Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The City of New York Vs. Homer Simpson With Stephen Sajdak

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

Season Nine of The Simpsons has begun, and to official explain New York City to us, we're joined by Stephen Sajdak, a native New Yorker (and cohost of the great We Hate Movies podcast)!! The family hits the Big Apple where everyone except Homer has an amazing time, while Homer hangs out at the World Trade Center. We talk the history of this episode, the weird conspiracy theories it fueled, some of the great jokes, and so much more in this week's awesome podcast! [Podcast best enjoyed while drinking Crab Juice] Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

Ahoy, ahoy everybody! We've got some great news about our second year in a row at San Francisco's Sketchfest. That's right, we have another live show on January 16th at 8pm. That's a Wednesday night at the Gateway Theater. And boy, do we have some special guests joining us. That's right, Julia Prescott and Allie Gertz from the Everything's Coming Up Simpsons podcast will be our special guests. And we'll be discussing the episode The Principal and the Popper. Is it the worst episode ever? Is it secretly good? We will decide on the stage that night.

So if you're looking for some fun and surprises even more surprising than Armin Tamzarian's real name you'll want to join us on Wednesday, January 16th 8 p.m. at the Gateway Theater in downtown San Francisco. Look up those tickets for yourself or check out the schedule at sfsketchfest.com Tickets are going extremely fast, so if you want to come to this show, please go to

sfsketchfest.com right now, right now, and get your tickets soon. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoi hoi everybody, welcome to Talking Simpsons where we focus on the pimps and the chuds I'm your host, sophisticated Ozark millionaire Bob Mackie And this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons Who else is here with me today? Secretly predicting 9-11, it's Henry Gilbert.

Oh no. And who do we have on the line? We have Kapitalash expert Stephen Sadak. And today's episode is The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson. No! You got your black one. Today's episode aired on September 21st, 1997. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby mariah carey's honey tops the charts la confidential debuts in theaters though not a lot of people

watching at first and step by step and family matters move to cbs to start a brand new friday night block that will be cancelled by the end of that season. Well, those are their best years. Oh, yes. The final year of Family Matters is the best of them all. More time travel, more pirates, more haunted houses. I never knew about that.

This is my first hearing that they went to CBS. Yes, yes. As ABC was phasing down TGIF and was like, we're not that into tgif anymore cbs was like we'll give it a shot so they just renew two of the most elderly of the tgif shows i think half of the cast is barely on the final season of family matters i know the mom is also imagine there was like a big poster that they were trying in the ABC offices that said man meets world. And they were like, shut it down.

Shut it all down. Yeah, they were getting the table scraps of ABC. And now they just absolutely dominate TV with things like Big Bang Theory and CSI. They will never be stopped. Young Sheldon is the new generation of that. Well, who knows what it'll be like in the post moonves era but let's not talk about that quality programming la confidential is a really good movie is it i mean like i we talked about this actually on our show a little bit am i allowed

to just sit around and watch la confidential in the post spacey age he does get murdered in that which is true i think you can only watch kevin spacey movies where he is murdered so that is okay american beauty's okay baby driver baby driver yeah well he gets murdered a lot yeah okay all right we're making a good list here i like that uh yeah no yeah actually that does kind of hurt the movie a little bit but what i really i re-watched ellie confidential a few years ago and was surprised how much I still loved it. Though I was also appalled. Like, boy, the video game LA Noire just like straight up stole this. They just like, what if we just made this a game?

There's not much more to it, really. Video games love to do that. And the funny part is when they go the other, when movies go the other way, like Lara Croft is just, you know, Indiana Jones. Like, but hey, now you can play it as a cool video game. And then they were like, but what if you made it a movie? It's like, well, then you know, Indiana Jones. But hey, now you can play it as a cool video game. And then they were like, but what if you made it a movie? It's like, well, then that's just Indiana Jones. It's fine. But it's also like...

