Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Team Homer With Alex Navarro

Episode Date: April 10, 2018

Do you like bowling? How about boweling? Or MAD Magazine? We dig into all of that and more in this week's podcast, and we've got Giant Bomb's Simpsons expert Alex Navarro to talk all about this iconic episode about Homer creating his own league team and inspiring his damn wiener kids! Give a listen! Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons!

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23 episodes of Talking Critic, the entire first season of Talking Simpsons, monthly community podcasts, interviews with Simpsons writers, and so much more! Shut up and take my money! Remember, go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to get your hands on podcasts from the world of tomorrow!

I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons featuring the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked. I'm your host, Bob Mack, you clod. And this is the chronological exploration of The Simpsons. I'm your host Bob Mack, you clod. And this is the chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert and his shirt makes a good point. And who is our very, very special remote guest? I am Alex Navarro and

boy, I am really looking forward to sticking to that Sparrow Agnew guy. He must work there or something. Yeah, I know, right? Like, who is he? I think we'll need to explain that to a lot of listeners, but today's episode is Team Homer. The O-I-D-O-L-E-R. Ha ha ha ha, I get it. Today's episode aired on January 7th, 1996, the first Simpsons episode of 1996, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this day in history. Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby! Motorola StarTAC became the first flip float on the market one of

the worst blizzards in american history hits the eastern seaboard killing more than 150 people and in a special simpsons downer this episode aired one week after the passing of doris grau who is featured prominently in this episode oh no, no. I knew it was coming. We're here. We're here. She died on December 30th, and this episode aired on January 7th, and there is an in-memoriam at the end of the episode for her. Yes. I recommend everyone go listen to our Talking Critics series.

We heap nothing but praise upon Doris Grau and her amazing voice. One of a kind. In case you don't know, Doris, she had worked on, well, really in television for decades, more as a script supervisor, but every comedy writer loved her voice so much that they would keep putting her on the show to the point that she was a regular as Doris on The Critic, where they made many jokes about her chain smoking, which Doris Grav did do in real life, and that eventually caught

up with her as their jokes predicted, making those jokes a lot less funny in review of the critic. They kind of sting now. So to move on to a happier topic here is our special guest, Alex Navarro. Alex, can you tell us, I'm sure most of our listeners probably know who you are, but in case anyone doesn't, where do you come from, what do you do, and what is your relationship with The Simpsons? I come from nothing. I am nowhere.

No, I work for GiantBomb.com, which you had another recent guest from our lovely website recently, Dan Reichert. I work in the same office as that doof. We do video games on the internet TV. We talk over them, and I used to write video game reviews back when people still cared about that sort of thing.

And yeah, I am a lifelong Simpsons watcher. Well, I am a lifelong Simpsons watch. Well, I am a lifelong watcher of Simpsons seasons one through about 11 or 12 on repeat. That's how I would describe myself. So how early were you a Simpsons viewer? Like, did you watch it from like the premiere from season one, even maybe the shorts?

Yeah, I definitely watched a little Tracy Ullman show back in the day. And I do remember the shorts from then though. I can't say that I was a huge fan of them necessarily. I think the thing that got me to watch the show when it started was that someone in my, I want to say, third or fourth grade class had Matt Groening's Life in Hell collected books and lent it to me. And I started reading that stuff, and I thought it was really funny so I was like okay I'll give this show a shot and I don't remember much about where I started watching

The Simpsons because the first season is not super memorable for me at least but around the second and third season I remember my fandom just sort of growing exponentially to the point where I owned a cassette copy of The simpsons sing the blues like that's that was the level of fandom i was working on that's pretty high did you i mean did you walk around school

in a bart simpson t-shirts letting people know you're an underachiever and you don't care i didn't own that shirt though i definitely had a friend who did uh i had some stickers i think on my uh trapper keeper that were Simpsons related. And I definitely I only knew the song Born Under a Bad Sign as the Homer Simpson version. So that I definitely that was in my head a decent amount when I was a kid. I had a shirt with the ultra famous Bart expression, Cool Your Jets, man, which he says in nearly every episode. Yeah, no, I mean, that is the line, right? Like that is that, you know, that is on every single billboard on every every T t-shirt like it is it is the thing we love bart for and that's my tattoo

so well and alex this must have like defined your sense of comedy at a young age too i would i would imagine yeah there there are like three shows that i specifically point to as responsible for my completely brain dead sense of humor uh It's The Kids in the Hall, which I mostly saw in reruns on Comedy Central. Similarly with Mystery Science Theater, I watch that religiously, and a lot of my weird, goofy humor comes from that. And then it's The Simpsons Seasons that I listed

because I've been watching those on repeat in perpetuity. You were on the right podcast, though. Yes. We all share similar interests, especially Kids in the Hall and Mystery Science Theater. this really just becomes the mystery science theater podcast occasionally if anything similar to an mst3k episode happens we will then just start talking about that i mean at this point i basically just riff over video games so like i'm i'm i'm i feel like i'm in good company here what was the episode that made you stop being a regular viewer of The Simpsons?

It's different for a lot of people. So I can actually point to the specific one where I stopped watching. I was definitely aware that the show was becoming way less consistent by this point, but I am deeply stubborn and I tend to not fall off of things very quickly. Like, I stick with them if I like them at one

point. But I don't remember which season exactly this came from, but it's to me, it is notorious in my brain at least it is the tennis court episode it is the episode where they get a tennis court in the Simpsons backyard and a bunch of tennis celebrities are on the show and it is to me the perfect storm of everything that went wrong with the Simpsons the animation is garbage like the whole color scheme of that episode is like weirdly saturated in a way that I remember watching and thinking is there something wrong with my television the jokes are bad the premise is terrible and you can tell it was purely manufactured because someone was like well we've got these tennis people maybe we should write an episode around that

you mean it's just awful you may be trying to forget this alex but there's also a very unsettling oedipal uh plot line in there in which homer thinks bart is going to take marge from him is this the right episode I'm thinking of? That is definitely the one. I do remember that now and I do remember being deeply skeeved out by that at the time. Let's not do this. That was gross. It also, it had two

of their worst storytelling flaws of that era, which one, the first act ends with Homer literally saying, bet you didn't see that coming because there was no reason tennis would flow from them trying to get a burial plot for abe and then second the episode ends with them all just like shrugging their shoulders like i guess it's over this is the ending bye and i remember a lot of episodes around those seasons kind of ending similarly of a writers throwing

their hands up and just being like fuck it i don't know that's a premise and it's just like that's not it just it felt like they gave up yeah so did you i kind of slowly fell off in those seasons and stopped like taping every week but i think 13 was really when i was just like i i got other things i can do i'm i'm in my early 20s now i I need to look at different things. Yeah, I don't even remember what else was on TV at that point, but I definitely, at that moment, I was very much like, I'm getting nothing out of watching this weekly anymore.

Like, if I hear an episode is good, maybe I'll watch it again. But, like, I just felt like I was done. Like, I had, this is super melodramatic, but I had lost my faith. This episode, do you want to get into it? Yeah, why did you, out of the several season seven ones we offered to you, Alex, why did you want Team Homer out of all of them? So I watched all the ones that you suggested, and really I like all those episodes,

but this one to me, it spoke to me mostly because of a few things. It combines a lot of the things I like. It has a heavy dose of Mr. Burns, who I still think is probably the best written character on that show. It has one of my all-time favorite Mole Man bits, and I'm a sucker for a good Mole Man bit. It's a good ensemble episode. There are a bunch of different characters that are all doing fairly funny things in this episode. And it has maybe one of my favorite B-plots of any Simpsons episode.

Yeah, I had completely forgotten the B- B plot in this episode when I watched it. It was because it's one of those B plots that's so unassociated with the A plot. I could have thought it was on one of a number of episodes. Yeah, and they really stopped doing B plots at this point for a while. It was all just really strong A stories. I associate the B plots more with like season three and four. Well, though, this is kind of a throwback episode because this was one of the two episodes in season seven produced by really the season six staff show ran by dave merkin and this was written by mike scully another mike scully one which this is mike scully horrific as i say in that you have a very jerk ass homer a kid's b plot and a ton of cruelty and a sports competition and you're not right yeah

mike scully loves sports he's he's a freaking jock instead of a harvard jerk like other people and i think he got this idea just because he was doing a lot of bowling and this is very i guess this episode is dear to my heart because i grew up in the midwest and you do a lot of bowling in the midwest and nothing is worse than showing up with your family and finding out it's league nights i i really identified with that well so the episode the episode opens though with something i really identified as a nerd the love of mad magazine my god the mad magazine special edition they only put out 17 of these a year boy they're really socking it to that spiro agnew guy again he must work there or something. Let's do the fold-in. Okay. What higher power do TV evangelists worship?

I'll say God. I'll say Jesus. The almighty dollar! You fold it, you bought it. Ooh, snappy answers to stupid questions. I'm great at these. Ask me if something smells funny in here, boy. Does something smell funny in here? I don't think so. Stupid!

Homie, you want pork chops no i want roast beef you clod they are kind of making fun of mad magazine but it comes from a place of love i think so yeah and as a kid i considered this an endorsement it's like yes the simpsons love me i mean i was you would probably not find a bigger mad fan in my area i love love Mad. I love every offshoot of Mad, like Cracked. I would buy all the fake Mads, too, because it was all good content for me. But they were so right about those super specials in that when you would buy one in the supermarket, it would be a compilation, some including stuff that would be way out of date. There was one where it was basically a poem about how Johnny Carson doesn't host the Tonight Show anymore. He just has a bunch of guest hosts.

