Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show

Episode Date: January 4, 2017

Yes, it’s The Simpsons’ first clip show and we’re doing a whole episode of it! Not only that, we somehow got a good amount to say about it! So listen up – the episode might be recycled, but this podcast is brand new…

this episode of talking simpsons is brought to you by bomba socks and you listeners can go to get bombas.com slash laser time to get 20 off your first order i heartily endorse this event or product product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where we're in pizza face paradise. I'm your host, Bob Mackie, and I've lost 5% of my brain. And this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? The king of fooling chris antistam and henry gilbert and i gotta say god bless those pagans and today's episode is so it's come to this a simpsons clip show somebody made a reference to a laser time clip no there's like i like i barely got anything out of this

i thought they were insulting me when we put up a best of show for the break and someone was like, so it's come to this. Come on, man. Be nice. All new. 33% new content, right? And he was making reference to this and being nice. I see.

And getting it. So I hope I didn't yell at him. And today's episode, of course, aired on April 1st, 1993. The perfect time for a clip show. Oh, boy, Bobby. Oh, my God. This week, First Lady Hillary Clinton gets the country behind broad-sweeping health care reform. David Koresh comes to his senses and agrees to cooperate with the U.S. government.

River Phoenix recognizes he has a drug problem and nips at the bud with a trip to rehab. And the Super Mario Brothers movie wins an Academy Award. Wow. That is all April Foolishness. These are all April Fools on all of you. Wait a minute. These are all wacky facts. That's right. Wait a minute. These are all wacky facts. That's right.

None of that exists. These aren't real facts. The real news this week. Unforgiven wins best picture at the Academy Awards. Cheers tapes its last episode. And Brandon Lee, son of Bruce, is killed by a bullet blank on the set of The Crow. Oh, that sucks. And the guy just died, Michael Massey, right?

The man who killed him just died, too. Yes. And it burns my beans that when they obituarized him in the headline, like, guy who killed other guy, now dead himself. The irony. Which is not so not fair. No, it's not. He was a working actor, a character actor his whole life.

Because one stunt coordinator fucked up. Yeah, really fucked up. We're messing around with a stupid gun. Not realizing that blanks at that time. If you put anything in front of that, it will act like a bullet. And if you're messing around with the wrong gun, God! It's not even one of those mistakes like, how did that

happen? Oh, like this. And it could have been avoided. This sucks. Poor Michael Massey. Goddamn Lee family. It sucks. His dad and him on a set. Crow had much more power to it and interest in it. Then it was it was just like a shitty dimension films revenge movie. Like it takes on way more meaning, just like, you know, the music of Jeff Buckley that when you know the guy died.

Yeah. And this man died on, especially with like the magic of the Lee family curse that you imagine yeah there's it's all too convenient i remember in the the film dragon of bruce lee's story where they don't really want to talk about why he died but they they instead just have a dream sequence where he's being chased by death that kind of represents it i believe there's a moment in there where he thinks death is coming for his son too death is played by michael massey which is weird because his son wouldn't die yet and also brandon lee turned down playing his dad in that movie oh mainly because he said i don't want to act with a woman who dresses like my mom and that is weird that is pretty weird he wasn't into that whatever so uh each his own i guess clocking in only an hour and 20 minutes is the shortest talking simpsons yet because we are

doing the clip show i have to say um the commentary, they talk about the reasoning for this. The writers asked for this. They needed a break. Everybody is so overworked. People are leaving the show. Algin and Mike Reese need a lifesaver thrown to them, and this was that lifesaver. Basically creating a third of an episode's worth of work for them, right? Yeah, and for the animators, too. But this was, yes, yeah, we talked about it on other ones. This is a third of an episode's worth of work for them right yeah yeah and for the animators too but this was i guess yeah we talked about in other ones this is a point of

crisis like they lost all these writers yes and they weren't hiring too many new ones yet they hired oakley weinstein they opened hired conan but they had lost jeff martin they lost kogan waldarski they had lost all these people and so john John Vitti wrote this script. That's right. And he is the MVP of clip shows. At least in the first decade of the show, every clip show was written by him. That's true. But under the name of first one was Pennywise, second one was Pound Foolish. This one he is John Vitti. He is John Vitti.

And on the commentary, they say he had to be legally forced to write that second clip show, which is probably why it's the worst. The love clip show. Oh, my God. It is the worst one. Man, this is a big bummer for me. More syndication woes. Doubling up down.

Because I'm recording every episode of The Simpsons that ever airs. And I see the promo for this one. And it's Bart yelling April Fool's, getting blown out of the doorway, and the roof flying off. I'm like, motherfucker. This is going to be the best episode ever. And for whatever reason, I couldn't be there to record it. And for whatever reason, they don't run this a lot in syndication or definitely not as first-run reruns. So I didn't get to see this for years.

