a decade ago just by mentioning Gex. It's like you millennials always want to ask about Gex. He must have some affection for Gex. There was that new trailer for the Gex re-release and he did new audio for it.

Yeah. Yep. It's till time again. But it's definitely me being like a child being like, I like Gex when I was a kid. He did that for Vampyra growing up and you're his Vampyra now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure if he heard that he would be horrified.

Also there's a fun turnaround here where Lisa this whole season is usually or often is used as the joke police to be like um actually she even does an um actually in this episode. But because she needs to be actual lead Skinner gets to take that position for a good series of gags. And this is where Lisa first gives up on class clown and then comes into something they say is directly pitched by DataCold. Yeah, Lisa the Goth. I guess Algie never wanted to do it as an episode because he was afraid the fad would be over. But I feel like we go through all of these Goth cycles. It wasn't a new thing in 2004 by any means and like you always see Goths God still exists. Yeah I think it could have been easily a whole episode of like they seem to not love

Design of Lisa like if she would just stay in that look for the whole like act or two Maybe they'd feel kind of weird They have to give why I mean for one thing they have to give Lisa like a scalp line, like a hairline to have her like black hair to be goth. And I guess I looked this up, South Park introduced their goth kid characters in late 2003 and everybody loved them. Oh I love those guys. That's also just pulled from the real life

of like Trey Parker went goth and was a big time goth dude. They said that Dana Gould was always pitching Lisa Goes Goth episode, which they imply it's that Dana Gould really likes goth dude. They said that Dana Gould was always pitching Lisa Goes Goth episode which they imply it's that Dana Gould really likes goth girls. I mean there are many smoking guns. I'm just gonna badly retell a Dana Gould joke. He was telling very funny bits of after his divorce he was dating again. He implied that it was just a countdown until a woman he was dating would show him the shoebox full of doll heads. He was just like all right where him the shoe box full of doll heads. He was just like, all right, where is the shoe box full of doll heads?

Where is it? The now-Dana Gould happily married to his wife, Catherine Gould. She just started a podcast and he's a guest on it, so I'm happy for them. She doesn't seem not goth, but I don't wanna say he has a goth wife. She definitely dresses up for Halloween like a goth would.

Yeah, yeah. And hey, Dana Gould, podcaster. Seasoned podcaster. So this leads to a whole mon-ta after Lisa realizes the problem with being a goth is the nerds like Millhouse want to make out with you. She pivots away from that very quickly. Yeah, you know, a lot of the commentary, especially if Al Jean is there, is devoted to talking about clearing songs.

And so this montage is set to Who's That Girl by Eurythmics and I really wonder if they wrote Madonna's Who's That Girl into the script first and realized like, oh, this one is too much, but there's another Who's That Girl. Absolutely. When I searched, I didn't think of that either, though when I searched Who's That Girl,

we're like, oh, what song is this again? Or when did this come out? The Madonna is the one that fills in immediately like that is far more more popular though to be fair Eurythmics did it first in 83 Madonna song is 87. There's the movie. Who's that girl? I believe it was attached to the film, but that is the dominant. Who's that girl song? I guess Eurythmics more affordable though this song like it was a bigger hit in the UK It's not like nobody in America has heard of it before but this is also just it's the LG music montage area and like I feel like I asked you before Mike but I think in 2025 the budget's not so big for licensing songs as it was in 2004 right? It's so hard to license songs on a show right now

you it's so many emails whenever you're trying to license a song on a show, you're emailing with at least one producer and like two lawyers who are definitely like 23 years old, just got out of law school, that this isn't the law job they want. And essentially it's just like, even if the company owns the catalog, there's crazy rules. You also need to get it in perpetuity for certain things Which means a different thing than just like airing it once like you might do It is so complicated like When I would pitch Chris I would often pitch a lot of Christmas bits at the Tonight Show because I really love Christmas

And so I would just go ape shit and just pitch as much Christmas material as I could like we did a bit with John Ham where they did serious dramatic reads of like Christmas songs like I Got Nut in for Christmas and like I had to go song by song as well as the tone of the read while talking to the legal department just so they're like we need all the information we can have before we can even allow you to do like Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer. Like there had to be many conversations to use grandma got ran over by a reindeer. Wow.

Yeah, I can see these new law school graduates leaving law school, being led to a room with a single phone on a desk and being told, you're in charge of kung fu fighting. If anyone wants to use it, they're calling you. Yeah, you have to explain to a very bitter writer why they can't use the song car wash Meanwhile 2004 it was yours for the taking

Algene seemed to have a music montage surplus budget like this episode only has one Musical montage which is low in the number of musical montages per episode in season 15 I think that means the next one probably has four And at the end of it after Lisa tries so many different things, she even isn't sure if she did soccer player, but Skinner lets her know she did. This then leads to a around on the floor. Boy, I miss that. Oh! Fine! Roll around on the floor, baby!

No... Hmm... Floor, baby! Floor, baby! You're making fun of him for something you made him do. Yeah? Well, you're gay. People who accuse others of being gay are often covering up their own latent homosexuality. Uh, uh... Bullies rule!

