Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Cartridge Family With Will Sloan

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

The Mike Scully era truly begins with this very political episode of The Simpsons. We're joined by Will Sloan, cohost of the podcasts Michael And Us and The Important Cinema Club, to discuss gun control, soccer, the King of England, and how this episode has aged. Plus some legitimately hilarious jokes as the venerable show enters another era, and so does our podcast. For once in your life be fair and give a listen! Support this podcast and get hundreds of bonus ad-free episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!

hey everybody right before the show wanted to let you know we have an update to our patreon a brand new monthly movie podcast is available now for ten dollar and up patrons at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you want to hear me and bob talk all about mask of the phantasm the best batman movie of all time you can hear all about that in our long almost three hours long podcast patreon.com slash talking simpsons i heartily endorse this event or product product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where we feel like God does when he's holding a gun. I'm your host, coin-operated Bible salesman Bob Mackey. This is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and it's pronounced fudge-sickle.

And who do we have on the line? I'll do it. I'll rob the quickie mart. I'm Will Sloan. Excellent. And today's episode is The Cartridge Family. A gun is not a weapon, Marge. It's a tool, like a butcher knife or a harpoon or an alligator. Today's episode aired on November 2nd, 1997. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, boy, Bobby. Steve Coogan's brilliant I'm Alan Partridge debuts in the UK.

A live performance of the classic Cinderella musical gets ABC's highest ratings in seven years, and Titanic has its first showing in Tokyo ahead of a wide release that many think will be a gigantic flop and one of the biggest failures in film history. There was a sneak preview in Tokyo first? That's where the film premiere was

in Tokyo. That was the first public, well, not public, but the first showing of the film outside the studio. I had no idea. It was huge in Japan, well, not public, but the first showing of the film outside. I had no idea. It was huge in Japan, too. I recall being a media obsessed nerd, hearing about Titanic beforehand and thinking like, oh, man, James Cameron is my favorite director and he's going to have a big failure. This is going to be so sad. We're all saying that about the Avatar sequels, but they're going to be huge hits.

I swear. Yeah, probably. I used to read Entertainment Weekly when I was a kid. So, you know, I was like a precocious little industry insider. So I used to say that too. I was eight years old at the time. So I, you know, I had been conditioned all year from sort of reading Entertainment Weekly to the extent that I could read it to know this would be a Titanic folly,

as I believe it was described in Entertainment Weekly. to the extent that I could read it, to know this would be a Titanic folly, as I believe it was described in Entertainment Weekly. But yes, Titanic, very important film in my life, in the lives of anybody who lived through 1997. I think the first time I saw nudity in a movie. Oh, wow. I hate to start the episode on such a close note. I mean, when you write a movie called Titanic or make a movie called Titanicanic you're setting yourself up some for some uh too clever headlines in the press yes it was so ready to be

like what's the next water world it's just like water world all these boats and water just look at all the water and it takes place in the world so you're halfway there but it was an insane phenomenon i think i remember seeing it in a theater. I didn't see it until it was two months old and it was still selling out every showing in my area. It was that big. I couldn't believe it. I've still never seen it. Really? Yes. I was too cool and now I'm too old and there's not enough time left in my life for a three-hour movie. That's why I don't see those Marvel movies. You've probably internalized so much of it just via cultural osmosis.

Oh, yeah. You probably know all the famous parts and the Celine Dion song and everything you need to know. I think I've seen 75% of the movie through parody alone. Yeah. And I'm Alan Partridge.

It's a very funny show, if folks haven't seen it. I was wrong to sell all my steve coogan stock 10 years ago and invest in ricky gervais oh we all made that mistake y'all you know there is a there's a bad trope right now of especially uk and or bbc comedy writers of the 90s becoming um horrible and i haven't yet seen it with steve coogan but i guess i'm not watching him that closely but i am i hope that never happened i think steve coogan has socialist leanings doesn't he i believe he campaigned for corbin he's a corbinite oh wow okay that's a good yeah there

you go i mean uh it's amazing that anybody of his wealth and with that media ecosystem that they have over in the uk could be a jeremy corbin supporter i just saw him in stan and ollie and i thought he was really good that's right he's in that i gotta check that out i mean and he's been playing alan partridge for like over 20 years now you talk about your vase when i see him as david brent now i'm like get this fucking clown costume off loser but when i see him do alan partridge it feels like there is a reason he's doing it and it comes to it's for a point it's not just for new laughs about being alan partridge yeah i mean it's just one of the great characters and every time alan partridge comes back it is like it's like a new stage in his life story and it's a new he's in a new place

in the media so you know he kind of grows along with the culture uh in a way that i don't think david brent has no uh why and i also think too steve coogan keeps working with uh his original co-writers on the character as opposed to ricky gervais just making it the ricky gervais show yeah so our guest will sloan if you guys didn't hear him on our shry Bobbins episode, Will, what's your background with The Simpsons? Oh, you know, it's the same background as I think any kid who grew up in the 90s loved it. It was on TV perpetually. So I watched it every day, you know, anywhere from two to four times a day. Those first nine seasons, I've probably seen every

episode. I think I've seen more episodes of The Simpsons more times than I've seen any other show. And I'm sure that's the case with like everybody listening to this podcast as well. So I'm not special in any stretch of the imagination. But yeah, like I think for people of our generation, The Simpsons is this shared language. I'm not sure what it's like for people younger than me to be honest what do they have to to bond over i think they have spongebob i think it's spongebob yeah yeah interesting yeah one this is a very political episode of the simpsons and you will have a fantastic political podcast michael and us yes we are members of the michael and us nation yes oh thanks very much yeah, Michael and Us is a podcast that I co-host with my friend,

Luke Savage, who's a Jacobin writer. It started, it's kind of a complex thing to explain, but it started where we were like, what if we watched every Michael Moore movie again to see how it holds up? And as it turns out, most of them didn't hold up. And we started it during the 2016 election. And from that point on, it turned into a political cinema slash television slash culture podcast, typically taking some forgotten or neglected cultural artifact that is political and comparing it to the current moment. I hope that's a good pitch. Yeah. I really liked your recent episode about the movie PCU because that movie's maybe 25 years old. I was thinking we're still having these stupid, these same stupid jokes.

I haven't listened to that one yet because I've been afraid of like, oh God, I hate- Jeremy Piven would steer us wrong. Yeah. I mean, if your listeners are unfamiliar with PCU, it is a comedy about campus political correctness that's from the 90s. It's a whole other world of the campus PC debate. But it's also, yeah, all the same talking points. And I mean, what's weird about PCU is I think it was mostly made by liberals or liberal leaning people. So it's interesting how the same arguments just they get resurrected in different guises every 10 years or so. Well, I mean, the people who were young when they made PCU, then they grew up and then their kids went to college and then they have to write, say, an episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt about how annoying college kids are and how they don't know anything.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's a bummer. It's a bummer. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The podcast, I mean, we've kind of built it into this like side business that we make money on now. But when we recorded that Bowling for Columbine episode, it was such a larky thing. And we were just kind of hanging out laughing about Bowling for Columbine. And we were all sort of shocked about, I mean, not only does it not hold up, but it's a genuinely incoherent film. Like, you know, we all think, remember bowling for columbine as being a movie that is for gun control but it's not actually even for gun control it's like it's constantly contradicting itself it doesn't really come out with any prescription for the problem really it

just kind of lays all the blame at charlton heston's feet personally um so we were very shocked and by that and you know And we saw that and we were like, oh, geez, well, maybe this is why liberalism constantly failed in the 2000s. It didn't have any coherent arguments. No wonder George W. Bush was able to just steamroll this. But yeah, we recorded that episode in early 2016, and we really didn't know what was coming. But before we get into gun control, we have an even more polarizing topic to talk about, and that is Mike Scully, who is the new showrunner of this era of The Simpsons. Technically, this is his first production episode, the first episode he ran as a showrunner from

seasons 9 to 12. So we should talk a little bit about his history, where he came from, and where he went after The Simpsons. Mike Scully, who you guys should definitely listen to our interview that's on patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. It will change your mind about Mike Scully. He's a really nice guy who also, I think, gets scapegoated as the guy who made the show bad or whatever, which I don't, I used to subscribe to and no longer do, but- We apologized to him on that podcast. We did, yes but uh he grew

up in west springfield massachusetts he's definitely older than most of the guys who were on the writing staff even when he was in the 90s writing on it he was one of the few like parents on the staff he was one of the few like old comedy pros he was also one of the few that didn't come from harvard he was a real real standout comparatively of comedy writers in that room. He was a real salt of the earth type compared to the rest of us. Just a naturally funny guy. Yeah, just a funny dude. Who is?

He's a very funny, just nice guy. His Twitter account is great, too. Follow him on Twitter. But after he left West Springfield as a college dropout, which compared to all the Harvard dudes he was surrounded by, that's pretty crazy, he wrote for the, yes, the Yakov Smirnoff as a joke writer. He was apparently just a general joke writer for comedians. That was his starting gig in the world of comedy. And I believe he got his brother Brian a job on that sitcom as well. So that's how they

both came up. Yeah yakov smirnov after after writing for his stand-up he then got his own show which that was how the first tv show he wrote for which uh it was what a country it could only be called what a country and uh he also brian uh mike scully along with his brother brian scully also wrote on out of this world the uh the lesser small wonder I always think of it as. It's of that same very cheap, high-concept syndicated sitcom era of the late 80s, I believe. Yeah. I watched it.

About a space girl. Yeah. I watched a couple. I mean, I'd watch... If the television was on, I was watching it. That was my job as a child. You've won me over. And Bob, you found another interesting one.

He worked on the Would Be Married with Children spinoff show. Yes, he worked on Top of the Heap, which was a Married with Children adjacent show. It wasn't about an existing Married with Children character, but there was a sort of backdoor pilot on one episode of Married with Children where it would follow these new characters who you would follow to their own show. They were that interesting. But it was one of Matt LeBlanc's, one of his first early sitcoms before he found Friends. There was a lot of buzz surrounding Matt LeBlanc. They wanted to get him on a sitcom. This was one of them. And also he worked on The Royal Family, which was the sitcom where Red Fox died on stage. So that was cut short as well. But I believe from that, he went right to The Simpsons where he was

very much the new fish, you know, and that he was not the Harvard guy. He was, you know, not of the same friend groups of all the writers who knew each other coming up at Harvard. So he was very much the outsider. But he worked his way up from being like a writer in season five, his first credited episode as Lisa's rival. Even before taking over the show, he was really good at writing stories about the kids about you know mining his personal life for stuff like the marge be not proud which for video game playing mama's boys was one of our favorites it that was pulled from his real life childhood too when he took over the show there definitely was more of a focus on the chill he even said it in

our interview get back to the family but it's definitely much more about the the kids too his seasons are when the kids really uh had a lot more of their own kid adventures and almost like a rugrat style world at times i think and also though his seasons i think are marked by uh so look we're anti-jerk ass narrative here yeah it's not it homer was a jerk in dave merkin seasons hardcore he was but his homer is a mean homer in this episode homer is an awful person in the next episode bart star homer's a piece of crap he's homer i think they've got a lot of comedy out of making homer mean and that made them laugh of like wouldn't it be funny if homer just said the meanest thing he could right yeah at times they were right it was but it it was a more cheapening of his character at times the meaner you make Homer and like with

the previous showrunners they also thought the show would be ending soon so they were like why why don't we just do this why don't we I mean it's how much time do we have left but as we know from history that wasn't true interesting that he apparently started with Yakov smirnoff and then he killed red fox and then he shepherded the simpsons into its period of decline so i mean i know you're trying to stay kind of even-handed about him but he really sounds like a comedy angel of death a real comedy assassin uh yeah uh well well he also works with mel gibson right before his fall from grace. That's true. Oh, wow. Complete Savages, I believe, was the name of the sitcom.