And when I did, I still couldn't see the goddamn German episode, so I thought the chocolate sequence was from this and not the German episode. I have to say, we look down on clip shows right of course and in our modern age where anything can be watched at any time but in this period of time in april of 93 uh seeing these clips was a delight unless you recorded them on vhs religiously because the simpsons would not enter syndication everyday syndication until the fall of 94 so you had 18 months before you could watch the simpsons every day of your damn life yeah it never bothered me when i finally saw it yeah yeah i mean like um this was a novelty and in 15 million people still watch this clip show that's insane i looked up the

like of course it's 15 million because what else were you doing on thursday night and back then clip shows were they weren't celebrated i do know when i was watching a syndicated show and they did a clip show like i still was like grown and they were things that you saw on every show every sitcom did a clip show one of my favorites was mary tyler moore's clip show or one of them where mary is having one of her many failed parties at her house and the power goes out and so it's just a black when they're not flashing back it is just a black screen with the characters talking on them and johnny carson visits and it's just him talking like hello mary that's a good person chris and and the joke is that uh betty white's character like licks his face he's's like, you have a dog, Mary? Like, and then Betty White says,

sorry. The joke is how little they're even working. Like the actors didn't even have to be on set. I had two things I read in the wiki. That's one. The print ads promoted this as the season finale as part of the April fool's show. It was all part of the joke. Got it.

Yeah. But how the fuck do you do an April fool's show? Cause a print ad, when does it run? fuck do you do an April Fool's show? Because it's a print ad. That's right. When does it run? When do you run like, just kidding. But it works.

The episode is just kidding. It works. It is on April 1st. Yeah. It aired that very day. Which apparently is Bart's birthday, according to modern Simpsons, modern Simpsons chronology.

Okay. Well, Bart's birthday. No one said happy birthday. Well, and he celebrated telling you about it here. And he celebrated his birthday last season in the Timmy O'Toole episode. I wish I could have seen a whole episode that was just pranks. Because one of the things I love about Christmas stuff is when you see all characters you know celebrating the same holiday.

So if this is just an episode of pranks, that's my biggest bummer about it now. Well, so they do talk about that they wanted to do this one but they also say on this and the other commentaries for clip shows that fox got pushier about them doing it and they even wanted like for a season why well if you're fox and you can get you'll get an episode's rights fee for syndicating the simpsons no matter how much you spent to make that episode. Yeah, 15 million eyes on this for half the work and half the money. Well, no, they were thinking the long game. This is an episode they sell in syndication like any other, but

it costs way less. And I know I told that story before being in Italy, turning the TV late at night for two hours and it's just robot chicken style Simpsons gag fuzz, cut to completely style Simpsons gag fuzz. Oh, yeah. Cut to completely different Simpsons gag fuzz every two minutes. And it's great.

And while this one is good, the best clip show is the 138th episode of Spectacular. There's no... This one is still just like, well, this is just the greatest hits. But for 138th, they're like, we've got deleted scenes that we're going to show people we have these good cut scenes or yeah we have the tracy ullman that's right which we never show anywhere i think that's remotely in wine scene the showrunners of that time just being big simpsons fans and wanting to show people stuff that there were no dvds then i mean there were vhs tapes you're not going to put deleted scenes on there and then they also had the host b troy mcclure

just yes even more perfect so good i like they call add the host B, Troy McClure, just to make it even more perfect. I like how they call it the 138th episode spectacular, underlining how pointless it is to celebrate this. It is the greatest one. This one is the third of it that... The third of it that is a new episode on this one is good.

It is a good episode. It's okay. April fools! I've been keeping that carton of milk next to the furnace It's okay. April fools! I've been keeping that carton of milk next to the furnace for six weeks. Sucker! You're going down, Homer. I'm going to fool you. You talk better than you fool.

I'll fool you up real nice. You couldn't fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine. Damn. Damn. So it's like that, Homer. Homer's just mean as an April Fooler. That's so gross. And him ripping the, ripping duct tape off his eyes.

Off the eyes of Bart. Like, that's so painful. Especially the giant Simpsons eyes. I feel like we see the mischievous side of Homer. That's kind of where Bart gets it. Because Homer is taking an active effort into messing with Bart. Like, we don't see this side of him very often. Well, it's weird that Bart, who is like

the ultimate prankster on the series till now, like, is getting out-pranked by Homer at every turn. He literally is taking the nuclear option in this episode. I do love the opening dialogue. Lar she blows, the catch of the day. Arr! Arr! Arr! Arr! Arr!

Arr! Arr! Arr! Arr! Why, ye mutinous dogs from this day i be requiring hair nets that wasn't it was not even the clip i meant to play i have to follow health codes now that's their punishment going back to the frying dutchman the second time we've been there we won't see them again in the frying dutchman until the season 11 episode where homer becomes a food critic wow that long i mean mcallister would pop back up i think they forget he runs a restaurant yes they just forgot it after this because he is just a sea captain but uh unlike in his first appearance in the frying dutchman his employees are also pirates they all like that wasn't the thing before which is great just live with it it. Arr, arr. Arr. I think our generation, and maybe even generations before us, have been denied the shoe polish on the telescope

just because how little we use either one. Or kaleidoscope. Or binoculars. Yeah, that's true. Why would you have even shoe polish? You have to do it on an Oculus Rift. You can use Bert's cork, I suppose. The pagan story.

What about the pagans? Oh, what noble visionary thought up April Fool's Day. Like Halloween and Christmas, April Fool's Day traces its origins to pagan ritual. God bless those pagans. April 1st used to be the pagan new year. I love the animated sequence. Lisa is wrong.

Why, why? There's no one source for April Fool's. It's a number of things from various different cultures related to... I mean, the Gorgorian calendar did have a lot to do with it. No, it was Jimmy Kimmel. He invented it. Oh, God. Giggling idiots who are untouted and

sad. But I have, like, the first... The first known source is the Roman Festival of Hilaria. So, there you go. But it's many cultures. Is that real? It is, yeah. That doesn't sound like a Simpsons joke. It's real.