Yeah, Nelson acting like an actual child from 2003. It's somewhat shocking. Yeah. Although that was the ultimate gotcha, where you could tell someone homophobic, that means you're gay. Which is bad in this context but not in general which is fine if you are gay but yeah that was that was if you're gonna accept you but I want you to feel bad it was the late 90s kung fu of being called a homophobic slur back then yes it's like boy sounds like you're obsessed with being gay yeah but

you're right that is so in the past of defending yourself against homophobia. Also, I do think it's a little, I do think to this day are still closet cases who then make that everybody else's problem, but also there are just people who are horribly hateful for no reason that could be slightly sympathetic. I find that with older generations,

these are people that are not homophobic, but they will still be homophobic to insult others. Like if you look at political cartoons or jokes or commentary by people who are like Boomer, or older, maybe even Gen X, a lot of it's like Trump is kissing his girlfriend, Elon Musk, on the mouth. And you're like, no guys, this isn't the way to do this.

It's from people who they still had all of their 2017 Putin and Trump kissing jokes in their back pocket and they just like, strike out Putin right in Musk. My stance is also, let's not do this, please. I feel like at the very least, you're not seeing it on late night comedy as much as you did during the Trump Putin, our gay era. Think it's still all over social media from people

who should know better, I would hope. I'm not trying to call anyone out, but I saw someone very mad about Elon Musk. You could tell he couldn't find an insult, so he just called him Mrs. Musk. And I was like, oh, he's a woman, and that's terrible, right? Ugh. What's worse than being Elon Musk being a woman version

of that, ugh. Here's the thing, is I will say that any joke is possible, and there's some around the world way to do it, but that is a very high difficulty level to jump over that nobody is doing. So they should not be attempting the jump. You know, literally, I've seen weird AI photos of Trump blowing Elon, and it's always like, why did you make this? And I'm morally against this bit on like three different levels,

like both as a art and as the joke itself. And the fact that even outside of just being shitty, it's an old joke. Just it's so tiring. Yeah, I mean, this may seem a little base, but my suggestion is that you draw Trump eating out of a full diaper and saying yummy. Honestly, yeah, honestly, yeah. You can see why people have to go to the calling Elon Musk gay for Trump and all that because there's just no other flaws about Elon Musk that you can make fun of you know. I can't find one. There's so few he's just

such a perfect guy otherwise no other flaw. Also it's like stop it we don't need to AI generate a political cartoon. Ugh. What happened to just using a Photoshop of their head and then opening the mouth slightly to say something like, how hard is that? Perfected the jib jab, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. We don't need to go any further.

Nelson rolls out of the bus to escape being called gay. And this leads to a long side conversation about alpha in the commentary. Sorry, I listened to this commentary last week. What's the alpha discussion? So they talk about like, oh, this is an imitatable act, the rolling out of the bus, which Mike, are people as worried now in the sensor realm of television of a child don't have this joke happen

because a child could imitate it? they as concerned these days um yeah but I haven't really run into that situation with something I've pitched I mean I've definitely had things like where to be like you know kids could see this and it's like it's a late like something that's maybe like too jokey or like not sexy like actually erotic but the joke being a little too sex oriented and then being like ah kids could see This and you're like on a late night show. I've definitely had that but in terms of kids putting themselves in danger No, but that just tells me I haven't pitched the right ideas Yeah, I looked this up earlier because he on the commentary

they say that Alf it's a joke that Alf is using the hairdryer in the bathtub because he's a real cut-up and they got a note from ABC or NBC saying don't do that again and I think it was re-edited with him having like an electric egg beater in the bathtub Al Jean seems to remember it as a kid died trying to recreate an elf thing like that's what he says on the commentary Which I asked our elf spurt friend Nick Prue about this and he's like no no kid ever died I never heard of that. I couldn't find it either But yes in season one of Alf the 16th episode of Alf is a friggin clip show the 16th episode They can't make it through season one without getting Hey, that's a hard show to make you got all those puppet holes

all over the set So in the episode Alf, you know loses his memory which then leads to clip shows but in the first airing Alf wants to have a jacuzzi so he puts a blender in the bathtub and electrocutes himself and Then he walks out with you know fried hair and now this gets edited for all future re airings to the point that even in the complete set shout factory re-release They just did they have an asterisk to be like, this episode is edited, it's not the original airing because they don't want you to see it anymore.

The episode ends with Alf saying, literally he says, we had a lot of fun today kids, but what's not funny, he doesn't do it as a joke, he just says that and he tells kids, electricity and water, don't mix, don't do it. But that warning was not enough for NBC, so they deleted it from all future airings. Al Jean, who worked on the second season of ALF, remembers it as a kid actually died, and that's why they edited it,

but to my knowledge, from my research, no child actually died from imitating ALF, they were just scared of it. And all future airings just had, they refilmed the scene where ALF just bonks his head, and that's how he loses his memory. Okay. Yeah, I think maybe the creator of Alf misremembered the details because that's, some Mental Floss article told me it was a hairdryer?

Okay, that, yeah. Replaced with an egg beater? I could see if Alf's creator maybe has enjoyed a little too much comedy powder back in the 80s and maybe doesn't remember it as well. And it's been like 40 years now, so. Where you're like, I don't know, it's some fucking device. The scene is saved out there. That's how I know it was a blender in a bathtub because ALF historians have uploaded the original airing footage of it. I really cannot get over that. They did a clip show as the 16th episode. That's just insane to me. So

this then leads to Maggie coming home, seeing that Homer is falling in love with Phonic Frog. She uses to say his name poorly. They seem to think this is a lot funnier than I did. The ha o ma e er. Yeah, Phonic Frog shows up like they had a lot of faith in this joke. I don't love him either. No. I like the snoring scene that comes later. That to me is a charming joke. That's a creative use of the phonic frog. I mean, he's no ling-wo. Ling-wo is much funnier than phonic frog.