And I'm just like, I guess I understand this. It's 1995, but I'll ask my mom. Yeah, I think the thing they get at here that is very accurate to my mad experience is that there are definitely, you know, there's some great jokes. And I definitely, you know, I was a fan of the magazine. But at my age, reading Mad,

like every third reference was completely out, like over my head. Like I had no idea who morton downey jr was but they kept making fun of him and i was like oh well that's really funny probably to somebody but i kept reading it because i don't know i just like there was just something about mad that was that would hook you in no matter how esoteric and deeply old some of the jokes were i do remember a fairly embarrassing story i was maybe six or seven i just remember adults laughing at me because i was reading mad magazine and i didn't know what sperm was and so i asked my mom because in the look who's talking parody i distinctly recall

there's a joke about someone eating frozen sperm thinking it was popsicles and i was just like what is sperm mom and a bunch of adults laughed at me jeez i I was a regular reader of it at the supermarket. I would definitely bug my mom to get me a copy. I knew that it was funny to laugh at George H.W. Bush for being like a nerd. That was a lot of their jokes then. I also recall, though, if it was a movie parody and I was at a certain age, I was like, I don't get this. I don't watch grown-up movies. But Spy vs. Spy and every Sergio Aragones doese doodle i was like this is the greatest thing ever

and i also did have the bart and millhouse experience of not understanding just how obvious an al jaffe folding joke can be yes um i don't want to talk about al jaffe i recommend everyone go we reference this podcast a lot but go go listen to the Gilbert Gottfried Amazing Colossal podcast where he is the guest. You have never heard a more alert and on-the-ball 95-year-old. And he's actually – listen. So whenever we talk about an old person on this show, they die. He's going to be 97 by the time this episode goes live. I will not take responsibility for this.

But as of March 2016, he was the longest-working comic artist at 73 years and three months. So he's already beaten that by now. So he is still doing Mad Magazine fold-ins, and they're now relaunching Mad with number one after 550 issues with a whole new staff and a whole new location. So I'm interested in seeing what that's going to be like. Well, I just knocked on our wooden desk here, so hopefully Al has more good years in front of him. Yeah, he still does the fold the folding, and it's amazing. And I also like to give credit to the animators on this, that they drew a mad folding painting and made it fold in animation.

Like, that had to be a pain in the ass. They wrote all the text, too. So there's the text that then gets folded into the joke. They wrote all of that. And it's like it's a perfect mad folding parody. Yeah, and the Bart and Milhouse just can't. The dollar't the dollar signs right there like how can you not see it but yeah there are some of those fold-ins where you're like i don't even need to fold this i know where this is going i don't need to ruin my magazine and fold this though funny story about the history of mad is

that you actually wouldn't see it that much in comic shops i mean not to say you couldn't buy it at a comic shop but it became a magazine and black and white in the 50s to avoid the comics code ec comics was the most hated by congress during the comic code uh situation in the 50s and ec comics they lost all their stuff they lost tales from the crypt true horror stories and mad was coming next and they're like well if we made mad a magazine then we don't have to deal with all this bullshit and we can just be silly and be a magazine and that's why it's been a magazine ever since it was a long time before it got color even after it got bought by warner and technically became a dc publication for decades it was not really a comic book and now

that relaunch you talked about bob yeah the editor-in-chief of it is Bill Morrison, the former editor-in-chief of Bongo Comics and a Simpsons Comics superstar. And not to mention one of the editors on the book is Allie Gortz, who does the other Simpsons podcast, Everything's Coming Up Simpsons. Oh, we got to talk to her. They're also now making a comic book, the dimensions, the size of a comic book for the sake of distribution. So now it's coming back to a comic book the dimensions the size of a comic book for the sake of distribution so now it's coming back to a comic book yeah and they still make the news anytime they do a cover parody of any political figure though this is really like you madman it's like happening real life now mad magazine am i right i prefer idiocracy as a documentary idiocracy is such a it's enough of this enough well if nothing else this has been a good catch-up

because I probably have not read Mad Magazine in like 20 years, so it's good to know that, A, there are people who are keeping up with it and that it's still there. It's one of those things that I'm just glad to know still exists. It still creates a dangerous amount of laughter, as Marge would say. I love that she is such... This is such a season five and six Marge. She had gotten a lot more interior life to her in the season seven episodes we've been seeing.

But this is back to Marge being the scold who takes away a troll doll for having bizarre hair. Awful, awful hair. Awful hair. And I've never minded that aspect of Marge. I think they do a pretty good job of, in general, out the her character in a way that doesn't just make her seem like a a helpless prude like she's you know it but like you said this season like when i was watching those other seasons like class struggle in springfield you know there's a lot more to marge in this in this season than this episode represents like she's barely in it yeah i mean

ultimately she is right the magazine causes a riot so So Marge is right about this in the beginning. Oh, by the way, who is Spear Wagner, Bob? We did talk about him a little in the Mother Simpson episode. Yeah, I mean, he was Nixon's vice president and he resigned, I think, due to a bribery scandal. I mean, he was one of the many men around Nixon who fell. Whenever I see a reference to something I don't get, I often think of, like, he must work there or something. And he was Greek, if you couldn't tell by his name.

I also like Homer saying Claude, of all things, to Marge, calling her Claude. It's a great Mad Magazine insult that no one uses outside of those pages. I was going to say, this is also a great moment

where one of the prevailing themes I remember about Homer and his attempts at humor is that he most often mistakes meanness with jokes. Like he has, he doesn't really have much of a sense of humor outside of, you know, the very basic pratfalls and, and just insults. And I'm all, I always sort of enjoy when they poke at that notion that like, he doesn't understand what jokes are. He just understands that saying mean things can be funny. I love when Homer is telling it like it is and is saying, Mars, she's put on a little weight too.

And then she says, Homer, you're the fattest person in here. He's like, you didn't have to tell it like it is, Mars. And as a mad reader, I think what Bart goes through in this episode is the dream of a mad reader in that my edgy book is troubling my mom. It is upending the school like this is i'm reading such a dangerous magazine here in this goofy mad magazine i didn't bring i put an iron on on my t-shirt and i created bedlam and i do remember iron ons too like that they would fade after i don't know two washings but i i didn't take mad to school but i would take we talked

about this earlier but i did take life and hell books to school and it felt like very subversive to have a book with the with the word hell on it right on the cover take that teachers your teacher's gonna take that from you bob i i managed to sneak it out i think we might be the last generation that remembers when damn and hell were still considered words that were like you know uncouth to say in a school environment i i don't know i feel like kids out there tell me if you told your teacher if you just said the word hell in front of your teacher would you get in trouble i'd like to know but well so then we get into the other plot almost immediately with homer at uh hanging out with mo and so they're hanging

out at the bar and we get to hear about that uh that barney carl and lenny all have mistresses mistresses how did barney get a miss barney included or was that uh that barney carl and lenny all have mistresses mistresses how did barney get a miss barney included or was it just lenny and carl i just i only heard lenny and carl uh no i heard barney too barney's definitely not there i think his mistress is like uh somewhere inside of a bottle don't you have to be in a long-term relationship to have a mistress isn't that how that works that's true true. That is true. Otherwise, if you're having a mistress but no regular partner, then who are you cheating on? There's no one to mistress in that. And so here's the question I would raise is, is this sort of the start of Lenny's secret life where he's pretending that he's married and that he has a real family?

It isn't just living in an abandoned ho abandoned hovel uh and and trying to sound like a big shot well i mean that they will eventually lead up to the lenny and carl being a couple yeah i mean that's some season 28 stuff but yes at the very least lenny is lying about everything in his life this place didn't look so bad when he has the poker game and secrets of a successful marriage pretty nice house yeah he's definitely not married then also the kennedy references show up to drink which i think they would probably have drank quite a lot in a drinking game of the quimby's okay so homer desperate to be anywhere but with his family is a very scully homer to me like oh yeah in in seasons 9 through 12 this is the homer who is just like i can't spend a moment alone with my family i have to drink where this is the homer who is just like i can't spend a moment alone with my family i have to

drink where this is the homer of dumbbell indemnity for example i would say and it's also the homer fear of flying because he's like i cannot be home i need to be drunk somewhere yeah and so he he's got it he goes back to his first love and his old employer the new barney's Bolarama. Sorry, it's league night. I couldn't give a lane to my own mother. I have no son. Man, you go through life, you try to be nice to people, you struggle to resist the urge

to punch them in the face, and for what? For some pimply little puke to treat you like dirt unless you're on a team. Well, I'm better than dirt. Well, most kinds of dirt. Not that fancy store-bought dirt. That stuff's loaded with nutrients. I can't compete with that stuff.

