Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Teen Angel 25th Anniversary With Gayest Episode Ever

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

It's been 25 years since Simpsons legends Al Jean & Mike Reiss created Teen Angel, and we're breaking format to celebrate that with Drew Mackie and Glen Lakin from the great Gayest Episode Ever Podcast! We explore this TGIF original that's lost to time, digging deep into its creation, the entire magical sitcom genre, and any lingering gay subtext in the series' first ep. So grab an old burger and follow us back to 1997 in this heavenly podcast! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast found online at www.angel.marty.cooldude.com. I'm your host, Kelsey Grammer's guardian angel, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. It's Andrew Gilbert, and I'm also just like Gilligan.

And who do we have on the line, our special guests? Staunch Marine McCormick defender, Drew Mackie. And I'm nose-breaking football, Glenn Lakin. And this week, we're looking at the Teen Angel episode, Marty Buys the Farm. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Going up? Good choice.

I thought you'd love that up-o-up-o-bob. My blood is boiling. This episode originally aired on September 26, 1997, 25 years ago. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, boy, Bobby. Family Matters and Step by Step officially moved to CBS to battle with TGIF. The Peacemaker is number one at the box office. And Google.com is registered by Google.

So, you know, your com joke guys is uh incredibly relevant for the time of this episode people are getting on that internet this is really the the magic potions and pirate ships era family matters oh yes oh yeah i i have many thoughts on that but yeah the a key part of teen angel history is tgif canceled a bunch of their long into the tooth shows and cbs thought that they could compete with tgif so they did new seasons of two of them family matters and step by step which is step by step seems slightly magical when i read a couple episodes descriptions from that season but obviously family matters became a full-on cartoon in the final season there were robots in season three i think it was heading in that direction anyways.

It was the natural dead end of Family Matters. I think this last season they were on ABC. They have a Halloween special where there's an evil puppet version of Steve named Stevel, which is like the umpteenth variation on Steve having a different version of himself running around. And he actually kills everyone in the episode off. It's like a slasher movie it's very very strange we may cover it in the distant future when we run out of other weird episodes of tv to talk about i mean i like the variations of steve

a lot more than the variations of loki and loki i guess it is pretty similar you know that is the similar thing oh no are they going to do like a multiverse of urkels next and disney owns yeah does disney own that property i assume i think it was a laura mar show so that would put it in the warner camp actually hbo max yeah well not anymore i bet it got killed by hbo max yeah they killed the urkel verse project and and does anyone remember The Peacemaker as one of DreamWorks' early live-action films? George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, I believe. It's sort of a Clinton-era war movie, spy thriller type thing. It's the first DreamWorks movie.

The very first one. What an inauguration into this world and uh yeah i mean google will go on to control all of our lives at this time of the the the 25 years ago airing of teen angel this is this seems like a uh a clancy adjacent project this uh peacemaker thing oh totally yes i bet i wonder if i could see jeffrey katzenberg saying we don't need to pay Tom Clancy for this. He doesn't own missiles in the CIA. We can do it ourselves. It's based on a book with people that have the last name Cockburn. Cockburn.

That's why they became writers. They couldn't go out in public. At this point, I think Clancy does own a lot of missiles in the government. Well, Tom Clancy is dead but his name uh lives on forever as his name was literally bought by the ubisoft video game company they they own he's dead but his uh corpse is owned by ubisoft yes yeah and various book publishers but joining us today are drew mackie and gun lincoln and this week we're looking at a teen angel because it's the 25th anniversary of its launch on tgIF on ABC and it is the one

Al Jean and Mike Reese televised show they created that we have not examined yet. We've talked a ton about on the side here and there of like they just came back from Teen Angel they're doing Teen Angel while this episode airs oh this reminds us of the stupid idea they had for Teen Angel all those things and of course who better to help us talk about a crappy live action sitcom? Or do I mean snappy? Not crappy. Then our pals at Gayest Episode Ever who look at old sitcoms live action all the time. Hello, thank you for having me back.

And Glenn, you- For the very first time. For the very first time. For the very first time. Well, I guess, you know, listeners may know Drew's whole deal, but I guess, you know, Glenn, what's your Simpsons history? Oh, gosh. Well, I watched it when it first came out. I was 10 years old, I believe. So I was a Bart. And so I aged with Bart, except he didn't age. age and then I uh ducked out of avid Simpsons viewing around college and ducked back in for

the movie and here and there but unlike Drew I haven't really kept up with the new seasons and Drew is now shaking his head so I'm guessing he also hasn't really kept up that much oh no no I've seen every episode I was the shaking head Shaking Head of Judgment? Yes. Okay. That's what that was. Just making clear. Yes. Well, I mean, Drew, you watched all of them for an incredible video project listeners probably know about, but that I think even had an impact on, I think some Simpsons producers watched it and took some notes, I think. Oh, I hope so. I hope they would be one of the 3.3 million people that have viewed that video as of, I checked last night just to see how it's doing doing better than anything else i've ever done so i guess that's kind of

something but um we we got a friend a job that that that counts for that counts for one thing oh yeah well that uh in case people haven't seen it yet if they're you're not one of those 3.3 million people it's every gay scene in simpsons ever minus a few that i people have pointed out to me after the fact. And I swore I would go back and revise the video. And I'm like, maybe I just won't do that because there's other weird projects I want to sink my time into now.

That's the pain of a podcaster as well. Like you have more projects than time to revise old ones. But I guess now's the time we talk about our history with Teen Angel. Of course, I'm a day one viewer. And I think the show really recovered from the death of Jerry Van Dyke. I mean, season 18 was tough, but we all got through it,

and I think it really had a real renaissance. Of course, the show barely lasted a season, and I never watched it. Oh, okay. I actually did watch it day one, only the first episode, this one. Did you know about Algena Mike Reese? I don't think I did in 1997.

I didn't know about algino mike reese but i was reading tv guide a bit and i do think i saw i was a little removed from a tgif regular viewer but not that far removed and i saw on tv guide for like you know the new season oh my god the excitement of reading like the preview of the new fall season and one of them had the sentence the from the producers of the simpsons and one of them had the sentence the from the producers of the simpsons and so i was like oh then i'll give this a shot i didn't know who those producers were what that truly meant but it got me to give it a shot yeah then i uh clearly i did not watch more episodes after that first one but i did watch it i i'm sure they got better after the

first one i i did some viewing ahead. And once some of the YouTube transfers they have online right now are complete with like the actual commercials that aired back in the day. And those commercials are a treat to watch. But some of them also have like the TGIF intro, like, you know, every week it would be hosted by a different character. And Marty, our dead angel, is the host of the week where they aired episode three and he literally says this is from the producers of the simpsons they work for me now and they were clearly trying to sell people in the fact that like this is connected to the simpsons in some way for people that didn't like read tv guide or entertainment weekly no yeah i

did find a commercial from uh i i hadn't seen that one yet. I'm going to dig that up and listeners might hear it in the break. But I did find like the night one commercial that said, and from the producers of The Simpsons, Teen Angel. Because it finished out the block at 930 that night. Yeah, I never watched this. And I don't have a good reason because I was a miserable sophomore in high school and didn't really have friends or social engagements. So I clearly didn't have anything better to do on friday nights but whatever i was doing it was not watching teenager unfortunately i was definitely a tjf viewer from the beginning in until the finale of full house that's when i stopped because uh by that point for the past previous years i was just

watching everything ironically like this is stupid these jokes are bad oh look they played the music and now they're hugging because the simpsons taught me why these sitcoms are awful uh or like cheap and badly made and cloying and things like that so by the end i was just watching it to kind of riff on it privately in my room without friends um but yeah i was really checked out of tgif by 97 and then i was like what have what have they done to topanga i turn on boy meets world in the late 90s and she's a babe suddenly this is bob straight man corner on this podcast here. What's happening here? Then she marries the guy who does the Cinnamon Toast Crunch scam?

Oh, that's right. Yes, yes. She's, yes. 97, I think, was the year I was friends with the bad kids in high school, so I wasn't watching TGIF. I don't know how teenage me would have reacted to this show. Adult me, when Drew says hey we're going to talk about an episode of Teen Angel and he told me what the idea was my immediate reaction was well I don't like that um and it panned out pretty well my instinct there my reaction was like

even as I think a young person I was like this seems like it vaguely might be kind of gay and in fact there have been people that suggested that we cover Teen Angel on our show. And I was like, maybe not. But now you guys have forced our hand and now we're doing it for you guys and saving us from having to do it on our own show, which is something. Well, you know, if you've watched ahead a little bit, I watched the second episode and the whole time I was thinking, this is a gayest episode ever episode of the show. If I were to make you guys do one. If I had Marty-like powers to force you guys to do it, it is ill-defined powers in the show. You were to make you guys do one if i had marty like powers to force you guys to do it as it is ill-defined powers in the show i you know it's funny all of us were basically the same age when this aired and the age of the main characters basically like it should be more

directed at us than less but uh clearly not i guess we were intended to age into teen angel it's it's kind of a raunchier, by the standards of TGIF comedy. And I guess all I knew about this show was everything Al Jean said about it on commentary. He's like, I hated working for Disney so much. It was so awful. And also, there's a really amazing moment on the commentary for the front where Al Jean and Mike Reese are in the show saying, now I can finally write that sitcom about that sassy robot.

Al Jean says, I wrote a sitcom about that sassy robot al jean says i wrote a sitcom about a sassy angel and then mac ranney says i wrote a sitcom about a sassy robot so and at that point futurama had also been canceled so they both felt like failure yeah yes yeah hey from the bit i watched of it other than the gayish overtones i felt of marty and steve's relationship over uh which they seem to be trying their hardest to convince you they're not gay through lines which just i think embellishes the queerness of it more uh also from skipping around in it it basically feels like marty is a wacky simpsons character surround like trapped in a tgif sitcom full of like you know crappy jokes

and uh lame heartfelt stuff. And then on top of that, basically, they retool the show. The show goes through in five months what the critic went through in three years. It kind of has two seasons in one season of the show. I like you talking about how Marty seems like he's displaced from another sitcom. And my big reach around for this TV show in general is that Marty actually was a bad kid and he's in hell. And hell is he's aware of what is actually funny, but no one around him is ever going to get his jokes or even really be able to see him. So this is this is punishment for being a real life Bart Simpson, basically.

But my main reaction to Marty was, thank Bart Simpson wasn't like this like didn't have to do as many voices and make as many references like he makes Bart seem like very even keel he does oh man there's some other later episodes where Marty he has bad lines in this one but when he actually just says like nerd alert and then he turns into a siren that goes off i'm like holy fuck this is come on guys you could do a little better than that but i i know too the tgif was forcing them to have worse jokes yeah i mean they would have had i mean not to get too uh jump too far ahead this actor he was doing what he was told but he he strikes me as like a little mini chandler running around i think he thought he was the next Jim Carrey. I feel a little bit about...

All of these very toothy deliveries of lines. And yeah, Jim Carrey may be a bad influence on this teen angel. Chandler-y, but sometimes with the vocal delivery of a Joey. He has some moments in this, especially when he's talking to Ron Glass's disembodied head, where it's like, that is a Joey Tribbiani response that I think was just in the ether. And he's like, oh, this is how you talk on a sitcom. Because of course response that i think was just in the ether and he's like oh this is how you talk on a sitcom because of course that's how you were talking to sitcom in 1997 yeah i guess we don't know where this sitcom takes place because all of the establishing shots

look like stock footage to me yeah but he's like yeah but teenager over here oh wait yeah he's like a little little bit more ethnic than all the white people around it yeah of course the the only non-white person in the show is the floating head of a rod that's the one everybody else white very very very white well all right well let's let's get into the history of teen angel 2 uh which is really interesting you guys let me tell you listener i went above and beyond okay so first off there are basically zero sources on teen angel history out there that aren't mike reese's great great book springfield confidential and also maurie mccormick's biography here's the story which uh is the story

for her life i was like boy i'm still kind of lacking here because basically marie mccormick goes for two pages about teen angel in her uh long book and in springfield confidential he talks about teen angel for maybe three pages but fortunately i can dm mike reese for on the record comments and so i have some new information about behind the scenes on teen angel from what a creator co-creator mike reese and i'll just say again folks buy his book buy his book there's even an audio book of springfield confidential that reese reads himself so if you're a simpsons fan of the commentaries it's totally worth it that mike reese what a mensch yes yeah he's a good guy you know they have a joke about david copperfield late in another episode saying that like basically the cupid's arrow puts him and

claudia shiffer together because why would she ever marry him and it's like david copperfield is good friends with mike reese like i don't know if that joke was before they became buddies that's how they got in touch maybe an angry letter an angry letter led to friendship but all right short version for of the history for you Simpsons fans leading up to Teen Angel Al Gene and Mike Reese season one are original writers for the Simpsons by season three they become pair showrunners taking over sam simon they leave at the end of season four because they sell the critic originally retooling a crusty spinoff into a new animated series with gracie films they make it at sony

pictures they sell it to abc it is a terrible fit for abc it airs after home improvement they do jokes on the show about how it does not fit with a home improvement abc is not a good place for al gene and mike reese's style of comedy that's right i wanted to go back to the crusty spinoff really quick because we talked about it years ago uh if i'm if i'm wrong let me know but i believe that was a live action show that was going to star dan yeah yeah uh but fox did not give it the green light because they had another circus sitcom that was a huge failure. And a lot of those writers went on to write for the Merkin era of The Simpsons. They left the show.

I think it was just called Circus. Right, right, right. And I think a lot of writers, or like a handful, left for the Merkin era of The Simpsons. And I want to live, I want to kind of visit the timeline where we see, let's face it, the half season of the Dan Castellaneta's Presti show. Yeah, five episodes. So the circus show was something that aired on TV? It did air, yes. Very briefly. What year would this have been? I have no memory of this.