That's true. And this is where Maggie brings out the flashcards, which again, that was teaching Maggie with flashcards was a huge part of Blood Feud. Her knowing the difference between Aztec and Olmec was used for that. I guess Lisa's brain is so complicated because actively she is misleading Maggie, but then subconsciously she's giving her cues to find the right objects.

Though in this case, I think Lisa is right to correct her because when she pulls out octogenarian and points at Abe, Abe is definitely over 90 years old. No way is he just in his 80s. He is not an octogenarian. And this is where though Marge catches Lisa in teaching her the wrong lesson and everybody's disappointed.

Duh. Lisa! You were purposely teaching her the wrong word. Lisa, I'm surprised. Your sister just wants to learn and be like you. Well, maybe she needs a better role model. I agree with your mother. You are a disappointment to her, Oma Er.

Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe.

Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Hehehehehehe. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. I used to be the smart one. Where is my dinner? Maggie, you're such a quick learner. Why don't you learn how to fly? But I love you.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Stephen E. Moore and his team did a great job with that parody. Yeah, and it's parodies like this that got me to watch whatever happened to Baby Jane. It's one of my favorites. I saw it originally like in 2007 and then during lockdown on my 39th birthday I streamed it with my wife remotely if you want to know where I was During that time period you felt like you were changing up. You couldn't escape a house either That's true like the heroes of the film for some reason that's a movie that I saw a lot as a kid

I don't even remember why whether it was just on like cable a lot or if we had the VHS, but I somehow remember that being one of those weird like random movies as a kid you just see a bunch of times. Meanwhile, I did not watch it until this week I decided it was finally time to watch it. And you call yourself gay. I know. It is such a camp classic. Like I mean, I'd seen clips from it and I've seen it referenced eight million times. Never made the time for it, but yeah, it's great. Like I mean, Bette Davis is just killing it, killing it. Yeah. I've written a letter to daddy.

Great song about writing letters to your dead father in heaven that became a hit of vaudeville by singing and then her downfall, etc. etc. It again reminded me what a great episode of Batman the animated series Baby Doll is too. I don't see a lot of connections between those though, outside of just a child star falling from grace. It's a child star who goes insane and keeps everybody captive and nearly kills them all. I guess so, but in the case of Baby Jane, now we're going to pick nits here, Henry.

It's one house and it's a prolonged period of time. It's not just one hostage situation I mean, I think baby Jane and baby doll are pretty similar I think baby Jane would have killed to never age like baby doll. That's a big problem for her. Oh sure Well, that's what makes it a fun inversion But like they're designed the same whatever happened to baby Jane except it was you know the star of the Brady Bunch instead. That is true they're asking like whatever happened to that child star. It is a great movie and though I'd heard about it before but now I just want to read all about the feud on set and all of the problems between the two lead actresses in it as well.

Well there is the TV series feud. I want to read the book first, or multiple books. I hear it's adapted, the Feud show is adapted from a book, right? I think so. Lisa viewing herself as the older sister who's jealous, who used to be the special one and then was outshined. It's a clever pull too. And of course, it's funny on the commentary,

Al Jean brings it back to his favorite TV show, which is because I guess you'd call it the male lead or the most important male actor in the film is he played King Tut on Batman 66. Oh yeah, Victor Buono. That is my favorite scene in the movie. Actually I rewatched that scene because in the beginning of the movie, not to go too far in depth in this movie, you see baby Jane as a little girl performing this song that made her hit on Vaudeville and then there's a ragged old woman. She invites a man to her house or a man comes to her house and she sings the song for him and it's twisted and dark and creepy

because she is now in the state she is in in her late adult life. Yeah I think I read on the wiki page for it like it invented a genre unto itself of like I mean really it does feel like elevated horror and that it has like two big movie stars in it, what we'd call elevated horror today. I think it's more like exploitation because the genre was called hag-sploitation. Oh, that's right. Because there was other movies

like Whatever Happened at Aunt Alice and the gimmick was not like, oh, I'm going to go in and see a prestige movie. It's like, I wanna see this movie star from the past look ugly and be crazy. You know, it did seem mean watching it, that they're like, they show literal clips from their real movies

from the thirties and be like, oh, this scene of Bette Davis in the past, she's a bad actor in this scene. I was like, yeah, I mean, maybe it's just her being self-deprecating, but it seems like a lot is on play there. There's a lot beneath the surface, which you can see why that adds extra to the camp classic beneath already it's just being great acting and memorable characters.

All right, but enough about whatever happened to A.B. Jane. Did Lisa watch this movie before better? Is she just that well-informed of a cinephile at A.J.? That's pretty well-informed for 2004. But I'd say it's possible. Maybe it just got into DVD release and she checked it out. I think she's posting on the IMDB message boards. Lisa realizes that she has to leave.

She runs away after popping out of a dream screaming and she leaves at the end of the episode. I like that this act, they do have the great joke of Homer sleeping with Phonic Frog and doing the Z's for his sleeping, but they decide to end on the emotion. I think there have been other episodes in 15 where it feels like they tried too hard to end on a joke.

I think it was better to end this one with emotion. So then they head out to Lisa Lost and she's already struggling with money. Also, there's a funny joke about her character design in our next clip here. Two cents. Oh, I'm sure a lot of great people have started with less. Nope. Never under a dollar.