Yes. Yeah. Well, also, I mean, speaking politically, it's a little hard to get a read on Mike Scully, the man, because he definitely has a Christian or Catholic upbringing, which he brings to the show. But also, so many jokes on The Simpsons are just like, if we can make a joke about the Catholic Church, we're going to do it. Who cares? he got mel gibson on the show he worked a lot creatively with a hardcore catholic mel gibson though he would go on to work on parks and rec and also another like i think actually really good leftish type show the gerard carmichael show which was

really trying to be like all in the family for for now which was a really good uh especially like african-american focused led show and mike scully was a big part of that show like that actually had like a a real ass black lives matter episode on tv in 2014 which is just like who who did that on nbc that's still hard to believe so so yeah it's really, I will say it, it's hard to get a political read from him. I mean, he did also have a many, he had a very funny tweet of the president

telling him he wants to key his coffin and that he would hope he dies soon. Yes, he's very funny on Twitter, very spicy on Twitter. Well, he sounds like a nice man and I'm just sorry for his legacy. Well, I think too, something that has changed my mind on mike scully's years on the show not just from talking with him about how he thought like each season would be the last he stayed on longer than he thought he would his showrunner

because he's like well the next season's got to be the last one i don't want to leave them with a new showrunner before the next season and he just kept sticking around and sticking around for four years but i think too ian maxstone grahamxton Graham and George Meyer really took more creative leads in the writer's room too. They sound almost on showrunner level, if not right below it. George Meyer is one of the funniest guys in the writer's room, but I think he has jokes that sometimes should be edited and they're just like, no, that's funny. Put it on the show. Yeah. He would often tell jokes just to make the room laugh, but then later those would end up in the actual episodes, maybe some scenes you don't like

and ian maxton graham is an elitist asshole he's 20 000 feet tall uh yes yeah i don't want to be that mean to him but i i think he wrote some of the worst episodes this season or these these years yeah i feel like he definitely i mean it didn't help that ian maxton graham did a whole interview about how like yeah do we need women in the writer's room yeah yeah i'm sorry well we're not really making this uh he did get that interview back in the 90s though sure it was still it was wrong then and it's wrong now but i mean i i assume he wouldn't say that now i would hope not no oh and i guess last thing about the this new era of the simpsons 2 not only is mike scully running the show but david silverman is gone as supervising director of the animation who he had been with the simpsons from day one on the shorts he was an animator on the simpsons shorts

for the tracy ullman show and he had been either directing episodes or supervising directing the entire season of the simpsons he He has left. He'll be back. He will be back. You just got to make Monsters, Inc. first. Pixar hired him away. Monsters, Inc. is in trouble, and they need him to make it a little better. And so instead, who takes over, though, is a great, great, one of the best directors in the show's history, Jim Reardon. Who's also at Pixar now, right?

Disney. He's just a Disney proper. Oh, just Disney. You'll see him in the credits of every Wreck-It Ralph or Zootopia, those types of things. He's a pretty high-level story editor or something like that. I mean, his old buddy Rich Moore is like almost – he's like the new – I was going to say the new John Lasseter. Don't say that, please. He's the new guy in charge.

He's the John Lasseter of animation. Oh, God. Anyway, Jim Riden is a really great director, but losing David Silverman, I think, is another creative drain on the show. They're losing David Silverman. The same season they lose Brad Bird as creative consultant, and they also lose Jeff Lynch,

one of their best action directors. And so it's a changing of the guard. It's a very time-consuming job. I'm not saying you have to have a job for life at the simpsons but i believe that but this kind of creative shuffle is also what i think causes uh changes in the show i agree this year but i guess this episode too we joked with mike scully about it in our interview but he had been pitching this episode for years and wasn't getting to do it so the first episode he wants to do when he's in charge is Homer buys a gun because it was his idea. It's a funny one. I kind of want to get out

there right now what we all feel about guns and gun control, because I feel like that's going to be an important part of this discussion. Because this episode at the time in the late 90s, it was very much, you know, very neoliberaliberal era and it seemed to be making a reasonable argument but now it doesn't seem very reasonable with everything that's happened since this episode is aired where the argument that's being made is like people like homer shouldn't have a gun but my response to that is people like homer who don't have guns those guns can be accessed by homer style people and also in the heat of the moment you can become homer if you have a gun like a gun can turn you into Homer Simpson

because you have the kill weapon on you at all times. So I feel like I don't like the message, but ultimately, I think it's coming down against irresponsible gun use. But I feel like no gun use is responsible. No, I am also a gun control, a pro-gun control person, especially in America. It's just such, it feels sometimes like the gun control person especially in america it's just such it feels

sometimes like the wild west especially in other states we live in california which has more gun control rules though hardly enough but and yet i was mugged with a gun two months ago well if i was the nra bob i'd say that you should have had a gun to shoot that guy instead strangely enough i had no urge to buy a gun i was more afraid of guns after that so it failed uh but but anyway yeah i i would want more stringent gun control laws like seeing the aforementioned polling for columbine was a very much like oh yeah this the it identified for me like america has a real problem with guns as marble mouth and all over the place that movie is it It was feelings I was already feeling. I think I still feel that way about gun control,

though now it's not even like a cool, doesn't even feel like the Democrats even talk much about it these days. Not really. But Will, you're from the, as Bowling for Columbine told us, the perfect land of Canada where nothing bad ever happens with guns. Possibly I go wrong. Yeah, and according to Bowling for Columbine, we have exactly as many guns per capita

as the United States, which I think Michael Moore did some fudging on the numbers there because we certainly don't have as many handguns. You know, I think the guns that we have are mostly like hunting rifles in the rural parts,

although I'm by no means an expert on Canada's gun laws. I do believe we have much stricter gun control here, though. You know, I mean, I'm not sure how many episodes are designed to survive the scrutiny that I'm going to place on them in this kind of shot-by-shot analysis for your show. I had very fond memories of this episode, as I do with most Simpsons episodes. And I think it cops out a little bit on the satire. I mean, I think it's prescient in maybe some other regards. In terms of the NRA, I think it's become clearer since this episode came out that they're basically a racist hate group. Yep, for sure. Yeah, 100%.

But, I mean, perhaps that should have been more apparent at the time. I think the kind of racial dimension, I mean, there's nothing funny about it, but it's noticeably absent from this episode. And I think it has always been key to the NRA. You know, one of the things that Bowling for Columbine, I think, astutely points out is the fact that the NRA rose in parallel, if not officially, with the Ku Klux Klan and the Reconstruction Movement. And, you know, certainly in the 90s, and it's only become more pronounced now. The NRA is an organization that's sustained by people who both fear Black and Muslim and Mexican people

and also kind of fantasize about an opportunity where they might be able to kill them. Oh, yeah. So that's a roundabout way of expressing my opinion of the NRA. It's funny because the NRA did not like this episode. They wrote many a letter. Well, I mean, it's their job to just say like, like oh did you on this tv show even lightly say guns are bad then it's like they wouldn't be doing their job as a political organization to not attack attack attack when

they really do get like such a nice treatment here they actually stop a bad guy with a gun they are the good guys with the guns that actually show up and fix things, which never happens. And they're a very diverse group of people, which again, not so much in real life. Like, and, and also they stop a white man who's irresponsibly using guns from being in

their membership, which again, it's not, not so real. I feel like they want, it's, there's definitely a lot of both sides-ness to this that I, I don't particularly, uh, to this that i i don't

particularly uh have much uh don't cotton as much now as i did in 1997 for sure but i think us looking at shows throughout the modern lens we always do that we're not just doing this one yeah and you know i think these things probably should have been and you know frankly they were apparent in the 90s it wasn't that long after this that the Columbine Massacre happened. Certainly there were gun control advocates all throughout the 90s. And, you know, anybody who cared to think about the NRA for like more than a second would have figured out who is it really protecting and what is its real function. One thing I will say about this episode is that what it gets exactly right is the absolute median demographic of an NRA member, which is Homer.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It would be very appealing to him. I think social media has a lot of pros and cons, but one side of it definitely has been to show us what, like, you don't have to imagine the NRA member that, like, Aaron Sorkin writes for some screed in West Wing. Yeah. You get to see them actually, you know, yelling racial slurs at Obama and saying, like, if you try to take my gun, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, you get to see who the real people are are or it gives you a more informed look at them so hey that's at least a positive of uh the the aching maw that is uh social media i mean you're absolutely right in the 90s the people who were representing the conservative side in the media were people like i don't know george will like like that or i don't know william

f buckley these you know in terms of of their rhetorical styles are certainly not representative of what the great mass of conservatives are thinking. And also politically, it's interesting, too, because, you know, Matt Groening, obviously no fan of guns. He's a classic Portland hippie, like much to the left of probably all the writers on the show even, I think, or most of them. But meanwhile, this one is written by John Schwarzwalder, who has to be the most to the right of the classic Simpsons writers. I think David Merkin jokingly called him a fascist. He's an openly libertarian dude who sounded like from stories with trolled the writers with just saying like there's not there's a ton of rainforest left or actually cigarettes help you what are you talking and he stopped writing in the office when the smoking ban happened in california

and he can no longer smoke in the office so he just started writing at home and they never saw him again but his scripts would always show up and he's a very funny writer so a lot of great books yeah so i think that too if you're wondering yeah as we talk about maybe the nuanced view on guns in this episode i think too it partially comes from like it's an outline by mike scully but then the draft is written by pro gun guy john swartzwelder so i who i think probably agree when he gives the NRA correct points, I'm like, I think you agree with these guys. Yeah, me too. Before we dive into the episode, I would also just suggest that I don't think this episode would be possible after Columbine.

No way. No way, no way. Yeah, you're, I'm sure there have been mass shootings before this. Columbine seems to me like the most famous or the first really well-known mass shootings. And after that, an episode like this would have had to deal with it in some way. And I think the potential for humor would have immediately disappeared. Yeah, I mean, the previous massacres in history were very isolated and seemingly rare, like Charles Starkweather in Texas and the cafeteria massacre in, I believe, Texas. With Starkweather, they made multiple jokes about him on The Simpsons.

There's an entire King of the Hill episode that's a parody of that sniper event. But they didn't seem to be as normal. No, I mean, and now it just is like you guys i'm bowling for columbine you mentioned the then most recent massacre which i believe was orlando pulse shooting yeah i literally when you guys said orlando i was like which one was that like that was that one is a horrible event and i thought when it happened like oh i'll never forget this and now i'm just like okay which massacre was that with how many years ago it's it's very depressing yeah it's very depressing anyway let's talk about these funny jokes yeah you know it's not depressing soccer

soccer a lot of funny jokes in this episode i gotta say yeah uh yeah actually let's start with this uh soccer commercial that opens up the episode wait hang on don't you want to start with the reference to the richard gear gerbil story? Oh, yes. The first time this was referenced, I looked it up again. I believe we talked about it on a podcast before. But this started, I believe, during the period in which Richard Gere was becoming huge because of Pretty Woman. Ah, yes. And some prankster sent out a fake press release about the gerbil incident. And I think the release was like he's going to

be nicer to animals now he's donating in the tapita or something like that so one guy pre-internet pre-social media just sent out a bunch of fake faxes to radio stations and tv networks and because of that we know the richard gear gerbil story it's sort of like how we all know at least at least i know it's like oh yeah rod stewart drank 35 gallons of cum and whatever the story is i'm sorry to say that it's the first thing i think about when i think of richard gear every time dependably he's been trying that's not unfair to him he's been trying so hard to make you think of like buddhism or tibet like he'll be he'll be on the show in like four years. Oh, shit. His activism strikes me as very noble.