I think like 93, 94. I want to say 93. I believe Greg Daniels went from that to The Simpsons. Yeah, and I think Chase Richdale, too. Yeah. I believe it's just called Circus, right? I think so, yeah. Well, and so the Critic airs on ABC, very unpopular, canceled in 94, but then immediately

as it's canceled by ABC and they burn off all the episodes in the summer, it's then renewed for a second season on Fox, where it's paired with The Simpsons as it should have been. It actually gets much better ratings, but the new executive, John Matoyan of Fox, did not greenlight it. And so he kills it when he takes it over. As we know, this happens at times in Hollywood where a new executive blood comes in and they kill a bunch of projects that despite people liking them, it wasn't their idea. You know, it happens every now and then. Glenn is shaking his head.

Yeah, it's a rage reaction. Yeah. But hey, at least it's been going on for decades. You know, it's not a new thing that's happening now with, say, a giant company that bought another giant company. And of course, Mike Reese personally blames King of the Hill for being a Fox made show and replacing the critic. And he doesn't think king of the hill is

particularly good show even though we we think it's a great show but i understand he well why mike reese uh has a little axe to grind i understand that yeah so part of the deal with the critic team too was that they would produce two episodes of the simpsons that season because the demand was they wanted like 25 episodes of Simpsons a season thus to beef up their very successful syndication package and even when that died the deal died for the critic Fox still wanted to keep it going but at the same time and this is in Reese's book he jokes that they were trying to make a deal for a new production deal Gene and Reese they all have a meeting with the fledgling in 1995 they have a meeting with the fledgling dreamworks tv team where mike reese says that he joked a little too much with steven

spielberg and that the deal did not happen and then they sign a five-year deal with disney who had just bought abc and here in uh reese's book is how al gene described a development deal quote a development deal is where a studio pays you a lot of money for the privilege of ruining your career. And Glenn, I'm sure you love hearing a very, very rich writer complain about getting a huge money deal that left them creatively frustrated. Oh, yeah. It's what a nightmare. What a nightmare. A writer who's basically been half retired for 25 years.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, he's still busy busy but there's no day job yeah and it and and for gene it didn't ruin his career he went straight to the simpsons and has been running the simpsons for 20 years now so yeah back to the back to their episodes they made for the simpsons uh while working at disney i think originally fox wanted four clip shows a year and they would they give them one one every once in a while but then the producers were like these

are awful our writers don't even want their names on them we're not going to make any more we're not going to make four at the very least so they found a solution yeah yeah it was just a satellite team of guys who you know for the critic they were only making 13 actually they made less than 13 uh and one was a fucking clip show uh but they so they could do side stuff and built into their disney deal was that a carve out for still making two episodes of the simpsons which those would turn into the springfield files and simpson tide which is why they feel like episodes written in early 1996 that aired in 1998 that makes a lot of sense but so so Gene and Reese pitched a ton of things to Disney, which Gene jokes about in his book. But I actually asked Reese about like, hey, wait a minute.

I see other stuff in the trades you don't mention in the book. So I went to the Variety archives, saw multiple other things that got sort of greenlit for pilots. And then there's no mention of them ever again. So I asked Mikeese about it that led to a quick dm conversation with him which he eventually said was quote a lot of aggravating stuff i hadn't thought about in 25 years so quote we had many failed pilot ideas on our development deal 40 below was a generic no casting in mind this is me as an aside 40 below was supposed to be a workplace sitcom, except it's a bunch of guys stuck in the South Pole at a science project. Lovitz!

Exclamation point. Which we had a stage reading for with Terry Garr and Phil Hartman. Lovitz was like a Jack Benny show, or it's the Gary Shandling show, about a comedian playing himself and his real-life celebrity friends. That went very well, and I don't know why they didn't pick it up and then we resorted to teen angel so that's and yeah love it sounded amazing now i asked him like so wait were you guys going to cast hartman because hartman was on news radio at the time but that show was always on the bubble right and he said that it was really just love it's his friends doing him a favor for a pilot presentation

where i want to live in the world where we at least got 17 or even 10 episodes of lovitz right then we got teen angel but freaking abc man maybe he'd be happier today he got his own sitcom just once yeah but if it got canceled in 10 episodes i think he'd still be a miserable old man more bitter more bitter yes yeah okay so I have a question about this process. When they were pitching to Disney executives, they knew that these shows were going to be on ABC again. Was the hope that Disney executives would treat them differently than the ABC executives that they dealt with when they were doing The Critic?

I think they were hoping, and I didn't look into the board level to see how many ABC execs had turned over between 94 and 97 so maybe they thought they had a better chance but mike reese didn't have one nice thing to say about any abc executive i'll tell you that much that seems fair and here's how reese described in his book after two and a half years of rejection we decided to take the hack writer approach we combined two successful shows to form a third one we went to abc with the idea for teen angel it's a cross between beavis and butthead and sabrina the teenage witch we love it said the abc executives pleased that we were finally getting it but we don't like the beavis and butthead angle so you

want it to be a cross between sabrina i asked they nodded and that's what we gave them a store the story of a teenage boy whose best friend dies and comes back as a mischievous guardian angel it was like the odd couple but with a funny new twist teen death well that's funny because on on tgif on step by step they had not only a wayne's world character ripoff but also they literally just had two characters imitating beavis and Butthead. Unbelievable that they just did that. Like, yeah, these guys are just Beavis and Butthead. And they just say things Beavis and Butthead would say.

It's like the cheat. I think that was when I had gained enough taste to be like insulted by that. Oh, really? Wait, so this is Cody and the oldest boy were doing Beavis and Butthead on Step by Step? No, there were two new characters who were like classmates of theirs who would just come to the house and go like, just do a Beavis and Butthead impression. That would just be who they...

I have no recollection of that. Maybe I was done watching Step by Step and didn't have to be exposed to that, but that sounds dreadful. I mean, the only thing about later Step by Step that sticks with me is that Dana went to the same community college, or maybe state college uh as her brother and i was like i i did i hate that about sitcoms when like an entire teenage character's arc is i want to go to the best school and then because they needed them to

stay in the house trapped forever it's like this school's fine yeah yeah like uh like in fresh prince how carlton had to go to the same college as Will. I can see also why they were attracted to Sabrina, because season one of Sabrina the Teenage Witch was showrun by their old pal Nell Scoville. Oh, right. That's right. And of course, TGIF, like we said, either had old shows from our childhood that were getting a little long in the tooth, full of cute kids who weren't so cute anymore, perhaps then sabrina shows up and revitalizes tgif like it's their big hit that they had and uh it was it was the return of the magic sitcom to tv and this is where i

looked to drew because he had he had said that he had done a little research on the history of the magical sitcom i did and we've covered quite a few of them on our show. And we've never traced the lineage of why does this thing exist? And why would it exist in such abundance for specific periods of time? And then seemingly would go away and then come back. And there'd be like six of them again. And this Teen Angel season is one of the periods where we're like, oh, we're going to give you tons of these things. Because Sabrina made the executive think like, oh, you like magic sitcoms?

Have all the magic sitcoms, which is not a good strategy for making a programming block exactly. But they come from Topper. Have any of you seen Topper? No. Bring back Sheriff Topper. It's a Cary Grant movie about a husband and wife who die in an automobile accident. And then another couple buys the car and they have to deal with the ghosts of Cary Grant and this other couple who have magic powers and who make the couple's life more interesting. So then it became a sitcom that aired for two seasons.

People just rip that off. I mean, basically. I didn't realize that. Yeah. Wow. It became a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1953 to 1955. And in this one, the husband and wife die in an avalanche. And also a St. Bernard that goes to rescue them also dies.

So there's a ghost dog, which I think is a great idea. It's like, hey, yes, please add a ghost dog to the show. So it's a boring couple lives with like fancy dead husband and wife and a St. Bernard. Two seasons on CBS, 78 episodes. That's a lot. That's more than Adam's family and the Munsters individually, I believe.

Just, I think, even by the 60s, they were like, okay, maybe we shouldn't grind our actors into dust and give them some time off and let the writers have a little bit of a break. But you can watch Topper and it's very much the vibe of stuff you would see later when things got more popular with stuff like Bewitched. I looked at who wrote for Topper and two screenwriters who worked together on it are Stephen Sondheim

and George Oppenheimer. Sondheim, I think everyone knows. Oppenheimer is, I knew him because he was the sex friend of Harry Hay, who founded the Mattachine Society, which is the first, possibly the first, maybe the first, gay rights organization in the United States. Wow, wow, wow, wow, man. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

So on behalf of Desjardins insurance I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you home and auto insurance personalized to your needs weird I don't remember saying that part visit desjardins.com care and get insurance that's really big on care did i mention that we care so saw time went from that to west side story like he's working on topper and then writes the book for west side story wow it he does and i think it is maybe not as big of a leap as you might imagine if you think that like he was writing this like a feat male aristocrat ghost character who reads this kind of guy i mean he's played by carrie grant in the movie so you can

kind of see like i can see how this ghost would sort of read like a gay character but if you look at these shows historically they are a magnet for queer creatives on screen and off screen for lots of reasons which i think maybe are sort of obvious But like if you are thinking about like who wants to write a show where they're imagining a world where things are different and people are secretly superpowered, but they're not allowed to tell anyone about it. Because another theme with all these shows is some people know about the supernatural things, but they can't tell other people about it. It's a secret that everyone has to keep. I think it makes sense that you can see where like, oh, a gay person would want to write for the show. There's a lot of themes that a gay person might relate to. And also you're painting with like a very big brush

in the same way that like you are when you're doing like sci-fi or horror and it allows you the opportunity to make these metaphors that are going to resonate with gay viewers that will go over the heads of straight people who aren't looking for the gay stuff. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, yeah. No, I mean that's's teen angels got that in spades honestly it is interesting that it is abnormal gender wise because it's a male character most of the time the

character who has superpowers is female because another thing that these shows are doing is giving giving women power yes they're giving women power. But like, like instead of like social parody, they're being like, OK, so what if a woman had power? And the obvious conclusion is, oh, Matt, you mean magic powers? Because that's the only version of like female power they can imagine having. And that's how they're upsetting the household. Yeah. And she has to keep it a secret. Right.

And only use it with the permission of her male partner. Like if she's helping her husband do stuff, she has to do it a secret from him. So she has to like subtly help him do stuff without him realizing that she's helping him because that would be emasculating. In Bewitched, it's a wife. And in I Dream of Jeannie, it's a slave. They get married eventually. He marries his slave eventually. Yeah. He does the honest

thing unlike thomas jefferson oh god yes for for the record there is a version of this where uh norman lear did a show in 1977 called all that glitters which is not a magic sitcom exactly but it is literally the thing that all the other shows weren't asking where it is a what if situation where it's america in the 70s but women have power and men don't so most like companies are headed by women women are the primary breadwinners in their household men are stay-at-home husbands and like sex objects and it was not successful but it is an interesting like media experiment that only norman lear could really do but that's the one person who's like okay we're gonna actually ask the question that all the other shows aren't asking i know growing up as a naked night kid we watched a lot of those like i i

always preferred bewitched to uh i dream of genie or or other similar ones like i think elizabeth montgomery's great like she's just amazing and And also, there's more gay actors in her show. No, wait. Yeah, there's only one gay actor in Dream of Jeannie, their boss, the general guy. There's no Paul Lynde. He's not. No Paul Lynde. Henry, you might be surprised that many little gay boys like Bay Witch over I Dream of Jeannie,

but many little straight boys like Jeannie over Bay Witch. I think because having a partially nude actress in the lead might have been the difference in those two. I can weigh in on this. I actually like Bewitched more because I thought Elizabeth Montgomery was a little cuter. They're both very attractive. This is my five or six-year-old brain thinking. Right. They're offering different versions of TV femin femininity like sexy TV wife going on

yeah I've mentioned this more than once in our show but I had a dream about Elizabeth Montgomery the night before she died so yeah I know I don't know if that means I'm a witch or just a gay man was it a sex dream? no no she was part of a she was head of an acting school slash coven

that I was part of that sounds like a dream also I think Bewitched had a better opening cartoon oh yes that too yeah part of a she was the head of an acting school slash coven that i was part of great yeah that sounds like a dream wow also i think bewitched had a better opening cartoon oh yes that too yeah good caricatures i love those bewitched characters man uh well mike so uh drew like it kind of goes in and out of popularity the magical sitcom like you guys what was it jessica slept here like jennifer jennifer sorry jennifer slept here yeah, that seemed like a failed 80s attempt at a magical sitcom. So what happened is Bewitched starts in 1965, and it is a hit. And then 1964.

And then the next year, NBC debuts I Dream of Jeannie, because they're like, well, if they're doing this, we're going to do this. And it turns out they were both actually kind of hits. But there was a cluster of this sort of thing happening all at the same time. 1964 also was the debut of The Munsters on CBS and Adam's Family on ABC. Those are not magic sitcoms in the traditional sense because they're not about hiding your identity. It's about being visibly weird in the community. And those shows are more about white anxiety about ethnic people moving into your suburbs and then them not assimilating and

you having to deal with other people's culture which is a whole other thing and i think we're going to talk about adam's family on our show later this year but if you look at like the cluster of stuff that was happening around this time they're all of a certain like piece you also get my mother the car have you guys ever seen my mother the car uh i mean only clips i don't know bob maybe seen a whole episode i think I watched it because throughout the 90s I was in the kitsch and you know magazines would be like the worst sitcom ever it's the worst thing ever they

buried it nobody liked it I watched it I was like it's it's not good but I've seen far worse things I mean I was a mystery science theater viewer so my bar was much higher like I had seen Manos the Hands of Fates and a bad sitcom was not it was like so much better than the worst things manos the hands of fates and a bad sitcom was not uh it was like so much better than the worst things i've seen at that point and starring future

teen angel co-star jerry van dyke yeah having his roots in the genre yeah um it's it's an example of them getting it wrong where they're just like oh people like this and everyone's like no we don't like this also i watched the opening scene because i'd never seen it before after also having grown up reading about it being one of the worst things. So you would assume that the ghost lives in the car because he inherits his dead mom's car. No, he goes to a used car lot, finds a random car, and then for no reason that's ever given, his dead mom just lives in the car now. And it's not explained at all. It's just this random thing that you're like forced to go on. And sort of the entire show is writing on this premise and they don't bother to like interrogate it at all.