Lisa's gone! You have to find her! Why can't you just accept the fact that Lisa is old enough to take care of herself? Back off and let her live her life! But she's only eight! Oh, I thought you said 80. Well, we'll get right on it. Now, this may not be the best time,

but I'm supposed to give you this survey rating the effectiveness of the Springfield Police Department. Somewhat satisfied. I see. Well, maybe I'll just somewhat find your daughter, huh? Fine. Extremely satisfied. Looking good, boys. Now let's go get some smoothies.

Oh, I'm tired. I'm hungry. Red plastic sandals are not great running away shoes. Oh, air conditioning, water fountains, dioramas, and I'll never run into my family here. It's the perfect place to start a new life! That survey joke is great. I mean, I love the cops are at a real low in this episode. I always love those jokes. They really take over the third act and I love all of the jokes about them being really excited and wowed by all of these very pedestrian museum exhibits and optical illusions. It's so nice. It's such nice, happy comedy that they're learning today.

They're actually learning something at this museum. But first, they're basically like the wait staff being given a survey as they're waiting on you. One last skinner to show up to say, nope, never under $1. He knows that nobody has ever started from under a dollar with money. And on the commentary, they are aware that this is treading dangerously close to Lost Our

Lisa, where Lisa doesn't run away from home, but she leaves on her own to go to a museum. She doesn't stay there overnight. And the whole staying there overnight is, did you get this, Henry? It's based on a book that they read in school. And there's a brief mention that it was a James L. Brooks idea, especially when Lisa's playing a certain song on the saxophone in front of the moon later. Yes, that's right What book I had had this in mind recently

But I didn't know the name of the book until I said it on the commentary Which is the mixed up files of mrs. Basil e frankweiler by the writer e l Connisburg conings, which is about kids hiding out at the Met Museum in New York City. Like they go camping in it and hide out on a trip. It was a hit kids book in 1967 when it came out. And I was thinking of it because I just watched the Royal Tenenbaums recently

for the first time in a while because Gene Hackman passed away as we mentioned. And one of the first things in the movie is the two of the Tenenbaum kids, they run away from home and live in the Natural History Museum in New York City. And Wes Anderson on that commentary says, I got it from this book I read as a kid. And it's the tribute to that. So they're pulling from the same book that I didn't read as a kid either. I didn't know the name of the book until this commentary. Yeah, I didn't even know about this book until they mentioned it.

We were still reading Encyclopedia Brown when we were kids, but this one did not pass on from generation to generation. Though it seems like a great kid, like, I mean, I would have loved to have imagined doing that as a kid, like living in a museum and you live in the New York area. Have you been to the Met many times? I've been to the Met many times. I've especially been to the Natural History Museum a lot. I love the Natural History Museum. Is that the squid and the whale one?

Yep, yep, yep. Giant whale, dinosaur that has a neck so long that it goes through multiple rooms. Exhibits where you can clearly tell where the budget goes. The dinosaurs get a lot of money, but when you get to like ancient Babylon, like you have like very like rubbed off, you know, like plaques for information that's missing, like lights that are out. You're like, I know where the funding of this museum goes. Those Babylonians had their day in the sun. It's over. There is one landscape of like, I think the Middle East in the 1500s. And in the sun it's over. There is one landscape of like I think the Middle East in the 1500s and in the corner of the diorama there's like a little

flying carpet like a guy on a flying carpet you're like alright guys alright you're having we're all having fun here at the Natural History Museum. Apparently it sounded like it was Omini's original pitch that Lisa like ends up in an orphanage instead of this but Jeez Louise That seems more depressing than this fanciful Oh yeah, absolutely. I don't know like where the pitch would have gone I'm sure it probably would have been an old-timey orphanage if it's the Simpsons An anti-parody perhaps?

Though yeah, if they don't go to the Natural History Museum, they lose all the great jokes with the cops Yes, Bob, you're right. It sounded, at first I was gonna blame in this music montage the one on Al Jean, but it's not. Oh yes, yeah, sorry. First we get a joke about, well we see that the Neanderthal man has no wang, is advertised. Yeah, actually, I guess since you're going there so much,

Mike, what is the penis situation on the anatomical models now? Do they have them or are they saving children from seeing this? You'll see like tits and shit, man. You don't see a lot of D. I mentioned a lot of loincloths and waist-tie bushes. It's not like with the loincloths like they have a boner or anything. Kind of wish they did but you know. See here I'm imagining they're all like at that one scene at the end of Election Matthew Broderick looking at the penis of the one nude neanderthal man in that no no

I mean, but like if you go to like the mat or any of the art museums in general like you see like a lot Of dicks. There's like dicks on there's old dicks new dicks red blick red dicks blue dicks Just everywhere. So i'm sorry, but natural history museum, you'll be disappointed by a dearth of dick. Oh I just went to a museum recently the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle And they were having a showing of Keith Haring and it did come with a warning of like well Not like a huge like warning warning, but it did have like a little note that you know Not it might be inappropriate for people under 18 that there's nude images in here but then when I went in there like Keith Herring is pop art is known for like basically he drew some of his personal drawings in

there had what it amounted to stick figures having sex and I was like wow we needed a warning for this of like to just show two stick figures like doing anal keeps them from getting yelled at on the news Yeah, yeah, that's really who it's for. Yeah, that's true. Yeah We then see Lisa is able to even find food while hanging out here though food That was attached to comic book guy, which I don't know. I mean cheese is pretty hungry Yeah, it's all up under his clothing and a good filthy joke. They're trying to find all the food He's like I'm baking muffins as we speak. Oh They're trying to find all the foodies like I'm baking muffins as we speak. Oh Oh, horrible