You know, it's a shame he didn't have that horrible run-in with a gerbil. But just one guy with a fax machine destroyed his entire reputation to this day. Yeah, we must have talked about that in A Fish Called Selma, since that pretty much is all just about it. Exactly. Troy McClure and his fish fetish, as they say. But check out Snopes. It's got the dirt on everything. The Simpsons with apologies to soccer fans and gun fans and we really want to thank our guest will sloan you guys should

definitely check out his podcast especially if you like this political talk listen to michael and us a very fun media podcast about films and tv shows from a leftist political stance also if you enjoy this podcast and want to hear more of it and support us go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons me and bob just did a trip to los angeles to record more awesome podcasts you're going to be hearing them soon and we can only do that with the support of listeners like you at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and you get so much for your five dollars a month if you sign up now you'll get to hear next week's episode of talking simpsons bart star a week ahead of time and ad free and all future episodes for the same deal not to mention our sister podcast what a cartoon

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or at shirtsickle.com. It ships somewhat internationally, comes in many different shapes and sizes. Be sure to check them out. tiny.cc slash talking shirt. uh but yes then we get into a joke that i think ruined soccer for a generation of americans open wide for some soccer the cabinet of soccer association is coming to springfield it's all here fast kicking kicking, low scoring, and ties.

You bet. Hey, Dad, how come you never taken us to see a soccer game? I don't know. You'll see all your favorite soccer stars, like Arriaga, Arriaga 2, Barriaga, Aruglia, and Pichonza. Oh, I never heard it out, people. And they'll all be signing autographs.

Woo-hoo! This match will determine once and for all which nation is the greatest on Earth, Mexico or Portugal. There are so many great jokes packed into that little opening there. I love it so much. Every joke. I mean, well, so soccer in America has been fraught with,

I think it's finally maybe getting a foothold here. In the 90s, though, it was like kids played it if they wanted you to do something more active than baseball, I suppose. But that was pretty much it. I think this really did sour a whole generation of kids on the idea of soccer and just the way they describe it of just like low scoring and ties. You bet. On the commentary, Matt Groening was pointing out how he loves watching soccer and Mike Scully agrees that watching hockey is just as ridiculous. It's still low scoring,

ties, you bet. I think I'd rather watch soccer than hockey if I was forced to. Although we can't disparage hockey. There's a Canadian guest. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Well, I mean, I'll tell you, back in the day when I used to write for a community newspaper, I had to see, I want to say, 100 hockey games. And it totally soured me on that sport.

It's just a horribly repetitive and unpleasant sport and very cold as well. And I think soccer has the advantage of taking place in warm weather. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That gets my vote. And the ball is easier to see than a puck. Come on. Yeah. It's also funny to think that Hank Williams Jr., who hates anything a non-American would ever do an ad for soccer, like that's hilarious.

I think that he's barefoot in the few seconds you see him, for some reason. He just has no shoes on. And God, I think Bisoxa is my favorite of the main uplaves. And I think, too, this ad definitely drives home the un-American-ness of soccer, too. And another reason it doesn't appeal to Americans is because it doesn't have white people with recognizable names as the stars. And America is not in the contest for best country on earth. Exactly. This joke happened in the shadow of 1994 was that weird time where America had the World Cup, which is crazy. America's never had a particularly good soccer team on the men's side anyway. And so having us host the world cup in 1994 was a strange moment and i

and now especially knowing how uh shitty are uh any it is for anybody to come to america from another country i feel bad for such an international event happening here and all these people had to fly to fucking florida to see their team play soccer but But I also think this joke, Mike Scully is a child of the 70s, and that shows through pretty much all of his seasons. And this really feels to me more like it reflects the 1970s attempts to make soccer popular in America with the North American Soccer League, as it was called.

Wow, I didn't know that. Their biggest deal in the 70s was, so they had started in 68, uh in the mid 70s there was a major star pele who had retired but they paid him the most money any uh any professional sportsman had ever been paid they paid him to come out of retirement for two years and basically it just became like it's pele he'll do anything he appears anywhere it's the pele so that became he became. He appears anywhere. It's the Pele. So that became, he became a major celebrity then, which is why you're going to see Pele later in this episode. But once he stopped, people didn't go to games anymore.

They're just like, oh, Pele's gone. I guess soccer's over too. And Pele would literally endorse anything, which is why we see him doing that in this episode. Yes. I think the Simpsons has a lot of nerve taking a shot at pele for endorsing anything how much simpsons shit you can get the writers don't have a say in that unfortunately i think i think they're safe i found an annoying thing and uh so there's

an entire media class which writes did simpsons predict it and an annoying article that comes up for this episode is that in july of last year there were stories like did the simpsons predict the world cup finals because of this mexico portugal thing as somebody who doesn't pay attention to soccer i didn't know what the world cup final was last year until looking this up so i was actually even more mad at it because mexico portugal were not in the finals they weren't even in the semi-finals this was before the World Cup even happened that they're like would that's like saying any joke on

the Simpsons might have predicted something I hate I was so mad reading that article there are maybe three edge cases that aren't real predictions but are just too eerie but that's that's it you can't yeah yeah usually it's like oh Mr. Burns doorbell looks like an ipod so therefore uh but yes it did not come down to mexico and portugal last year was between france and croatia and france won just in case

you guys were uh very curious about that this was also a time in the 90s when soccer riots were i think a big deal i remember just hearing a lot about soccer riots were, I think, a big deal. I remember just hearing a lot about soccer riots on TV. You know, it was this... Always with, like, this kind of, like, vague, like, cultural chauvinism to it. Like, oh, look at these crazy Mexicans

who just can't control themselves, you know, watching a soccer game. I believe SNL had, like, a regular soccer hooligan character bit that they did which i think the term hooligan is like that's a little too not from an american stance on what the word hooligan means it doesn't feel harsh enough for what happens during a soccer ride and say england you know oh those hooligans they get specific about the scottish in this because they uh i can't tell how much of this was like Wikipedia coming at it from a,

like, Oh, those Scots, they always start soccer rights, but apparently they, there's a long history of football, uh, fights happening at Scottish games specifically.

I was impressed how many cultural stereotypes they were able to fit into this game too, because you also see two like karate guys fighting. Yeah, that was Rand. I have Yeah, that was rand. I have to say, that was quite rand. And delicious paella.

I love paella. I've never had paella. I had some fresh paella for the first time in Vancouver and it's amazing. But yeah, actually, let's hear some paella and Pele together at last.

Oh, I'll kill myself if Portugal doesn't win. It's hard to believe this used to be an internment camp. Yo, paella man, wing one up here. Hey, look, it's Pele. Pele is king of the soccer field. To be king of your kitchen, use Crestfield wax paper.

And he's still alive, but that's not actually Pey by the way it's hank azaria master of accents hank azaria everybody i believe in the credits they had to put that was some some celebrity voices are impersonated yeah which they don't often do maybe they're just worried about the paley industry paley is more likely to sue him than others i think well also that, that Pele Crestfield Wax Paper joke reminds me of, me and Bob used to work in the video games press, and at some E3 I was covering, I remember at the

Electronic Arts Press Conference, for some FIFA game, no, sorry, it was Ubisoft, they were making some non-FIFA related soccer game, and it was endorsed by Pele, and Pele comes out to be like, yes, Pele soccer game, good. And then walked away. I was just like, that's Crestfield wax paper

all over again. My favorite part of any E3 was the obligatory bored celebrity. Bored and resentful celebrity. I urge everyone to go online. I've written about this before. Go online and look at Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr coming out to help announce Beatles Rock Band.

They're on stage for about 20 seconds and Paul McCartney does not spit out his gum. In fact, he's chewing it rather explicitly. And I think all he says is, we're androids, ooh. Oh, wow, that's something, right? And he seems so, does not care at all. I want to know how many figures he got for that, but it is just the biggest middle finger

and I can't believe everyone thought that was cool. And then the intended joke is that soccer is boring but uh i think too that the when they show them passing it back and forth that is not really what a soccer a major league soccer game is there's a lot of running back and forth it's quite you'll you're getting action they don't stand in place and keep passing each other like It's more like a foosball game that's happening on the screen, actually. Some cool trivia is, I believe the janitor at Film Roman, one of the janitors, taught the director about soccer, and he's drawn into this episode as the referee or something like that. I feel like he should have gotten a consultant pay on that.

I think that's a little... He's non-union. You join the WGA if you want that. But I respect the fact that there is there's 30 seconds between the passing starting to homer saying boring so they waste 30 seconds of jokes on just monotonous passing i didn't i didn't realize it went on that long until i actually went back and counted and then we also get a joke about the uh the spanish announcers versus american announcers i feel like the joke would work better if the guy was actually speaking spanish but i mean it's it's that he has more energy it feels more like a joke on

american announcers are boring on these games while meanwhile the often the foreign language guys are putting more spirit into it perhaps also the fact that that Americans find soccer boring, but the Spanish do not. It's kind of a culture clash joke. Yeah. Yeah. Spanish can, according to this episode, at least find some incredible drama in this boring game where to,

to American eyes, there is none. Which I mean, I've, I've heard that kind of thing from the opposite. I've, I've mentioned many times I've worked for a British company for a while. And if I asked them what they thought of baseball, they were like, if you think what we say is mean about soccer, their thoughts on Americans pastime were so negative, they could

not stand it. They thought it was the most boring, stupid game ever. It's no cricket. You got to know what a crumpet is to like cricket But apparently that announcer is a parody of I believe his name is Andre Cantor Argentinian football announcer Who did the famous goal That was just screaming goal like that Was a joke for about 10 years I think

That's just what counted as a joke But as the boredom increases The soccer riot begins. Halfback passes to the center. Back to the wing. Back to the center. Center holds it. Holds it.

Holds it. Halfback passes to center. Back to wing. Back to center. Center holds it. Holds it. Holds it. I can't bear this any longer. I'm leaving.

Yeah, not before me you ain't. Now, now, there's plenty of exits for everyone. Oh, that's it. You're dead, pal. Hey, now, that's uncalled for. That's your hole, Skinner. Oh! I call this a soccer riot.

Come on, boys. Let's take them to school. And the riot begins. I just love the mix of characters in this. For some reason, Chalmers is sitting behind Skinner and with Sanjay. It's a weird assortment. It's like Skinner and Chalmers should be near each other, I think the idea was, but not next to each other.

Also, Cletus has really good seats. I don't know how they afforded that. He's up there with Krusty the Clown near the front. I gotta think he snuck in or something. Actually, Krusty should have better seats than Cletus. Also in the big fight, you can see

Dr. Hibbert strangling dr nick that was a joke i didn't notice until now yeah and i really love the animation on barney basically like charging like a rhino into the like head first into a crowd of people a guy yells at homer jobbers cob not you mucker which correct me if i'm wrong british listeners but that's just nonsense right that's not a real thing it's uh scottish made up stuff it's not real okay they made it up it's convincingly enough to make you think it's real but it's not i like jobbers cob knots though oh it's great yamaka and uh yeah so mob rule begins in uh in the city of springfield which they also just like i i like how kip brockman is just like and

so the bob wins they've uh for the next few years every family for themselves which i mean that is what tv news is supposed to make you think like it is it's mob rule at all times i yeah whenever i've gone home to visit family i am just like my mom i was just talking to my mom about this she's like well i want to watch the evening news to stay informed and every time I see it with it on it's just like here's a story about a cop killing someone here's a story about someone killing a cop here's a story about some other crime that happened in your area I'm just like this is terrifying how this is hurting your brain mom I don't I don't like this I think The Simpsons in the 90s is very useful for reminding us of what are the things that

people were afraid of in that decade. Because what's the popular narrative? The Berlin Wall had fallen and the Soviet Union had ended and it was the end of history and there were no more wars to be fought. Politics was moving along and you know it's not like the uh terrifying hell world we're in today but yeah you look at the simpsons and so many of the episodes are about you know whether it's um you know the the 90s immigration panic or uh in this case you know like soccer riots or these like those like america's most wanted fears that there are criminals and monsters on every street corner ned is agreeable to a fault even as a man is stealing his tv i do like that that's very nice he assumes it's a misunderstanding sir and uh and also homer's

like home alone style uh trap for the burglar that's pretty funny which i mean right next door to him they are looting the entire house he should feel pretty lucky he only lost alar that's pretty funny which i mean right next door to him they are looting the entire house he should feel pretty lucky he only lost a fish that's true the next scene with the ex-con home security feels very swartz weldery i love uh the places the previous occupants of the house could be here right now that's a great line and uh and also just the the bags under the eyes of that guy really uh really tell a story too. It's framed very well in that he's supposed to be weirdly intimidating and that a lot of it is shot over his shoulder looking down at the Simpsons when he's talking to them.