It's very strange. Well, you know, if you read your Bible, that's in there. Yeah. That's what happens. That's what happens. At least the love man of grandpa bothers to say I got lost along the way. That's all it takes is that one little joke and it explains the entire thing. And yeah, they never thought to do that.

But that is the same year. Also, there's a show called My Living Doll, which is about Julie Newmar plays a robot lady who gets stolen away from the military and then taught how to be a real woman. Unquote. Yeah. So like her husband is her captor. And also she has superpowers, but she can't show anyone about it. And she has to learn how to be demure. Oh, boy. Because she can't be too strong because that's not how women are supposed to be um and then 1965 is also when the great gazoo shows up on flintstones

because they're like watching all this happen and they're like yes that we want that and then they ruin the show the show was close to being canceled with it without the gazoo like gazoo was there like hail mary they're like what about this guy you like the gazoo and now all right well we'll put them on cartoon we'll put the cartoons on Saturday morning again. I was going to ask Drew. I don't want to jump too far ahead in time, but what about Alf? Because Al Jean and Mike Reese have experience writing on a supernatural outlandish sitcom with Alf. They were Alf writers for a few years, and it's all about a character that nobody else is allowed to see.

Marty has a lot of Alf in him,'t yeah so this period of time in like 1964 i think the two outliers are mr ed which is technically a magic sitcom because the horse only talks to wilbur and then my favorite martian is pre-bewitched but it just is with a male superpowered character so that's sort of an outlier but these all exist in like the span of a few years and then america's like we don't like these anymore and they go away they keep coming back with some regularity and they never stick like they did with the witch and i dream of genie so for like 20 years the networks are like trying to find something that works quite as well i guess the flying nun is sort of an example of it because she's not allowed to tell everyone that she has those flying powers the one that sticks is alf and so like uh there's jennifer slept here jennifer slept here is about

a ghost of an actress who gets run over by a ice cream truck and then just lives in her home and then helps a little gay seeming boy learn about life and love and you'd think she'd be like a classic hollywood starlet but no she died like a couple years ago so her contemporaries are still like around talking trash about her it's very strange so that that is no, she died like a couple of years ago. So her contemporaries are still like around talking trash about her. It's very strange. So that is a year that's like a big NBC push. And America's like, we don't want this. And then the next year they do this show called Down to Earth, which is about a flapper who

gets run over by a trolley and then has to come back and be a nanny for rich kids in order to earn her wings and become an angel. And so like, it is very very odd that these obviously aren't sticking and they don't have the staying power that The Witcher I Dream of Jeannie had, but they keep trying. And it's only Alf, which is a magic sitcom without magic, because Alf doesn't have any real powers, right? I mean, his charisma.

His raw sexual energy. I think occasionally Alf could pull something out of like hey i had this gadget in my spaceship and it does this but yeah he himself doesn't really have powers i don't recall but like alf was sort of the impetus for like a small wonder and the harry and henderson's syndicated ones so like small wonder has powers small wonder has powers harry and the henderson is a bigfoot so that's something so like that is like the small wonder has powers harry and the henderson is a bigfoot so that's something so like that is like the second wave of them so everyone's like oh we're gonna do an elf but weirdly they all have powers even though elf doesn't um and by the time we get

to the 90s stuff like the brady bunch movie has happened and the brady bunch movie is important because people are now laughing at like gen x is laughing at like corny sitcom tropes and that's just how sitcoms work now it's like built into sitcoms where we're going to be trying to be cooler than things were in the 70s and 80s. So we can't do that anymore. And the only place that these kind of shows get to exist at this point are on TJF, which we will discuss because Teen Angel becomes a thing, or like Disney Channel Nickelodeon, where you have stuff like what's the Raven-Symoné sitcom where that's so Raven that's a Raven so I didn't know that that's a

Raven is about her having psychic powers I thought it was just about her being Raven Simone but um like Wizards of Waverly Waverly Place is another one where like kids don't care about irony and they don't care about things seeming dated because they've never seen this shit before and that stuff gets to exist in these places and basically nowhere else it's funny you mentioned that with sabrina because tgif was running out of steam they hadn't had a big new hit in a while and then here they find the concept of sabrina is a comic adaptation it's an old archie's comic but also they pluck like the biggest star of nickelodeon, Cable, in Melissa Joan Hart and then make her still be a teenager, damned to be a teenager once more at the age of 20 after aging out of it seemingly. And then so she's then Sabrina the Teenage Witch and people love it.

She's a cute teenage witch with two cute aunts who take care of her and then a sassy talking puppet cat. We all love them. We love Nick McKay. Yeah. Yeah. I love that gay cat. Ryan Reynolds played her love interest in the TV movie. Right.

It was a TV movie first. That's right. Weirdly, it took until Sabrina for them to realize that this should be a thing. Although in the first airing of TGIF, the very first night of of TGIF the 930 slot was supposed to be just the 10 of us in the first week they aired an episode of Free Spirit which was an ABC sitcom about a witch a sexy witch who's the housekeeper and nanny for a family that includes Allison Hannigan before she was famous and that was their way of like trying to trick people into watching it and then shuffling it off to another night. But it didn't quite stick.

But that was like 89. So it took until like what? 96. That's like quite a few years for them to try to stay away from magic sitcoms aside from Family Matters, which became one. He took the star power of Clarissa Explains It All to boost it once more. So, yeah, it's the big hit. And so the next season, I'm not surprised that gene and reese were like all right if we're gonna sell something how about some magic bullshit like will you buy

that and they did and they were hardly the only thing that sold so yeah we on tjf not only was their teen angels so teen tjf the night this aired it was actually a sabrina two-hour premiere then you wish which was a genie moves in with a family a dude plays a genie and jerry van dyke is the uh the grandpa in that show it's even more unpopular than teen angel and then on the cbs block that had step by step and family matters you know they couldn't buy perfect strangers but they could get the creators of perfect strangers to make a new bronson Pinchot show called Migo. Guess what? He's a space alien who needs to learn things about a human.

And I don't think there's too much difference between Migo and Balki. I don't think. You really need the magic of the Mark Lindbaker, Bronson Pinchot pairing. You can't just have him on his own. You can't have a freestanding Balki. It's unbalanced. Yeah. It's unbalanced. Yeah. It's unbalanced.

Yeah. Nico actually has a pretty good cast. Like, I mean, by my weird standards, but like Jonathan Lipnicki is a little kid. Michelle Trachtenberg is the daughter. So it's like, it's not a slouch cast, but just an abominable project from the beginning that even CBS was like, we can't do this. But had it aired on ABC where it would have made more sense on ABC, it would have been two solid hours of magic sitcom on Friday night.

When I asked Reese about all those magic sitcoms as well, he said, quote, one critic said Teen Angel makes Migo look like Moliere, which I think is still still bothering him to this day. Yeah, that seems unfair. Mike Reese and Al Jean, both born around 1960, like they're old Gen Xers, late boomers. They're taking advantage of a trend of course but they're also writing the kind of show they grew up watching as kids i agree uh so here's a couple more things reese had to say about the production he says one this was to me abc's input on the show was constant and constantly bad and then from his book we had a talented team of writers who would go on to do much better shows like fraser and big bang theory but teen angel had this feeling of a crushing gravity it was an abc show on tgif

which he calls in a parenthetical this garbage is feeble and as hard as we worked we couldn't escape planet mediocrity my name sometimes appeared three times on an episode as creator writer and producer and even i couldn't stand the show so that makes me so sad i mean this is this is such a weird purgatory like situation to find yourself in sounds great yeah again they're they're probably being paid five million a year to do this i would bet at the very each i would bet it was the era of these huge development deals yeah so quick rundown of the main cast on this we've got mike damis and i they do a joke in a later episode about like famous damis cookies like it out pronounced like famous amos so i do believe it is mike damis he's marty

the angel uh he'd go on to be a co-leader supporting regular on the show trust me one of those usa things and also guested in a couple good episodes of mad men uh corbin alred plays steve and he's one of those guys who's just like a long-time working actor in hollywood if you look at his imdb he's like one-off appearance on jag one-off appearance on monk like like that kind of career corbin alred sounds like a sean cody name like i can't explain Alred sounds like a Sean Cody name. I can't explain why that sounds like a Twinkie porn star name, but it just, that's... I mean, it's the haircut. You hear the name and you picture the haircut he has in this episode.

You're just like, oh, I know where this is going for you. But it's not because he is a notable Mormon actor and he does some projects that deal with like faith in Christianity.ity but i looked at a social media profile i'm like how how how conservative are you and like there was nothing that was necessarily offensive i'm like okay that's something that i can feel slightly better about that he doesn't want me to not exist he keeps it in the bedroom yeah take this as you will but he looks mormon yeah yeah one look at him i agree with uh going back to the angel character marty i feel like algae to my grace must know a marty or like the name because there's marty on the simpsons

with bill and marty uh jay sherman's son is named marty and we have this marty yeah there's also a burgstrom in this episode there is a burgstrom yes yep yeah it's they're getting all their friends in there uh we've got marcia marcia marcia brady herself maureen mccormick playing the mom judy and i'll get to that there's a whole story about oh she has a name uh yeah well they actually do a joke about her name in other episodes yeah so i know it's judy this does have the problem of not naming some women in other episodes i saw too uh then uh we've got uh the late conchata pharrell as uh the beastly sister pam who basically is just selma and patty fused into one yeah or or doris yeah she's doris grouty adore yeah but uh she would go on to so

much bigger success than teen angel she would be in i believe every episode of two and a half men as their housekeeper oh wow she she made some bank and passed away in 2020 she's easily recognizable to me she is the female equivalent of mike hagerty another character actor and they always play similar roles like the downtrodden heavyset like working class people right she's also really good never says her hands oh she is so great in it yeah no i feel bad so glenn asked if she was the same actor who plays susan summer' sister in the first season of Step by Step. And I'm like, no. No?

Because they look the same. She looks like the combination of the mom and the sister. Oh, that makes sense. Okay. But that actress's name is Patrick Adarbo. And in my head, Patrick Adarbo is the actress who's in Edward Scissorhands. But now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, i don't think that's right i think i confused it well can shot of pharrell i feel i'm sure she had to have way meaner jokes said to her on two and a half men i can only imagine i

would uh certainly never watch that show unless for podcast purposes but um i i feel there is a there is a disconnect of uh patty and selma joke said to her like that she has to express it hits differently like yeah it's a real person and also she's like owning herself like all the joke that like she leads with is like her being like i'm uglier than my sister that's how they introduced her and was like yeah that sucks yeah yeah and uh and the last of the regulars is the late ron glass as god's cousin rod uh which uh he is most famous uh well he was a regular on barney miller the uh the cop sitcom of the 70s and of course if you're hey we can all admit we liked firefly back in the day you know now it's not fun to talk about joss whedon

things but he was he played book on firefly also kind of a magical african-american character on that show as well that he kind of got pigeonholed into another regular on the show is jordan brower uh playing the character of jordan and uh this i could not get an answer to but i feel pretty certain they that abc producers shoved jordan onto the show because they thought they had their potential teen beat star, next teen beat star, their next Joey Lawrence in this guy. I mean, listen. I clipped an interview or two with Jordan when I was a closeted teenager. As soon as I looked at the cast list and pictures, like, I remember him.

I remember the name. So it worked. Whatever bait they were throwing down there, they picked well. It was his hair. He has breathtakingly good hair even by like tjf standards he might have like shinier hair than writer strong on boy meets world that's saying a lot it's just like yep yep that's your golden boy i understand why the main character is apparently in love with him i don't know yeah i feel like i feel like jtt

was getting older he cut his hair they're like we need some new floppy-haired twink in this show. The hair must be floppy. Though, if I were to rank them, I think it's Rivers, then Joey Lawrence, then Jordan below that for me in ranking of teen boy crushes. In my teens, we're not talking about liking teens now. I was just assuming that. yeah but uh i'm calling my head yeah my head just turned into a siren also same with on the simpsons though bonnie patilla did the casting on the show she they hired her to do that too there was like a weird credit

where original casting by but then there's a casting by credit so did she just cast the pilot that is not available anywhere i I bet you're right. I bet you're right. Because this is production code 02. This is the second episode. There's no 01. Oh, I missed that. Okay, then they must have flushed the original.

I could totally see TGIF not liking a better pilot, and then they're like, no, this needs to be crappier. Was there casting changes from the original pilot to what we're talking about? That didn't show up in any of my uh research i'm just assuming yeah but i agree with yeah if there's original casting director and then casting by i feel like if it indicates some some changes from the pilot to what we're seeing now but the show is off to a strong start when i looked at at least on the

archival site tv tango which shows you you what aired every night on any weeknight, it always beats the stuff on CBS Block Party. It was mostly up against Step by Step, and it always beat it. And of course, now when you look at, it only got 8 million viewers canceled. It sounds crazy now. It's as much as every Game of Thrones episode.