That I cannot bowl wreaks havoc with my self-esteem as well. But who am I to complain? Well, I'm tired of being a wannabe league bowler. I want to be a league bowler. Apu is very emotionally fragile in this episode i noticed he doesn't get a lot of lines but he's always just very like sad i gotta say i don't love apu in this episode i think several of his lines have a very fisher stevens in short circuit kind of style to them of just especially when he says a garment's good enough to be married and i'm

like no apu knows what a good shirt is he's not yeah he he comes very the term is fresh off the boat i would say like a very deferential foreigner and yeah i i'm not loving apu in this episode i think the one good line is is the one that maybe sort of is is the one of the few like sort of meaningful acknowledgments of what apu is and sort of how that character is presented where he they're bowling against the uh the stereotypes team and he's like oh they begged me to join they begged me to join like that I thought was like a decent little self-referential bit but yeah I kind of tend to agree with you guys otherwise yeah that might be the first time the show is kind of pointing that out too I think so I I do like though that Moe Moe who we proclaim

the most pathetic man in Springfield, he at least is smart enough to admit he knows he's not better than all dirt. Just better than regular dirt. I do think of that when I see store-bought dirt. Like hard-boiled stores. Loaded with nutrients. It's better than Moe. And I also love the cute little spin on the light bulb gag over Homer's head when he realized he wants to be a league bowler.

My stepdad is actually part of a bowling league. He says he's pretty good. I've never seen him play. I'm not a particularly good bowler, even though I took bowling in high school, which was pretty awesome. How do you take bowling? Do they have a... Well, your high school has to be across the street from a bowling alley. Oh, that makes sense.

And then they make deals probably with the bowling alley to bring students over there as part of a class. Much better than running. It is the sport, it's a fine sport as well. Yes, but not for kings. Do you ever think the American education system is hopelessly corrupt? Nah, maybe. Oh, maybe. Eh, just a thought.

Just putting that out there. The Simpsons will be right back sure you could spend your money on bowling or bowling but wouldn't it be better used supporting patreon.com slash talking simpsons? If you go there, you can get every episode of Talking Simpsons a week early and ad-free. Right now, you could be listening to next week's episode if you are a supporter of patreon.com

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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? Look, I'll admit it. Down with homework is a cool cool shirt but we don't sell that shirt what we sell is a talking simpsons t-shirt which is just as good i would say if you go to shirtsickle.com or to the url tiny.cc slash talking shirt you will find the very exciting and cool talking simpsons t-shirt done in the logo style of ion springfield designed by the awesome friend of the show nina matsumoto talking simpsons

the t-shirt is definitely worth the $19.99 plus tax and shipping that you can get it for in many different sizes and styles check it out it's shirtsickle.com or tiny.cc slash talking shirt hey this is sideshow luke barry you're listening to talking simpsons on laser time so i'll tell you what is uh lost is lobster harmonicas for my search on amazon and ebay there's not one lobster harmonica out there that feels like something you buy in like a tacky tourist shop at like a beach somewhere yeah but wouldn't you think one of those would be on ebay yeah there's something that interferes with the search is that there's a million people selling a regular harmonica that comes with a lobster claw latch. I'm like, well, no, I want a lobster harmonica. I don't want a...

Who calls... It's basically a bike latch. Like, I didn't even know people called those a lobster claw. So the lobster harmonica has bad SEO. I know. They got to work on that shit. I got to say, say 500 seems like a lot for a bowling league but reasonable for sex work i think and reasonable uh for four people to split

up oh yeah yeah how poor are they well i mean auto definitely can't afford it yeah that's for sure i mean once he gets that diploma you know he'll be set to go i know he'll get a job on the simpsons once he gets that that long-haired freak's bowled with us for years. Oh, I don't care if it takes me all night. I'm going to get me that lobster harmonica. Come on, lobster. Oh, okay. Then I just need your $500 registration fee.

$500? Oh, no problem. Would you take an out-of-state two-party band check? No, I will not pay you $500 for sex. Oh, come on marge you're getting something in return and i'm getting a bowling team it's win-win it's sick and i don't have that kind of money to spend on sex maybe you could get someone with money to sponsor your team like mr burns burns never gives money to anybody just last week i asked him for fifteen hundred dollars

for what oh i gotta get the third degree from you too so i like how marge has a hypothetical sex Burns never gives money to anybody. Just last week I asked him for $1,500. For what? Oh, I got to get the third degree from you too? So I like how Marge has a hypothetical sex budget. She knows how much she would spend for sex. Yeah. I also thought she was about to say, maybe you could find someone else who would pay you $500 for sex, not someone else to sponsor your team.

I also love how they are framed in that shot when they come in. The four panel light over, as they say it. It makes the smash cut to Homer asking for money for sex great. I wrote that down. It's very beautiful. It's a thing they don't do very often to have that sort of light coming in cast on them. Yeah, totally. And then we get Bart's down-with-homework shirt is the dream of every child who ever wore a witty shirt to school tonight's

homework assignment is oh man is it hot in here i better take off my sweater down with homework don't look at the children this shirt makes a good point i I'm with the shirt. Homework rots. Yeah, with homework! Yeah, with homework! As I was saying, my yearly evaluation couldn't have come at a better time. Well, Seymour, I must say for once I am impressed. In fact, I am going to give this school a perfect ten. I'll just write the zero first now a vertical line to enter why are there children walking on my head

my favorite part of the scene is chalmers writing 10 very slowly backwards for the sake of this really tortured joke. Now the vertical line. This is the other thing I forgot to mention is that I love a good Chalmers and Skinner bit, and there are two in this episode. So that automatically makes it a winner for me. Steamed Hams has become a meme of its own, but these were the things that led up to steamed ham that they they both know they are in very cliched sitcom-y scenes but they are very committed to it it's like as i was just saying that my yearly review like that those are all statements that no human would say they're all things no no normal person would say i also yeah on the witty t-shirt thing i think the most

sarcastic t-shirts i wore to school were probably my uh crow t robot bites me of mst3k that was a favorite of mine the teachers asked you to explain what that meant no nobody cared i mean same with like when i wore a space ghost coast to coast shirt nobody was like what is a zorak like what is at least when i wore they might be giant, I would get people saying, I remember that from Tiny Toons. Are they still a band? Those were my nerdy shirts of childhood. God, I'm trying to think. I think mine were all anime shirts.

Oh, man. Like the real cool guy. It did have Akira T-shirts. I did have that. And then a Japanese-American student said to me, you don't even know what those letters on your back say. And I was like, I like anime. I'll learn one day.

I think the only one I had was one that said, Corporate Rock still sucks, which was great, because at that point I was definitely still listening to a lot of corporate rock and did not know what I was even rebelling against. Oh, God, that is a perfect shirt to wear. I mean, that came from corporate rocker himself, Kurt Cobain, right? I believe so. Yeah.

Also, we get to see Ralph eating all the paste he wants. That's freedom for him. And that rot thing, I don't know. Alex, are you a Best Show listener? I am not. Oh, darn, man. You're all alone here, Andy. It reminds me of a bit on the Best Show.

Well, okay, but Alex and me are going to team up on you about wrestling stuff later. Oh, darn, man. You're all alone here, Henry. It reminds me of a bit on The Best Show. Well, okay, but Alex and me are going to team up on you about wrestling stuff later. Oh, no. I'm really getting inert to the whole thing falls over and lights on fire gags in these. It's really starting to get a little cliche. It's true. I mean, they did kind of invent it, but it's been happening a lot lately. I do like that the teacher's desk is a cop car in function. I do like that the teacher's desk is a cop car in function. I do like that. It's also, it's telling how often the discourse these days sort of reflects the fear, I think,

that maybe a lot of authority figures have of, granted, in this case, it's a very mundane thing that is sparking off our youth rioting and causing chaos. But I do think there is a great deal, a great number of people out there who still think that any little spark could send our kids into into you know rioting nonsense uh these days and so like that that stuck with me as i was watching this episode yeah i totally think you're right and i and i think they could be uh referencing their own problem with t-shirts when there was the we talked about it earlier the underachiever and proud of it t-shirt where they were banned from schools some schools banned all simpson stuff bart Bart Simpson who the hell are you like teachers hated that stuff and they were

there is certainly a a fear of t with teachers for all of their students and we're seeing a whole lot of that right now in in uh in the world which I think the students need to be afraid of being in school more than the teachers do at this point like statistically speaking uh so then finally we get the that we as a simpsons continuity nerd we finally find out how skinner became a pow we we knew that he was a pow because they did a lot of cheap jokes about being in a pow camp in vietnam but now we get to know how so we meet again mad magazine how do you know it's for Mad? The year was 1968. We were on recon in a steaming Mekong Delta.

An overheated private removed his flak jacket, revealing a t-shirt with an iron-on sporting the Mad slogan, up with miniskirts. We all had a good laugh, even though I didn't quite understand it. But our momentary lapse of concentration allowed Charlie to get the drop on us. I spent the next three years in a POW camp, forced to subsist on a thin stew made of fish, vegetables,

prawns, coconut milk, and four kinds of rice. I came close to madness trying to find it here in the States, but they just can't get the spices right. Oh, I'm going to have to think about that. Meanwhile, where this home you can really hear it in the capture of the clip but i forgot that they add reverb to his speech yeah it's

pretty nice it's a lot more dramatic yeah i love when people are rambling in a flashback this is a very important flashback then he just gets caught up on what meal he had and he launches into it immediately the year was 1968 yeah uh but yeah as someone who's come to love like fishbased soups and stews, I'm just like, ooh, where can I get this? Four kinds of rice. Sign me up. It does, according to my search online, it sounds like a mock fish. I might be mispronouncing it just because it looks to me like a mock time, the classic Star Trek episode. I'm sure they're the same.