So very, very good choices. Even in your grocery. Yeah. Just march tears at it. My parents, they never paid for a security system, though. And one of the places we moved into did have one already installed. And it was just annoying like it would just yeah sometimes there'd be a flashing green light constantly or when we

first moved in there was just this button in the bathroom i was like i i was 10 or 12 so i thought what does this button do what the button does is start blaring a giant alarm and then the police come and uh yeah and so it's just like the button you don't press ever after that and it's just it what the security system is at best for peace of mind they are useless i remember you could like buy a security camera for your own home this was the stuff i used to see advertised when i was a kid if i was watching america's most wanted which i did have a brief period of watching as a kid like there were constantly commercials for like alarm force or you know whatever whatever

those companies were like the show was designed to make you afraid and then along come these commercials to help that fear that had just been instilled yeah well now there's the the social network for paranoid homeowners next door. And it's just about filming everybody doing anything around your house. I've thought of joining it just to see like, what are my neighbors in my apartment like? But I kind of don't want to know.

No. I think I'm better off not knowing. What happened to having just a good old-fashioned telescope and peering into your neighbor's window? You had to work for it. You had to have a long, great telescopic camera to look at them across the way. But no, I, well, actually I got to know too much of my neighbors recently because the next door neighbors, like apparently their bedroom wall is right next to our bedroom

wall. And just like, they came over one night. They're like, we can just hear you talking. I was like, well, what? Like we live, we've lived here for a year now. Get the i i don't like move your bed away from the wall you just moved in i prefer to not see my neighbors and whenever i go check the mail and i see one i'm like damn it this should not happen i am exactly the same way by the way that's good it's not just me all podcasters are like this uh so so hom being sold the security, but Homer, I think, has a better idea on how to make his family secure.

And troopers could come in down the chimney, through the mail slot, even hidden in your groceries. Did you change the locks when you moved in? Nah, I thought not. All the previous owners of this house could still be in here somewhere. What do you recommend? Well, a lot of companies would put in a pretty system that looks good, but doesn't provide any real protection. Oh, let's get that. But if you really want to sleep easy at night, I recommend sealing off every door and window

with bulletproof lucite. Wouldn't we all suffocate? Well, I should hope not. Let's get that, the suffocation thing. And you can have it all for just $500. $500? Oh, forget it. But surely you can't put a price on your family's lives. I wouldn't have thought so either, but here we are. Homer, we need something to protect this family. I couldn't agree more, Marjorie. You deserve peace of mind, and peace of mind is what you shall have. I'd like to buy your deadliest gun, please. Aisle 6, next to the sympathy cards. That's a good act break joke.

Yeah. It's funny that we don't see the idea of buying a gun put in Homer's head before this, because I feel like that should be the inciting incident. Yeah. Maybe the security guy would tell him, like, what, are you just going to buy a gun? Yeah. Then Homer doesn't. I don't know. I like that it's just sort of taken as a given that what would kind of a dumb middle-aged white guy like Homer do? What would be the first thing he would want to do to protect his family?

Well, of course he would buy a gun. That's true. I guess it's just ingrained in his brain. I was thinking this episode a lot when I worked at that aforementioned website because there was this weird moment where one guy on the staff bought a gun. And then two other people were like, I guess I should be safe. I should buy one too. And I was just like, what the fuck are you people doing? Yeah. And our British coworkers actually were just like, one day they pitched like, Hey, you guys own guns.

You guys should like do a shooting range thing or whatever. And then I had to like, I staunchly stood up like, I fucking hate guns. I don't, I don't want you guys to think we're the gun nut team here. And then three other people were just like, well, we all have multiple guns. I was like, Jesus Christ. Have you guys ever held or shot a gun? Yes. Actually, I didn't mention this earlier, but I grew up in the Midwest in hunting culture. My uncle was a big hunter. He did big game stuff. So he's a monster, of course. I agree with you there. And he brought me up to shoot. So I did a lot of target shooting. I never went hunting because I didn't want to. Even as a kid, I was like, this is gross. I don't want any

part of this. But I would win like trophies and stuff by target shooting so i was doing that up until i was like 11 10 or 11 wow and now like even when i see a gun as well especially on a police officer but even with somebody who's supposed to have a gun i kind of just want to leave the room just like i don't want to be around this thing at all so yeah i grew up in gun culture and shooting and i never ever want to do it again i have never fired a gun i have held a couple guns in my hands because my dad is a former cop and yes, you are correct to assume things about him. But he also owned a bunch of guns

and I never wanted to touch guns. Like my cousins, their dad was a big hunter. My dad wasn't, I think because he's just lazy. But he did own a bunch of guns and one day i think probably in response to me seeing things like bowling for columbine i think he thought to himself like i want to tell him what guns are good and so he pulled out like one of his handguns unloaded and he's just like here hold this this is a gun this is how it works it's not to be scared of and i hated every second i was holding it i was just like this is just death in my hands the thing you point out

what you want to die yeah i was i was thinking of this episode too in in a negative context of just like god i hate i hate this i've never never fired a gun uh i hope to never have to and i do not own a gun i mean if i ever were to inherit guns i don't think i would keep them i'd feel even weird selling them because i'm like well i'd want the money but these things shouldn't exist in my opinion i get really afraid just like trying to pop open a bottle of champagne oh dear god yeah or biscuits yeah so no guns for me no thanks so yes this is the kind of like gun wusses you guys are dealing with on this episode welcome to wuss town i'm like rambo compared to you guys you really are well so those were like hunting rifles and never a handgun like never a handgun but rifles and a

shotgun okay yeah no i also uh my dad too was not a very i mean he my dad i don't never saw him even hold his gun but he he didn't like have a gun safe that didn't it was the closet and it was just i as a kid i knew it as that's the closet you don't go in for hide and seek it was not explained to me why until eventually i got to see like oh that's where he keeps his old guns like he doesn't even display them particularly well yeah i'm not sure if my uncle so i live with my grandma and it would surprise you that a a gun nut lived with his mother until he was 50 so i live with my grandma briefly as a kid and he was still living there i see and uh he had not completely moved out and he stole a lot of his stuff there when he eventually found a woman and i was going back there to take

care of my grandma and visitor and i went back into his room and I was just opening drawers. There's like bullets and knives and guns. Just like all this stuff was just sitting here. Did you hide this when I was a kid and living here? I didn't even know. So I do think one of the commentaries they just have exist but don't directly speak to is that Homer acts incredibly irresponsible at all times with his guns. But the pro-gun people never try to stop him from having it a you would

think a more moral gun store owner would be like i will refuse to sell you a gun you are incredibly irresponsible but he doesn't do that he's just like no you you have a right to buy guns i'm gonna sell them all to you yeah they make some good jokes about like how irresponsible the system is and like you know there's that scene where where he says oh you've been in a a mental institution you have problems with alcohol you beat up former president bush uh so you have to wait five days or whatever maybe i'm mixing up the joke with another joke um which i think is like pretty astute satire that is I mean you know just two years later two kids from Littleton Colorado would be able to buy a whole bunch of ammunition and shoot up their

school yep yeah oh and also on a price wise thing it's funny that Homer balks at $500 when that is pretty if the gun alone doesn't cost $500 the other stuff he buys for it costs $500. But Lucid is not as sexy as a gun. But yes, here's Homer being told all about his cool new gun. Whoa, careful there, Annie Oakley. I don't have to be careful. I got a gun. Well, you'll probably want the accessory kit, holster,

bandolier. Baby. Silencer. Mm-hmm. Loudener. Uh-huh. Speed cocker. Ooh, I like the sound of that.

And this is for shooting down police helicopters. Oh, I don't need anything like that yet. That police helicopter joke is extra funny to me because it's this interesting tightrope walk that gun nuts, nra folks in particular have to have i'm just like whoever is president is how you feel about the cops like you but they also have to be like well i fear the cops are going to come and take away all my guns but also cops should be able to shoot anybody they want all the time as long as it's not me

yeah and that that police helicopter joke speaks to that same fear i'm just like no i need something to shoot down the police helicopters eventually right they're gonna come for my guns which like they're not if you're white they're not going to that's not their job for some reason i think they gave him bloodbath and beyond is a cute joke i like it i like it but it feels like they gave him herman's store or like he has a confederate flag up in his store too which like that's also very real for a gun store i would think i was wondering why it wasn't herman but i guess he only sells military antiques not actual uh usable modern weapons that's yeah i guess that's it i've always felt that herman was

a tragically underexploited resource on the show. I hope you feel the same. Yeah. His one time to shine after his first episode was a Pulp Fiction parody, and that was it. Which cast him as Zed, and we all know what Zed did. Much more sinister light than we were first introduced to him. And now he just shows up in crowd scenes. Yeah, and then he operated the counterfeit jeans ring

out of the car hole. Yeah, I think he only gets brought back when they want something more evil than Snake. They're like, well, what's something that Snake or Moe would balk at? And that's what they would give to Herman. I mean, especially now, like Herman, well, there's always a use for the conspiracy-minded anti-government kook. There's always a need to speak to that in society. but this is his time to shine right now, especially. I also love Homer just pulling the trigger right in his face. The amount of times he has a gun in someone's face,

and I think they're getting away with something by having a gun pointed directly at the camera, as it were. Yes, I think so. That is a no-no for some animated shows. But now Homer's finding out how the government gets in the way of his precious gun. Just give me my gun. Sorry, the law requires a five-day waiting period. We've got to run a background check.

Five days? But I'm mad now! I'd kill you if I had my gun. Yeah, well, you don't. I love that. Big shots. He's so big because he's got a lot of guns. But if he didn't have any guns, I'd show him a thing or two. And we'll see who's worried about five-day waiting period.

Dad, it's 3 a.m. Can't you mutter in your room? Marge kicked me out. All right. Go ahead. Pushy kids think they can tell me what to do in my house. I tell you parents these days, they don't know how to rear children. I do like that.

I think it's one of the best parts of the show. It really gets like who the gun owners are. They are like these impotent men who, you know, feel very powerless and feel constrained by the shackles of domesticity, and they lash out by buying a gun. I love how many red flags there are with Homer, especially

it's kind of a shocking line, but I love it so much. Like, I'd kill you if I had my gun. Yeah, well, you don't. Yeah, it's like, I want to officially give that line in the episode. Oh, let's do it. Let's do it. That's the joke. Also, I should point out that John Swartzwelder had a pilot for Fox, because I assume everyone

who worked on The Simpsons just got a pilot for something. And it's called Pistol Pete, and it's online. And it's about a cowboy who just shoots everybody with a gun. And I kind of want to do an episode about it for the Patreon at some point in the future you know i'd like to do that it doesn't really work because he's writing simpsons gags for a low budget live action tv show but you could see how if this was a simpsons bit it would work but i kind of want to do it for the podcast so maybe we'll do it in the future the the waiting period gag too just like but i'm mad now yeah that is why waiting periods exist though not so i i double

check this into i didn't want to just spout off what i have remembered about gun laws i i did look this up a little bit there is no national waiting period because obviously those uh those clowns in congress uh but they they don't want to do any national gun laws it's it and democrats half of them are scared of doing it too, because they'll, the NRA is going to be up their ass if they do it. So there, there just isn't a national waiting period. It's more state by state. Uh, in some States there actually is like, no, there's no waiting period or they just do it like, no, it's a gun show. Like you don't have to do there. Also, if you do an interpersonal sale of like, I don't own a gun store.