And so they did do uh some attempts that you know some extra boost for like they did a crossover with sabrina and the sweeps where sabrina appeared on basically every show and in that one as a way to do what they love to do on the simpsons they basically turned it into the 70s and everybody's dressed like they're in the 70s and they make a bunch of 70s jokes and of course judy who's marsha brady there's a couple jokes there too and and also sabrina can actually see marty so another character can talk to marty and when i watched a few other episodes too there was constantly things of them going like oh let's do a raging bull parody that was so easy to do on

the simpsons and it just you just can't do something that ambitious on on tgif sitcom yeah they're coming off of writing two cartoons and a lot of the gags in this are held up by like really creaky cgi and also actors who can't necessarily act against each other i think that hamstrings the humor in the show a lot for sure and also a bunch of uh future simpsons writers wrote on this and other big writers like michael price who'd be the show a lot for sure and also a bunch of uh future simpsons writers wrote on this and other big writers like michael price who'd be the showrunner for f is for family as well bill freiberger who'd write a million episodes of big bang theory you got you know the great larry wilmore you got nil scoville was a consulting producer she didn't write an episode a writer

who i had not heard of before but he was pretty active right now saladin patterson uh he was one of the the writers, which also I got to give credit to Gina Reese. Like I don't believe staff writing wise, they had a woman on the staff. Nell Scoville as a consulting producer, I don't truly count that. But Larry Wilmore and Saladin Patterson,

I believe are both black writers. And so they had two black writers in their staff, which is two more than Simpsons ever had up until I think 2002. Wow. But but yeah so larry wilmer was a surprise seeing his name in the credits because like if you look at his imdb most of the stuff he worked on i'm like i can see how like this would be a good fit for him i did not get a whole lot of larry wilmore in this pilot at least no no i i don't either but so as for guest stars on the show related to other jean and reese projects well the only simpsons real regular on the show uh was one episode where yardley smith guest starred as a science teacher and i have a quick clip of her on the show in a future episode right here

turn to page 212 you'll find a worksheet on amphibians these are the frogs that you'll be studying any questions uh yeah where's mr bernstein i don't hear any more about mr bernstein These are the frogs that you'll be studying. Any questions? Uh, yeah. Where's Mr. Bernstein? I don't want to hear any more about Mr. Bernstein. I'm really sorry, Ms. Gross. Look, you can make fun of my name now, but in a few months I'll be getting married. To who? Mr. Lipschitz.

That's also just the Mr. Bergstrom make fun of a teacher's name joke too Hey, Yardley's got a lot of sitcom experience under her belt. She's a Herman's Head vet Yeah And by the way, that episode had a talking frog that Marty, I think he enchanted it and then it starts talking and then

they don't want to dissect him and he's voiced by Tim Curry who I think does a good job. And this is from Reese, where he dropped a bomb on me with this, with Tim Curry. Quote, we had Tim Curry as a talking frog. We'd written for him on the Mighty Ducks animated show, and he later appeared in my Queer Duck movie. So this is how I learned that Al Jean and Mike Reese, uncredited,

at least as far as IMDb shows it, they did work on that Mighty Ducks animated show that was on one Saturday morning. I liked it. Yeah. It was like Disney doing Ninja Turtles a bit too late, right? Yeah. They were from a planet of ducks and they were fleeing war and they landed on Earth and were both superheroes fighting alien monsters but also like hockey players what year and jim belushi was their coach i believe that's right what year was this ish i think i think 96 yeah i believe it was 96 wow it's weird that they would be writing on

that in during that period of time i guess it was a transitional period for them right you know this is just like how bob discovered uh jeff mart Martin secretly writing the opening theme to the Quack Pack and just ripping off a song he wrote for the Simpsons. Both of them, all of them, Simpsons writers trapped in Disney deals. It sounds like between the critic and Teen Angel, they were just doing the work they could do, like writing those satellite Simpsons. And then like, we got some free afternoons. Let's help develop the Mighty Ducks. And they also wrote for Homeboys in Outer Space, which is why Kevin Michael Richardson plays a PE coach in a couple episodes

because they liked working with him on Homeboys in Outer Space. Homeboys, is it from or in? You know, I wrote down in, but it might be from. That was like a halfway house for Simpsons writers, like transitioning back into society. Just like, we need something to write. I owe you two scripts. Can I just write of Homeboys?

I'll just do that. Yeah. Also from the critic, they had Maurice LaMarche played the principal in a few episodes and also did a couple other voiceover bits. They have an episode where they watch blood on the concrete style thing, though obviously they couldn't film. They were spoiled. On The Simpsons, they could just have the whole thing on screen, but they just had Maurice LaMarche

doing commentary over some old stuff. And then Nick Jameson appears in one episode as a wrestling announcer. Oh, nice. And then, of course, in this episode, Marsha Wallace is the angel, the first angel we meet. It's so nice to see her again.

I hope I see her when I die. That can be a thing, right? Can I request that? Yeah, I think you should. I think this counts as the request now. Great. You're saying it now. So is she only in this episode?

Because that would be like the main draw of this show. She's not recurring. This is the only episode she appears in. That makes me angry. Yep. So it debuted at 9.30, but it got moved around a lot. Here's another one from Reese he told me when I asked about the time slot. He said, quote, ABC liked Teen Angel so much they kept moving it to more desirable time slots.

As a result, in nine months, we never were in the same slot three weeks in a row. My own mother said, I'd given up on trying to find your show. They do episodes september to december they get up to 10 episodes and that in december that's when it's time to make some changes at all uh from abc's viewpoint uh and that involves maureen mccormick uh so here's things get a little heavy here from right mike reese's book we found wonderful actors for the two teens but for the role of the mother abc insisted we cast maureen mccormick marcia brady maureen is a lovely lady and a good actress but she just looked too young she was playing the mother of a teenager and she still looked like a teenager but abc insisted we hire her 12 episodes

later abc insisted we fired her five episodes after that they canceled the show so i will admit uh i have nothing against her she is a bit flat in the show i don't think this is the right show for her they don't know how to write women that's also a big problem yeah there's in the yardley smith episode there's this crazy scene where marie mccormick and yardley smith like basically share a scene talking to each other it's two women talking in the show which seems insane they talk about how hard it is to be a woman and get be respected and then Marty's in the background going like oh no they're they're agreeing women of feminism alert or something it's I'm like holy cow I guess they don't know how to write moms they love writing uh characters that are snarky and also women like Alice.

Sorry, not Alice. Doris, Patti Selma, but also Alice was kind of flat. She had a teeny tiny bite of her being Southern. But they never did an episode about what she was about. They kind of hinted at, oh, she has an artistic background, but they never developed that really. No, no. Maybe with season three they could. So maybe this is me.

I'm not an actor. i'm bad at acting and i think i have like a deaf ear for acting perhaps but like watching it i don't see anything wrong with her performance i think it is perfectly serviceable for what she's being written to do and i can't imagine how much more a different actress could do with just the part we see in this first episode, which is very little to do. I feel like I see what's lacking. And I think that if you're a recently divorced mother of a loser kid whose friend just died, you need some level of weariness that of their other projects, like I could see a Terry Garr, like picking up that sort of mom where it's like, oh, she's on the edge of a nervous breakdown, but that's okay. Whereas like you see Marsha Brady on screen, it's like, oh, well, things are going to work out fine for her. And if they don't, I'm going to be very upset.

I guess that makes sense. who are two very good actresses who somehow make that show work in a way that is important to the foundation of the show they work really well but i'm not able to like articulate what the difference is because they're empowered like there's no secrets being kept from them they know superina is a witch whereas this is like she's in the dark so she can't like it's hard to not come off as a victim and no one wants to laugh at a victim right okay that makes sense yeah they really shot themselves in the foot by making the rule that only Marty, only Steve can see Marty

because that is not a thing that happens on any of the other shows. Like, you're making it very hard to write for Marty and for everyone else if there's this wall between him and everyone else all the time. Yeah, and also a lot of the jokes end up being the same where it's like, Marty did something but a character didn't know he did it.

Yes. It feels like they, like you said, I almost called you Marty, Henry. Yeah. Henry's still alive, by the way. Other characters will eventually see Marty. And you're also saying, and I agree with you, Henry, before the show, this would be better animated. And I feel like, I said Marina McCormick is a little flat.

I think everyone is because a lot of these lines just die in these child actor mouths. Like, yeah, they can't do this in the way that Mike Reese now, Gene, writing for children voiced by adults. They could sell those lines better. They have history. They have more experience acting. They're not being filmed live. Right. Also, you just have a recorded line said by a person. You can edit that down or just like, oh, let's do another take or another take in a three camera sitcom obviously you can edit and you can do different takes and stuff but i their leeway is probably much more constricted than on the simpsons we're also and the critic where they also have the best animators working in television at the time to

execute their jokes to the best ability like yeah but so from mccormick's side of things this is from her uh by uh autobiography she had spent decades uh after the brady bunch struggling with addiction she had a lot of addiction issues and uh mental health issues and had been up and down a lot uh and but one thing that hadn't happened to her she'd been on shows that got canceled like the brady bunch variety hour got canceled but that's where everybody gets fired she had never been fired from a show before where the show kept going but they got rid of her that level of rejection she'd never felt before and so this is in her bio where she mentions when she was doing the show she was very proud of herself for getting into the best shape of her life to be on the show.

She's like, oh, I'm going to be starring in the show. I'm getting in really great shape. And she started taking Prozac, which she said really helped her a lot with her depression. Here's what she says happened on the show, which pretty much fits with everything Reese said, too. He's like, the producers called me into their office and tried to soften the blow by explaining that it wasn't me. They blamed it on the network, explaining that sometimes when a show doesn't work executives tear it apart try to fix it and bring on other actors which is what happened it was the first major test of my emotional stability since i'd started prozac if i hadn't been on the antidepressant medication

i probably would have killed myself end quote so heavy heavy stuff there i mean marie mccormick she's she's doing just fine it's like uh like i i don't don't feel bad for it was a dark time for it but everything's good now i feel very protective about marie mccormick and eve plum specifically like marcia and jan at the exclusion of cindy um because i think like when it makes me think of the baby doll episode of batman when baby doll breaks character and drops the baby voice and she says, like, it was hard. And, like, her voice cracks a little bit. And I see that in both of these actresses talking about, like, having been lucky to be on a very successful thing and they've been famous their entire fucking life and they've got a lot of good out of it. But, like, it's worked against them in weird ways and made basically it's impossible for them to extract themselves from show business, which is just a really fucking vicious business to be in.

And I just want them to be OK. I watched her season of Biggest Loser. It was she was great on it. But she had to go on Biggest Loser because of the grief of being fired from this stupid abc abc show now i i i see the i also think it was a good idea to cast her on the show just in that at least she's the most famous person on this show by far and then on top of that it's like oh you can get the adults to watch that generation will watch it because their favorite teen actor is now an adult and stuff i mean it's the same pitch as like boy meets world reboot or the that's a raven reboot right you know but all right so they retool it uh and actually very helpfully

in a funny bit uh in the first episode back marty talks to camera and explains the retooling to the audience i am the great dipolo mystic swami seer of all seers, and shopper at Sears. I am here to tell you about the future of Teen Angel. I see big changes around here. Changes that have come from a higher power. The network. Steve's mom, Judy, has left for a while to become chief dental hygienist at the new biosphere project in her place is oh i'll just show you so and then he introduces the new characters gone is maury mccormick

replaced with steve's dad has moved in who is a failed pitcher a failed minor league pitcher who's trying to get his group back played by some guy named tommy hinkley who literally is his credit so i was like i've never heard of you in anything of course the beloved jerry van dyke uh appearing as grandpa jerry who hopefully at the end of the episode he reveals he can see marty as well so now two characters can talk to marty and i will say that jerry van dyke is good at delivering grandpa simpson style speeches that are handed to him on this show i i think he's all right i can see that is the reason he can see marty is because he's close to death it's uh because he had a near-death experience and slipped in the shower and ever since then he can see all types of ghosts he explains

also there's a good joke that marty says he has an alfred style butler now and then he gets a call from the bat basically the the butler then hands him a red batman style bat phone and it's a network telling him they can't afford the butler and so he fires him and uh he's then they start the show no that's not a bad that's not a bad joke that's not terrible and it's not not a terrible way to handle it since you're a magic sitcom you can address the audience about this kind of stuff in a way another show can't so uh and i think this is my last quote from mike reese but i also asked him so jerry van dyke was on you wish they cancel it but you then retool teen angel did they want them to transfer uh him just over from you wish to your show is what mike reese said nine episodes

into teen angel they wanted it retooled including bringing in a funny grandpa I spent three days on the phone swearing to Jerry Van Dyke then the most popular actor on sitcoms that Teen Angel wouldn't be another quick flop he agreed and we were canceled eight episodes later so there you go he just came off a very successful run on Coach which is a very popular sitcom as well and a good one I think yeah he's great I love jerry van dyke died in 2018 i love them he was always fun i loved him on coach he was the funniest guy on coach to me though dauber was a close second it was like basically they gave coach two idiot friends who were both yeah it's a show with two different kinds of dumb guys and i also like jerry van dyke's big lots commercials he was great yes i love seeing those

big lots commercials i agree and and you know what's a tragedy he didn't write one autobiography in his whole dang life uh is uh is dick van dyke up to like seven now he's written and look still alive by dick van dyke dick van dyke deserves to write a bunch of autobiographies because he's lived quite a life too but jerry van dyke would have so many stories to tell he would He never got rescued by dolphins when he went out to sea Like Dick Van Dyke did That happened to Dick Van Dyke? It's a real story, it seems wrong It popped in my head and I had to google it

And I'm like no that really happened He was surfing, because of course Dick Van Dyke is an avid surfer Late in life And this was like a few years ago He got washed out to sea and couldn't paddle back And then dolphins saved him And I was like sure, great, good for him The earth will not let this man die no we need him he's very important you know it's

dangerous on our podcast to say somebody very old won't die don't say that mary poppins must return again but he's 101 he can do the dance one more time yeah that's the long and short of it teen angel gets rebooted in the middle they give it until mid-February like they basically give it like okay first episode of January let's see how this great Jerry Van Dyke reboot season goes up to episode 17 in the middle of February they're like nah we're done bam and it's just basically it's Sabrina Boy Meets World and then either reruns of those two shows or a movie filling out the rest of their tg or other specials filling out the tgif schedule for the rest of the year so the follow-up to that is tgif uh would basically keep going until 2000 which is when sabrina and boy meets world both get canceled boy meets world

just decides to end while sabrina moves to the wb for a couple more seasons oh yeah i forgot about that i think she finally got to go to college by that point i think they add amber from clueless who who's because the tv show clueless had ended and she bounced from clueless to uh sabrina the teenage witch i mentioned that drew because i was thinking was there a clueless sabrina crossover if so how could that happen so i think it happened when they were both on abc because like when before they realized that sabrina the teenage witch was going to be the thing that saves tgif they had clueless on for one season as well on tgif and it was be like girls we're crazy about girls tgf is

where you're going to see teen girls doing stuff then clueless didn't get enough ratings so they kicked it off but there was a crossover so they do exist in the same universe okay yeah i think what was it don Donald Faison? They could get him for that show, too, I remember, right? Wasn't he on the Clueless TV as well? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so most of the non-Alicia Silverstone people actually do come back. Wallace Shawn, Julie Brown is in it.