And then you can't play it instead. Exactly. A less interactive version. It's a very, very long cut scene. Long and expensive. So Steven Sadek is our guest today. And Steve, I'm a big fan of yours. Can you let people know, in case they haven't listened to your past episode with us what you do what your podcast is and i want you to talk a

little bit about your history as a new yorker because you are a pure pure new yorker that's true um yeah we uh i'm part of a podcast called we hate movies we are on the head gum network we also have a fun patreon as well if you want to check that out we we've been on the air for about eight years we're about you're a classic bad movie podcast, but we do a lot more with impressions and all sorts of wacky bits. We actually just wrapped up a We Love Movies month where we kind of turned everything on its

ear for the first time ever and did Batman 1989, It's a Wonderful Life, Terminator 2, and Back to the Future, which was all sort of like let's do stuff that we love instead of stuff that we absolutely hate and try and not do, you guys can only talk about movies that suck kind of a thing. Yeah, the month has been really great. So we're recording this after the first week. And so far, you've done the Terminator 2 episode. But you guys are just really good

about making jokes about movies in general. They don't have to be bad or good. And this is an excellent chance for you guys to actually work your film criticism skills out. Because you know, I mean, if you know how to identify what's bad in a movie you should know how to identify what's good in a movie too it should be even better at that yeah exactly and i think that's sort of one of the things we're trying to hopefully dispel of like the show isn't just us sitting around like that stinks see you next week you know what i mean hopefully there's a little bit more there and it's a little bit more fun to sort of do the opposite um i am a lifelong New Yorker. I was born and raised in the Bronx. I was there for about 20-ish of my first 20 years, 20 some odd

years. I went to Westchester for college, which is not quite upstate New York, kind of halfway in the middle there. And then moved around from the Bronx to Brooklyn to Queens. And now I'm married in New Jersey, but Jersey City, which is the most New York of New Jersey. That's as far as I'll go. I really feel that way. I know Westchester because that's where Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters is in the Marvel Universe. So Steve is an X-Man? Yes. That's where I went to college Actually Or I scammed Well I think it's awesome having a Gothamite On this show because

Me and Bob are both Small town podcast folk I'm just a simple small town podcaster We don't know about you You need a cosmopolitan opinion Such as myself I will try and release my Bronx accent Which I have tamped down it's like

it's like a little weird kid in a cage and in the basement of my brain it only comes out when i'm drunk but i'm very sober but i'll try to bronx it up a bit for you when i when i can well this is a episode all set in new york city do you do you remember watching it when it was new in in new york yeah this came out i think so this is what 97 you said so this year i was just in grade school and i was like oh my god the simpsons are in new york you know what i mean i very specifically remember this is a season premiere like usually i was always excited when the simpsons came back anyway but b holy shit it's in new york and like it's this really i think even the most prideful new yorkers can be self-deprecating about new york about any

any and all criticism about new york we kind of love and uh cherish self-deprecating about New York, about any and all criticism about New York. We kind of love and cherish self-deprecating to a fault and love kind of New York jokes specifically at our expense. And like this episode does such a good job of trashing the 70s and also sort of actually like kind of living in what the 90s and the Giuliani New York is where it's all clean and safe, but also like, I mean, it doesn't do this, but it's sort of you can kind of see this kind of trade off between actual New York that has some character to it to it's only about shopping. It's only about Broadway. It's only about you know what I mean, like the World Trade Center and business and so on and so forth. So it's kind of a it's a weird kind of artifact in that way for me. Like that's

the one that I was struck by watching this is sort of looking at Giuliani's New York without asking too many questions. It's like that. Um, you only moved twice joke where the homeless guy gets turned into a mailbox. You know what I mean? That was Giuliani's New York. This is a pre M and M store era, right? Yes, exactly. I think, I think Disney was just about to move into Times Square. You know, the weird thing about me and don't think this is so unique to outer borough people, people who aren't on the borough of Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island folks, Brooklyn folks, who were born and raised there, don't get out to New York City all that much.

We didn't. You know what I mean? Like we were, you know, I was in the Bronx and like, you know, I would go to Westchester for friends and so on and so forth. But like, I'd only probably by the time I was like 20 something, I had been to Manhattan maybe 10 to 15 times, which is not that many, you know what I mean? Certainly less than once a year finding excuses to get out there. But it was always sort of like, you're going into in quotation marks, the city, a movie called A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which is set in Queens, but that's sort of, that was the most I've ever seen that kind of angle explored. Like, I think Shia LaBeouf's character starts going to New York City, to Manhattan, and everyone starts, like, making fun of him. And, like, it's a thing,

you know what I mean? And it seems like, I would assume from the outside, you're just like, oh, you're in the Bronx, you're in Queens, you just go to Manhattan all the time. It's not quite like that, at least in my experience. It's kind of similar for us, you're in the Bronx, you're in Queens, you just go to Manhattan all the time. It's not quite like that, at least in my experience. It's kind of similar for us because we live in Berkeley in the East Bay of the Bay Area. And San Francisco is basically the New York for us. And we're in the outer boroughs. We're like in the New Jersey of this area, I guess. But it's very nice.