Now at least when it goes to like the movie theaters if you want to like sneak in like food or a drink or whatever Everybody can just walk around with a backpack or at least where I live if you're walking around with a backpack Nobody questions it and you can bring tons of stuff and every movie theater has one employee That too. You're absolutely right As long as like you're not clearly doing it, as long as you're being respectful enough to put it in your bag and not just carrying it in. Yeah, you're not sipping from your Borg

while getting napkins. As long as you can shut the fuck up and not be weird about it, go ahead. I wonder how much they have to watch out for social media influencers who want to make a stunt out of bringing a table in and eating an entire Thanksgiving dinner there Well, I mean I talked about being a high roller. I have an electric toothbrush shower head attachment

I buy popcorn at the theater everybody Wow I like some popcorn at the movies are usually the more the fancier like pre-made popcorn That's like as you know like caramel or whatever on it. We got a millionaire over here guys All right, this patreon must be doing well for you guys. I can't afford to caramel my corn. Well actually I'm part of the Cinemark Club right now so I get discounts on these things. It's really worth it guys. These exclusive clubs. Someone didn't get invited. I'm in the Cinnaplex Club in Canada. Well we'll compare prices after this. At the museum I just went to, they are

very like mindful of like seriously don't bring food in. Like these things can be destroyed. Like you expect a movie theater to be fucked up. Oh yeah. But yes. Yeah, they definitely have like a ton of guards making sure people don't like try to touch shit. 15 years ago I went to a San Francisco museum that was showing off the artwork of a glass artist named Chihuly. Chihuly? Yeah, I think that's it. But his stuff is blown glass done by hand, like, and so these are very delicate glass structures. People were getting, like, inches away from it with their phone in front of me to get the right picture of it. I was like, how has not any of this been broken yet? I couldn't believe how, and there's

security guards in the room! I couldn't imagine how people are getting this close to this like glassware. We did not see any videos about the history of bark, which except for poplar, ash, and maple. Those are there. I think that's it. I copy paste. It's poplar, ash, and maple. The barkless trees. Yes. Then we get a musical montage which... Oh, it's Moon River. That's the song. So I guess they had to pay for this too. Though it's orchestrated, so they only had to pay for the songwriting. They're not paying, Andy Williams didn't get money

this time for it. You only get that treat if you stick around for the second encore, as we all know about Andy Williams' Moon River. Or if you play Bayonetta 2, it's all over that game. I loved Bayonetta 2, they paid for Andy Williams. They didn't cheap out on that. Okay, we're talking about video games, I'm glad Mike is here. So it doesn't seem too self-indulgent. Every Bayonetta game, they licensed a popular song with moon in it. Bayonetta 1, it's Fly Me

to the Moon. Bayonetta 2, Moon River. Bayonetta 3, Moonlight Serenade. You hear it constantly throughout the game. And then not until the final credits, do they pull out the Frank Sinatra version. They paid for what Netflix wouldn't, the Frank Sinatra version? They paid for what Netflix wouldn't, the Frank Sinatra version of a song about the moon. I can't imagine. That has to be the most expensive thing in that video game is those original It's possible. That's the other thing about licensing music is, oh well how much can it really cost to use a song? And like they'll be like $40,000. You're like, ah, I don't think we're going gonna do that then.

That use of Moon River shows the differentiation age. If you think of Audrey Hepburn is singing it, that's your one age, but if you think of Bayonetta pole dancing to that song, then you're a different age. Shooting people with her foot shotguns, got it. At first I was gonna blame Al Jean for this because Breakfast at Tiffany's and Moon River is used many times.

There's future episodes. There's one where Bart basically has a Holly-Go-Lightly type girlfriend and that he visits in New York City. The one with the Spuckler daughters. It's not Al Jean, it was James L. Brooks who pitched that Lisa would play Moon River, which they joke is not a song

that's great to be played on a saxophone. No, no, not really. And yeah, Lisa, there's some fun posing in there too of like, I like the sleepy dinosaur on the clothes sign. I like that Elisa hides in a diorama by her hair looking like the sun, like the setting sun. Like, that's cute. Yeah, it's a nice little disguise.

The Squeaky Voice team thinks it's the sun as part of the diorama, but really it's just the back of her head. And they say that this giant human body is sort of based on something in an LA science museum, but like this thing looks insane. I have never seen anything close to this in a science museum. Springfield has such a big museum budget. I'm gonna have to say this was built by Dr. Colossus. That's what I think. It's a great exhibit, but it can also kill a family of three inside of it. But this is where Lisa is camping out. She's sleeping on the tongue.

A cute joke that first she's being bitter, sleeping on the bitter side, and then starts crying when she sleeps on the sweet side. Though if Wikipedia has anything to go by, bitter is actually at the back of your tongue. Sweet is at the front. The sides are sour and salty. Those are the sides are easier to stage. It's like ice cream is easier to draw. Exactly. She's crying as she thinks about how much she misses her family. This is where cut back to the family looking for Lisa. The free beer sign on the flyers is fun and all, but they did this funny with Bart's campaign poster that said sex on it. Now that I got your attention attention vote Bart

Mm-hmm, though. This is where they finally get a break in the case. I hope this typeface catches people's eye Sure didn't move our old fondue set. Why do you always take the children and not the fondue sets? Why Santa why? Good news Simpsons. We found your daughter's belongings. Where'd you find these? Giant tongue. Oh, I knew it. We also discovered something very unusual at that museum. Oh my God, what?