It was good. They couldn't get Brittany Murphy, though, right? I don't think so. No. She shows up playing a different character, though. She did a guest appearance. And meanwhile, CBS block party failed even worse. They killed it after this one season of trying to keep up with it.

But then it was replaced with the thing that would kill TGIF. The much scarier to talk about, Kids Say the Darnedest Things, hosted by a certain man. Oh, and you know what? That didn't even last very long. But it was a huge hit when it came on. It lasted long enough for both Family Guy and The Simpsons to do a bit about it around the same time uh and meanwhile for gene and reese they'd work on odd jobs at disney trying to make new sitcoms up until about the year 2000 that's uh when that they would split off uh reese said i'm done with

this hollywood crap he did some odd jobs but then he was like you know what i'll come back to hollywood about twice a week and do uh some side gigs though they also of course worked on some uh wonderful flash animation of the time for icebox studios i want to say that uh simpson tied is the last time they work together as writers on a script yeah and uh meanwhile gene now is a solo act gets hired back in season 10 of the simpsons uh g the reese apparently would come in for rewrite rooms pretty routinely on the simpsons and of course if you guys love the minions out there and you know them as uh stewart stewart bob and steve no uh stewart and bob i just say them and kevin kevin named after kevin coran yes they all three of them named by mike reese yes he named

them all i threw through throwing punch up on despicable b that's why they're and they're now the stars of their own movie another steve yeah Yeah. Maybe they were friends with Steve Levitan. I think he worked for The Critic, right? He did. Yeah. And now you know the rest of the story. I didn't know that the Minions had names, so this is a very educational experience for me. Oh, yes. It's all thanks to Mike Reese doing Punch-Up on it.

That's like nothing to him, doing that. He's like, oh, and I guess I named those Minions that for people younger than us, they know them all by name and love those minions. Now after that large chunk of sitcom history, how about we take a quick little break here and then we'll get into the actual first episode of Teen Angel. When you really

care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Teen Angel will be right back on ABC. Party on.

And tonight, the party's on TGIF. With a Hanson special you can't see anywhere else. That's an entire half hour of Isaac, Zach, and Taylor. This is the coolest thing. TGIF's got... Hanson. And starting at 8, 7 Central, the one-hour season premiere of Sabrina is...

Massive. Man, you've never dreamed of this genie. You wish. And from the producers of The Simpsons, Teen Angels. Uh-oh. TGIF. ABC Friday. producers of The Simpsons, Teen Angels. Uh-oh. T-G-I-F. ABC Friday.

Welcome to the break, everybody. Hope you're enjoying this TGIF episode, even if it's not a Friday. And a big thank you to our guests, Drew and Glenn, from Gayest Episode Ever. It's a great podcast, and they really helped us out when talking about classic live action sitcoms you guys should check out gayest episode ever i've been on a couple episodes the one about he-man and the one about nicky and they have so many other great ones too and if you enjoy this podcast you should definitely check out our patreon because that

is how me and bob are able to do this as our full-time jobs. If you sign up at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons, you get to have every episode of this podcast one week ahead of time and ad-free. You can hear next week's episode right now, but you also get a ton of exclusive podcasts, over a hundred. Like each month, you get a brand new episode of Talking of the Hill and Talking Futurama, of us covering those two series one episode at a time, just like we do with The Simpsons, and a giant back catalog that includes us talking about batman the animated series the critic which we get a ton of talk about in this episode too and mission hill there's so much for

you to see at that five dollar level so please check it out today at patreon.com slash talking talking simpsons but if you want something even nicer than retractable wings then you need to sign up at the ten dollar level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons because you get all that five dollar stuff i just mentioned and then you get a monthly super exclusive podcast just for you that's often over five hours long i'm talking about the what a cartoon movie podcast where we talk about an animated feature film like this month you'll hear us talk about beavis and butthead do the universe and next month transformers the movie two great tastes that taste great together and you'll have a giant back catalog of over 250 hours of exclusive what a cartoon movie podcast at at your disposal. Here let's talk about Who Framed Roger Rabbit, South Park Baker Longer and Uncut,

A Goofy Movie, Akira, Into the Spider-Verse, Kiki's Delivery Service, so, so, so many. You need to check out all of it at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons today. Boy Meets World will be right back on TGIF. Ah, the mystical end of TGIF where anything can happen and usually does. From Sabrina's magical finger to Marty's mischievous mayhem. And now TGIF is showing you the magic of blubbers starring Robin Williams. You're watching TGIF.

Please return your trays to their upright position. Don't fly away. Teen Angel is next on ABC. All right, let's talk about teen angels first episode uh the pilot is directed by andy cadiff uh who would direct many many pilots he did the pilots for say herman's head according to jim norm anger management uh plus he directed a shitload of home improvements bin city and hot in cleveland so a a very employed live action sitcom director though the most episodes of the show were directed by mark sendrowski uh who is also known for directing the most episodes of big bang theory which is a lot of episodes i think over 200 episodes he directed a big bang theory so you know watching this opening i gotta say i wonder if the love man at grandpa was about mocking teenager i wonder if partially that it was a

sideways nudge towards their friends i want to hear from glenn about this because he's a screenwriter uh watching this i thought uh this is a bad setup for this premise i either want i think two alternatives could be one you could do uh basically most of an episode with a Marty and Steve adventure and then Steve dies. And then like you see what happens in the next episode or you just start the show with him as an angel and only reference what happened. I feel like the show wastes so much time explaining its premise that I say get to the funny. Yeah, I don't want to play Disney exec to to writers of the simpsons about how to do uh economic emotional setup for their characters but i think you could still have it be a cold open setup and at least make us care a little bit more like i have no idea what year of school they're supposed to be i guess sophomores they feel like sophomores whatever like just making it be like

oh this is our first we're it's the summer before freshman year of high school and have just, have them have a fucking argument. Can I swear on this podcast? Okay, great. Have them have a fucking argument. Like these are two friends from childhood about to like enter a new era of their lives. And instead of whatever,

talking about supermodels poorly, have Steve be like, you know what? I think you're holding me back, Marty. You're kind of weird and annoying. And like, we're treated as losers. And I think it's your fault. And that argument could lead to whatever like accidental funny death they have. Marty killing himself. He won't be Marty killing himself.

Right. Putting the gun in his mouth. And so, but have it be like Steve thinks that he can be better off with Marty in high school Marty dies he goes to high school is not better off and that is sort of the impetus for like

Marty coming back maybe not a sign but being like I can't go to heaven like my best friend is in trouble I'm gonna go back to earth and be his guardian angel right now it just feels rather forced like we don't actually see heaven like my best friend is in trouble i'm gonna go back to earth and be his guardian angel uh right now it just feels rather forced like we don't actually see it's literally forced he's literally forced to do it but like we don't see steve be that miserable and like i'm in bed and

kind of sad and it's like you could have made me care a little bit more well you know then they wouldn't have a chance to reuse the life experience of algeen eating a bad sandwich oh right more like yeah that's if you if everyone remembers in selma's choice where homer can't stop eating that bad sandwich oh yeah based on algeen continuing to eating a long submarine sandwich that kept making him sicker and sicker so they just take to the next level of like okay then marty we have to kill this kid like that i think that's why they start with the death because they're like it's funny to start our tgif sitcom with killing it the main character yes uh dead teens were funny this is 18 months before columbine we're all

laughing yeah i also think like marty theoretically is a fun character steve uh i i don't like him he's so boring and i think they want to make him a loser, like in the mold of like a Jay Sherman or a Milhouse. But the network doesn't like that in your main character. Like I think ABC was mad. Like why does Jay Sherman suck so much? Make him successful. Nobody wants to see this loser. So I think in the minds of the writers,

Steve was supposed to be like a Milhouse style character, but the show won't let him do that. Right. He can't be unsexy enough. And also speaking of sexinessiness right off the bat literally because he's got a bad at the scene you have to establish that these two boys that hang out with each other all the time in one of their bedrooms they are not gay because they talk about how hot girls are oh yeah they let you know that they think uh that claudia schiffer is hot that pamela lee is so hot that they think it's two different women who are both the the hottest lady around like so they

need to let you know these guys are still right so here's the thing about that so the way marty doesn't he's trying to talk about women but he doesn't realize that pamela anderson and pamela are two separate women reminded me of being a closeted teen and just engaging in like talk with other boys in a way that like it's like a cover because you don't want anyone to find out you're gay but you always fuck it up because you're not it doesn't come from a real place you can't really do it and that's what his mistake read as to me was like a gay guy trying to cover i don't think these characters are supposed to be gay i should point out i just think it's an example of when sometimes when straight people do something gayness is so far from their mind that they don't realize that they made a gay and it's like they completely stumble backwards into it yeah it

happens a lot on sitcoms that we've covered in the past but like you are so straight you forgot gay people were a thing and you made a gay yeah you can't like they imagine like yeah there's nothing more straight than like talking about supermodels. It's like, have you heard gay people talk at brunch sometimes? Yeah, we talk about models, too. Yeah. From your podcast, I learned that Licking Elvira is gay. So I have some news for my wife. And speaking of in this first scene, there's also a joke that clearly they were used to writing in a Simpsons script that they're like, oh, yeah, that'll just look good. The joke is that Steve is so bad at the baseball thing they're doing that Marty throws a soccer ball much larger than a baseball.

And Steve misses hitting that, too. But you have to be watching a show with a podcaster's close eye to register that as an extra joke in the scene. With the way it's filmed and the way they're cutting and just the way how far away it is. It's just like i think the second time i went through it i was like oh he's not actually throwing baseballs or anything he's throwing like different balls at him and uh we also in another like oh that's a simpsons joke for later the they joke about the difference between ketchup and catsup that's what uh pamela lee versus pamela anderson is and and yes he acts very homer in that he won't he refuses to walk to go to the

fridge to eat leftover food and then finds an old sandwich and you know something they don't really deal with here is that steve steve dares him to eat it steve should feel more guilt that is addressed for killing his his uh his best friend i think it's because at first he is there to eat it and then he flips it around so who really is at fault here? Yeah. Yeah. Hey, and you know what? If you like this scene and would like to see it redone many times over in a Back to the Future style loop, well, then watch episode 15 of the series because Marty uses time travel to prevent himself from eating the burger.

But he is fated. The burger is fated to be eaten by somebody else it leads to the funny thing that it kills every member of the cast who are all in heaven with rod and also given the assignment and so that's uh if i were to say what i thought was the best episode of the ones i watched i'd say that 15th episode that sounds like a get a life episode almost yeah yeah yeah well i i give them balls for killing off the entire cast of a tjf show that that's that's that's something that Family Matters never really wanted to do. So while they did on that Halloween episode. Oh, that's right. I just talked about that. OK, step by step. They didn't step by step. Didn't end with everyone dead, unfortunately. So, yeah, more more more credit than that.

Yeah. Which TGIF show do you want the entire cast on? Full House. Oh, absolutely. Let's see that house sink into the ocean. At two minutes in, Marty bites the burger and says, what's the worst thing that could happen to me? And then he dies and goes up to heaven. And this is... Oh, this is disgusting. You really should clean under here once in a while.

Ooh, a burger. How old do you think it is? Well, it's June, and that's a Halloween wrapper. That's a rank. I dare you to take a bite. No, no, no way. The last time you dared me, we both got kicked out of Santa's village. I thought that elf was plastic. Poor little guy but i still dare you

no no wait a second you always dare me and i always do it so this time i dare you to eat the burger all right i will it's not like it's gonna kill me this moment made me wish that the show had gone on for seven seasons just to see the angel clearly aging when he's not supposed to like he's supposed to stay the same age it would have been pretty funny but and then of course when he's in heaven that's where the first clip i played where he said uh-oh which i know it's one of bob's most hated things i think may are there two or three uh-ohs in this okay yeah yeah it does marty have a catchphrase i think they were trying to find him a catchphrase too he says like a similar phrase in this one a few times yeah they they are definitely searching for one but also marty

does the tgif thing i hate which i'm'm sure Gene and Reese knew was crummy, too. But they just did it like he just says other people's catchphrases like Tim Curry episode. He says, wow, the frogs British groovy, baby. Yeah. I was like, no, that doesn't count as a joke, guys, unless it's about how bad that joke was. And I mean, there's a point in this joke in the show where they just kind of steal street jokes like smooth move xlax like the audience laughs at i'm like no you shouldn't laugh at that you should have heard that in your lifetime the audience isn't real i don't think there is there's an audience watching there's there's so many effect shots right i don't think this is

filmed in front of an audience this might be the last like unironic instance of smooth move xlax and like an actual piece of media like this at 97 seems very late for smooth move xlax right and feels slightly dirty for uh tgif as well which they definitely i think they were struggling against on this show too but yeah um do you guys recall there being a bit of a backlash when this episode aired about the uh tainted beef being a thing that was an actual problem in 1997 oh you know what i didn't tie it to that but that does feel now that feels like a reference i think uh drew in in my mind when i was watching this i tied it to two things happening in both 92 and 93 there

is the e coli outbreak from jack in the box that killed four children and there's also the hot coffee lawsuit because right uh that's we get the joke about now there's a warning on the package like you were so stupid you ate an old burger. Oh, these lawsuits have gone too far, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it's a mix of two different things happening in the early 90s, both incredibly tragic. An old woman being scalded to nearly death and then four children being murdered by burgers. The joke definitely made me tie it to the coffee incident, which I hope collectively we've given that woman justice in our minds. Podcasters have this.