On April Fool's Day, it's mentioned in Canterbury Tales as well. It goes back that far. To Chaucer. But I did like that Lisa said, like Halloween and Christmas, it goes back to pagan holidays. Oh, yeah. That is true. Subversive, yeah. It's subversive to even say, like, what TV show would say that Christmas is a pagan holiday?

But that's what America is. It takes defiant cultures and traditions and devours them and shits them out into their own. And turns them into commercial parties. And I did love Homer taking over the story. Like, the story takes a turn halfway through because Homer starts telling it. Wait, I was telling the story. I'd like to see the non-dream version of that tale being told. Like, Homer interrupts Lisa.

He's like, and then we burn the Flanders. I think it's a huge, lame joke. But a beautiful sequence. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the joke has no great shakes. But the animation's nice. This is one of the only episodes I'm angry at. After watching it.

But then it was the last of our list. But Bart... Well, so Homer explaining his weakness. So Bart is looking for a way to prank homer and he just doesn't know how and then the writers get just so lazy but so funnily lazy yeah i've got to fool him before the day is out but how he must have a weakness ah beer my one weakness my achilles heel if, if you will. Beer! Beer is the cheese! How do you use it?

It's a good thing that beer wasn't shaking up anymore, or I'd have looked quite the fool. An April fool, as it were. Yeah, I love the paint mixer part. This is all part of the promo i could only like i had to play these moments in my head for what felt like fucking years hey kid that's for customers only uh did you know there's a guy outside handing out free stridex pads wow i'm in pizza paradise jesus that line sucks it does it does it feels like a typical like a another fox sitcom of

this era would make. Well, it's the original line because the mouths are off. Bart sounds slightly different. Kids, stridex. Still exists, right? Huh? Still exists. It has to.

I don't know. But I remember all that acne. I had terrible acne. Me too. All that acne stuff would work once. I had to go to a dermatologist eventually. I had to take Accutane, bro. Oh, bro, Accutane, bro!

I have no night vision. It's awesome. Oh, we're going to have clinical depression for the rest of our lives! Is that the case? Yeah, but it's like small medicated pads that would just burn you horribly. Yeah. Soaked with alcohol. Pretty much just alcohol that worked for a little while until your body builds up an immunity because

pretty much your body's getting rid of toxins during puberty. I don't know where Accutane funneled all that. This sounds like a tall tale Simpsons nerds covered in acne. I don't believe it. And that paint mixer was inspired by Al Jean's dad owns a hardware store. That's how he grew up working at that hardware store. I think his dad just passed away recently, and he still owned the hardware store.

Maybe like 2013. Yeah, that's where the paint mixer comes from. And it is pretty great. And then meanwhile, Mike Reese, I think, credited his dad for the beer PSA. That's right. Which is great because I hate... I like to recognize when I have bad Homer instincts. And something about being defiantly unhealthy.

Like I would always smoke cigarettes when I smoke cigarettes and not vape delicious vape. I would smoke cigarettes after truth commercials to be defiant. I went and saw the movie. Dennis Leary. I went and saw the movie, supersized me, and immediately went to McDonald's. Like, going in as someone who had not been there in years, it's like, I gotta do it. And, like, Bart, I love all the techniques he tries to make. Well, then Homer resists.

Homer's thirsty. He's just like, what are you going to do? He's so thirsty, but he just ignores it. Eating pretzels, cranking up the heat, and then this is the topper. The following is a public service announcement. Excess of alcohol consumption can cause liver damage and cancer of the rectum.

Mmm, beer. So there was a big fight about that line between the writers and not the broadcast standards people. Actually, not the advertised, but the broadcast standards people where they're like, okay, if you want to say this, you need to prove this is true, and they did. This is before the internet here, so they had to get up a medical book. Whoa. But then there was this, there was Duff Gardens, there's many Duff things. They're like, just lay off beer. They advertise. Just don't do it anymore. then there was this there was duff gardens there's many duff things they're like just lay off beer they advertise just don't do it anymore so there was pressure that's uh

mike reese says it many times on the commentary of like you can make fun of smoking all day long because no cigarette company is going to pay for a commercial on tv beer companies though they're worth millions and your executives do not like making fun of that so we might not see a whole lot of uh well i mean i guess we do have uh beer kills brain cells like some stuff like that in other episodes i guess they wouldn't back away from it but they also still make drinking look awesome too like homer just drinks i don't remember i don't personally remember a lot of i think they knew who was watching the Simpsons and there weren't a lot of beer commercials. I think they left those for the children.

I don't remember. Cause I had some of those tapes and I watched it over and over again. I don't recall a lot of beer commercials. Yeah. The only, I remember a drink commercial, but it was Pepsi. But so the explosion of beer.

So good. Bart should be dead. That sounded like an explosion at the old Simpson place. Forget it. That's two blocks away. Looks like there's beer coming out of the chimney. I am proceeding on foot. Call in a code 8. We need pretzels. Repeat, pretzels.