Well, if you drop a feather and a bowling ball in a vacuum, they'll fall at the same rate. You think you've seen it all in this job, and then something like that comes along. Pfft. And you know, I finally looked this up. I've been hearing it for my entire life, and I finally looked it up, and yes,

it did take maybe 20 minutes to remove all of, to actually turn the room into a complete vacuum in this experiment. Oh. Apparently it's hard to do, to create the perfect conditions for the bowling ball and the feather to both fall at the same rate. We said before, I love that they're children now.

They love everything that would have been on Beakman's World as a kid. Yeah. There's no deleted scenes or the original script out there. So I wonder, Eddie and Lou being in a co-sidecar with him, it's good for just staging that all three of them are together in a fun way that's not just in the police car, but it feels like a joke got cut for them to be there together. Yeah, I think even on the commentary there's a

question of why are they together in this sidecar? What's going on? It's a great drawing. I love them all together like this. Now also, yeah, Homer gets to be like extra because Homer's not the main character. Homer is just insane in this episode. Like he's praying to Santa. He doesn't believe in God anymore. Only Santa. They head off. This is where we then see the family arrive. They're looking for Lisa, and they leave Maggie to herself, which I don't know, even if she is a genius now, don't abandon a baby. Just keep carrying her. They are following into where they had heard Lisa, which was the inside of this mouth. And yeah, it's like, this thing is an insane death trap,

but I have to give it to Steve and Dean Moore and his team. They designed this wonderfully. There's so much detail needed in this for it to work. It looks very fun in terms of just what happens to the family, but it does feel to me, especially of this era, like a third act wild turn into something you would never expect. Just a crazy situation to keep you watching when I feel like there should be a more subdued emotional payoff for Lisa. If you look at the other Lisa

episodes that are about her and what she values and threats to her intellect or her status as a smart person, they don't normally end up with her family nearly being eaten by a fake giant. Yeah, yeah, it's more like oh, I almost betrayed Allison, my friend, and hit her diorama, but now put it back we found out it doesn't really matter or at least in The Simpsons I'm afraid that I'm gonna be stupid, but no Homer brings all the stupid men to the house and she finds out all the women are smart. So like, I don't know. It just feels like tonal whiplash from where we began here. Or the Bart. Another example is like, Bart

catches her stealing all of the answer keys and he takes the rap for it to save her. Like in this case, it is a very like arched thing that feels like they wanted a big set piece instead of something emotional, which meanwhile the cops are distracted by the classic optical illusion, which I didn't notice it till they brought it up on the commentary. They make sure to draw the classic Springfield overbite on the faces, but it still works as the optical illusion. This is where the family ends up in trouble, but Maggie is no help.

How do we get out? Your baby has to press the red evacuate button. The family ends up in trouble, but Maggie is no help. Maggie! The red button! Hit the red button! Hit the red button! Whoa! Eww! Eww! Maggie, press the red button! I know. We'll use reverse psychology. Maggie! Don't press the red button! Dammit!

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Mark, I've always loved you. Mark, you were a worthy friend. Dammit! Marge, I've always loved you. Marge, you were a worthy foe. Yeah, I think on the commentary, Omini is talking about a similar exhibit where the kids could basically crawl through it

and essentially get pooped out. They're not sprayed with acid or anything though, like the Simpsons family. She seemed to say that the exit wasn't as fun as you'd want it to be for wanting to teach kids what it's like to be poop. It wasn't as fun as it could have been. This sequence here, it's made to kill somebody, but I guess if you're a kid and you could just press that evacuate button without killing people, I guess that is the point.

It's not supposed to kill you. Evacuate is the safe thing. They're going to drown if she doesn't. That's the problem. Right. Yes. And also Homer congratulating his arch nemesis part in being a worthy foe all these years. This is where Lisa comes in to save the day and they're all confused that Maggie doesn't

know what button to press. She should be smart enough to know, but Maggie doesn't seem to have any idea. I hate that we keep traveling to joke court in this episode to establish possible theft, but I love this joke, by the way, because Lisa is going to do the right thing, but first she's launching into a very big apology and Marge is like, just push the button. It does remind me of Just Throw the Goddamn Bomb from The Simpsons movie just a few years later. It's true, yeah.

Having Marge lose her cool while the character is trying to do the right thing is a funny joke, but they do it again just two years later. It's true, yeah. So like having Marge lose her cool while the character is trying to do the right thing is a funny joke, but they do it again, like just two years later. Yeah, it's true. They did put it in the movie right after this, though in that one, Marge gets to say goddamn instead of friggin' button. Yeah.

Yeah, you're right. I was noting that too, that like, oh, they kind of like, they just, they repeated a beat with, I mean, they had to do so many drafts of that movie that I can see they could have completely forgotten about this episode by the time they were doing it. It's a joke I like, to be fair.

But this is where Lisa arrives and saves the day. Lisa, you're all right! Oh, good, she's here in time to see us die. Maggie, I'm sorry I was jealous of your special gift. From now on, I'm gonna nurture and cherish... Just tell her which friggin' button to push! Maggie, push the red button. You can do it! Red!

Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Elmart, you can't see I never take you anywhere. Mm-hmm. Oh! Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Yeah, the one. Well, we're all pretty tired. Let's try a different one. Which figure is bigger? The answer will knock your socks off. Still a good bit. Oh yeah. It's just, I think they do it three times and that's perfect. They've missed the entire plot.