I just own a gun and I'm going to sell it to you today. Okay, here you go. And you can just trade it in a parking lot. It's that easy. Like on Breaking Bad. I've seen it. Yeah. One where we live now in California has one of the more strict ones.

It's a 10-day waiting period to get your gun. Yeah, I know. You have to really plan out when you want that gun. And yeah, also, there are some background checks, but also not in other states either. Like, Florida is one of the loosest. Can you believe it? That the stand-your-ground state has very loose gun laws, and

somehow it doesn't make them safer. I don't understand this. God, this country. Now you're muttering. you can't believe this country god i i don't much if only somebody with a gun could go in and figure out this i just gotta get something done well i this does take me back to like if it's time for uh the socialist complaint about democrats hour but i do god damn the last time the democrats actually did something about the guns in congress was when they had like their sit-in to be like we got to do something there was just another massacre

and they're like their wedge on it was like what if we just put gun control on the people on the no-fly list which that's bet is that better than nothing i know. The fly list itself is like, it's hella racist. And it just speaks to like, well, look, if we endorse this massive racist security state, can we at least have gun control on that? And even then the Republicans wouldn't do it.

Even then they're like, even if it's pro racism. Yeah. We're doing the racist thing you want. Republicans. Can't you vote for this? Like, no.

Yeah. And I mean, it seems to have disappeared as an issue somewhat because i mean it it flares up whenever there's a mass shooting and who knows there might be one tomorrow i guess it's disappeared as an issue to some extent because like the democrats haven't had any power in about eight years they haven't been able to pass and you know even if they did have the power to pass something they probably wouldn't you would pass some some weak t like oh bet better background checks thing um a tax credit towards waiting yeah it's or something yeah uh but so homer homer can't get his precious precious gun for another five days we get a get a very cute montage of all the things he'd want to shoot

over the Tom Petty song, The Waiting. Very good. I love that. I think something this episode really gets at is the idea that, like, if you have a gun and, you know, you're buying your gun and you're waiting for your gun to arrive, you kind of want to use it, right? It would suck to spend all that money on that gun

and just have it collecting dust in the closet somewhere. You want to kill a fucking bad guy. You're dreaming of it. Or your sister's-in-law. Yes. Or your annoying neighbor, as the case may be. Yeah. Drives back and forth twice, just waving, dying to be shot by Homer. And that's the late Tom Petty there who would, four

years later, be the guest star of one of many musical guest stars in the season 13 premiere. Oh, right. That's right. I remember when he passed away, Mike Scully had some thoughtful words about the passing of Tom Petty, who would then just go on to be like a professional

voice actor on King of the Hill after Simpson. Yeah, that's true. He was great on that show. But yeah, so Homer, finally the day comes. And this is another just great misdirect in an episode full of them. Come on, come on, open up. Oh, that's just tough. Now, I believe you have

some sort of firearm for me? Well, let's see here. According to your background check, you've been in a mental institution. Yeah. Frequent problems with alcohol. Oh, yeah. You beat up President Bush. Former president.

Potentially dangerous? Relax, that just limits you to three handguns or less. Three handguns or less. How weak was the Brady Bill at that point? Was it already being shredded apart? It was stronger than, I don't think the Brady Bill really came under fire, that's a weird way to say it, but I think it wasn't until the W administration that they were really able to start tearing it apart on assault bands, especially.

Also, this background check gag is one of many Mike Scaliera jokes that I really like where they would point out just how many episodes of the show have happened at this point. That is true. The whole background check thing that people are sketched out about when it comes to buying a gun,

it's like, have you ever rented an apartment? They practically want a blood sample from you, you know? And hundreds of dollars. Yeah. Homer brings his gun home. It starts, the second he points a gun at Marge's face, like, that should be the end of it. Like, that should be like, nope, this gun can't, you can't have this gun. You point it in my face. I've heard gun lovers say like, no, no, the rule is you never point a gun at something you don't want to shoot no matter how sure unloaded it is, which that's how incredibly irresponsible Homer's being,

which again, he shouldn't be able to buy three guns. Like that's not what he should be able to do. Especially with Maggie in the house. I would imagine that if you're the kind of like psychotic person who would go out and buy a gun, wouldn't you like, you know, play with it a little? Wouldn't you like, you know, aim it at your kid and just sort of fantasize about it? Seems like the sort of thing a gun lover would do.

I'm sorry. That's a horrible thing to say. Apologies to all the gun lovers listening. We call them nuts here. Come on. I also think I wonder if this Marge opening her eyes to seeing a gun in her face, which is a very funny visual. Is it a Goodfellas reference? Oh.

Yeah, I thought that too, actually. They didn't mention that on the commentary, but you could be right. I mean, it's just so in the air, the idea of like, just Goodfellas, everything referenced Goodfellas for most of the 90s, I think. But yes, here's the family having a really kind of all-in-the-family conversation about guns. Okay, open your eyes. Ah! Hey,

it's a handgun. Isn't it great? This is the trigger, and this is the thing you point at whenever you want to die. Homer, I don't want guns in my house. Don't you remember when Maggie shot Mr. Burns? I thought Smithers did it. That would have made a lot more sense.

Hey, Dad, can I borrow the gun tomorrow? I want to scare that old security guard at the bank. Only if you clean your room. No. No one's using this gun. The TV said you're 58% more likely to shoot a family member than an intruder. TV said that? But I have to have a gun.

It's in the Constitution. Dad, the Second Amendment is just a remnant from revolutionary days. It has no meaning today. You couldn't be more wrong, Lisa. If I didn't have this gun, the King of England could just walk in here anytime he wants and start shoving you around. Do you want that?

Huh? Do you? No. All right, then. time he wants and start shoving you around do you want that huh do you no all right homer is such an awful bully there yeah i feel she gets one open palm shove is this maybe the worst homer has ever been up to this point i can't think of another one yeah actually it's interesting that i think the ice hockey one he might be worse he might be a little bit worse in that one but i think in episode, so this is Mike Scully's first production episode, the first one that he worked on as a showrunner. In this episode, Marge literally says, this is the worst thing you have ever done. So that's starting off your run with a bang.

Literally. Yeah, wow, wow, yeah. Well, I mean, so this is just a bunch of like gun statistics here too. I like in this episode, the closest they get to getting through to Homer is telling him TV said something and he implicitly trust television for all his information. Though apparently when I looked it up here, it is, I couldn't find a matching percentage now of like, how likely are you to do it? The closest I could find was from a 2012 article, quote, guns are 22 times more likely to be used in an assault or homicide, an accidental shooting, or a suicide or attempted suicide if you own a gun. So it's, I mean, statistically, it's something the Simpsons also, in the conversation about guns now that they don't cover in this

because it wasn't what people were talking about then. If you own a gun, you are far more likely to use it on yourself than on an intruder, not even a family member, but just in suicide. It's so easy to poke holes in the Second Amendment, but it does nothing. I mean, Second Amendment was written by guys who were covered in bugs, didn't wash their genitals very often. Owned slaves. Yeah, disgusting men. But you can't really say anything about it because it won't ever work. Well, yeah, because if you go after the Second Amendment, will they come after the First Amendment?

If you've established the precedent of revoking that amendment, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I do think the Second Amendment should go. I mean, I think the First Amendment is pretty much just a formality here. It's kind of already gone. So just get rid of the second one, too. Who needs that? Yeah. I'll let a soldier stay in my house.

Let's do that, too. Oh, God. No, I... Well, yeah, the second... I mean, when people argue about the First... try to bring up the First Amendment with the second one, it's just like, freedom of speech does not exist here. If you want to stay employed at a company, you can't be free with your speech on Twitter and say like, my company is full of assholes.

Or I don't like this movie, maybe even that. Or also, and I really hate free speech being used by racists to just be like, I'm just speaking my mind. It's my right to say it. Like, fuck you. So I hate that too. But the Second Amendment stuff too, I mean i i had read uh several articles about this somewhat recently but how like using the second amendment as a pro-gun thing isn't even a

all the way back in american history type thing it's actually a political movement from rightward gun nuts starting more in the 70s like in the 50s racist hateful supreme court judges still were just like no the second amendment doesn't apply to your handguns but in the 70s. In the 50s, racist, hateful Supreme Court judges still were just like, no, the Second Amendment doesn't apply to your handguns. But in the 70s, they were able, as a political movement, to push that the Second Amendment was all about handguns and personal gun ownership, not about a state-run militia or anything like that. And that's just what it twisted into. I don't want to say this. It would sound weird to say it gives me hope or something, but it does show you that these things that we take as core bedrocks of American politics was just created by a political group that pushed it really hard and it just became normal.

And I would hope that the same thing could happen in the opposite direction of having more gun control that or other left leaning principles could come through. If, if the right could do it, then why not the left? And I know the answer is the Democrats or what's his, but why not?

Well, there's no money in it. That's why not. That's it. Exactly. Come on, Henry, get it together.

We've established that personal responsible gun ownership is bad, but a well-armed militia is good. That's the official stance of this podcast. Yeah. We kind of are a militia of two. Pro-militia. An unarmed militia. But actually, this episode comes right on the tail of things like Waco and Ruby Ridge and a lot of militia-style standoffs.

Oh, and the Oklahoma City bombing, too. That, too, yeah. That reading of the Second Amendment is a rather recent thing in American politics. And I will say there's an interesting episode. I previously mentioned the Gerard Carmichael show. They have a very living room discussion about gun ownership with a family episode, too, in the first season of that that Scully worked on that I think has interesting parallels with this scene here too. But anyway, I love Dan's very real reaction of Homer saying, you don't get it. It's a tool.

It very much sounds like a furrowed brow husband, like let me explain to you again, wife, why I'm right kind of feel to it. And they'll argue some more if he can't convince her. It's a great line. Yes. They'll argue some more. And so they head off to the nra and uh yes this is a very i mean in 97 the nra was already like i i feel like we we talk about how we all had michael moore as like this early political force in our lives that informing us and he he definitely was no friend of the nra even before

bowling for columbine he identified them as a you know hard right political group that was trying to keep guns in as many hands as possible that was before they had a tv network though holy shit that i mean the commanding people to kill journalists they literally are like oh you're trying to censor us we will stand up against you journalists at the new y Times. Here's their home addresses. Yeah, I mean, they're just like the rest of the conservative movement where, you know, somewhere along the lines, they realize that, oh, yeah, we don't have to have any commitment to decorum at all. And in fact, you know, decorum is holding us back. So, you know, just embrace pure id. Yeah. Dana Loesch ran at the camera.

They built threats. embrace pure id yeah dana loesch ran at the camera yeah build threats why have charlton heston when you can have yeah a seething madman multiple seething madmen just like literally giving like terrorist speeches to the camera about how they if you try to take our guns we will murder everyone we can like that's it's they want to be a terrifying force they know fear is their thing and they've just kind of embraced it the game is over i mean if there's no more pretend can like that's it's it they want to be a terrifying force they know fear is their thing and they've just kind of embraced it the game is over i mean if there's no more pretend of of respectability or civility and you know honestly like the nra was smarter to recognize that than a lot of other people i agree but very savvy well you know you say that but in springfield the nra Springfield, the NRA crosses generations and plans. It really does.