Almost great. So we never see the Simpsons house But it must be just decimated after this That blew the roof off of it There's no more roof to the place The Simpsons wiki points out that That shot of the house is all wrong If you look very closely And so maybe it's a separate house

But again, more so than the Halloween episodes This has to be at a continuity Yeah, I mean That kind of destruction on the house has has never been happening before in the show i mean the house was like listing because of the bad foundation but it's never been exploded like this never been exploded it was it was how the atomic bomb is shown in film yeah an atomic bomb going off from one beer and then homer and and yeah homer is crippled by this this is like bart is fine there's no and also that you don't like it just this is where it feels lazy yeah like well we don't want to draw the destroyed house so we're just gonna start at the hospital next and just

bart's fine don't think about it and homer's in a coma like who cares they spend the rest of the show just like in one room almost just one room that's also how it feels like a cheap sitcom yeah we made one set where well we didn't even make it we just borrowed the hospital set from a different show and homers is going to sit there and i mean maybe they are just reusing the design of the hospital from uh bypass yeah i think it is and character and so but so many things like that what you just said that reminded me of other shows including dr hibbert and the connection to uh what's an ian roberts character on arrested development oh yes mr simpson i'm afraid your husband is dead april fooled he's very much alive although i'm afraid he may never walk again i love that character he's going to be alright.

Oh, thank God. The Simpsons will be right back. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care

and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Thank you for listening, good people. Are you warm enough? How are your feet? Ooh, this episode is brought to you by Bombas, baby. Bombas, a sock that has been carefully crafted to improve on years of sock complacency. The Bombas people spent two years in research and dev

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of 2016 jump into the past with 30 2010 our weekly pop culture time podcast. Here's something you may remember from 1996. July 14th, Fox rerun Why Planes Go Down. Featuring a famous narrator. Hello, I'm Jillian Anderson. I have to tell you at first I was a little hesitant about hosting this program because I tend to be a nervous flyer.

But we hope that the information in this hour will forever change the way that you travel on commercial aircraft. What are you going to do? This is the period where Fox was definitely like he thought he could get away from the long arm of the law. This guy thought he could steal a lawnmower and get

away with it. Now he's mowing lawns on Rikers Island. Also the whole magician's secrets revealed. This guy thought he could invade Poland. With Mitch Pelleggi. They got two different X-Files people. When I watched that for the first time, at first I was hesitant. I was like,

because of Gillian Anderson and you're better than this? But no, it's because she's scared of flying. I like the music behind it. It's so tense. This looks like sub-PS1 level polygons in this. The spine-chilling recording. There's an airplane that looks like the gummy ship in Kingdom Hearts.

Our pilots being rushed to takeoff before they're ready. Oh, it's like several triangles I promise. That's 3020TED, a weekly look at what happened in pop culture 30 years ago, 20 years ago, and 10 years ago, every Thursday right here on the laser time network to start off our i know we don't have all the clips no no we're not that crazy but like

it's so weird so i counted the clips and clip packages so i counted a clip as when a character announces a clip and a clip or clips start there are 17 instances of this and the first one is just like aren't you the veterinarian and it's like yes i am and there's like a clip that happens late because i was watching it like they're not gonna acknowledge this guy's a vet and of course they do to throw to his clip as a kid i immediately recognized that i was like that's the vet. I knew it. Being introduced to so many new characters all the time. I will give them credit for

the first clips, they build the scene around it. Well, this is about Homer's injuries, so we get to cut to all the time he's been injured. Gently down the stream. Homer! March! Homer has many, many horrible problems. These shadows are brain lesions

resulting from numerous blows to the head. And it cuts to a bunch of headshots to Homer. We have to assume this doctor graduated from Mexican med school because he couldn't before. And the first clip is the baseball hitting him. It's actually two baseballs hitting him in a row. First, the one from Bowling for Love or whatever, a spare. Season one episode with Jacques.

Life on the Fast Lane. There we go. Yeah, and then it's just him getting hit in the head. And that's, as a kid, I didn't know it was a clip show. I didn't read TV Guide. So once the first clip came, I was like, huh. And I know I just had this creeping dread of like, I didn't like that it was a clip show as a kid. Because I was watching all the tapes.

So I didn't care. I feel like the writers are just picking their favorite stuff. Because based on the commentaries, you can see the next clip is the No Disgrace Like Home shocking scene. Which they play out in its mostly entirety. And the next clip is something they love. I think it's still their favorite it's homer falling down the cliff yeah they add animation so like kind of cuts off there in the original more and more in his bloody image yeah

skateboarding on the back of the head so like this is really confusing growing up when you went back to go watch barth the daredevil i'm like where's where's the there's like two payoffs we're missing here yeah so in the original episode uh the second time he falls we only hear it he does fall but you only hear it yeah and we don't see the gurney smashing his head into the ground yeah which would kill him like he is dead he should be dead to begin with, but they make it even more painful. It's great that they added animation to it, but it does fuck with your brain. So they did add animation to it. Yeah, they did. I couldn't remember if there was a story

where it was cut out for being too cruel. No, so in Bart the Daredevil, we see him fall once. The second time he falls, we only hear it. This time they show the second fall. They animate new animation. They reanimate it. No, they make new animation. There's no reanimating of it. Yeah, that was a film Roman won.

If you look, you can tell it's not from the same production. Exactly, yeah. That Homer is not a season two Homer who's getting smashed up in the second fall. I just compared this to Arrested Development. This is so motherfucking goddamn family guy, especially with that Homer at near death and broken. Yeah.