Yeah. It is fascinating how it goes from instantly, like he's about like this horrible ordeal and then like two ingredients. And you're like, actually, that sounds kind of good. Like it doesn't sound so bad. And you can see that like that became the defining moment of like his war experience. I'm glad he had that fine stew and that he's not angry towards the people of Vietnam seemingly. He actually is looking for their food everywhere. He's mostly just angry at the restaurateurs of America who can't figure

out the spice combination. And eight episodes earlier Bart had his clothes destroyed and had to wear a potato sack home. This time he has to wear a cushion home. After having Skinner take his offensive clothing once more. We get some high

quality Burns stuff. This is some of the best Burns stuff ever. No. I need some more ether. I can still feel the movement of the emery board. We're fresh out, sir. I'll get some more. Leave the rag.

Excuse me, Mr. Burns. Poppin' fresh, you glutinous little doughboy. There's something I've wanted to do to you for years. Mr. Burns, I was wondering if you'd like to sponsor my bowling team for $500. Oh, why, pop in fresh. I owe my robust physique to your tubes of triple-bleached goo. Woo-hoo! Hey, everybody, if you want to ask Burns for a favor,

now's the time. He's doped up or dying or something. Excuse me, I'd like to request $17 for a push broom re-bristling. Why, it's that delightful TV leprechaun. I'm going to get you a lucky charms. Oh, no, my brains. That is a, so like when we isolate these sounds without the images, you get a real, you get a better feel of the sound design.

And just, you can hear the drill going into flesh and bone. It's not just a drill. And him not really reacting to it other than to like limply exclaim oh no my brain should we give that line of the episode uh yeah let's do it i that is that is to me i i i think all mole man bits are generally good there are three that i consider like the holy trinity like it's it's that one it's the one from the halloween episode where he's driving the Gremlin and they run it off the road.

And it's man getting hit by football. That is definitely deserving of line of the episode. That's the joke. It's not official till we play the jingle. Yeah. I didn't know about the jingle. Oh, it's okay.

So wait, during his, during his ether frolic, Mr. Burns has a plugged inin power drill at the ready. He's just ready to go. This is a very active Burns who also knows about the Pillsbury Doughboy and Lucky Charms, which doesn't really fit with a guy who seems to still think the Negro Leagues exist. But I love it. The animation of him poking Homer in the stomach and then jabbing at his eye,

and Homer grabs his hand and pokes it off him. It's very good. But Homer's laughing. He laughs at being poked in the eye. I think he just wants to stay on Burns' good side. He wants money. So do you think that they got the ether rag sniffing from Hunter S. Thompson? I feel like that's where Harvard dudes would get it from.

I think probably. I mean, it was like huffing ether has been like an old time. It's the oldest timey way to get high. There's only one way to get high, baby. Ether. I'm sorry. One of my favorite details about Mr. Burns in general is it's not just that he's old and that, you know,

all his references are old. It's that you can tell from the way that he is old that he was once very pop culture savvy. It's just that his pop culture knowledge mostly ended around Teapot Dome. He culture savvy like it's just that it's his pop culture knowledge mostly ended around teapot dome yeah so like he doesn't like it it ends but like you can tell like he he has retained this knowledge and he understands this very specific version of the world that existed when he was like in his 20s and 30s and then it just never evolved beyond that

and you know the lucky charms thing is maybe a little bit weird but other than that like everything that that is why i love the mr burns character is because it's not just that he's old and out of touch. It's that he still thinks he's with it. Yeah, he could have been on the Victrola based podcast of his day. Exactly. I mean, as an idle rich guy, he definitely had time to enjoy all those things like going to boxing matches all the time. He knew everything in sports from up to 1927 i would say yeah and also that he i just love that he thinks that he thinks that the lucky charms guy has a pot of gold in his head

like that's what he thinks as well or well there does wild things to you man it does a man on an ether bender and you don't trust him man the uh and i just love the descriptor doped up or died or something he just got his money he doesn't care all he needed was his money god damn it it's so uh so then we get straight back to they've got their money they are now in the group i love the the kind of vulnerability you see on them walking into the place in their t-shirts with marker on them because they can't afford actual league shirts. I like that. You see that

it hurts their feelings that they don't have real shirts and they instead of quote unquote uniforms unquote. They are small fish in the world of bowling right now. But they have spirit. Hey! Buenas noches señoritas what did he say what did he say was that about me okay i don't appreciate that don't choke don't choke don't

choke oh man i knew i was gonna choke well that, that's a funny-looking strike. Come on, guys. Let's be the team that supports each other. You can do it, Otto. You can do it, Otto. Help each other out. That'll be our motto. You can do it, Otto. You can do it, Otto.

Make this fair. I give you free gelato. Then back to my place, where I will get your blotto. Tomo Eric Otto. Mr. Roboto. You can do it, Otto. You can do it auto you can do it guys i made the spear we won in case you missed the uh the very hard to read writing on the channel six uniforms they're the channel six wastelanders which is a reference to that another vast wasteland

joke yeah they really had that on their minds this season go back to our king size home episode we play part of the speech where the guy says TV is a vast wasteland. We're not doing it twice. Yeah. But the, I also love that Mo can't understand like, not even high school Spanish. Like he doesn't understand he was called a woman by Bumblebee Man. And I think this could be the first

time we see Bumblebee Man's name. It says Pedro on his shirt. But he's also, he's not, he's either sometimes on Channel 6 or not on Channel 6. So when they need him to be there. Sometimes Channel Ocho. Ocho, yeah. I think in the last episode we recorded, he was Channel Ocho.

He was definitely on a different channel than Keith Brockman in Sideshow Bob's Last Gleam. Yeah, that's right. He's one of those comedic talents that is just so out, like so large and so important that, you know, he commands a contract that allows him to move between networks so that he can freely express himself wherever he needs to he can appear on like multiple networks in the same town he'll make that deal he's that powerful and the goya lobby is also that powerful yeah i i'm it's such a great merkin fu to drama that he doesn't it's like oh it's so it's so dramatic will he even hit the 7 10 split and then it's like oh it's so dramatic will he even hit the 7-10 split?

And then it's like it just happened off screen. We don't see it at all. You are denied it. Which is an amazing shot as Marge is later testing to. Yeah which Marge should know because she is an amazing bowler who is kept out of this whole thing as life in the fast lane in season one which I'm sure we all prefer

to forget or just not remember. I think to date we've seen Marge bowling more than Homer. That's true, yeah. I'm pretty sure. Homer will wait. But it's also, it's a very Homer move to exclude her from that sort of thing, especially when it's, you know, the whole root of this is in him trying to get away

from his family and, you know, go out drinking with his guy friends. Like, it makes sense that he wouldn't even think to invite her to be on the team. Oh, yeah. Like, it's like, no, we'll just get Otto, the the weirdo on the fucking claw machine we'll just get him in there first person i see will be the fourth person on this team certainly not my wife who's great at bowling i was i was about to remark how it's weird how we don't see them drinking but later we find

out how much the beer costs and they won't be drinking at this bowling alley i gotta say in san francisco i'd kill for some five dollar beer oh yeah i just like look at them pouring the beer back in from their hair yeah i went up who and auto are wringing their hair so disgusting it's really gross and we get a return of al the owner of marty's bullorama for some reason al named it after his uh nephew but that he's he doesn't sound exactly right i think hank is area forgot what Al sounded like. And he only says those beers are $5, and that's it? That's his only line? Yep, that is his only appearance in this episode.

Oh, I also like in the design for the Bolo-Rama, though, there's tons of cigarette ads everywhere, which is such an old bowling alley thing. I feel like you go, maybe you would still see cigarette ads in some bowling alleys, but I don't think so these days. I think every bowling alley just smells like a cigarette because of the 60 years of smoking that happened in there. Yes.

Yeah, like the only bowling alley I think I've been in in the last decade was in Boston. It was an old candle pin bowling alley, and you could feel the old smoke off the walls if you just started scratching at it a little bit. It was the right kind of dingy. You'd have a real nicotine buzz just licking the walls oh yeah uh so they did so the kids meanwhile have their own problems several days ago a violent riot erupted and decided by an inflammatory t-shirt slogan no no now don't try to remember what that slogan was to ensure that this frenzied dance of destruction is never repeated, I have decided, starting Monday, all students will be required to wear uniforms. Uniforms?

Say hello to our little genius, Martin, who looks even smarter in his vest and short pant combination from Mr. Boy of Main Street. Or how about little Lisa Simpson? She'll have no reason to play the blues in this snappy ensemble, topped off with a saucy French

beret that seems to scream silence. Silence. Alright, pick your size extra small or extra large we've got both no pushing now what oh I've just been informed we've run out of extra large some nice Herb Alpert accompaniments

he returns Spanish fleas back I think the extra small extra large joke is the one they cut in the syndication version because I didn't remember that when i was watching the the episode again and i was like i first of all i hate cutting jokes for syndication and two that was actually one of the better parts of that bit so that made me angry i love the crate of mr boy for girls yeah no alex you're a man after my own heart because on the 138th episode of Spectacular Podcast, I went on quite a rant about cutting jokes for syndication.

I actually feel when I see an episode with a cut joke, it feels like I've lost a limb of like, no, I remember something was there. This is a lie. When the DVDs came out. It's so infuriating. When the DVDs came out, we all realized what we had missed. Yeah, it hurts. But I love Martin's pride at being a runway model for the uniforms.