And race. It's a place where Mr. Burns and Cletus and Barney and Principal Skinner's mother, they're all side by side, you know? It's funny that this episode eventually wants you to think the NRA is reasonable and they're

the responsible gun owners, but this scene sets up they're all maniacs. Yes. Except for Hbert hibbert's like doesn't seem to have anything weird going on with him but like most republican though we've established that that's true yeah well and also this nra i have bowling for a combine was all about how crazy the nra is but they really i think they entered into their final form once we had a black president yes like that that really turned to the key of like oh the the mask is off we are we are a virulently racist group like that is what we're supposed to be and trayvon martin also oh yes yeah yeah and i mean well and again the race gun laws in amer to, uh, an aspect,

a lot of people don't think about at first when you think like, oh, we need more gun control is of just, even if there were laws on the books, like most laws in America, they would be disproportionately used against non-white people and enforced on them anyway. So it's, you kind of have to, you, if you want it to introduce new gun control laws, you also need to get away from how they would be obviously racialized or how there have been multiple murdered people by the police, had their rights to have a gun, and a cop shot them anyway. Yeah, yeah. And the NRA didn't say shit because the guy was black. If he was white, that would have been the story. If any of those victims were white, it would have been the thing NRA would talk about for the next five years.

Every grifter would be on that immediately. But yes, also they talk about assault rifles, which are still quite controversial now. I'm pretty sure they're predominantly used in every major massacre that happens in America. It's usually the AR-15. And like Lenny, people have the flimsiest of excuses as to why they need an assault rifle. Yeah, which other than I want to shoot 600 people at once like that's that's really why lenny's also violent he set off that riot for the most part yeah i don't know if your home is invaded by 600 looters what else would do the job or electric eels yes. Yes. Homer, Homer, though, loves the NRA. Hi, I'm Moe S.

Hi, Moe. Yeah, so last night I was closing up the bar when some young punk comes in and tries to stick me up. Whatever did you do, Moe? Well, it could have been a real ugly situation, but I managed to shoot him in the spine. Yeah, I guess the next place he robs better have a ramp. Hi, I'm Homer S. Hi, Homer. Hi.

It seems to me if a gun can protect something as important as a bar, it's good enough to protect my family. So if you'll have me, I would like to become a lifetime member of your wonderful organization. Yeah! Homer, you can't join up with these

gun nuts. Oh, come on. Be fair, Marge. For once in your life, be fair. So the history of Guns and the Simpsons. So as we all know bart is a lifetime nra member oh that's right herb got him that yeah as a going away president also i believe homer had a gun twice before uh once was when boogie men were in the house oh yes in the gambling episode yes gambler episode and also in the episode where Surly Joe fixed their flooded basement,

he was going to give Homer a washer for free. He's like, I got one in my van. And he said, Marge, get my gun. But we don't see the gun, though. True, true. I guess in those cases, neither are handguns, though. So it's a new purchase for Homer to have a handgun. But yeah, he's used guns a number of times.

Oh, and I just remembered another one. When they were a vigilante gang, they all were standing around with shotguns, including Bart. There's plenty of jokes about gun misuse on The Simpsons. And I think, though, it's a very real moment of the NRA laughing at the crippling

of a person. I think that's very realistic. It could have been a messy situation, but I shot him in the spine. It's a great line. And then we go to the shooting range. And again, when Homer shoots all those soda cans, that should be when the NRA says, you are irresponsible. You should not be. He's a monster. Take his guns away right now.

Right there. But then again, I mean, Agnes is throwing a grenade at a shooting range. So they're making a lot of exceptions. The squeaky voice teen is expendable in these people's eyes. And then Homer's sociopathic tendencies reach an appalling new low in the next scene. Oh, yes. Yeah. This moment with the quickie mart, it's more in animation, but I still I love Homer's reaction to it here.

Don't shoot. Just take the money and get out. What? I would never. Or would I? I've already gone this far. I wonder what my life would be like if I robbed the quickie mart.

I'll do it. I'll rob the quickie mart. All right, put your... Oh, well, I'll rob it next time. That's a great reveal. I'm laughing just hearing it again. I think this may be one of my favorite jokes in all of Simpsons. There are two jokes in this episode where Homer is thinking too long about something as he leaves. The muttering scene and this uh but that he was able to just buy a hot dog and walk away and start

his car during a blackout too that's pretty great and and the reveal of the zoom out to reveal he's in the car uh if you pause it and look too closely at it you see they have to draw the car in a completely wrong way like it's so huge but i don't care the joke is worth it he looks extra dopey eating that hot dog for whatever reason it's great there's a great level of detail on that hot dog too it's like some of the best drawings they've had of a hot dog in the show uh in poor i mean well speaking of post-traumatic stress poor apu in in universe he has been held up and shot, I think seven times at this point. Yeah.

And yes, Homer's imagination of what it would be like if he robbed a quickie. Marge being a go-go dancer and him just twirling his gun on a mansion. Is he a Senator? Is that what he has? Like a Senator now? And so, yeah,

we see Homer just walking around everywhere with his gun and which would seem parodic or satirical if like we hadn't seen dozens of stories of the sad man who goes with his ar-15 to walmart chipotle and yeah all the open carry uh nut cases like if i may be judgmental on them i mean you're trying to spread fear ultimately ultimately, I think. You should be judged. Well, it's also showing off that they won't shoot me. A non-white person couldn't walk around with a gun like that. And something this episode also gets at is a lot of it is these people see Dirty Harry or action movies, and they fantasize about, oh, what if I could live the cliche of an action movie? Yeah, you know what actually

dirty harry has a huge influence on this episode too i think especially not just in homer's choice of gun which is the you know classic sexy giant revolver not the then current more like nine millimeter or whatever yeah it was the cheaper gun and one two homer shooting the dinner plate is just it's not it's a see you in hell uh dirty harry you know it's quite a film to watch now and think about how many like cops over time it just at the time saw it just like yeah i'm the only guy who knows knows what these hippies really want to do i'll show them it should be noted in the second dirty harry film he fights dirty cops in it so i think oh that was them trying to be like okay all right we went too far in the last

one the cops are the bad guys now in the third and fourth the pendulum kind of swings back the other direction again oh yeah i i forget i i just remember his partners from three and four i do not remember they have the villain why did you never team up with death wish death which could like death with is too cheap for dirt for clint that's true yeah that's right dirty harry was more of a prestige brand compared to that which is too bad because i think death wish three really gives you like your your bang for your buck so to speak uh more than even all the dirty harry movies do yes yeah if you if you've imagined of just killing minorities in a jungle a concrete jungle god you get that in death wish three with so many death wish movies you'd think the first one would at least have some credibility

in a point but not really no i mean they get worse from there but even the first one was just like yeah gonna clean up the streets homer shoots his way around the house blasting things until uh we get to a a tense dinner scene where i don't have a clip of the audio for it but just the many times homer shoots a photo of marge is is very funny apparently that kind of revolver does not have a safety yeah actually so uh i don't know what he's doing that's why it keeps going on yeah he's tapping what he thinks is a safety and it's just the just cocking it again to fire one more time. Even Lisa has to admit

it was pretty cool, this accidental gun stunt. But I would think if my dad accidentally fired a gun at the dinner table the first time, I would run away. Yeah, yeah. But they're all pretty inert. Those kids should be deafened. Also that. Guns are loud. I don't know if you've said that yet. They're really loud. You don't even if he said that yet. They're really loud.

You don't even need a loudener for it. It has come too far for Marge now. No offense, Mom, but that was pretty cool. Homer, I think you'd agree that I've put up with a lot in this marriage. But this is the first time since we've been married that I've actually feared for our lives. So I'm asking you, if you really care about me and the children, please, please get rid of the gun. All right, Marge. I'll do it. For you.

I'm a lucky woman. And I'm a wonderful man. Oh, God. Homer's so awful. He's just so bad here. And I also, another of my favorite visuals of the episode is Homer's prideful tapping of his chest with the gun. Yeah, the way he uses the gun to gesture things, to point at them, including himself. It's really, really cool.

It basically never leaves his hand once he buys it. It's an extension of his hand after that point. And also Homer saying, like, I'm a wonderful man. It's just like, it's further like Homer. You just don't get it. As a Simpsons fan, I have to point out, though, the dinner table and the breakfast table are different tables. Yeah. They never eat breakfast at the dinner table in the dining room.

I've never seen it in the show so far. You're right. Yep. Sorry. Sorry, Mike Scully. Off to a bad start already. It felt like a very real life home thing of the mother saying to the father, i bet you know you would say i put up with a lot and just him trying to correct and then seeing the kids go like do you yeah i hope you're wrong

even the kids know better gotta drop it like it's important to remember in any relationship like to know when to not argue a point homer says he gets rid of the gun And then we get This scene also feels It is a necessary scene to show how irresponsible The gun uses but it also feels Like post Columbine a scene Fox would not Allow on the channel It's very imitatable I don't feel them

You said there'd be fudgicles Bart where's the fudgicles First it's fudge Sickle and I know they're up here. I just need a better foothold. Hello. And the next marksman is William Tell Jr. Jinx! Bart! Oh, I see Bart gets to have a gun. You lied to me. So I think Homer should have gotten one of those things I've seen gift on the internet a lot of the hollowed out headboard where you lean back and the shotgun drops down into your hands. There's got to be one of those for a handgun, I think.

Seems pretty useful. Yeah. When somebody breaks into your bedroom like, ah, you think you got me? Though I would still think like, I i don't know you take a lot of practice to be like in one solid motion gun got blam to also wake up in that time period too yeah it's also that to homer not say keep putting away his gun correctly into like a safe or whatever that's very very homer he's not gonna buy safe that's expensive and bart's game can only with millhouse getting his head blown off that's what i. I love that he doesn't even put it on his head.

And Milhouse jinxes him, too. Jinx. Which way does that? I think everything about this gag rings horrifyingly true. Yeah, that's also the problem with it is that it is like, this really happens a lot, like more than it should in America, of a child finding a gun and then thinking like, well, this is a toy from TV. I have a gun. There gun there was some blog i think they still do maybe it's like wonk

cat or something like that where they have like a running tally of amount of like child murders not murders of children but murders committed by children who find guns and it's always a surprisingly high number every year jesus like i'm gonna play bang bang with daddy oops daddy's gone now yeah Yeah, exactly. Well, you just find it like as a child, you don't understand the point of it. And it's just like, well, but if you lock it in a safe, then what's the point of having this gun?

Then you're going to open up your safe when your imagined burglar breaks into your house. Then you got to open your safe for it. It's a catch-22 if you're that afraid of things. But yeah, it's hilarious to see bart shoot it uh about to shoot millhouse but it's also so horrifying dark also i i swear right before this episode aired as a kid i had had the how to pronounce fudge sickles with argument with friends i swear i swear i don't like fudge sickles it's the cheapest chocolate oh it's like mocklet it's like whatever they make you

you who out of yeah it tastes like that it's like that's not chocolate pudding pops is where it's at despite the bill cosby connection yeah well you can't buy those anymore though so you're just down to fudge sickles government took them away well i, I think they just folded out of shame with Bill Cosby. Yeah, actually, I'm pro-fudge-sickle these days only because they're like 40 calories. So if you want something cold and chocolatey that technically tells your brain you're eating ice cream, then it's a better diet choice of others you can make. Will, do they have fudgesicles up in Canada? Oh, goodness. You know, I'm actually not sure. I know that there are many

varieties of ice cream-related treat that you can have up here. But, you know, I'm not certain. I'm sorry. I'm such a terrible Canadian correspondent. In the Bay Area, we have It's It's, which are an ice cream sandwich made out of cookies.

And I'm sure it's 1,200 calories. Easily. Easily so. Well, then they cover it in chocolate, too. That's true. I've had one of them, and that was enough calories until now. I'm good. Time to eat again.

Homer has crossed a line for Marge in this moment. How could you? Of all the terrible things you've ever done in your life, this is the worst, the most despicable. But Marge, I swear to you, I never thought you'd find out. Until you decide what's more important, your gun or your family. We can't live in the same house.