You guys must have been pretty worried about me. Hey, we know you're tough, Dad. a fucking goddamn family guy especially with that like homer at near death and broken yeah you guys must have been pretty worried about me hey we know you're tough dad remember that time you got lost in the forest i've never seen such a like an unironic family guy yeah they animated a new scene that'd be another thing but yeah so they put all that work into the first scene of like laying it out that we're gonna remember all these injuries and then we're gonna point out that you're the vet so we can flash back to the vet scene and then even pay off with a joke of i can even spay and neuter homer yeah you're a veterinarian that's right and for an extra 20 i'll give homer a tick bath and then spay him here you go doc shop around you can't beat that price it's a pretty good deal uh so that all pays off but then after that

they're like well you remember that time that's remember that time so the scene after the uh we get the call back to the call the simpsons trapping the bunny scene we have uh march saying remember how cool you are under pressure and it's unfair that they have the alien abduction scene pissed me off as a kid and it pisses me off now. You gotta know, Kang and Kodos are part of the main continuity. I think it is cheap to flashback to a Halloween episode. And also, that's no great scene anyway. It's not that awesome. It's one of the many things that I think

undoes a lot of fun Simpsons continuity. Also, that scene is like if you are a new viewer to the Simpsons or you haven't watched every single episode, then you're left thinking, they got kidnapped by aliens on this show. This show is batshit insane. Yeah, I really didn't like that. And also, just to show that, zoom in on the green Lisa again.

Like, they should never show that. That's one of the ugliest shots in the series. But it's around this time in the episode that Bart realizes he's in a clip show and starts to take advantage of it. I love this show. And there's one itchy and scratchy cartoon I don't think we'll ever forget. Why'd you bring that up? It was an amazing episode. Of our lives.

And it would be, man, just to reference another comedy show probably influenced by The Simpsons, Clerks. Clerks has the best clip show parody ever. The greatest. And those poor motherfuckers. They got so screwed. They got so screwed. They were set up to fail. The first episode airs.

It's a pilot. It's fine. The second episode airs and it is a clip show. And all they have... The second episode is a clip show, which flashes back to the first over and over again. Yeah. And ABC... They air the fourth episode first. They aired it out of order. And then the second episode is a clip show, which flashes back to the first over and over again. Yeah. And ABC... They air the fourth episode first.

They aired it out of order. And then the second episode second. Ruin the joke. So the reference to, why are we walking like this, doesn't work. That joke probably cost them a million dollars. And fuck, they wasted it. What is ABC? They ruined it.

They were rolling in who wants to be a millionaire money. And they only had 12 million viewers, those losers. I'm just guessing, but it's probably up there they had that uh remember they uh they had that time dante we were climbing that building they had a super bowl ad which was just like jay hitting a firecracker with a baseball bat that was it that was in the super bowl and kevin smith felt like well my show's definitely gonna be successful in the Super Bowl. And Kevin Smith thought, well, my show's definitely going to be successful. That's what I did in the Super Bowl. Bart inserting an itchy and scratchy episode was a funny thing I did like that. But it's one of the only times they're being very clear about what they're doing.

I wish there was more of this Bart, like this meta Bart stuff. Maybe he realizes where he is so he can at least be told, this is not a real show. Grandpa comes close. Before that, when they visit him with the beers, when Mo and Barney visit him with the beers, first off, Homer has like a fear of beer, a PTSD of beer, which is like for that one moment, and then they just forget it. They forget they even have that. The second time Mo comes to visit him in the hospital and brings him a beer with Barney

in this season. Yeah, and then second, I was sure confused as a kid because I'd never seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yeah. That's a really lengthy scene. As far as I knew, Barney kills Homer

and then smashes a window for some reason. He really needs a girlfriend. Yeah, I love it. But that is the exact ending in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest if you haven't seen it yet. It's great.

With Barney in a great spot, he's a great villain for the Chief. I agree. He's like giant and hulking. The Chief who eventually shows up on The Simpsons. Well, he's previous. No, he was previously on The Simpsons. Oh, previously. It's about time someone reached out to me. But I love Grandpa's line. He's my favorite part of this whole thing. Poor Homer. This world was never meant

for one as beautiful as you. Ah! Kill it! Kill it! Grandpa, please. He's in a coma. Coma? Why I go in and out of comas all the... That's right, because Homer's only in the coma because of the candy machine. I actually have a link to that,

one as beautiful as you. That's right. It is a reference to a specific song, a line from a specific song. They joke on the commentary. They just have a clip show of songs. They just have a line. So this is the Don McLean song, Vincent. Don McLean is another song?

Yes. It's a song, Vincent, about how much he loves vincent van gogh and starry night and and about how awesome vincent van gogh is and why it's sad that vincent van gogh killed himself and so this is a song here for they could not love you but still your love was true And when no hope was left inside on that starry, starry night You took your life as lovers often do But I could have told you, Vincent This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. Wow.

You didn't know it was DeVince Van Gogh. You think it's just like him. He's just in love with this guy who kills himself. So I have, I'm playing with a song and this is a very personal reference, but I played a prank on a friend of mine maybe 10, 8 years ago where on Facebook he was doing like MS Paint portraits of people. He would just take their image of them on Facebook and draw an MS Paint picture. I stitched them all together with pictures of him

in Windows Movie Maker and pretended he was a special person who recently died. I put his name and then like 1979 to 2005. We love you and miss you. It's a starry night? Yeah, it's a starry night. Sorry, I buried the lead there. It's still

online and he's like, I can't get jobs because get jobs because of this bob take it down i'm like nope it's still funny potential employer thinks i'm dead uh my okay i had to say my best prank because it carried over into at least when henry knew me oh this is this is all relevant i forgot this is a prank episode yeah like my best prank ever i for some reason fell in love with that raffy song banana phone oh yeah just hysterical uh so my friend went out of town and he always listened like just through his we go over their house all the time lots of land stuff and halo crap and like uh hanging around drinking with guys we're 20 and he has just plays under the bridge like 800 times in a row and i was just hating his music so i found out how many files of music he had in his Winamp.