So, I remember there being something, I don't know where I read it, maybe it was just in my local paper, but they specifically criticized this because in 97 there was a big E. coli outbreak. I don't think anyone died of it, but it was the first big E. coli outbreak after the Jack in the Box one

where people did die, and there was criticism about this being a very unfunny thing to shoehorn into the beginning of a sitcom that was supposed to be lighthearted, which I don't disagree with. It was unfunny. I mean, getting run over by an ice cream truck is a much funnier way to kill a character.

Well, again, I just can't decouple this from Homer eating the bad sandwich a ton, so I'm like oh it's just funny like homer eating that sandwich but obviously not half as funny uh and so that's when he heads to heaven and he meets marsha wallace and i have to say i was slightly distracted that the two representatives of heaven in this are both dead like both actors are it's weird to see Marsha Wallace as an angel initially. You're like, oh, that's her now, right? At least I hope.

Yes, yeah. But this is when, like you said, Bob, they explain this premise so many times. Marsha Wallace must first explain it to Marty

on their trip to heaven. First floor, Seraphim. Second floor, Cherubim. Third floor, seraphim. Second floor, cherubim. Third floor, starbucks. Starbucks? They're everywhere, honey. I don't get it. What's going on here?

I'm afraid you're dead. I'm dead? No fair. All I did was eat a skanky burger. Oh, Marty, Marty. Oh, I've been doing this a long time, hon. I know what you must be feeling, but don't you worry. The good have nothing to fear.

Uh-oh. Oh, here we are, top floor. The court of eternal judgment. Oh, I don't like the sound of that. Check out. Also is when they had the opening, which is like literally literally 10 seconds but it's where they did a simpson style couch gag thing where he says a different thing every time then the first one is which one of you angels is farrah which by the way at the time this aired farrah faucet leaving

charlie's angels after season one it happened 20 years before this so that's how old that joke was then is he always interacting with the same artwork of the three angels yes okay that's how old that joke was then is he always interacting with the same artwork of the three angels yes okay that's their couch i guess in the recasting episode there's a joke where he says the angel furthest on the right of like sorry you've been replaced too and he knocks her over and falls that was my favorite of the ones i saw are they all angel puns well there's sometimes he says i can see my house from here there's one where he's like has anyone told you you look like the mandrell sisters and i was like who ordered a pizza there's that one too and then some episodes don't have a joke because it feels like abc didn't get it and said no why are you doing this so and by the way guys did you know that starbucks is in a lot of places it's in so many places uh this i could be beginning

to pedantic but that low this logo is bad on this show it's a bad logo i mean as far as much as i don't like full house it's a classy logo they should have hired david silverman just to freelance logos designed for him that's what i think you know but i give this all the rules of heaven thing definitely would appeal to gene and reese because reese has you know a satirical eye towards atheism he talks about it a lot in his book too and gene has a kind of bookish interest in the bible like one of his pitches for his uh of an icebox show was jesus's other brothers because in the bible it references jesus has brothers but they don't really hear anything about them so it makes sense they do this but yeah this is the second uh-oh in like

four minutes on this thing like come on like my blood was boiling uh so then then we get to see rod the head of rod which uh the second i saw this was like oh they're ripping off mark and mindy too this is because this is talking to orson like he's even on the top of the mountain or he's basically in blue screen space just like mark talking to orson uh in the wrap-ups of every episode of Mork and Mindy. And then they have a joke that he's being tried as a minor, and that's why he's not going to go to hell or whatever. He can't say hell.

It's a very Bart Simpson-like delivery of that line. Yeah, except he does it worse. He's like, all right, try it as a minor. Energy's all wrong. Bart would just say, all right, try it as a minor like energy's all wrong barb would just say all right try it as a minor i gotta think this is pretty easy for wrong glass to film like he's in every episode but it's just like you know blue screen no no costuming you gotta just do makeup on your face and just say lines in a probably not even to marty just like all right get all my lines for this week's escape see you guys see you later you know the they have some quick jokes about you see steve alone being taunted about being depressed that he like not

only that his best friend died but died right in front of him like he dropped dead in his room like he's sleeping in the same bed by where his friend's corpse was they had to drag him out of there yeah and you've watched more of this show henry what's the deal with this little sister character oh well she's the adorable moppet bob she's uh she's in i think every episode there's no twist on her or anything not really okay no she's uh the then uh she's played by katie volding and i'd say either this or the disney movie uh disney tv movie smart house are probably her biggest gigs and based on her imdb credits it sounds like once she aged out of child acting, she just retired.

Smart. And honestly, she just reminds me of the Fox Network mandated Penny added to season two of The Critic. Oh, yeah, yeah, I can see that. And of course, when Marie McCormick first appears in the show, she wants to buy him ice cream.

I wish she said strawberry ice cream. If only she said, let's all go out for strawberry ice cream. That'd be even better. Wait, what's the Forget Our Troubles? What's the reference to Stacey? That one went right over my head. And also, you know what?

Let a guy be sad all summer that he watched his friend die right in front of him. Why are they rushing his grief here? Even if his friend hadn't died, like he's a teenage teenage boy let him be sad all summer it's fine the mom and daughter uh combo are very like alice and penny tompkins of the critic because they it's a divorced mom and her cute kid and they're struggling like though he says they struggle to make ends meet i never see them struggle with money ever in one episode i watch like that is not a problem for them uh but of course instead of getting those details we get a nice joke about the Chevy Chase show in our next clip oh my poor bud this is a very vulnerable time in Steve's life his parents are divorced his family's struggling

to make ends meet and now he's lost his best friend Marty we want you to be his guardian angel. Me? I'm sorry, you're making a big mistake. Hey, we don't make mistakes. Well, there was the bubonic plague. Oh, and that awful Chevy Chase show. But this is not a mistake. Right now, Steve needs someone to talk to, and that someone is you. All right. I'll give it a shot.

You'll give it a shot. Boy, if you screw this up, you will go directly to the other place. The Mitchell Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota? Yeah. Why would I send you to... I'm talking about the other place. Oh, no. Not that. You might like it. There are lots of rock stars there. No. I want to help Steve.

He's my friend. Please, Mr... Head. As Steve's guardian angel, you will have many powers. You will be invisible to all but Steve. You will have the ability to walk through any wall. Any wall? Well, not thick walls.

But certainly through any apartment built after 1957. Now, go forth and help your friend. I'll do my best, God. You are a God, aren't you? Well, no. I'm God's cousin, Rod. But I got this job on my own merits. That's a good one.

I wanted people to hear the Batman sound they also put in there. Do they keep doing that throughout the show? It's in episode two, but I think TJ made him stop doing that. That's one of the things I actually don't mind. Just give me a little bit of flavor of something wacky is happening. So I didn't mind that so much. Oh, and I just think the rod thing is because they would have just had him be god and i think they've had some cold feet on tjf's part of like

you cannot literally depict we will get a bunch of letters if you depict god himself as a black man on this show so we're not gonna let you do that the fact that his name is rod and he's in relation to god just made me think of the simpsons again then make me want to like want to be watching the simpsons and then also the chevy chase show joke was done on the simpsons in 1995 on the 138th episode spectacular and i'm like yeah you guys did that joke in much more time appropriate sense uh like years before uh you know they love taking a shot there can never be too many shots of the chevy chase show there was one on the critic right yes yeah yeah man i can't i think it was like coming up next uh eight wonderful weeks of the chevy chase show then in 10 minutes it's this other thing that's right yeah something

like that you know at first i thought that was a real monkey cheese joke but mitchell south dakota's corn palace is a real place that still exists and is open. And if for some reason you find yourself in South Dakota, head over, head over to the Corn Palace. But this year does not take place in South Dakota, we're presuming, right? You know, they make jokes about, they make enough jokes that seem to indicate they're in California. They have a few of those. But I think the joke that made me laugh the most in this episode is, well, not thick walls, but certainly any apartment built after 1957. That made me chuckle. Darn those slipping building codes.

And so, yeah, the Batman cuts between scenes. That also kind of just wakes you up, too. We need that. Yeah. So this is when Marty and Steve meet back up. And this is where I was like, oh, this is pretty gay. Because it's like Steve wakes up out of bed in his underwear opens his closet and his best

friend pops out of it to be like hey I'm back buddy it's very symbolic but also less gay because he's wearing the baggiest boxer shorts I've ever seen like ever in life they're like almost down to his knees it's quite a thing

that's a certain type of gay I don't think we commented on uh marty's angel garb he's ready to be on like an NSYNC album cover yeah definitely yeah and also though i say what straight kid references merrily rushes angel of the morning uh which also is covered by Justice Watson? Juice Newton. Who's Justice Watson? I don't know. I don't know. Some lady detective? Juice Newton. Yes. Thank you. That's the best version

in my opinion. Yeah. I think it's better than that. You know what? I knew it as the cover the Pretenders did on the Friends soundtrack. Right. See? Drew knows it. I like that in this one instance justice watson is a stranger name than juice newton juice newton is the the thing that's actually the appropriate one in this one instance never again justice watson did you hit your head

juice newton see maybe that was at the front of my brain i was like no that's too that's too silly that can't be the right name the woman's name name is Juice. She's the queen of hearts. And so then Steve and Marty meet back up again, and Marty once again describes the premise of the show to Steve. Marty, just call me Angel of the Morning, baby. You're an angel? Not just any angel. I'm your guardian angel.

I'm board certified in all 50 states and Puerto Rico rico no wait this isn't happening to me no no it's true check it out i've got retractable wings come on no god doesn't feel another guy's wings man come on get with the times there he is see yeah yeah give him the times feel my wings uh i mean it's not their fault but all of these jokes that are held aloft with just creaky cgi they don't work and they feel like if everything was animated this could be a fun gag in an animated show but everything has to shut down so an effect can happen stay very still yes yeah and it's really it's really not worth it yeah yeah it would have been funnier like in animation if like when he does rub his wings that's when they unfurl but you can't do that yeah yeah also maybe think of angel homer with cloud goes up cloud goes down yeah oh yeah it's the same joke

yeah and i think they're also building an excuse what's like well he's not gonna have wings all the time okay yes yeah they another thing to get past real quick they're like don't feel bad for marty's parents that their son died they're rich now and moved far away you're not gonna have to think about marty's grieving parents and marty also doesn't go like boy i'd like to see my mom or dad again like no none of you don't think about that at all yeah you're led to believe that at all. Yeah. You're led to believe that they're quite glad he's dead. Cause he's very annoying. I take that.

I agree. I hate Mark. I love how he says, I am a great son that he made them rich with it. And yes, a very nineties jokes about too many warnings on consumer products. Oh, you need a warning to tell you not to eat a three month old burger.op-dee-doo like yeah or no older than six months right and so marty wants

to help steve but he's terrible at it it's a setup for hilarity but this is when we first meet pam uh and uh her very first joke she said very mean good morning pam says you look better first thing in the morning than i did at my prom well i tried well i don't morning one and all hey good mood today check his pupils look i know i've been bummed out all summer about mart, but I realize he's gone to a better place. Whoa! Your mom's hot! I'm glad they didn't do too many your mom is hot jokes in the show. When I saw Marty in the fridge eating an apple,

I thought, oh, this could just be like Death Note at this point. Steve has this invisible, you know the divine creature living with him let's see this go in a different direction did marty never seen steve's mom not first thing in the morning wearing like her morning pajamas or whatever okay okay i wasn't sure how to interpret like he's really like it seems like he should probably know steve's family pretty well but i don't know now wouldn't he think she's hotter dressed up for then in her like casual no makeup morning look though obviously marie mccormick in the scene is wearing makeup yeah i did but and and yes marie

mccormick is a very attractive lady but and you know i think conchata farrell and marie mccormick got along i want to say because when i looked if uhureen McCormick had ever tweeted anything ever about Teen Angel, it was only about Pharrell and saying that she loved working with her when Pharrell was near death. Not when she died, but near death. There's again, she works at the post office, so it also allows them a lot of going postal jokes throughout the series as well. Great. Yeah, I think I watched the beginning of the retooling episode and I think they said they couldn't fire her because she said you know what happens when you fire a postal worker maybe like you try firing a postal worker so spree spree shootings dead shoulder the show has it all uh though you know what i'm surprised by and that feels like the tgif touches i feel

like gene and reese if this was on the critic they would do jokes about how Marty would use his power to peep on women like I was waiting all episode yeah when the first joke when he says you can walk through walls I mean I'm glad I'm glad they didn't do the obvious joke of even the girls locker room or something like that I assume that

they were I thought they'd have to stick in some rule where it's like no if you do that you immediately go to hell because every horny teenage viewer is going to think, is he going to see naked ladies? That's the first thing I'd do. Now you're reminding me that the intro I wanted to give was Drew Mackey, friend who's forced to watch his best friend masturbate. Because that's what I assume is happening off screen all this time. Marty can go. I guess Marty goes away when he's like, they have a dude rule like Steve says, dude, guy, I need some private time.

And Marty's like, all right. OK, the socks on the closet door. I don't know. He touched his wings. I think they're getting very comfortable with each other. I think they're going to lose any kind of weird inhibition they have about anything in front of each other very soon. That's my prediction. Not having seen episodes two through 12 or whatever. And this is where Bob's quoted line about him saying, you know it's 1997 when a joke starts with www and ends with.com.