Come on, kids. So this is the thanks I get for protecting my family? Then go. I'll be just fine. Do you know how to cook dinner? Do I? That's great. I want to know if Milhouse's dinner was any good. Yeah, I wonder. I have used that response to a lot of things. I love it so much. I'm overly excited. Do I?

I also think the timing is perfect on that joke where it lingers just long enough to watch him get on his knees and take all the pots out. Yeah, and the fact that Milhouse was there for that entire scene. That's my favorite kind of joke, and it's been done a lot. But just the reveal that someone was also there during a very tense scene it's a great it's a great comedic device i love it yeah and just this energy for pulling out all the pans which shows like he's got a plan bill house knows exactly what he wants to make he knows what he's making oh homer's in for a treat uh but yeah like you said bob this is this is where you start with homer of being told like this is the worst thing you've ever done yeah it's like it's what they had to do for the movie too it's just like let's bring homer to his lowest but i don't even think the movie was the worst thing he's ever done despite putting the entire

town in danger well then homer just directly lied to her and then also he's too stupid to have a good there you know there's better gaslighting lies but homer's too dumb to say it so instead he just says uh i never thought you'd find out like which is honest he's like uh and yeah the vegetable crisper too that also feels like a very homer thought of well i never look in here for vegetables who else would open this it's important that that uh vegetable crisper was a stepping stool for bart and millhouse yes yeah uh, we start the next act. Marge is taking the kids to Selma's place, and we get to see Selma tell them to go to the Sleep Easy Motel, and I suppose

it is implied that Selma is holding this man hostage? It is the beginning of a porno movie of that era. It's kind of a hunky guy's like, this TV's just unplugged. I like anything that shows Selma as like a sexual being. I do like that. Instead of making her just like disgusting or like the hairy, gross woman.

I think she's wearing her Halloween costume that entered regular rotation. It's a bit peppery. Homer, meanwhile, is hosting the NRA meeting, uh this is another of my just favorite it's a little moment but mo's line here about oreos is great yeah the gun club's gonna be here any minute they're here they're here hi homer i brung you a big bag of irregular oreos i don't see what's wrong with this one. Oh.

There was a, when I was on the internet back in the day when this episode aired, I was reading the news groups and there was a lot of argument over what was wrong with the Oreos, but I think the joke is you don't know. It's whatever your mind wants it to be. But Mo can't even afford to bring Oreos. Just irregular

Oreos. And while that's a very great observation that sometimes you look at food and you think like, this looks good. One bite like, oh no. And it fits in with Mo's kind of, how should I put it, his cheap and ugly brand that of course as his potluck food, he would bring not just oreos but also irregular

cheap as possible they're just called hydrox well they're also like beat up and in a brown paper bag so he just like shoved like probably brushed them all off in one hand motion off of like a table in his house into the bag uh when they arrive at the sleep easy sleazy motel it's a funny little moment of but i just like bart saying to the sex workers like i certainly am yeah and it's a very well-designed sleazebag motel too i've seen in a lot of like simpsons games after this too it's a great like two-story open area motel i mean i i stayed in one just like that well actually not that sleazy but size and scale wise very similar just like when i stayed in one just like that. Well, actually, not that sleazy. But size and scale-wise, very similar. Just like when I stayed in Long Beach a couple years ago.

How many corpses were in the pool? None that I saw, though I didn't check out the pool. I mean, you're in Long Beach. The beach is right there. Who needs a pool? Something I forget about The Simpsons as an adult is, like, when I was a kid, part of the novelty of the show was that it was a little bit grown up, and it was a show where, like, people could conceivably have sex just off screen.

But it was a cartoon show. It was. You didn't see many sex worker jokes in other cartoons. Quimby was pulling the electorate in this episode. As I believe Lou said. And yeah, we get to see homer more of homer's nra here this is when it gets to be a very both sides uh like let's let's make the nra responsible which is just like never in springfield is anyone responsible certainly not in this position

and they've already been proven to be irresponsible yeah so this speech here feels very much like carrying water for the nra to be like, well, they're not all that bad. Moe's super gun that he builds is a very NRA thing. This is modifying guns to be more deadly in a more ridiculous way, but not that different from reality. But yes, here's Homer shocking the NRA. Here's some more chocolate curls, gun buddy. Anyone else want a beer? You use your gun as a can opener?

I use it for everything. Watch me turn on the TV. I love that. I've never seen such recklessness You might have hurt someone Are you some kind of moron? Yeah, but Hey, Yutz Guns aren't toys

They're for family protection Hunting dangerous or delicious animals And keeping the King of England out of your face Your membership card, please, Homer Oh I'll also need to remove your tattoo. I didn't get one yet. Rats.

Now, since you're no longer a member, please go outside until the meeting is over. That's weird music. I love that bad party music. Yeah, that's great. I just like... Obviously, there are some funny jokes in there, but I mean, I think it just doesn't really work

like even on its own terms because the whole episode up to this point has been satirizing the NRA and then you find out oh well actually these things that Homer does are isolated incidents and are in no way indicative of the fine membership of

the fine responsible membership of the NRA and it kind of takes the rug out from under you and it's disappointing they don't cluck their tongues at mo turning his gun into five guns or his five guns the one gun rather yeah that's normal to them but like shooting your tv to turn it on like that's like oh that's too crazy which also like the nra well they certainly aren't saying you shouldn't have a gun to homer either that's not there they're saying i mean ultimately i don't think they earned this scene uh but it is very much of this time this this sort of commentary totally it's the idea of being i mean i remember

yeah i don't want to just beat up on aaron sorkin but in in political things like that they just feel like well it's not fair if you take too much of one side or the other. So you have to show the NRA is good too or does good things too. I feel now it's just like, who fucking says we have to do that? Like, they suck.

And also, even though The Simpsons is sort of like a liberalist show, it wasn't a show at this point that I think was really known for taking strong political stances. Perhaps they would have regarded a fiercely NRA episode as sort of antithetical to,

you know, their spirit. Yeah, yeah. I could see them feeling that internally for sure. Yeah. But I agree, why do the episode if you're going to end it like this? I think of this time period, the only episode I can think

of with a real strong political stance is Muchapoo About Nothing, where they never said, like, oh, this is the good kind of immigrant, or this is the right way to become a citizen. They looked at deportation as distracting from a real problem, or being a distraction from, you know, things the government

doesn't want to deal with, just scapegoating a group of people. But there was never a, some immigrants are bad kind of commentary. I feel like this is like the centrist-y South Park era we're entering in pop culture, where South Park is in its first season right now, too. Where it's like, you decide what the message is. We're too lazy to have a strong argument.

Which, the Michael and us episode of South Park, a duo of episodes you guys did i really enjoy those by the way i'd love to see more yeah honestly you guys could do this show for like at least 100 episodes of south park would they survive i'd be interested in returning to the south park well because i mean i've heard various reports about what it's like now and i'm just curious how south park exists in this current political reality like can they both sides everything i think they've uh been explicitly backing away from politics a little bit though well i will which is good for them because they've

tainted it for the past 20 years i haven't watched the last season of the show but i have heard this is a compliment i'm going to give South Park. They did an episode where the characters and they themselves directly apologized to Al Gore for Man Bear Pig. Because they're like, oh, this is real. We're sorry. We're sorry. Which, like, hey, at least you fucking said it. But you had 20 years of just saying, like, no, this stuff isn't real.

I'd like an entire season of mia culpas basically from south park just like we were wrong about this and this and also this i think ultimately part of their shtick is doing knee-jerk reactions of things uh and often when you do that and don't think about it uh you can get things wrong yeah but they're also they they are like conservative also that too i mean reaction is always reactionary. Except on certain issues like, you know, they're,

they're for free speech back when that was something that was considered a liberal or leftist issue. Yeah. Enough things like that to make them just, and they swear. So, you know, I've heard an interview with Matt Stone where he's very open about this,

that he's like when, where they grew up in colorado they were the punk rock guys and that was being against the establishment as kids or teens and the establishment there were good old boys and conservatism and then they moved to hollywood and they're surrounded by limousine liberals and just all these like lefties and so if they still want to be against a society they live in and be the opposite to that and antagonistic of it then they have to go to the right on things they're saying it's empty iconoclasm pretty much okay i thought so uh but okay so we head back to the sleazy hotel we do

get some nice nice jokes about a gross hotel hey we got a pool can we go swimming mom not right now dear wow the tv's going operated and so is the bible i'd like to order a wake-up call please 3 a.m uh for every room except this one that's right good night always love trying out new material on the road. No way are you going to beat me this time, Lise. Yes, I am. Come on, Spotty. Come on, Smelly.

A lot of good crappy hotel jokes. I love the coin-operated Bible. It's a snapshot. Very violently, just snaps. I want better free books in my hotel room that I won't read. Give a copy of like the grapes of wrath or something in there do you get moving beds anymore places i feel like you can't or coin operated tvs i think now well now with i actually i guess in hotels now they have to recognize that uh you have your tv in your hand all the time and also your porn machine so yeah what can they sell you off a

television that you can't get on your phone yeah you know possibly i'm uh staying at the wrong hotels but i don't think i have ever encountered a vibrating bed they were called magic fingers it was sort of your go-to cheap hotel joke for about 20 25 years yes yeah which i feel like comes from like the same places bart's joke about trying new material on the road is comedians traveling around and staying in the dingiest of hotels and contemplating suicide while they're

there. Man, I think that's one of the first corpses we've seen on The Simpsons 2. Maybe, could be. At least one of. Outside of a Treehouse episode, I should qualify. What about Frank Grimes? You don't see his corpse yeah he was still living in the last few frames we saw him technically his heart was still beating homer's sadly shooting out all the lights in the house it's a really funny scene i love how long

it takes yeah just like walking to every light matter of factly shooting at it and just the single frame of it too it doesn't cut around it it's just homer's just blank sad expression as he shoots every light homer realizes he needs his family he heads to the hotel which is the motel which also like marge is guarding the door like she's in a zombie film it feels a bit like night of the hunter to me the old woman guarding the children before robert mitchell can get them but she's got a shotgun and Marge has like a plank of wood. It would be against the message of this episode if Marge had a shotgun. She had a surgical two by four.

Oh, I'm sorry. Are you planning to stay the whole night? Yes. All right. Vote Quimby. Marge? Sorry. Marge? Sorry. Marge?

Oh, sorry. Marge? Vote Quimby. Sorry. Down here, Homer! Oh, Marge! There's so many things I want to yell to you! Come down here!

Okay! Oh, honey, please come home. I need you. It's dark in the house, and I'm hungry and lonesome, and there's no one there to hear my various witty remarks. What about the gun? It's gone for good, Marge. I finally realized what's the point of having a gun for protection

if you've got no one to protect. Oh, homie. This feels like a very Scully thing too of multiple fake outs he gives you two heartfelt treacly sitcom endings in this episode he gives up the gun twice in basically the same scene and both are lies i do find that funny and i think it's a shame that the second fake out is like the nra members heroically coming and saving Homer and Marge. Yeah. It's it undercuts it.