It's so cool. He loves being himself. And Doris and Skinner are a real combo in this episode, which never really happened before and obviously didn't happen after this. Outside of when they were eating the children. That's true. They did work together to eat children in Treehouse of Horror. But I want to talk about school uniforms because i've lived both sides of this coin i went to a public school from grades uh one to three and then from four to when i graduated i was in

catholic school where there were uniforms and it actually as a as a teenage boy who didn't care about fashion it made my life easier although the biggest pain in the ass was like you have to make sure your shirt is tucked in at all times because when when you grow up when you're an adult you have to have your shirt tucked in everyone tucks in their shirts after they become an adult totally and i my shirt's tucked into this day so it taught me a valuable lesson i've been untucking it ever since man no i uh i i didn't have to do school uniforms. I was lucky. I think definitely Dave Merkin has an opinion that school uniforms are bad. And not only bad, like they turn you into a robot pretty much. Like that they stifle creativity.

Though I have heard the argument now that like one positive of school uniforms is that it isn't like kids aren't like, oh, you don't have the cool jeans. I have as in J-E-A-N-S, jeans. Right. I have a cooler shirt than you. They can't compete in fashion, but then they just compete in other ways. As Bob said earlier to me, the money will show itself. The class will come through. Yeah, kids will always find a way to be miserable to each other,

no matter what the circumstance. If it it's not closed they will find something else to pick at there's a great uh king of the hill joke where they say they got rid of the worst dress category in the yearbook because it turns out all the winners were poor oh i forgot uh and oh man i love that lisa was impressed into doing it, too, because she was, I guess, just the best student. Like, she's a real grade grubber at times. I gotta say, that looks better than Lisa's normal, like, weird strapless red dress she wears. That is true. And those pearls.

Yeah. Pearls on a child? Oh, my goodness. In a way, all the Simpsons characters already wear uniforms because they all only have one outfit. That's true. Yeah, wait a minute. You blow my mind. I do love my brains as line of the episode, but this would be my second line of the episode.

Mom, my slingshot doesn't fit in these pockets. And these shorts leave nothing to the imagination. These uniforms suck. Bart, why do you pick up words like that? Yeah, Moe, that team sure did suck last night. They just plain sucked. I've seen teams suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. Palmer, watch your mouth.

I gotta go. My damn wiener kids are listening. We are not wieners. I just love the phrase, damn wiener kids. Damn wiener kids. Oh, it's so good. It's beautiful. My damn wiener kids.

Lisa protesting, we are not wieners. It's so beautiful that she could say, don't be mean, don't whatever. But hearing Lisa say, we're not wieners is so funny. And why you dress like one. And also that Bart's complaining like it leaves nothing to the imagination. It's like, ew, yuck. That's a disgusting way to describe children's clothes. Well, we learned that Bart hates underwear that's true sancho bob's last gleaming he doesn't have an unfurnished basement anymore i would bet in that outfit like he prefers a loose fit and this oh yeah right before this though there is a little

montage of them beating multiple teams including the uh patty and selma from the dmv they they defeat the cops because uh wigum trusted snake to be their fourth man and just like they you gotta have four men on the team so losing losing their fourth man is why they forfeit but it's just a perfect thing especially snakes love it and just like hopping out the uh helping at the door yeah and we get to see that it's a thing that annoys me when we see the holy rollers that i guess we have to know lovejoy is a minister even though that like ned doesn't even have a line in this episode like none of them talk it's they just put together their oh wait he

does have yeah i'm sorry he has one yeah it's me but ned is basically not a character in this that could be any devout person they're facing. Ned often would be used a lot more in a story where he's such a plot point in it. I do like how they group these characters together. I thought it was all very clever how they found all these matching groups. It's kind of them recognizing their tropes of like, I guess we did make four characters that do this or four characters that are stereotypes. We definitely have four characters that have all tried to entice a simpson into cheating on their spouse at some point so here's here's the homewreckers uh but so we're back to burns this is i i love this sitcom trope

fuckery in this bit here you gotta start acting more like me and my team the future league champions of the world nothing's gonna stop to stop us now. Stop everything. I don't remember writing a check for bowling. Sir, that's a check for your bowing. Oh, yes. That's very important. Yes, sir. Remember that month you didn't do it?

Yes. That was unpleasant for all concerned. Anyway, back to the checks. Stop everything. I don't remember writing a check for bowling. Hmm. The memo says to my pal, Poppin' Fresh. Oh, yes, that greedy grasping glob of chemicals.

Probably one of your ether-induced hallucinations, sir. I'll check the employee files to see who could pull off such an impersonation. Hmm. That was either Pops Freshenmayer... or Homer Simpson. Simpson, eh? are homer simpson simpson hey let's shut down this bowling scam right now that whole bowling thing i was i was trying to unpack into my mind i think it's they're saying like burns is so weak and frail he has to get his poop surgically removed once a month yeah it definitely sounded like a colonic type deal to me or that well yeah i guess a bowing is he certainly would

not have the energy to do most things and that would include a bowel movement moving one's bowels he does not i hate thinking about his bowels but they brought it up yes yeah i don't like thinking about any part of his physiology because it all just reminds me of the the horrors of aging and death uh but that said given given his history with medical procedures on the show, I imagine there is scraping involved. Oh, yeah. They got to be careful of that because as Burns is quick to point out, he has leprosy and he doesn't even care.

He's like, well, that's leprosy. And later we find out he has every disease. Yeah, that's true. But, God, I just love the archness of them saying, I don't remember a check for bowling. Then we saying, I don't remember a check for bowling. Then we say, I don't remember a check for bowling. It's the same scene twice. It's beautiful.

And recently in the news, there was all that front-facing Simpsons meme stuff. I got to say, front-facing Homer in the shots of him looking at Burns and Burns thinking he's popping fresh, that's a good front facing Homer, I would say. I was going to say, there's a decent amount of front facing in this episode, like because of all the bowling shots, like you get a few good dead on shots of like Moe and Homer and a few other people. And it's probably, at least in my memory, it's the episode that has the most of that. Yeah.

I mean, if you get one little thing wrong with these designs, it just looks monstrous. So especially when they're facing the camera. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more making your usage clearer, your trips greener,

your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electric Ireland. Dot. I E they're only supposed to be in one angle and not move. That's that's, but that's, Hey,

that's why they pay the animators big bucks you know we get to see the the homewreckers princess cashmere mindy learn lean lumpkin and jock i have something to say yeah i wrote unfair next to mindy in my notes because mindy didn't try to wreck the home they as two adults they decided let's not let's not have sex with each other she made it homer's choice yeah but she's like well i'm unattached and though this is in this is against the bit of her hitting the bottle pretty bad as homer said she could have recovered that's true yeah well then she shouldn't be in a bowling alley she's surrounded by alcohol that's true so they were unfair to her twice yeah it's uh but jock i think jock is right to get like

a shove from i believe it's princess cashmere because he should have been their ringer he should be bowling a 300 every time. He's a former bowling instructor. But, you know, as age and time come along, you know, the athleticism tends to diminish. So I think we are seeing a diminished Jacques here. I think we are seeing a Jacques that has maybe fallen on harder times and has maybe focused too much on his, you know, wife stealing and maybe not as much on his bowling. Well, yeah, maybe he's only good enough to impress middle-aged housewives who don't know anything about bowling

or or maybe because he couldn't close the deal with marge it made it made him doubt himself so much that he's lost a lot of skills oh he's broken jock they need to get a brooks back to do a jock i mean every fucking episode gets a sequel episode now why, why not bring back Albert Brooks to be Jacques again and do something with that? They brought back Lurleen. I mean, there may be other things I would rather have Albert Brooks do, but yes, I would be fine with that. Give me Hank Scorpio again first. Oh, God, I miss him. But anyway, yes, they win the game thanks to some very clever rhyming.

Come on, Homer. Come on, Homer. Pretend this is baseball and hit us a homer. Yeah! Yeah! Roll it. clever rhyming. Come on, Homer. Come on, Homer. Pretend this is baseball and hit us a Homer. By the way, rhyming Homer with Homer. Look at them Smithers enjoying their embezzlement. I have a much uglier word for it, sir. Misappropriation. Tenson! Listen here. I want to join your team. You want to join my what? You want to what his team?

I've had one of my unpredictable changes of heart. Seeing these fine young athletes reveling in the humiliation of a vanquished foe. I haven't felt this energized since my last, uh, bowling. So we were just doing the series Talking Futurama on Patreon, and that Join His Team, What His Team, it reminded me of Where's the Bathroom? What room? Bathroom. Bath what?

Bathroom. What what? Yes. Sorry, I forgot the joke halfway through. That was from iRoommate, the third episode of the series. Yeah, they topped that gag even more with the what what. But I just love that. You want to what his team?

You want to join my what? They know they're telling a joke, and I love that. And I know everybody, when they tweet chef kisses, there's one of Carl doing the chef kiss. But I like Homer's rhyming Homer with Homer. Mwah, he does the chef kiss. That should be the meme to chef kiss i say that is my campaign and i'm picking up on more apu dialogue during this uh yeah you rolled it you rolled it uh one of my all-time favorite comedy devices also employed in this scene uh which is

the throwing the heavy object off screen and hearing a horrible that is that will always make me laugh i am not ashamed to admit it. I love when people are incidentally harmed. Homer broke a limb on someone. There are two people, sorry, Henry, there are two people maimed off screen in this episode. That's true. I mean, if you saw the blood, it wouldn't be as funny. It's true.