That's all you had to do. Yep. Just remind people of the internet. Relax. Relax. Yeah. Except for you, no human can see me or hear me but I can't be reached on the internet www.angel.marty.cooldude.com

I guess your father was the gardener around here Steve could you throw this in the trash on your way out this looks like a job for teen angel behold i just saved your mom a dollar 95 and then in a very simpsony critiquey way marty makes a plant alive again that will then attack them later in the episode but the living plant you would think the killer living plant would get more than like 20 seconds of screen time but they're not really committing to does it not come back after this not in another episode that i saw now but i didn't watch every episode but so then they head to what i swear is the same hallway they film boy meets world in yeah like i feel like it's the same set yeah uh so we get a pair of twins who uh we get

to have a mean joke about them being uh overweight The Olsen twins have really let themselves go. Those poor actors. By the way, in my notes, I say they go to stock footage high because the establishing shot. Let's not even name the school. Who cares where they are? I feel like existential dread watching this show because it's like, where are you? What's happening? A real lack of funny names and background sign gags.

You know what high school looks like they're in high school shut up just watch the show yeah and uh those those actors are jeff and james the old to to my knowledge not related to peter the old i i tried to find that out but their other biggest thing was they were in uh in the inspector gadget movie the other matthew broderick one and if you're a reality show freak uh you may recognize them as the annoying twins on an episode of kitchen nightmares from 2011 wow uh for a restaurant called the capri drew you were nodding with recognition as um i know where that restaurant was it closed in 2019 but it's it's in eagle rock it's here in la and i've driven past it i've not

eaten there i'm glad i didn't eat at the Kitchen Nightmares pizza place. It might be better now. Because it's closed. Maybe Gordon Ramsay made it better before it closed. I don't really know. But yeah, what a weird thing to be like, oh, I kind of know this other facet of these strange middle-aged seeming twins on a high school show.

They also had an unsuccessful GoFundMe in 2019 to save the restaurant and it did not work. Poor guys. That teenager money only goes so far. when marty's working the crowd i mentioned how they they use street jokes like smooth move x lax nice play shakespeare he even goes hey you look good today not awful we were so beyond not in 1997 i have to tell you folks i was there you say not in 1993 you get they string you up yeah we're supposed to like him for saying not. And then we get to see his bully as well.

Hi, Steve. Looks like the Olsen twins let themselves go. Oh, no, Kyle Bergstrom, man. Poor Kyle. Too dumb to graduate, too old to join the Marines. You know somebody ought to teach that punk a lesson. Not me, of course. Ew. That felt greasy.

Hello, BoChump. You know, I hear you're dropping algebra. You know, the joke's on him. That's my biology book. Stand up for yourself, man. Don't worry. I'm here to help you. Hi. You've been touched by an angel well they got the touch by an angel pun out of the way in the first episode

i do feel though that the writers were too familiar with this character's first name because i did not understand any of this yes it's just like he should have he should have said the name's bo champ or something just so the audience remembers yes yeah but bergstrom obviously the same name that uh for mike Mike Reese's childhood that he pulled from for Mr. Bergstrom or Mr. Boogerstrom. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part.

Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? As he's sometimes called. Though Kyle Bergstrom is played by one the disney regulars or in the disney stable of actors back then aaron lore most famously is the very unnecessary singing voice for max goof in a goofy movie oh okay which was only forced upon them by jeffrey katzenberg he thought that the regular voice actor for max goof was not a good singer, and they forced Aaron Lor upon it.

Yeah, I guess, you know, honestly, if I was Steve, I would just ask Marty to beat up my bullies all the time. Like, can you just beat the shit out of him? Just do that. He can walk through walls, but also interact with every object around him. Yes, yeah, as needed. There's a joke, too, that's like, oh, this would have been way better in a cartoon where Steve says he wants to join the popular kids. Sorry, Marty indicates that he's like, I can get you in with them. And he points at the popular kids.

But two janitors walk in front of them. And he's like, the janitors? No, the popular kids. But it's the two guys being the janitors, like you barely recognize them. It's weak. It's weak. Yeah, I clock that as like the most simpsons joke in the pilot for me right i mean other than the teen angel logo um but the popular kids are

actually like the gayest part of this episode for me because like your friend comes back as a super hard angel and his mission isn't to get you to go out with the hot girl in school it's like see that beautiful popular boy i'm gonna going to make you his best friend. And in high school, before you're out, or even out to yourself, your whole thing is like, I want to be his friend. But by friend, you mean like kissing partner. Yeah.

There's a hot girl right next to him. There's a cheerleader, unnamed, who is, like, you're going to date her, and he doesn't even acknowledge her. He just acknowledges the boy with the breathtaking hair. Yeah. I mean, Jordan, he draws focus. He does.

He's going to end up being vice president someday. Mike Pence. We do get an Anna Nicole Smith joke. Yeah. And, you know, these aren't great, but I also feel like they don't belong on this kind of a show. Like these kind of meat spirited uh you know digs at celebrities like kelsey grammar chevy chase and nicole smith

i mean i see they're trying to make this a little more of a lively uh a little more of a grown-up show for tgif but it doesn't fit with the kind of thing they're making no no well and and i am shocked that the third joke the of the what the people are going to be in the future wasn't horribly transphobic i was just ready for that to happen but that i i was i was expecting it but did you guys get on them that it wasn't did you guys uh henry did you uh identify the cheerleader actress no i did not who is she so her name is jill ritchie and you know her from the episode of arrested development where michael hires a pr person to give his family like a better

facing public image and she's the one who's like manipulative and mean and tells lindsey that people people find you to be a combative princess and lindsey responds i should pay someone to kick your ass for saying that so that's great okay she's also in southland tales that's like the other thing she's done she is kid rock's sister um and it is this weird thing where like i've seen her in stuff in the i don't think i think she retired from acting but like once i found out she was kid rock's sister i would see they have their brother and sister they have the same face and it looks like kid rock's face on like a hot blonde woman and it's really confusing for me and this is one of the first things she ever did confusing sexually okay well you know you mentioned the hot cheerleader that's

episode two which is even gayer which i'm just gonna i this was the one i was gonna pitch to you guys you should do which is steve gets a date with the hot cheerleader but she cancels for an unexplained reason which eventually turns out to be okay in the end. But so Steve doesn't feel rejected. Marty transforms into the hot cheerleader and goes on a date with Marty. That's like that's. Whoa. That's episode two.

Episode two. Sorry, Drew. At the very least, Out of This World took like several seasons before they did a gender swap episode. They just went right for this in episode two. That's remarkable. So then we get a gag with the mean teacher. Oh, since we can't afford flashy new textbooks, whenever you see the word Indian, think Native American. And don't be alarmed when they refer to 1976 as the future.

Well, well. Steve Beauchamp. I guess the old ad Well, well. Steve Beauchamp. I guess the old adage is correct. Those who fail history are doomed to repeat it. You have to take that, man. Stand up for yourself.

I didn't fail. Excuse me? I said I didn't fail the course, Mr. Nitsky. I missed the final. Because I had some personal problems. Well, I'm your personal problem now. All right, that's it. Let's get ready to rumble!

Again, just saying someone else's thing. Yep, just saying it. Like, hey, you've heard of this. Just a reference. Now, that's Mark Metcalf, most famous for being the asshole in Animal House. And he's just playing the same role in this show. It's just the same guy. Pretty much the only role he's ever asked to play the rest of his career after Animal House.

He was the master on Buffy. Oh, sure. Also an asshole. Yeah different different sort of asshole not an rotc asshole but like slightly like scarier looking asshole i guess i don't know uh and i i do have a quick guess on that let's get ready to rumble thing short story is that michael buffer copy wrote that phrase you can't use it without paying him and a lot of people don't know that until he gets some money from you after you use it without asking him uh he even had a tip-off hotline where he told people call this hotline if you hear it on a show uh and so i was like i wonder if they got in trouble for

that or if that caused him any issues in episode four when nick jameson the voice actor from the critic is on as the wrestling announcer he says let's get ready to watch a wrestling match so that tells me michael buffer's people uh talked to teen angel so that joke might have been the most expensive special effect in the episode because michael buffer has made 400 million dollars off of Let's Get Ready to Rumble. Oh, my God. Then there's some jokes with a map that keeps going down. That's not that funny. I'm thinking of Simpsons when I saw this Nitsky is a wiener. Just like the Skinner, I am a wiener.

And actually, Marty spells wiener in the preferred way that Martin points out. So Marty's not as dumb as Bart. Marty and Martin, oh no i ask what does nitski feel when steve kisses him on the cheek what does he feel like he because he kind of moves a little bit like in general i wish as far as i can see they never did the obvious joke of somebody saying like who the fuck are you talking to steve like why are you always looking away from me and nothing like i would imagine what he feels is his penis move a little bit he doesn't know why and he has to wonder about that i'm just thinking i'm feeling bad for the actors i mean i know they're actors and it's what

they do but it just feels so awkward to be in a scene with someone you can't acknowledge yeah and i'm just thinking about that the entire time like oh he can't actually look at the actor or like acknowledge him and that's what the entire show was built around yeah and all these background actors too they can't look at him and that could fuck up a whole shot if you do it which how do you not you know forget sometimes yeah this is why i'm glad i'm not an actor i don't want to think about like where do i look how do i react to something that's not there like how do i like acting seems hard it's like seeing an ex at a party right after you broke up uh So this gets everybody mad at Steve because they get,

Nitsky gets so pissed off he assigns them a thing on James Monroe and the Monroe Doctrine. It's going to count for 50% of your grade. You are all getting a test tomorrow. Chapter 6, the Monroe Doctrine. It'll count as half your grade

and you have Mr. Beauchamp here to thank for it. Six, the Monroe Doctrine. It'll count as half your grade, and you have Mr. Beauchamp here to thank for it. Thanks a lot, man. Hey, Nitschke's a dork. Don't worry about it. Man, I had three dates lined up for tonight, and now I have to cancel two Nice place Shakespeare move move X lacks Just thought you should know you are a dead man. Oh you mean him You're supposed to be my guardian angel.

You're ruining my life. I'm just having fun, man. Somehow every time you have fun, I get in trouble. But I can fix it. No, don't fix anything. Just leave me alone. There's an okay joke of Bergstrom saying, you're a dead man.

Duh, says Marty. Oh, you mean him. We end Act 2 with Rod getting mad at him, threatening him to send him to hell. This is when we also get a rather mean joke about Kelsey Grammer saying that he's gone through three Guardian Angels. Look, I'm really sorry.

I know I screwed up, but I think I could be a pretty fine Guardian Angel. Well, you could help Kelsey Grammer. You know he's gone through four Guardian Angels in the last week, and I hear one of them's in rehab. Oh, I want to help Steve. He's my bud. And isn't this the place where everybody gets a second chance?

No, you're thinking of the Arkansas bar exam, fool. So I can't help Steve. Look, Marty, I think you have potential, but it's not me you have to convince.'t help Steve. Look, Marty, I think you have potential. But it's not me you have to convince. It's Steve. Gotcha. I will not let you down. Or if I do let you down, I'll have a very good excuse. Just get out.

You know, I don't know. He's their friend. I thought maybe they took it as good-natured ribbing against sideshow bob he was powerful maybe that's why teenager got canceled they said what about me i mean they also at the time they also dunk in arkansas in this scene the arkansas bar exam they do uh kelsey graham is married to camille uh his third of four wives uh the one who would be on real housewives of beverly hills that's the one and i think that might be referring to back in 96 he crashed his car and he had to go to betty ford and i think maybe that season of frazier starts late because frazier's not around um but i looked it up and there are stories about um there was an intervention with both the cast

of Cheers and Fraser together talking about his drinking. And I'm like, to be a fly on the wall for that interaction. What a collaboration of stars. I want to write that short play. You should write that play. Go for it, Glenn. Rod then says, well, it's not up to me. It's up to Steve to forgive forgive you and also the very gene and

reese scene marty keeps making jokes at rod and rod says just get out which like i feel like that's ended a lot of scenes uh in gene and reese stuff so then a monster plant meanwhile is attacking characters and uh and that's when we get a quick Brady Bunch reference. You know, Marty always used to cheer you up at times like this. Yeah, he used to. Well, whatever he is now, I'm sure he's looking out for you. If you ask me, wherever Marty is now, it's very hot and he's being poked by a bitch for it. Help! Help! Oh, my gosh! Mom, look out. I got it.

Oh, my gosh. Mom, look out. I got it. Oh, my nose. Boy, that reference, there's just sweat flying off of it. Because to set it up, it's like, okay, Mom, to stop the killer plant, I'll throw a Nerf football towards you. And all for the sake of the Brady Bunch reference. I'm sorry, Drew. No, I'm just agreeing with you. And also, they end the joke about there being a man-eating plant in the house which is the most interesting part of

the episode to me i just want it's like oh i want to watch this show where like there's plants that are eating the little girl like that that that's a much more interesting thing to you don't you don't want to watch a show where someone's just making jokes about your recently dead friend being in hell yeah yeah thanks aunt conchata farrell i honestly felt it was a little touching the way steve's mom is comforting him it feels like she's saying like oh i know you and marty broke up he used to come he used to have fun with him like yeah but yeah they again much like the touch by an angel thing it just feels like them going all right we got the brady bunch actress here's the football to the nose. We did it.

Are you pigs happy? Write about that in TV Guide already. Give us our blurb. Put that in your cheers section. Also, by the way, so then the next scene, when Marty's trying to start his apology, he starts talking in a Yogi voice, but he says, Hey, Yogi, sorry I made a boo-boo.