And I copied that many. And I copy pasted by hand every piece of song information into a hundred, like 300 versions of Banana Phone. I changed his background to a picture of a Banana Phone. Oh, my God. And so he would go home, open his computer, see a different background, immediately load up his music like he always did. And like, my chili peppers, my three left, they're all banana phone. And I'm like,

I'm hoping that like, and so like, I want him to know because I'm going to hide his music from him. I didn't delete it and like, so call me. So what I did is I set up

on my answering machine message, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, banana phone, just to like really drive home the prank when he finally calls to yell at me, which he did and and it worked. And then I forgot and just left it for years.

And so when I moved out to San Francisco, people would call me with jobs. They'd hear banana phone on my answering machine. That was awesome. And people were like, oh, I didn't know you were going to pick up. Just let it go to the answering machine and we'll hear banana phone.

Ruining lives is hilarious. The second hit clip of Grandpa's coma is also great. French toast, please. Is the coma painful? Oh, heck no. You relived long lost summers. Kissed girls from high school. It's like one of those TV shows where they show a bunch of clips from old episodes.

Yeah, well, anyway, I wonder what he's thinking now. That's another moment where Bart is, he knows he's in a show. He's like, anyway, I wonder what he's thinking now. I feel like he was reprimanded off screen, like, Bart, we need to show nice clips now. Yes, that Bart doesn't care.

And we have... Bart is an actor, we're skipping over why Homer is in a coma from not being in one. He couldn't walk, not explained why. They don't explain if it's physical or mental. And why Homer is able to walk again is like, well, so is his spine damaged or not? Like, why can't he walk? And then he just is able to walk when he sees Candy.

And then he, I'm guessing he choked on Candy so much that then put him in a coma. They cut off his air supply or something. If he has a nut allergy, it's the only reason he makes it. He just says nuts in his dying breath. So he goes from paralyzed to being in a coma. But we missed a great scene before that with Marge with a great line,

which on the commentary, they're like, this is a bad joke. But it feels like a very season two line where Homer is like, what if I ended up, you know, just a couch potato? All I do is watch TV and drink beer and she's like society's loss i suppose my great work will never be complete that's right society's loss i suppose it's just it's so low key and they let it sit but i like that line a lot yeah and then it goes straight into i think the

worst setup for a clip ever which is but our marriage is always pulled we her marriage is always pulled through and then when they cut to the officer and gentleman scene, it was the music. So I'm like, did they have to re-license the music? That was not the actual music, though. That was a sound-alike. It's always been that. Because you pointed out to me,

they added more animation to Bart the Daredevil, but to the Slumberland scene, the sequence for the... The base is for the sixth, seventh level in the arcade. So yeah, the scene, it's a scene from lisa's pony in the original broadcast version they licensed the song the beatles song golden slumbers never would have recognized that why did you bother which well as al jean said it when he was licensing it and paying a shitload of money they thought they were getting the beatles master but instead they were getting the songwriting rights

so they could do an instrumental cover, which you can barely even tell is Golden Slumbers. Can you imagine hearing Golden Slumbers on that episode? Like the actual version? That'd be so mind-blowing. Oh, yeah. But it's like the part I remember is the beginning, which is the same. same the princess bride uh i can't really tell the difference uh it's way different i had to

play them it's actually a really good sound alike because you can't also because the that overbear... It's very overbearing on the Golden Slumbers tune. Yeah, like the strings that are backing it are very, very, very similar. So I actually perfectly synced it up on my computer with the YouTube of the original one with my TV playing the other one and just hit play at the same time. And it's still really... It's close to imperceptible, but...

But you can't actually you can't sing golden slumbers to that you'll play yeah but that's how i tested i'm like wait a minute you can't do this but thanks shitty beatles yes it's not just a clever name like they were gonna call the beat like they were gonna pay the beatles again to use that song in the clip show the clip show is supposed to be cheap but they had to pay him again for the DVD release, suckers. Yeah. And his $5,000 a day sounds like not, that sounds too reasonable by today's medical standards. Yeah, that's like, Jesus, like if you're hospitalized for a slight cough. We're keeping you overnight, $5,000. But Burns, it's funny that in the previous episode it was all about health insurance.

And now in this one, Burns is mad about health insurance. But come on. The last episode was maybe the end. Burns doesn't recognize Homer. This is Burns coming for Homer, remembering everything. It is ruining the joke. You're right. It is ruining the joke.

He remembers who he is. It's probably like this guy who works at your plant is in this room at this hospital. And that's what the information is. He makes very specific references to knowing who Homer is. Oh, really? Okay guy who works at your plant is in this room at this hospital, and that's what the information they gave him. He makes very specific references to knowing who Homer is. Oh, really? Okay, I didn't write that down. He causes the flashback. After our view a lifetime of never remembering Homer,

and more than anything, more than the King of Kodos, this is like, this isn't continuity now. This doesn't matter. What is the Mr. Burns clip they play? I forget. So he says, well, do you have the whole thing? This man is costing my health plan $5,000 a day. I demand that he die with dignity.

Now look, I'm the doctor here. Will I demand a second opinion? Hi, everybody. Hi, Dr. Nick. Oh, dear. I see no signs of life. Just to to be safe we better pull the plug yoink mr burns how can you be so cold-hearted you have no idea woman what that man's put me through so he remembers oh everything but that's three for three, yoinks. Three episodes in a row, three yoinks. They get these roles.