No, you just have to hear the noise. That's all. So I'm going to say from Homer's side of things, Burns endorsed a check. Like he's got the money. He doesn't have to give it back. Obviously, he'll be fired if he doesn't go along with what Burns wants, I guess. But he's the law is on his side. Maybe it was misappropriation, but Burns signed it. I guess they could probably prove he was under an ether hallucination. It doesn't count that is true i mean we we know about burns's you know cadre of lawyers and you know his his willingness to go fight for any like red scent that he might have lost uh so i i wouldn't be surprised if if there was just this constant omnipresent fear of burns lawyers that maybe informed some of the decision making here that's true yeah i forgot about his team of high-priced lawyers as he put it my theory is post who shot mr burns mr burns is sort of recharacterized as a as a more uh they play

down his evil side and more play up is like out of touch doddering old man side he's sort of like grandpa simpson but with the power of infinite money behind him to do whatever he wants yeah though in a future episode he will try to murder bart like i guess his evil side does come back occasionally it comes up sometimes he's energized to do evil but guess his evil side does come back occasionally it comes up sometimes he's energized to do evil but other times he is just he's he's more tired and doddering than evil i just love how he says my last bowling like he has some satisfaction remembering that bowling just really leaning on the word in a way that makes you think about his bowels whether you want to or not yes yeah and

and i've been in homer's scenario of thinking it'll be easier to tell someone no later and then it isn't and then you're just trapped in it like just say no first guys like but the one issue i have with this is that smithers like smithers helps mr burns cheat at golf so you figure he would have stuck around to help mr burns cheat at bowling but a other other than him kicking over the pins which should not count anyway i think that's the only time he really inserts himself into the playing of bowling i think it's much easier to help mr burns cheat at golf because golf courses are very wide open spaces it's not just one thin lane that's true like i could see a version of this script where there is a scene

with smithers like back where the pins are sort of you know knocked away and like him on some sort of elaborate harness like trying to knock them down without being seen but that maybe is a little more elaborate than what this episode is going for yeah i i also love fantastic animation on burns his tongue unfurling onto the ball like he's that exhausted over the ball yes yeah i mean that ball is filthy that had to be a lane it had to be a ball from the place it was not his personal one but so this like this came just a couple of episodes after uh king size homer where you know a granted he's not doing a lot but you know a more calisthenics focused burns is actually doing physical activity like you know he's doing those

iroquois twists like he's he's had some physical capability in that episode granted tossing a bowling ball is a much heavier and more exertive thing but you know it seems like he maybe he fell off the the calisthenics wagon a little bit between episodes yeah yeah i mean he can eventually get a bowling ball all the way down the lane which is is a huge achievement for Mr. Burns. Let's give a listen. Call this an unfair generalization if you must, but old people are no good at everything. Look, guys, it's not that simple. He's my boss.

I'll tell you what. I'll give him a shot and if he stinks, it'll be easier to tell him no. Move! welcome aboard it wasn't any easier and uh then we go back to the school and the life with uniform stuff i do like it now this this is merkin and Scully imagining, oh yeah, uniforms sap you of all creativity. You're done, which is what your school wants anyway, which I do kind of believe in that one. Most teachers don't want you to be creative. That's annoying.

They want high spirits to be at an all-time low? Yes. Ah, these uniforms are a godsend. Horseplay is down 40%. Youthful exuberance has been cut in half. High spirits are at an all-time low. They've even begun blinking in unison. I love that sound.

Now, children, while you're having quiet time, I'm going to make sure my desk is exactly parallel to the rear wall. There's something I used to do in this situation but can't remember this is the third time in the series that i can think of where bart is tempted by the presence of a large adult ass the last one was the exact same scenario. Almost every animation, really.

Yeah, where it was the Sunday school one. He's like, must fight Satan, make it up to him later. It's the same deal. I would say they drew Edna's butt to rival Skinner's from him when he was tying his shoes. Over, under, in and out. And the kids are so pliable to programming. They can be taught to blink in unison.

They have completely forgotten who they were a week ago. And not only that, like, they've already forgotten down with homework, too. Somehow they forgot that slogan. It's, ha-ho. I just love that delivery. It's so beautiful. Nelson is disturbed. Hey, I mean, Skinner told them, don't remember what that slogan was.

That's true. It's out of their brains. It's a trenchant commentary on the malleability and the destruction of, you know, modern child's minds, you know, by the TV and the video games and what have you. They have no ability to retain anything unless it is constantly pumped at them 24 hours a day. So the second you take away any sign of individuality, they completely lose it. And also, yeah, I think the animators had a real... They liked drawing Edna's bobbing butt. Yes, sure. I mean, who among us, really?

Yeah, that's true. But I especially think some of them had fun, like, oh, I'm drawing Edna bending over and shaking her butt in a seductive way. Like, they had a good time. Somebody owns those cells. Somebody else. Some bad person.

The only person I knew in real life who owned the Simpsons cell was a very bad person. Because he was rich enough to afford it. Like, that guy sucked. An old boss. Like sort of a wealthy comic book guy? Anyway. Kind of. Kind of.

So then we're back. Otto gets fired from the team, which I do love him trying to get a harvard diploma especially because this episode uh writer sidewise it's dave merkin and mike scully who are the non harvard dudes they're probably the highest ranking guys in simpsons history other than mac reigning who didn't go to harvard all the rest of them are harvard writers and meanwhile scully didn't go to harvard merkin didn't go to harvard that's true. Every showrunner but Mike Scully was a Harvard jerk. I mean, Scully's even a college dropout, as he happily admits. Oh, and then we get the stereotypes joke as well.

Let's give that a listen. Look at that. All the way to the end with only one push. That's the third game in a row we cost us, homer. Mama mia. Hitsman. Yee-haw. Arr, me mateys.

Arr. Oh, they begged me to join their team. Begged me. Well, we certainly got walloped tonight, eh, fellas? Well, Mr. Burns, next week is the big championship game. Ah, yes, that silly championship. The only ship worth a damn is friendship. Look, here comes the friendship sailing your way.

Oh, here, let me get that friend. Oops, lost a nail. Well, that's leprosy for you. It's really clear that Mr. Burns does not know what the rules of bowling are. He just thinks you get the ball to the rules of bowling are he just thinks you get the ball to the end of the lane but he's so friendly though he's it's hard to it's hard to hate his friendliness and that god that how cap sea captain leans into our mateys he's just so satisfied it really means anything you want it to yes and but the his god the thought

of him with a nail floating a beer is so disgusting. And he doesn't even understand what a championship is or why anyone would care. Like the escalation of that bit in general. Like it's bad enough someone putting something in your drink. Like that's not okay. And then reaching into the drink. Oh, that's extra not okay. And oh, look, sorry, I have leprosy and my nails in there.

Like that's just, that's a good one, two, three bits of a joke. Also, the boat melts when it hits the water. It just crumples. And that Burns lifts up his glass with the implication of, let's toast. He wants Simpson to drink that immediately. There's an act break. Drink my disease.

Yes, drink it. That act break hides the fact that Homer did drink that beer. I mean, Homer would. He's still Homer would still say no to a beer. You would hope at least Burns bought them the beer. Maybe that happened for them at least. The uniform stuff wraps up in a very clever fashion here. Well, I've got to hand it to you, Seymour. These drab student coverings have created the perfect distraction-free environment,

thus preparing the children for permanent positions in tomorrow's mills and processing facilities. Best of all, with less than a minute to go before I leave, absolutely nothing has gone wrong. Well, it is starting to rain, but I could hardly be blamed for that, can I? Yeah. Yeah, very good.

Wow, look at all the colors, man. Red, green, yellow, orange. I remember all of these. I'm freaking out! Hey, something's coming back to me. I'm freaking out! Hey, something's coming back to me. Down with homework! And down with uniforms! Yeah!

Ow, ow, ow! Skinner, why aren't these uniforms colorfast? I don't understand it. I got them at the same place I buy mother's dresses and be... Good Lord, mother's in the park. Now this I gotta see. So the bullies are willing to give stripping Martin a pass because they're so enchanted by the colors.

They're all on a psychedelic freakout. And even Martin, who seemed to love the uniforms, the colors have freaked him out, and this is really digging too much into it. But so do the uniforms come with underwear you have to wear? Or does Martin just take them up on the offer to wear undies? Because I would think the students should be wearing their own underwear at least, right? Maybe the colors bled onto his underwear, though, from the outside.

I mean, as we know, is is very game for anything the administration uh presents to him i mean he was the only volunteer for the child tracking service and whatnot so i feel like it is very believable that they said oh it comes with underwear he'd be like oh that's great yes totally yeah though he'd say it in a more fey way which i do i love about martin that he is just he is free i've said this many times about Martin that he is the receptacle for a ton of gay kid jokes and bullying gay kid jokes. But I love that that never slows him down. It doesn't hurt his spirit. He is just a free spirit all the time.

And I love that about him. He throws a great party except for the oysters. Yeah. Oh, God. Had a great pool for a while there it's a nice pool uh but yeah the the the the freaking out and not to mention to like chalmers again saying like and with one minute left everything is fine i'll just draw the zero my favorite aspect of the dynamic between chalmers and and skinner is that it's not just that chalmers hates him it's that chalmers, I think deep down,

wants to like him. Every time Chalmers goes in on Skinner, it's because he's disappointed him in some severe way. And granted, severe in the context of school administrative situations, which are not really that life or death, but it's the only thing he cares about. And Skinner constantly disappoints him.

In these moments, you can see like Chalmers is almost willing to be like ah you did all right you did good but then something some some catastrophe happens and he just has to go back right back to being like god you idiot I was you were so close Skinner why why can you never achieve this

these are the most meager things you could possibly achieve in the realm of school administration you still can't do it. But he keeps giving him another chance every time. Chalmers will keep giving him chances. There's one thing I want to point out in the next scene. Homer's stolen Oscar. Do we have that?