They're so obsessed with this. I really like the animation of them being, well, I guess another way to say it, pushed through a bowel. Especially Marge with her murmur while she's being traveling. It's fun animation of them just moving through the intestines as a family. I guess Lisa points at her dress and that's when Maggie does it.

It does follow back to what's going to be the reveal of like she needed Lisa to tell her what to do. So let's say Maggie was just nervous and needed Lisa's prompting, but everybody escapes and that could just be the end of the episode But I think they realized they needed some sort of explanation I mean they pose this out exactly like you do at the end of like a Columbo or whatever like I just have One thing still bothers me though. Why this? We see the return of Henry's associates. Yes, whose name I forgot by the time I got to this part of the episode.

Though I mean the excuse of how they broke into the, like seemingly they broke into the home, but actually it's because Moe is having an entirely different adventure in this episode. I really want to know what's going on. I did laugh at this especially with Barney, so you told me no one would get hurt. Yes. I love how Moe goes like like just go with it like come on But but yes, this is where in our final clip here Simon Cowell has arrived along with Henry and Philippa I believe they explain what happened Whenever Maggie is asked a question and she looks over at Lisa. How many eyes do you have?

Go on Maggie. You can do it Now rotate and magnify. I don't remember doing that. I would never cheat. Perhaps, but subconsciously you wanted her to succeed. Watch. Here you're telling her the answer is no. Here the solution is a square. Here you're telling her the answer is California Condor. So Maggie's not a genius? She could be. That sweeping up hair. That's my baby, jerk! You call that a punch? I felt it, but it was like, so what?

Again with the nose. I have a chin, you know. Don't worry, sir. The maid and I will take him out to the curb. Come on, come on. You promised me no one would get hurt. I don't care what they say, Maggie. To me, you're brilliant. Not for babies. So still mildly competitive. Yeah, Lisa is going to keep Maggie down, at the very least to not go into the saxophone realm.

So I assume that Mo and Barney killed this man and harvested his body in some way, or kept him alive but captive underneath Mo's tavern.. Yeah and that's why we see Henry never return but Simon Cowell I assume using the same character design will be back. It's the same character model yes. You know it's always weird to see a Simpsons character like actively get a bruise on their face like it's a Simpsons rule that you don't like characters don't blush they don't get rosy cheeks so seeing his nose turn purple like it just looks weird.

It looks odd. But I feel like it was just them, Simon Cowell, one of the most hated guys on TV then. It's just supposed to be a wish fulfillment of, oh, Homer beats the shit out of that snobby British guy. Though Homer, I mean, I guess Homer would definitely go to jail for assault on Henry here, had he not been kidnapped or killed by Moe and Barney. He's been processed by Moe and Barney. Yes that I

was told no one would get hurt whatever their plan was you know another good joke I like rotate and magnify like that just yeah it's always fun like they were given a VHS tape but it somehow works. I mean you still see it in movies to this day I can at least believe that, say, in Mission Impossible, where they have just made up tech anyway, that they could be like, oh, Simon Pegg can just type a button, and it gives you a completely different camera angle than the only camera that was in the room.

But in most times, when it's used in a TV show like this, it is completely ridiculous. Like, 24 would do this in a way that's like, wait, that's not possible. You can't just turn up the only camera you have, look behind a person just because you said enhance. Only in Magic Mask World, AKA Mission Impossible, can that happen. You'll still see, I mean, even now,

you'll still see people who will be like, oh, we'll just, we can enhance it with AI, and then it'll just like wash out signs entirely so the text doesn't make sense and faces look grotesque. There have been those depressing 4K releases lately you hear about where people watch a movie and they're like, huh, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger's face shouldn't be this smooth in this shot, uh oh. They look like the battery people from those old Duracell commercials walking around. That's what they turned them into. Oh, it's so sad that upscale.

Yes, I know they're called the Puttermans. I didn't want to say it out loud. All right. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. You saved yourself a comment there from listener to listener. I had forgotten. I can't believe you didn't recognize the Puttermans. So the episode ends with things back to normal. They think Maggie is a normal baby again, so they're not treating her like a genius every episode onward even though she is Lisa is gonna keep it to herself it's still very baby Jane act there Lisa I don't feel like she learned all her lessons yet and then one last bit if I think now this one I don't know

I think they did this on like a second day with Simon Cowell I think this was not part of the first run of work with him. The credits? Yeah, the credits bit, yes. To me it feels like they record it, okay, here's a bunch of insults and we're going to just drop them in over the credits where we think is funny. I don't think he was like riffing or anything. It just feels like, because sometimes they don't really line up with particular credits. Yeah, yeah. And I thought the same thing also because of the reads on it don't feel coached. Yeah.

As much so it feels more like just read these 30 lines and we'll drop a few in here or there so you don't have as much like intonation. I mean most of them work like if you know Dan Casleneta too ethnic you know Nancy Cart wrong I think he when he said yeah but what's he done lately that was over Danny Elfman I felt like though he's also wrong he says Simon Cowell as himself it's like but you're not yourself in this it is actually good casting. I think they forgot about the character of Henry and who he was supposed to be.