Homer should pay more of a price for this lie to his family perhaps. And you know, it just continues the kind of incoherence to the satire of this, of this episode. Well, I think, I believe it's on the commentary. Mike Scully just outright says like,

if we take a stance is that a man like Homer shouldn't have it shouldn't have a gun, that's as far out as they're going to go. They won't even say, like, well, then shouldn't there be laws to check who's a person like Homer? You already said this. There's not enough time for that. It's 22 minutes of jokes. Well, I mean, if the episode ended with Homer saying, like, well, then let's start calling

our congressman, like, that would seem weird, too, I suppose. And then, like suppose and then like a psa with bart's like hey man here's a 1-800 number i guess um although you know far be it for me to tell a writer's room full of like you know genius simpsons writers how to tell their how to how to do their show but i think it would make more sense if like it committed to the bit of this nra guy this gun owner just being a catastrophe until eventually his gun is taken away from him yeah you know this could have ended with like him being arrested at some point too yeah or like you know if the other nra members i think it would frankly be funnier if like when we first see the nra introduced it's basically alcoholics anonymous court group yeah i have to say and then all of a sudden it's like oh no wait actually they're very

competent and reasonable gun owners and i think it would have been funnier frankly if it had committed to the bit of this is a group for uh frustrated and impotent gun nuts. That's true. I think we mentioned King of the Hill earlier with Tom Petty. I think Dale Gribble and his gun club was a much better commentary on gun owners and gun usage and the gun culture of especially the South. Yeah, actually, when we talk about the NRA stance on this, too, like this scene with Homer is kind of the NRA fantasizes about happening every single day of the good guy with a gun saving the day here. All right, everybody, hands up. You, give me the cash drawer.

Do what he says. I'm too rich to die. Freeze, bad guy. Vote Quimby! Okay, man, don't shoot. Chill. Homer, you said you got rid of the gun. You lied to me. Again. I know I said that, but what I secretly meant was... Yoink!

Ho-ho! The joke's on you, buddy. There's no bullets in that thing. Yo, give me the bullets okay don't shoot homer giving him the gun uh giving him the bullets that he because the unloading gun is pointing at him that's funny that's a good that's a good little little gag uh there's one thing that was cut from this episode was never meant to air and uh so she gets her continental breakfast in the envelope right when she gets her bill um which is a great joke uh so animated and voiced by julie cavner and just put in the color screening as a joke for all the writers so julie cavner recorded these lines and when she's looking at the bill she says i didn't order a blow job and i swear to god mike scully

mentions on the commentary he says i didn't order a insert sexual act here but i've i've seen this and i've heard it somewhere so i want to try to sneak this into this episode too oh wow this footage is online somewhere but it was just a joke for all the writers they knew they could never put it in they probably spent thousands of dollars just animating that sentence i didn't order a blow job just for a laugh that's great i love that i uh you know i'm sad sleazy motel manager never came back as a regular character i have to think his nagging cough killed him i guess but he's though i suppose they have enough like low-life dudes he's he just kind of they've got snake

they've got cletus you know this guy yeah this guy would kind of just repeat those jokes i suppose uh but just the way that egg slides into the god see the grease seeping through egg jokes disgust me i or just an egg fan uh the drier the better those eggs got to be pretty dry if i'm gonna have them i don't know i do not like my eggs runny at all but i visited japan they love they they do their they do their scrambled eggs more like the french style of just runnier and i i to say, in my adult life, I became a fan of the runny egg. No. They're good for dipping. Boo.

You get a nice little sauce you dip stuff in. It's great. Will, what's your stance on this? I like many different varieties of egg. Oh, okay. I'm sorry if that's a wishy-washy answer. For all your listeners, this is not an unrelated tangent. This is related to the episode.

I want no complaints. It's about the egg. Yes. We need all of our egg opinions out there publicly. Those egg council creeps got to you too, Bob? Oh, no. Oh, boy. All right.

But so we have the end of the episode where the NRA saves the day. And I at least do like that the NRA kind of, they save the day, but no, they don't stop him. I do like that. Why didn't Mo shoot that guy in the spine? Yeah, honestly, this also feels unrealistic in that if the NRA actually got to really point a gun at a real person with a gun to stop them from doing something, I feel like they would shoot him 800 times.

He'd just be red mist floating through the air. Boy! How did you know we were being robbed the clerk here pressed the silent alarm and we picked it up on our scanner did anyone stop that robber no i don't think so i'm sorry i lied to you march but this gun had a hold on me i felt this incredible surge of power like god must feel when he's holding a gun. So please get rid of it because I know I'll just lie to you again and again. And Homer hands the gun over to Marge and then she, it's all visual so I didn't have the clip in there.

But yeah, Marge then sees herself with a gun and she also feels like God holding a gun. Yeah, and there's a little sound cue from the Avengers at the end. I did not know that until this research. In the commentary tv show tv show right so not the superhero avengers like you're thinking of we're talking about emma emma peel i believe yes yes the avengers americans don't care about yes but um so uh mike scully thought it'd be a funny idea this he just thought of that sound cue in his head but then when he saw it he hated it so he says whenever he watches he, he hates that scene. Because they couldn't undo it.

They're like, well, we recorded it and it's too late. There's no budget to record another thing. I think it works. I think it's, you know, not knowing the TV show well and not knowing where the music came from. I think something about the music communicates the sentiment very well. I think so too, yeah. And I think the ending is pretty good because, you know, I would imagine there's something kind of intoxicating about holding a gun. Holding something that has the ability to kill a person and having that power, I would imagine is a bit intoxicating. I know people

did not like this scene for the most part in that it kind of sells out Marge a bit, but I think the point is clear that this is so intoxicating, even Marge is susceptible. Yeah, I suppose it sells out Marge just a little bit, but she's human. I'd rather her be interesting like that with a flaw than just be the nagging wife all the time. Marge barely gets to be funny in this one because she just has to be rightly disappointed in Homer the whole time. And it's a danger with writing Marge that she can just become a scold so easily this episode i i'm i'm glad we got to it and could give an extra political reading to it i suppose i yeah i think uh it parts of it hold up but also is a real really crystallized for its

time in the gun control conversation and uh you know if it was made now it would not be this episode even a little bit. And it probably wouldn't even be made now. They definitely wouldn't make it. I mean, I put my thoughts up front, but after all of the gun violence that happened after this episode, and after encountering some level of gun violence myself, I just feel like it's funny. I like it, but it is very dated. But yeah, it's also 22 years old. But I think we've learned a lot, at least I hope we have, since the episode aired. And some of the points it makes are good, but it also undercuts some of those points as well by trying to have it on both sides.

I agree with everything you said. And I would just add that the episode is valuable, if nothing else, for having introduced that I'll rob the Quickie March game, which I think about every day. There are some great reveals. That and Milhouse being in the kitchen are hilarious reveals, or you're surprised. It's a very funny episode. We'll probably be saying this a lot during season nine, but people regard season nine

as where it all goes wrong or something, but this is a really funny episode. They're still going strong here. You should not stop listening to our podcast. You should not stop giving us money. Never. We need that money to eat. We're not eating the money, by the way.

Guys, help me back when you get to like season 17 or 18. I'm very curious what it would be like. I think we're going to surprise a lot of our guests in the future with episodes they haven't seen. I want fresh reactions because I'll be good up until around 19 having seen everything up until season 19, I think. I'm sure we'll have you back before then, Will, if you'd like to come back. Oh, I'd love to. I'd love to. We love having you as a guest. Well, and Will, what's your info? Where then Will if you'd like to come back I'd love to Will what's your info

where can people find you and listen to you well I have two podcasts the aforementioned Michael and Us and also my film history podcast The Important Cinema Club and I'm on Twitter at Will Sloan ESQ and I know you're a big Jackie Chan fan

how are you feeling about the police story finally getting the Criterion Collection treatment it deserves? You know, I'm very glad that it's there. You know, it's ridiculous. There's a small part of me that is sad now that the normies are discovering it. It used to be my movie that I watched when I was a teenager. But, you know, if you love something, you have to let it free. And everybody should see Police Story. I do agree in the 90s.

Well, so I'd be a poser if I act like I watched a Jackie Chan movie before Rumble in the Bronx. I know I do. But when I finally started going, after I saw Rumble in the Bronx and watched his older stuff, I did like the kind of superiority I could feel of just like, you guys haven't even seen Police Story or Armor of God, the real first Armor of God. I've seen Police Academy. Is that similar?

Not so much. And I mean, Police Story is very enjoyable to watch now. I mean, things gain interesting new resonances depending on what time you see them. And now that all the action movies are like superhero movies um and and there's so much cgi in them i sound like an old man complaining about this i'm simply stating the facts there's a lot of cgi in them the fact that police story is such a down and dirty movie where you know there's a lot of weight to the action scenes and people are truly getting hurt and thrown around in them.

It's very exciting to watch these days. When I re-watched the final fight scene recently, I had that same kind of feeling of just like, you can throw all this money in CGI, and it does look amazing. I love a Marvel film more than my co-host definitely does. Henry's glaring at me. But when I see just the simple seemingly like low budget thing of jackie chan getting punched in his

head going through glass and then pulling his head back out in pain i'm like that is more exciting to me than any spider-man jumping around thing i've been seeing lately. I agree. And all they needed to accomplish that was like a barbaric Hong Kong film industry where life was cheap. Yeah. If only we could recreate that. And a man raised in circus torture. Yeah. It's sad, isn't it?

More circus torture. Go forge better movie stars. Thanks so much for being on the show, Will. Oh, thanks again for having me. Great pleasure. Thanks again to Will Sloan. Check out his podcast, Michael and Us.

It's very lefty commentary on pop culture, including all of Michael Moore's movies. They've moved on since then to do things like, again, PCU, South Park, and all kinds of other stuff.

A recent Simpsons episode. Yeah, and where they name-dropped us, so thank you so much. And I'm sure we'll have his co-host Luke Savage on at some point again in the future.

Oh, yes, yeah. But if you'd like to hear his previous episode, he did Mountain of Madness back in the future. Oh, yes. Yeah. But if you'd like to hear his previous episode, he did Mountain of Madness back in season eight. That was so long ago, wasn't it? But as for us, we are part of the Talking Simpsons network. And if you want to support the show and get all kinds of bonus podcasts on top of that, please go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. If you sign up at the $5 level, you can get all kinds of bonus stuff. You'll get every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and at free. And the same goes for our sister show,

What a Cartoon. We also have bonus mini series that are exclusive to the Patreon, including the upcoming Talk King of the Hill, where we're going to go through the entire first season of King of the Hill. That's 12 episodes of King of the Hill, given the Talking Simpsons treatment, only available on the Patreon in the near future. And that will sit alongside our previous series, Talking Futurama and Talking Critics. So right there, that is two existing series. And in upcoming series, you'll get $4 or $5 a month, including interviews, end of season wrap-ups,

and so much more. Henry, what else is going on in the Patreon? Well, we just launched for our $10 and up patrons a special monthly movie podcast where me and Bob go through a different animated film once a month chosen by our patrons. We did Batman Mask of the Phantasm, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Akira. And this month, we're getting goofy. It's a goofy movie.

Finally, some lighter fare. Time to see Eye to Eye with us. This is a movie about gang violence and dancing. And the Sasquatch and all these things. And Cheez Whiz. I'm really looking forward to it. We have not recorded it yet. And also, yes, there's a really cool new interview coming to,

I'll just tease it here, but there's a really cool new interview coming to the Patreon soon for $5 and up folks that you're going to want to check out. Keep your eyes open for it. And more really cool stuff coming because this episode goes live, I believe, while me and Bob are in Los Angeles. Selling out like the phonies we are. You know, we had some cool guests

the last time we were in LA. So who knows? We might be recording four podcasts in LA. I think so. A lot of work. It's going to be worth it, though. Oh, yes. And again, that is patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

Please sign up. We've got so much stuff waiting there for you that'll be exclusive to the TalkingSimpsons network. As for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast. Every Monday, go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast device.

We've been doing it since 2006, and we have nearly 500 episodes for you to listen to. And I think you'll like at least a few of them probably so check it out and i'm on twitter as bob servo i don't know if i said that before i probably did it's okay i say mine twice at least that's h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g that's where you can follow henry gilbert for all the news about simpsons going live or any updates to the patreon or to our sister podcast what a a Cartoon, those weekly episodes. You'll learn all about that if you follow me on Twitter. And if you love my political ranting on here,

you'll get more than you bargained for if you start following me at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next week with Bart Starr. We'll see you then!