Oh, wait. Before we get to that, colorfast is such a random term even now that I had to Google it. I didn't know what it was before this episode. Yeah, no, me neither. I mean, I didn't know until this recording that it was a real thing i knew when he said it even in first viewing i'm like well that is some sort of term for garments i'm gonna say i i can assume that from context clues but colorfast is a treatment to make dyes not run in water that's that's what it is but yes bob let's talk about some tragedy i don't have the clip of the oscar but homer homer just wants an uh some other award for his award shelf right that's

right and uh we see in every airing since the first one he has the oscar for don amici uh best supporting actor i believe for cocoon cocoon yeah and the first uh airing it was actually the oscar for uh dr hang s and gore who won for the killing fields he was a real life uh refugee i think was it cambodia prison cambodia yes um murdered in san francisco actually uh after this first airing so 49 days after yes sport so that changed the joke that changed the joke to imply that homer was the one homer murdered him and stole his oscar so in this case i will say yes that's a good change to make although the typography on hang us no more i'm sorry i'm not saying that right is much better

spelled and printed than don amici don amici is very shodly printed on that oscar yeah that's true it seems like a really quick redo yeah it was but i mean you know sometimes you have to make decisions like this like context for jokes andext for jokes and context for art in general can change over time, and in this case, very quickly over time. And we see people screaming about censorship and changing things for changing the intended meaning. But in cases like this, I don't know how you don't change that. Yeah, I don't know why some – this is not a hill to die on, this censorship. And it is self-censorship in the way to, in the first episode of Futurama, in the first airing, there was a joke about JFK Jr. Airport, which takes a very different meaning after John F. Kennedy Jr. dies in a plane crash. Right.

So they changed it to Radio City Mutantal, which honestly I think is a funnier turn of phrase. Better joke. And I do want to point out that we have talked about Heng S. Nagore before. to Radio City Mutantal, which honestly I think is a funnier turn of phrase. Better joke. And I do want to point out that we have talked about Heng S. Nagore before. He was actually, I believe, on the second episode of The Critic as a way to show what an asshole Jay Sherman is because they show a clip like,

he should have visited the acting fields. Yes, yeah. I guess too, I don't love Heng S. Nagore. It feels just like, they ask themselves, what's the most random name we could put on an oscar like what's the most random oscar winner and it feels like a very hashtag oscar so white moment that they're like well this non-white person who won an oscar one of the very rare ones he doesn't have an american name that would be silly to see that that would be the one

homer stole i think also because he was not really an actor he was uh before that or after that so uh fortunately after i mean i never heard hang us nagore jokes other than this and that one and the critic then in our generation the joke of undeserving oscars was marissa tomei she was the the one who got that which i think is pretty shitty because she is actually a very good actor and she was i mean you know what my cousin vinnie is not a movie that i feel much need to ever revisit but like i remember her actually being very good in that yes i i think she might have beat out some slightly more you know weighty performances in that category but like i don't know i i think people giving people shit for not deserving an oscar outside of you know the occasional thing like crash winning like is is

just kind of a waste of time yeah and if you watch my cousin vinny you can see uh herman munster play a judge which is the best part of that movie that's true that is that is herman munster if you want to see some good marisa tomei acting i would say i really love her in the slums of beverly hills and yes uh and also the in the bedroom in the bedroom she is also very good ah the hated wife or girlfriend of the son who gets murdered in that movie. She is great in that, in a very underappreciated role. Anyway, that's enough Oscar talk. I just have Oscars on the brain because at the time of this recording, it was last weekend. So I'm thinking about it more than I normally do.

It's a very classic Homer moment to say that someone clogged the toilets. He can't take the blame even in front of Marge, like, that he's the only person who did it. It's very Homer. And, you know, I never thought of Maude and Helen as being great bowlers, but obviously they are if they have been champions with the Holy Rollers this whole time.

It's a very great and also hard-to-pull-off thing in animation to have all of them go while Burns' ball is slowly rolling down. It requires a lot of timing to figure that out. Oh that this is another like line of the show caliber moment for me just because mo over explaining his needlessly over explaining this plan is so beautiful don't worry about nothing homer i have a feeling that mr burns is gonna have a little accident that might keep him from bowling with us tonight. Smithers, I'm afraid I won't be able to play tonight.

My old gimpy knee is going to gimbo again. Take that! Smithers, that precision assault popped it back into place. Thank you, masked stranger. Oh, he's gonna ruin everything of course it's referencing the uh the real precision assaults of uh nancy kerrigan yeah sorry yeah this was this was relevant then now we're in the wake of itania uh oscar loser oscar yeah no show i uh john mulaney is one of my favorite comedians and he and nick kroll

hosted the independent spirit award or whatever the the Spirit Awards for Films, which is the thing that happens right before the Oscars. And in their monologue, they had this great gag about I, Tonya, because they said, like, we want to see a sequel called I, Nancy, about Nancy Kerrigan going to the movies and seeing an Oscar-nominated film that's about how the people who attacked her are the real victim in all of this i gotta say and then he followed that up by saying i'm just kidding nobody thinks about nancy kerrigan i tanya is a terrible adaptation of isaac asimov's work not recommended i don't know it doesn't have converse sneakers in it like will smith's i robot you learn the three rules of harding i'm done i just i was i was not a fan of them like a year where i had to choose between Allison Janney and Laurie Metcalf Like I don't want to have to make that choice

I do not envy anyone who had to make that choice Like that is Whoever wins we lose It should have been Laurie Metcalf She bought me too much Goodwill with Roseanne I know but Allison Janney is the greatest too I think that would split the vote for me Of just like well which TV actress do we give this to?

Say, let's forget about Scream 2. Give Laurie Metcalf an Oscar just for existing. She is the greatest in Scream 2. I love that. I mean, she's the greatest in everything. Even in the thankless role of being Sheldon's mom in the one episode of Big Bang Theory I watched with my mother. Scream 2, Aunt Jackie's Revenge. They had to reshoot that to make her the villain because it got spoiled that Timothy Oliphant was the killer.

That was one of the first big internet leaks. Now I think no one cares. No, nobody cares. I cared very much about Scream at the time of Scream 2. After that, not so much. I love that Moe, even after smashing his knee, like he's not, he doesn't care about hiding anymore. He takes off his mask in front of everybody. Like mask off and keep talking. Well, Burns thanked him.

That's true. And then we get, I never wanted these shirts until watching this episode again. And now I watch them like, I do want to, you can buy these shirts. They do exist. Mr. Burns, as team captain, it's my duty to inform you that... Oh, I almost forgot. I brought you all a little something. Oh, would you look at that?

The pin pass. At last, I finally have a garment fine enough to be married in. I've always been wealthy, but this is the first time I ever felt rich. Now, Homer, you were about to say something to me you're off the team i do what he's just ribbing your money yes as a an extremely cool teen i did wear a lot lot of bowling shirts I got from Goodwill and other, like, thrift stores. And I have to say, I like them, but now I feel like I can't wear one unless I'm Ska adjacent. You need to be Ska adjacent. It's a very 90s Ska kind of presentation.

I mean, there was even that band Let's Go Bowling. Like, I don't know. Somehow bowling and Ska became intertwined in a way that I never completely understood. You need also frosted tips and a hemp necklace. Yes. I had it all. At that point, you're just Smash Mouth. You're just the guy from Smash Mouth.

You're right. You're right. Oh, God, no. I briefly was the guy from Smash Mouth as a teen. Yeah, you're gone. He seems like a cool guy. He ate all those eggs. He's happy and rich.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, there's worse ways to go when you're a rich dude and i i recall him yelling at donald trump for uh donald trump's used the expression smash mouth or something like that i'm certain donald trump has no clue what the band smash mouth and it was the one time everyone was on the side of smash mouth host like shrek 2 well i i know during uh pride week uh pride month last month a lot of my trans pals were retweeting him that he did a non-ironic just like trans flag I support you tweet.

I was like, wow, that's pretty awesome. The Smash Mouth guy? Yeah, the Smash Mouth guy. Thumbs up to you. He's woke Smash Mouth, okay? Look, no one is saying the Smash Mouth guy is bad. We're just saying the Smash Mouth guy

looks like the Smash Mouth guy. That's the only comment saying the Smash Mouth guy looks like the Smash Mouth guy. That's the only comment here. He walked on the sun. He's a national hero. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter.

Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. But those pinpal shirts, like if you go to Universal Studios, either one, and go to the gift shops, you're going to get yourself a Pin Pal shirt, I believe. It's a great design. They definitely have a 7-Eleven, 7-Eleven, a Quickie Mart shirt there, too, that you can get with Apu's name on it, which appeared in the documentary, The Problem with Apu. Actually, I believe all of the staff got these shirts this year as a gift, and they also got their own customized bowling balls, and they were recalling on the commentary that they remember when they should have been writing the show,

they were getting their fingers measured for the bowling ball holes and their customized Simpsons bowling balls. Oh, that's beautiful. And I also love their chummy goofing around with Monty, like, oh, you guys. It's so unnatural, around with Monty like oh how you guys like it's it's so unnatural but the Monty seems it's something I kind of uh missed in previous viewings of this that Monty is earnestly friendly to them he's like no he is their chum on the team he is he's not cruel he's not

mean he just loves being on this team with his new friend his only real friend is just a horrible sycophant, so he's actually getting to bro down, which he can't do with Smithers. Yeah, that's true. Smithers just isn't the best bro, I would say. So they play the game. I love the gag of Burns standing in front of Homer

and revealing that Homer did it, which there's no reason he would stand in front of Homer right after he rolled the ball. It's a great screw-the-audience joke. It's so great. As Merkin loves. But if I may talk statistics. So for them to be one pin ahead,

if you assume that Mr. Burns got a zero every frame he did, even if every other team member bowled a perfect 300, they would still have to have someone on the holy rollers team would have had to do just as bad to even out the scores four ways you know what i mean like the holy rollers there's no explanation of why they did bad enough to be even with a team where one member has a zero i don't know a whole lot about that aspect of bowling i bowled a lot and i tried i remember as a kid i was actually bored enough where i tried to watch bowling on TV, and the real question of that experience was,

which one of these throws will not be a strike? That's exactly what you're looking for. It's sort of like waiting for the crash in NASCAR or something like that. I guess at some point we just have to assume that someone on the Holy Rollers was just not good, right? We just didn't see it necessarily. Someone on that team just did not have god on their side maybe lovejoy is the mr burns of their team and that he sponsored it he he's the team captain but he's actually terrible well lovejoy does not like being around ned so maybe that's throwing him off he does not like ned flanders there's a whole other

story here we're not seeing about that but the only time i watched televised bowling was watching a couple episodes of that comedy central bowling show that had the voice of salem the uh the cat oh nick mckay yeah let's bowl i think that's right i think there's some weird like it's a mystery science related show yeah i was gonna say there's some weird like joel hodgson connection or maybe lj elvis weinstein or something like that i think so i think that's the only reason i would have watched it because somebody on mst3k info would have told me like this is related to mystery science theater through someone's cousin like well then i'm watching this show i suffered through uh excruciating episodes of make me laugh for frank conniff's appearances what a dumb show that was uh he sang a song about michael andin he sang a song about

michael andin i. I would laugh just seeing Frank on it. Yeah, it was just funny. I mean, he's just not TV's Frank without that suit, though. Anyway, it comes down to the final bit of luck with Burns finally knocking over two pins. And they've won it! They've won the

game! Yes! Woohoo! We won! We won! You mean I won? But we were a team, sir. Oh, I'm afraid I've had one of my trademark changes of heart. You see, teamwork will only take you so far. Then the truly evolved person

makes that extra grab for personal glory. Now, I must discard my teammates, much like the boxer must shed rule after rule of sweaty, useless, disgusting flab before he can win the title. I guess some people never change. Or they quickly change and then quickly change back. That's definitely like a very David Merkin commentary on sitcoms. It's like, okay, everything has to go back to normal. Burns is evil again. They're not friends anymore.

There's no more bowling league. We have to reset the entire show. We've got 30 seconds left. We've got to reset everything. But a good reset, you know, I think, you know, can play as a good gag. And this one, like the constant switching back and forth of Burns' personality, maybe speaks to larger issues with him and his advanced age. But also, it's perfect.

It's the exact thing Mr. Burns would do. He's going to screw you over at some point. He is the scorpion riding on the frog's back. And in this case, the frog is a bowling team, and he is the scorpion. He only really got into this to relish in the agony of those he's defeated. He can even defeat his own teammates. It makes it better.

That's true. Man, actually, that is a very good reading of that emotionally, of why he would do that. Yeah. Also, I do the animation not only of the precision with which his ball is riding the edge is perfect. It's right in the middle. It's very well done. And also the animation of his seemingly boneless hand being hit by the air is just, God, it's beautiful. That's great.

But also, Homer doesn't get to win because you don't get to win in The Simpsons. Like, if you won, then you wouldn't be unhappy. So you get, like, two frames of Homer holding the trophy, and then it's immediately snatched from him, and it's just gone. I also do love this at least auto got his lobster harmonica at least the best the best part of the auto bit is that like presumably that harvard diploma is also still in there and he went for the lobster harmonica it feels like that uh that crane game was attached like the building's foundation or

something with the way it just like disrupted everything and i love does anyone else live near a crane game that has like really weird shit in it from time to time oh i'll occasionally do oh what's in it uh so it's it's mostly normal stuff like you know stuffed animals and whatnot but every once in a while there's be like a random dvd in there like i walked past it last week and there was a copy of what women want on dvd in this claw machine that's a good place for it yeah usually i'll walk by and it'll be like oh oh, yeah, that movie was seven years old that plush character is from. So they really need to change out these toys.

The last UFO catchers I saw in person, I went to Tokyo a couple months ago, but they keep theirs fresh. But they do have very random ones of like, there was one with like a giant beach ball in it and you just had to remove it from the hook. And it seems very simple of like, well, all I have to do is tap this and i'm gonna get that beach ball like no you're you're really not there to trick you yeah i god damn it i love i love this ending that they have like they have a triple fuck you i would say so first i they have a fuck you of well homer doesn't get to win then they have the one of mo saying the very cliched hey we got each other right no that they are not

satisfied by that then you get that they decide to commit that they are out to steal instead of instead of being satisfied by that then you think homer is going to successfully steal it and then he does not after the triumphant music plays and he and then you think well his friends just said how much they love each other no he is abandoned by his friends and left to die a five pete uh screw you it is it's it's very it is so dense we don't need him or his trophy we got each other huh The verb Mo chooses is feeding before they're through feeding like eating my friend alive that's

gotta be one of the more violent punchlines to a homer gets injured joke falling and breaking bones and what not there's plenty of that but like getting ripped apart by a pack of dogs that's that's a level above yes especially how they would go to the credits with him still screaming under the you know executive five more seconds of screaming and and i think dan castellan on the commentary is talking about

how he's like i've done so much screaming but you made me do original screaming for this episode. We need contextual screaming. Not any scream will do. But he is dead. Homer is dead. Those dogs are tearing him apart for so long. It's like, well, Homer's dead. Even one hound getting released on you, I think you're dead then.

But the three that are the killer hounds, it's also just a nice throwback to have Burns. Burns hasn't released the hounds in quite a while. It's been a while. Yeah. I guess the Greyhounds were pounds we never released them yes yeah i mean he owned hounds but he didn't release hounds that that how going back to simpson saying the blues is an entire song about releasing the hounds even there's an entire song there is oh yes well it's in the bird i mean it's not it. Right, right. And releasing the hounds is a major... It's returned to multiple times in that song. I thought I missed the B-side or something. I wanted to make sure. Look at all those idiots.

Look at all those fools. The release of the hound song is only on the Japanese release. Live from Budokan. Yes. But, yeah. Yeah. This episode is great. I love how it undercuts sitcom tropes as the best merkin show ran episodes do i didn't

mention mark kirkland the director of this episode the animation team was very game for you know animating sports not easy and having to do completely new character designs for every child in the school and there's a ton of crowd stuff like they're asked to animate two riots and two of those riots have to happen when the kids have kaleidoscope colors on them which i don't know maybe it's hard to ask people in korea to paint i think it helps that they're only like in three locations throughout this entire episode and they're not new locations so that saves some animator death that's true it is a great looking episode and i think it is you know even though it is not like a particularly meaningful episode,

I think it is. It has some fun with the idea of, you know, friendship over, you know, competitive spirit. And then also just completely abandoning that entirely by the end of it and just saying friendship doesn't matter. We need to friggin win. A great episode, right? Yes. And before we go, I will let Alex tell us where he's from, where we can find his work and his videos and other fun stuff.

You can find me. I am Alex underscore Navarro, N-A-V-A-R-R-O on Twitter. And GiantBomb.com is where most of the things I do for a living live. And you can watch or listen to me play video games, a wide variety of them on the website. We heartily endorse it. And your Twitter account? What's that? You know, it's a place where people go to be sad, and that's generally where I like to be sad.

You'll find me there. If you want to be sad with me, you can find me on Twitter. Yes. Hey, we didn't even talk about wrestling this whole time. I'm saved. But are you heading to the Long Beach New Japan show? I will not be. Getting out to Long Beach around that time is just not going to work out for me, sadly.

One of these days, I'm going to make it to one of those U.S. New Japan shows, though I have been to a couple of the Ring of Honor across New Japan ones here in New York, and those have been super fun. Yeah, finally they're doing stuff on the West Coast instead. I've always been jealous of you getting the East Coast Ring of Honor stuff. Yeah, like East Coast indie wrestling, you know, it's a hallowed tradition. I'm glad to be able to see it from time to time, but I think

it's definitely time the West Coast got their due. So thanks again to Alex. If you want to go to the sad place, you can find me, Bob Mackey, on Twitter as Bob Servo. I'm there hanging out and making jokes. You can also listen to my other podcast, Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast. It's been going on since 2006. Go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast. It's been going on since 2006. Go to

retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast machine. I say find a topic that interests you and download the corresponding episode. You should like it if you like me, and I hope you like me. Henry, please, what else do we do here? Well, you can find me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G.

I'm competing with Alex on Sadness, but it's not close. He's got me beat there. But we are supported by Patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. If you enjoy this, know that Bob and I do it full time thanks to the support of wonderful subscribers at Patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons,

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There's tons of exclusions you get there. If you just, just for starting at $5 a month, $10 a month gets you even more cool stuff. So please head over to Patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Yes, thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week with two bad neighbors and some pretty awesome guests. Later. Wow. Infotainment.