That is a funny little scene, though it also looks like cheaply staged. The way Nick walks into the shot, they're like, we're not animating a different setup. So Nick's just going to stand there and basically look at the camera. Yeah, like no different background drawing. He had some of that little medical Cro-Mum hammer yes the reflex i'd like to point out that this is the first and maybe only time all three notable simpsons doctors are in the single room together and so then also burns his flashback is homer asking for money for his dog yeah and getting pulled out of the room which burns at this point could have remembered a lot of scenes where Homer actually

did do something bad to Burns. And maybe Burns was funnier. But is the joke that Burns is remembering something that wasn't even a slight? I think they just thought that joke was funny or that scene was funny. But it doesn't fit for what Burns is talking about. It's a bad clip. And the only

clips I gathered from the show other than the sound effects of Homer falling down, the Springfield Gorge was the Doe montage because it's just wonderful. I know that I got you mad once in a while. I wanted it like if we were really being way more nerdy about this than we already are. Like how many of those were the same does? That angered me. I was furious. As a kid, I didn't like that either.

There's like three same does in here. As a kid, you noticed too many things. Chris, why are we podcasting right now? It took me forever in research and a lifetime of loneliness to rediscover all this stuff. So Homer eventually wakes up with a scene that angers Matt Groening to no end. And do you have that, Chris? I do. The first person chokery?

Yeah. Dad, it's all my fault. I shook up that can of beer. It was just an April Fool's joke. Are you little? Holy, you're all right. We're a family again. Still choking him?

There's a great bit of tension on this episode between Groening and the rest of the writers. He was like, now, when I said Homer can strangle Bart, I had some ground rules. A, it had to be impulsive, and B, it could not be sustained. And Algyne's like, this isn't sustained. And he's like, he's still strangling Bart on the screen for like 12 seconds at least. And the family doesn't care. Yeah. And that it is Homer being like, it is impulsive, I guess.

Like, it is the impulse that brings Homer back to life. But it was. It's really cruel. And it's first person choking. That's a little extreme. Yeah. And it's also very cartoony. The heart rate that's Bart's head. Yeah, that was cute.

But yeah. And right before that, the fantastic voyage joke. It was cute. Going into Bart's head. Yeah, that was cute. Right before that, the Fantastic Voyage joke. It was cute. Going into Homer's ass. Going through his colon. And they're just like, yeah, this... Frank implies he could do this, just people don't want to go in his colon. That's the only thing.

He invented the debigulator, right? That's right. But not the rebigulator. The sort of rebigulator. Rebigulator. And that the treehouse of heart well actually no it was not dr it was not professor frank it was his equivalent in the tooth universe right did it not exactly i'm gonna fire myself for that blunder and also they did a straight fantastic voyage parody in treehouse of r15 i have seen that where marge's joke about marge's boobs that said uh that costume makes it a fantastic voyage.

Oh, God. Yeah, Homer, they also have so many scenes from the Blowfish episode, too. The Dough Montage. It's one of the best, but it also punctuates that there's been two episodes, Triple Bypass and One Fish Blowfish, where you are concerned about Homer's health. That's true. They try and play it up, I think, not very well in this episode. But again, it's a vessel for clips, not art.

They don't really care. The Dough Montage was at least new editing, and it was apparently what David Silverman was touring around colleges with to show off. He had already cut that together and was showing it when he was doing... Just the Dough Montage? Yeah, just the Dough Montage.

And so that's why they were reusing it too and now i bet they could do like a 30 minute dough montage of just every actual dough no repeats but if they allowed it to be on youtube right now yeah that's true but i do i do love and the ending but again it's the same as the last episode fudged math here. Sustain laughing. Calls for a celebration. We're all going to Hawaii. Gotcha. It's April Fool's for two more minutes. Dad, it's May 16th. You were in that coma for seven weeks.

Uh-huh. You lost 5% of your brain. Me lose brain? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Why I laugh? Why I laugh? It's like the best last line of almost any Simpsons episode. What is the fudge math, Henry? The fudge math is they get seven seven weeks oh god they say april fool's day was

when the house explodes so if it's in seven weeks after that is may 16th so the math goes up is correct there they say he was in the coma for seven weeks so unless he was in that wheelchair for one day before then going into the coma maybe that was it but then no they they imply like lengthy physical therapy that's true that's true yeah he's in his bed and they visit him like he's in the hospital for a for seemingly a good few i would say at least a week like you could say at least a week was spent he was in the hospital for seven weeks you're right on the you're right henry and those grounds i think this should be relegated to a dvd special feature and not a real episode it should be one

of those looney tunes from the vault things they don't bother to remaster but include on the disc anyway whoopi goldberg tells you why it's offensive or they were so cheaper preferably yeah and i was watching their Tom and Jerry set. So I did reconfirm this because I thought I'd remembered this. A few years ago, a Redditor put up one of those classic episode theories for this episode. Oh, God. It's comedy writers theorize Homer's been dead the whole time. Yes, it is that, but it has an extra spin to it but yes homer dies in

this episode and every episode after this is wackier because it's just a dream sequence while he's in a coma which by which like if you have a new theory about a tv show that's all a jacob's ladder somebody's dream thing fuck right off it's for everybody does that i don't need that new one but why i like this one okay it's because he points out that six months before this episode was Homer the Heretic, where God says you can't wait six months. So at the very least, he's got a little extra to fit in with that. But to say the show gets wackier after this one ignores Monterey and the last exit is Springfield, which are hella wacky before Homer's death in this episode