It's like, no, Yogi wouldn't say hey yogi yeah like you don't why is yogi talking to himself in his own voice like come on there's also something there's also a reach around for a bear floating over a sleeping twink's body oh yeah that was a good point oh yeah oh yeah that that needless transition from uh bear to human marty is uh disturbing it's real yeah we were we were in love with morphing i think still yeah yeah 97 which and so you know it's just two dudes apologizing to each other in their bedroom and they go like you know what we're friends now maybe and this is when uh in the first commercial so this is when marty goes like you know what i'm'm going to fix things. And he does an up, up and away pose.

And he hits a ceiling fan and the feathers fall down. Stupid ceiling fan. Like, that's a very Gene and Reese kind of joke. Very Homer move. Look, I'm really, really sorry for everything that's happened. But I know I can help. No, I don't want your help. Come on.

We've been in some jams before but everything's always come out okay except for the time I ate the hamburger and crow I've been giving this a lot of thought and I think I've got the answer please give me one more shot okay thanks buddy up up and away stupid ceiling fan though in the first commercial for this show they use that clip but instead of saying stupid ceiling fan they take one of marty's uh-ohs from the show and put it on. I'm not kidding, Bob. They put uh-oh over it too. No wonder I didn't watch this. We then cut to Nitsky in bed, sleeping alone in a twin

bed like an old loser. And then they just rip off Back to the Future where they replace Darth Vader with James Monroe pretty much. It is I, James Monroe, fifth president of the United States. I can't believe this. I understand you're giving a test

on my Monroe Doctrine tomorrow. Well, yes. The students were acting up, so I... Silence! My doctrine was meant to help America. Not terrorize innocent schoolchildren! I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Call off the test. Or answer to me but i've already

written it up this is all just you know shockingly james monroe out of all the president jokes they did on simpsons they never did a james monroe joke okay he's not even in the mediocre president i guess he couldn't fit he is one of them them, though. Yes. Yeah. Well, you know, the mediocre presidents, the Monroe Doctrine actually did have a big effect compared to the other mediocre presidents. He never said, in all the times they explain the fucking rules in this, he never says, also, I can get ghosts of famous people to come and do stuff. He just does it. Yeah.

I assumed it was Marty in disguise, but no, he actually got James Monroe. Yeah. It's very strange. Who knew it was... But other people can see those ghosts. Yeah. But they can't see Marty. But he does see Marty.

Nitsky reacts to Marty. So maybe this is like if it's in a dream, you can see Marty again. Rod should have laid out more rules. Take 10 more minutes. So, yes, Nitsky gets tortured by James Monroe. And then in the next scene, he calls it off. He says, you know what? I give up.

You guys don't have to take the test. And they give Steve a win where he stands up and says, no, you give us credit for it, too. And he just goes, yeah, whatever. I'm going to just leave. So I know they wanted to give Steve a win. And it wasn't just like Marty giving him a free just doing all the work for him. But it doesn't really work. Yeah.

Sorry, I just want to mention one other thing in the previous scene. For some reason, James Monroe has Beetlejuice powers. Oh, yes. Yeah, right. He could turn his head into a giant bug to scare people with. Yeah, it doesn't,

I guess you can do that if you're dead. Maybe James Monroe. I'd like to think he's in hell. Maybe James Monroe had those powers in life and we just don't know about it, Bob. It could be. Yes, also, I'd like to think he's in hell. Maybe James Monroe had those powers in life, and we just don't know about it, Bob. It could be. Yes, also, I mean, I wish he would have not appeared again in other episodes, because then I could just imagine

that Nitsky took his own life after being tortured and driven insane. If I watched the aquarium, he meant he was going to walk into the ocean with stones in his jacket. Unfortunately, in another episode, he goes on a date with Pam. No. Him and Pam have a history where pam was a flower power hippie and he was an rotc jerk in the in the 60s and that they joke that they were the you know the time life cover of the or life

magazine cover of the flower in the in the gun that also simpsons referenced that they were the two people in that photograph and that they've had a rivalry ever since then. So that's more backstory and lore. They, then they put into the thought of this world, I think. Yeah. I'm kind of, I'm almost impressed by the audacity of that,

but okay. Even Bergstrom likes them in this, in this final scene where everybody's happy. We all studied really hard for that test and i think we deserve the credit for the work we did fine everybody gets an a yes all right yes now if anybody needs me i'll be in the teacher's lounge watching the fish tank watching The Fish Tank. All right, hey! Thanks, Bo Chimp. Can you stop calling me names like Bo Chimp and Bo Chump or Blow Chunks?

Blow Chunks? That's a good one. You mind if I use it? No, it's yours. Nice place, Shakespeare. Smooth move, ex-lax. Nicely done. Thank you, ex-wax. Nicely done. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Huh? You'll find out later. Hey. I don't know how you did it, but you did it. So I'm back on the team. Absolutely. Yeah. Hey, are you stuck in those same clothes forever yeah i'm just like gilligan

that's the out joke there i'm just like gilligan there's also yes a moment of homo fear of like should we hug each other all right yeah let's hug each other you know okay i'll give the twins this when they repeat smooth move x lax uh way to go uh sherlock or whatever they're repeating the thing they said before but as a compliment now that's okay yeah all right yeah also yeah now i see it is when jordan says hey good move guy that now i do see it as steve is gay and he's like oh the the popular guy likes me that's cool all right. And you know what? They do that Gilligan joke right around the same time in Simpsons Tide. Bob Denver is appearing as Gilligan. Oh, that's right.

They wrote him in. I forgot. Bob Denver's in that Simpsons Tide episode? Homer says he's going to whack him with his hat. He's like, I'm going to shake his hand. Then I'm going to whack him with my hat. All right. Yeah.

I remember now. Yes. And he's protesting. Don't do that. It hurts. Yes. Yeah. I'm going to whack him with my hat. All right. Yeah. I remember now. Yes. And he's protesting. Don't do that. It hurts. Yes. Yeah.

I'm not joking. Then there's a post-credits thing that is a pure Simpsons joke about not re-knowing who James Monroe is. It's just the Jefferson Monument gag again about things people don't know. But it's true. The three-cent stamp from 1958 did feature James Monroe. That's the kind of impressive nerd trivia that the Simpsons writers held in their hands to use at parties that now, you know, internet search is ruined. Like, it's not impressive anymore.

I found it instantly. And, like, when Steve was being sarcastic, I want to say I heard this earlier on the show, but he goes, well, hey, that's great. Yes. I think, were they working on that for his catchphrase or something? Like a sarcastic, I don't know. I think you you're right or maybe he just reads every line in that cadence i think the actor is probably it's probably voice yeah i'm an angel come on but then he follows it up with a fresh jim carrey reference calls him a loser yes yeah that's to have that

be the actual last joke in the post credits he's like hey that's great for you loser it's like come on and i know i know gina reese no that sucks i'm yeah i'm wondering if they were told by my here's my imagining scene here a shitty abc executive said just have a joke like jim carrey would do and they're like all right here's your fucking jim carrey joke just a joke jim carrey says we're just gonna do that how about that it is i mean it is really um difficult to like talk about this and like when you talk about the critic you can easily see like oh this has common dna with the simpsons like it's impossible to miss but like i just don't see it that much here and it's sort of boggling to think about like abc fucked us up? Quite possibly. That is just an unrecognizable thing to me.

But maybe it's not a fuck up. Part of it is, like, you could be a great writer for the thing you're really good at, animated comedy. But when you're trying to pretend to write, like, a cheesy TGIF sitcom, like, that condensation, the way you look down the material can come off in what you're doing so it's both the executives forcing their hand but then also instead of coming up with like the passionate response to what would be like natural for this sort of format you know you're just forcing something right yeah and i mean tjf had a lot of bad writing on it and it was that it was written that way because i guess that's what people wanted i don't know yeah i don't think they were put on this earth to write a sitcom for tweens a tween audience yeah and i

mean they don't like this it's unavailable you might hear the quality of the clips it's only on youtube uploaded privately it's not on like disney plus or whatever uh nobody talks about it and whenever gene and reese mention it it's always in the most negative of terms or maybe like the one bright moment of a nice person they worked with and that's basically it but uh yeah i mean i guess if i were to sit down and watch compare this to an episode of like full house or step by step or family matters i imagine maybe there are some there are some better comedic performances on those other shows but the writing probably is not as good as teen angel and that just shows you where tgif was right if you want to watch all the episodes that are on youtube you can sift around

for some good ish to even just good simpsons jokes simpsons style jokes that rise above where they're allowed to be and they you know now that glenn said it i think you could diagnose it as a mix of writers who know that this is beneath them and write as such plus mixed with executives who demand a certain style that even if they wanted to write above that style executives will not let them do that and and cut good jokes so the fact that anything slightly funny gets to be on this show that makes me like ah that's good is an accomplishment of of aljean mike reese and and all the other uh talented folks who did work on this show yeah and again it chased mike reese

out of full-time uh hollywood work yeah yeah so it ruined a man the show yeah but any any final thoughts uh glenn and drew i'm glad it was very gay. That was a nice little treat that I was not expecting. I don't know. I feel bad. I still feel bad for Maureen McCormick, I guess. Glenn? I mean, my takeaway is, yeah, I think that this is not a tragic experience for all.

But, like, there are limits the the sort of cash that check mentality when you're working in hollywood like you it's it is very hard to dump quote unquote dumb yourself down for the material like it always shows thank you once again for being on the show drew and glenn uh please let us know where to find you online and let us know more about gayest episode ever gayest episode ever is a show that we ripped off your guys' formula, as we've mentioned many times before, and talk about shows that are dealing with LGBTQ issues. We've done a whole lot of magic sitcoms, including I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Out of This World, probably other ones. I can't think off the top of my head. There's one I want to do for our new season where it is Sally Field

Sally Field plays a woman and her secret power is that she's psychic and the name of the series is called The Girl with Something Extra and I just love that as the name of the series where you're like what is it oh she's psychic okay I guess that's it but it's another version on like how can we give a woman

power oh she has like psychic powers and that's going to be how that one works there's apparently a very lesbian themed episode that i can't wait to talk about one day um and uh yeah ksepisodeever.com glenn how do you how do you describe our show oh that's good i describe it like this like you're very drew gives a lot of history and i uh chime in now and then to talk about what the script is doing. Hopefully well, but sometimes not so well. And you guys are both a lot of fun on Twitter as well. Thank you.

Drew G. Mackey for me. It's mostly pictures of my dog at this point and weird video game stuff. Yeah. And if you want to send me a pic, like corny fan art of a teen angel you can do that uh i i write wrongs i w r i t e wrongs oh and you know listeners of this either look forward to or have heard right before this i'm on an episode of gayest episode ever talking about a pro wrestling episode of the forgotten nicky cox sitcom nicky we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as like digging history

and content out of like sitcoms that I don't think anyone wants to ever hear about. But I, given that, uh, given that no one else is talking about these things, I think, I think we've,

we've done a pretty good job for this episode and the Nikki episode both. And Bob, by the way, uh, please, we would love to have you on the show. I never want to be like, you should be on our show.

Cause I'm basically asking you to do extra work for free. But if there is ever a show animated or because we do cartoons that made us gay as well, animated or sitcom that you don't think you'd ever be able to talk about given your podcast preview on your podcast, please, we'd love to have you. I will think about it.

I'm sure there's something that we have not covered yet that we probably won't like another show that perhaps no one else cares about but like we will find we will find ways to make it interesting please please I think Bob would be your first hetero guest as well I want to break the hetero ceiling first hetero

male guest yes you would be our diversity hire oh but thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks again to Drew and Glenn for being on the show. Please check out Gayest Episode Ever. It's great. We love it. But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these podcasts one week ahead of time

and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Sign up there for five bucks a month. You get just that, but also access to everything behind that $5 paywall. That includes all of the limited miniseries we've done over the past five plus years over a hundred bonus episodes that are all full length and that will also get you access to monthly regular episodes of both talking futurama and talking of the hill every month and again that is patreon.com slash talking simpsons but there is a ten dollar level as well

when you sign up for that you get access to all of the $5 stuff but also access to one super long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level or higher and what is that Henry? Bob is talking about the What a Cartoon movie podcast which is the premium Patreon exclusive podcast we do each month often going over five hours talking about an animated feature film super duper in depth just like we do an episode of the simpsons or teen angel uh in this case and uh recent ones have included at the end of this month you know we talked a little about beavis and butthead in this episode we're doing the brand new beavis and butthead do the universe movie we talked to some folks who worked on it we've got a lot of behind the scenes interesting history on it and it's a funny as hell movie and we go super duper in depth into it the previous months we did

a summer of disney renaissance of us covering beauty and the beast little mermaid and the rescuers down under and that is part of a collection of i nearly four full years of what a cartoon movie podcast. I'd say over 260 hours of podcasts at your disposal. In addition to all of the things Bob just talked about, that's so much that you get for 10 bucks a month. Check out everything you are missing. If you go to patrion.com slash talking Simpsons. And I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey.

You can find me on Twitter as Bob servo. And my other podcast, by the way, is Retro Knots. That's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retro knots. Sign up there for two full length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, how about you? I've been Henry Gilbert. Follow me on Twitter at at H E-E-Y-G. I'm always tweeting up a storm, often about old stuff or gay things too sometimes, or pro wrestling. And if you enjoy this podcast and if you enjoy our stuff and following us on Twitter,

please be sure to follow the official Twitter account of this podcast at TalkSimpsonsPod. That Twitter will keep you up to date when there's new episodes of all of our podcasts on Patreon or on the free feeds, when there's polls, when there's news going on in our lives. Follow at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter to stay up to date.

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We'll see you again next time for the next episode of our community podcast, Talk to the Audience, and we'll see you then. Thanks for everything, Mr. President. Glad to be of service, son. Say hi to your wife, Dolly, for me. I'm not James Madison. Oh, right, sure.

Weren't you on a coin or something? No. I was briefly on the three-cent stamp. Well, hey, that's great. Loser.