Once they just drew Simon Cowell on the page, no one said, oh, and then Henry in this scene, he does blank, they say that's Simon Cowell, blessed by Simon Cowell, he's literally in our show. Then Simon, yeah. A crazy giant death trap ending for an episode that starts with just Lisa trying to find herself. I wish they'd stuck a little more to that instead of the wacky death trap ending for an episode that starts with just Lisa trying to find herself. I wish they'd stuck a little more to that instead of the wacky death trap, but then we would have

lost the police being children, which was fun. Yeah, I don't have a lot of other thoughts on this one. I do love the first two acts. I don't hate the third act, but it is just kind of a routine that we see often when they're not confident in the story. They will try to go for a very wacky out that we see often when they're not confident in the story, they will try to go for a very wacky out, and it just feels so tonally off. And some of the emotional beats still hit for me, but I can see a little bit of desperation when the Simpsons are being eaten by a giant in this story about Lisa's insecurities. You know, good animation on that, but it just feels like they tried to go big, worrying they would lose viewers with a more subdued emotional story. Yeah No, any final thoughts Mike?

I both agree with you But I also agree with you just that like having the cops be very childlike and just have a childlike sense of wonder is a Very nice take for me that I enjoyed I mean they're incompetent that they're not doing good police work, but the fact that the entire bit was them being like oh They're not doing good police work, but the fact that the entire bit was them being like, oh, cool. This is so nice. Like the C story being them having a very, very nice day at the museum is kind of charming. Yeah, that's the funniest stuff in the episode and we wouldn't have it if they didn't go

there. So I will credit Act 3 for that at least, the funniest jokes. And I'll credit them for they got Simon Cowell to not play Simon Cowell, but I would like to know, I guess I will go by the BBC interview, that it seems like part of Simon Cowell's deal was make it look like me, not some guy. Or maybe that's cover for the Fox marketing department saying like, hey, we need to promote if his is going to be a crossover to promote American Idol, he's got to to look like Simon Cowell like I could see it being a Fox call, too Yeah, I can see network pressure there. So thanks again Mike Drucker for being on the show

Please let us know where to find you online and more about your upcoming book So you can find me online at Mike Drucker on X Although I don't post there as much anymore and at Mike Drucker is dead on basically everything else including blue sky where I post much more and you can get my book good game no rematch April 1st available everywhere Amazon but you don't have to get it on Amazon it's also like bookshop.org it'll be available at Barnes & Noble you can get it at your local indie bookstore hardcover audio which is read by me or digital so April 1st good game. No rematch

Please buy it because that would be very nice. Awesome. This goes live at the end of April So listeners you better go to the bookstore get it get it. It's out now get it now Please oh, I can't wait to give a list to it I said listen because I would like to hear your audiobook version of it Sounds good, too. You have been still doing great in your new realm of blue sky. You're still one of the best posters out there. Took your Twitter game to blue sky mainly and you're doing great there too, Mike. So thank you very much. I appreciate that. And we always love having you back on Mike. So thank you so much. Thank you, Mike. Thank you for having me. Thanks again to Mike Drucker for being

on the show. Please check out his new book, Good Game, No Rematch, a life made of video games in stores now. But as for us, if you want to check out more of our podcasts and get them all one week ahead of time and ad free and also access to eight years worth of full length bonus podcasts over 200 to date, head on over to patreon.com slash talking symptoms and sign up for five bucks a month. And when you do, you get all that stuff, which includes mini series about shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman the animated series, and The Critic and you also get a new episode every month of both Talking of the Hill and Talking Futurama and again that is all at the five dollar level only at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons there is a ten

dollar level as well when you sign up for that you get all of the five dollar stuff naturally but then you also get one very very very long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level What's happening at the $10 level Henry Bob is referring to our what a cartoon movie podcast, which is our premium podcast We do each month which is more like three podcasts in one because they are often over five hours long This month we are covering looney tunes back in action our long. This month we are covering Looney Tunes Back in Action, our continuing annual tradition of doing a live-action film or live-ish action film for the month of April. And last month we covered An American Tale, the 1986 Don Bluth Steven Spielberg film and we had a whole lot to say about that too. That is the

most recent of over six years of Whatta Cartoon Movies. So when you would sign up there you could get to hear us talking about every Disney Renaissance film other classic Disney films, too Many Pixar films including all of the Toy Story series and tons of anime like Hikis delivery service or Akira And even some junk like cool world We've covered so many things in there and that's in addition to all the ad free bonus stuff you get at the $5 level too. So please check it out for yourself at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons today. And I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie. You can check me out on Twitter as Bob Servo and Blue Sky's Bob Servo and Letterboxd and all the places as Bob Servo. And I have another podcast. It's called Retro Knots.

It's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retro-Nauts and sign up there for two full length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you? Just like Mike Ducker, I remain on X. I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G there.

But also like Mike Ducker, I am most posting on Blue Sky these days where I am talking Henry and I'm also talking Henry on Instagram. Follow me there for fun stuff and if you're following me and Bob you gotta, gotta get on social media and follow at Talk Simpsons Pod, Instagram, Blue Sky or Twitter at Talk Simpsons Pod keeps you in the loop of new episodes coming out of things that happen on our patreon. If we have live shows, if we have other cool things going on, you learn it first by following at Talk Simpsons Pod. And don't forget, if you want an easy list of our previously released free podcasts of Talking Simpsons and our sister podcast, What a Cartoon, you can see it all at TalkingSimpsons.com.

Thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast, Talk to the Audience,, we'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast, talk to the audience and we will see you then. Do we really need three of these people? Too ethnic, change it. More like Cart Wrong. Worst voicing ever. Finally, a real celebrity. Oh good, more producers. Just what they need.

Him, I like. Yes, but what's he done lately? Very original. Simon Cowell of Simon Cowell. Well done. I really don't care anymore. All useless. The credits really have to go this long. Shhh. Oh, shush yourself.