now wait what religion tells you that the afterlife is you continuing to live your life only funnier yeah for another 28 years I think Episcopalian I at least like that they say the six months thing

fits with it but like look it's a clip show there's yeah i was gonna say i mean uh i'll never watch it again unless i have to do another podcast i got 40 minutes i henry guessed that and he was right uh i have to ask like do any classic lines come out of this show i don't think so like not even one classic quote comes out of this show i mean fool in this day in a fooling machine that's uh i hear that occasionally i guess or uh now who's laughing but yeah even something even something people actually repeat like it doesn't really happen oh yeah and i forgot about one reference it's not even a joke it just

kind of shows how how lazy they're being or overworked rather like uh when bart is uh turning up the thermostat to heat up the house to get hom thirsty. Uh, Homer's Leo Sayre record melts. And, uh, there's no joke there. He, he sung the song. I want,

I make, make me feel like dancing or whatever. I want to, I didn't know who that was, but I just thought it was going back to like Homer's taste in music is all terrible and slightly novelty. No, no,

you make me feel like dancing. He sung that with Barney in the way we was, I think. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. No,

no, no, no. He sings that in Homer Palooza in the way we was, I think. That's right. No, no, no, no. He sings that in Homerpalooza in the flashback there. Oh, okay. Like, we were rocking all night and partying every day, and they're singing that one, and that's when

I used to know what it is. Speech comes right after that. He was so cool with that Leo Sayre album. That was... Go ahead, sorry. This is nobody's favorite episode. It's not... It's a weak episode. It's not, it's a weak episode. It's just, it is a clip show. Hey, it's not Talking Simpsons' fault.

It's The Simpsons' fault. I bet, yeah. And Bart is the laziness of the writers, too. Just like, look, let's just set up the next clip. I bet everyone who listened to this looked at their podcast players and said, 40 minutes? Has the world gone topsy-turvy? Because only we could do this. Now we're at, like, 46 on our time or probably 50

something for you but jesus uh anything else to add i mean like i will never watch this again unless i'm forced to but i feel like this gave the writers uh it stopped the writers from killing themselves or having the show kill them and for that i am grateful if this made cape fear or crusty gets canceled a better episode because they had that time, then cool. And, yeah, I think when I watched this on my VHS's back as a kid, I would fast-forward through the second half. I'd watch the first half, and I'd be like, I'm now watching the second half. Yeah, and other clip shows are much worse. 138th Spectacular is good.

Another Simpsons clip show is awful. It's the worst episode of the series pre-Kid Rock. I think you're right. And all singing, all dancing is okay. At least you get all the good songs. At least it's a clip show of great songs. And they mock. They put the episode title in the episode.

And they mock that they're doing their fourth clip show. And they at least mock that Snake keeps coming back into point at them over and over and we have the great paint your wagon parody which is amazing um but also we the last one i think is gump roast which is awful too listen guys 2002 it's a little too late for your forest gump jokes i mean i know you thought it was funny it was in somebody's spec script for eight years but just get rid of that yeah that's my lesson for today i think that's a dan castellaneta one is uh i think it's what like we'll throw you a bone like either you or your wife can write an episode that episode sucks it's awful yeah boo yes and i didn't like in that episode that bart and lisa refer to homer

as a meanie which i was just like they don't talk like a meanie weird i forget about that episode completely but really not good no wonder i've only seen it once thank you so much for listening to this episode uh we we made a lot of hay out of this clip show dear god i do think we need to skip the love one or that was just gonna be 20 minutes like there really is nothing we need to do every one but it will be like a short one i think if the writers do commentary on it we gotta do it their commentary on that episode is them ignoring the episode Completely like we hated Doing this we were forced to do it

We're going to explain to you how we make an episode And that episode at least has a sick ass Burr on Ren and Snippy that is amazing And I want to at least talk about that So yes I guess to wrap things up I've been your host Bob Mackie Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo I have not heard well Bob Mackie in so long

I forget what it sounds like You need to give me that file But you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo I have not heard well Bob Mackie in so long I forget what it sounds like you need to give me that file you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo I also host the classic gaming podcast Retronauts every Monday at retronauts.com or usgamer.net and I write every other week for something awful and every goddamn day for fandom.com read my listicles

folks they're entertaining and informative and I am Henry Gilbert that's H-E-N-E-r-e-y-g on twitter follow me for all my thoughts on uh the end of the world but also uh you can go to spider-man trailers and the spider-man trailer the home for my thoughts on that homecoming trailer pretty great folks follow my work on fandom.com as well i work with bob over there and you should know that this and every other uh of the Lazer Time Network is brought to you by Patreon.com slash Lazer Time.

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great things. Uh, laser time podcast.com is where all this stuff lives, including a bunch of other shows, including laser time. This show that started at all topic based pop culture rant. That's had these guys on several times, 30,

2010, the, uh, weekly look back to that week in pop culture history. And it's a happy new year so it's gonna be a new year of that too oh god january 3rd oh god i'm so tired and then patreon.com slash laser time is home to uh the exclusive bonus time show where we catch you up on all the new fun stuff that we're doing and there should be a best of episode up uh from

laser time about bonus time I'm too tired to explain just trust me and go to the website that's it for us this week happy new year everybody thanks for listening we'll be back next week with the front see you then Wow. Infotainment.