Actually, I heard New Jersey is very nice. We have a podcast where we work with who's from New Jersey. And he has dispelled all the New Jersey jokes that we hear from New Yorkers and from people in L.A. Yeah, I've been in Jersey now for about six years, and I don't feel like I'm moving, especially now that Amazon is going to eat my city alive. Oh, geez, yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah. I mean, I would love a Simpsons episode on that based on whatever the hell Bezos is going to do to us.

I believe there's already a South Park episode about that, because of course there is. That sounds about right. It's been three weeks. I'm sure they handled it well, of course. But yeah, I want to know your opinion on how authentic this episode is to this era, because they did a lot of research. They sent the supervising director to New York to take lots of pictures. This is also a production season eight episode that was held over to be the premiere of season nine. So they had months more to work on this episode to make it really,

really good. And that's why I think it shines in terms of the animation for sure. But they say on the commentary, they made sure to get like the, the color of the inside of tunnels, correct. And the color of buildings, correct.

And things like the raise pizza sign, correct. Just really, really small details that only New Yorkers would catch. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it does. Again, it feels very much like a mid 90s New York. You know what I mean? The skyline seems correct. And like, yeah, it's very weird to have a Simpsons episode with sort of a real atmosphere. You know what I mean? Like that's not Springfield, you know, and like the Springfield atmosphere is, you know, plug and play at that point. But you, you do kind of get like, I love all of the Governor's Island jokes, which we'll get to. I just sort of like the down by the water down by the Trade Center feels really authentic.

All the Fifth Avenue stuff that they're doing the Chinatown feels authentic. I mean, aside from the racism. Yeah, it's I don't know, it was uh it is kind of a weird trip to watch this episode because it it almost feels it's like more authentic and more new york than say a seinfeld episode of that era oh yeah clearly from los angeles and clearly you know what i mean like we're talking about new york we're talking in new york kind of parlances but it's all you know i mean anytime they go out on the street you're just on a sound stage and that's not what this is. It feels more lived in a little bit.

And everyone is... And it's beautiful, too. What they do at the park, I think, is really gorgeous. Oh, yeah, that's great. So, yeah, everyone in Seinfeld is driving all the time. And now that I live in the city, I'm like, what are you doing? So many plots about parking, and it's like...

Those are more like L.A. writers writing plots. Exactly, and I guess it makes it more, what do you call it? They're palatable to people all over the country right it's like oh my car got towed it's like yeah i know that's like as opposed to like holy shit i was on the subway for 45 minutes and i didn't move two stops which i mean that's that's how life is but i oh i don't drive by the way i am uh i am 35 years old i do not have a learner's permit and i do not have a driver's license much to my wife's chagrin

wow you know that's the same for my husband though, too. He, my husband grew up in the New York, New Jersey area. Queens was his borough and he's still has never driven. Like he's not ever had, he did get a learner's permit, but he's never driven a car by himself. It's his whole life. Are you fucking furious with him yet or no? Well, no, cause I gave up driving about 13 years ago when I moved here too, so we're both just like, I guess we don't drive. And I gave up driving six years ago. It's a good way to live

if you can make it. It is. I look at people who drive, it just seems like this magical skill that you have. It's like flying a plane. It's catty. It should be more magical. Some people should not be driving. But this episode, of course, the elephant in the room and i think it's gotten much less awkward over time is that the major set piece in this episode involves the world trade center yeah four years before 9-11

almost to the day for yeah and uh this episode was pulled from syndication uh and reruns for a while i think by the time the dvds coming out, it was coming back into airing. It was getting eased back in. I mean, understandably so. I mean, in the five years after 9-11, there was still the feeling of like, could you ever show the World Trade Center again? Like, in anything?

Would it make people too upset just to see it? And then they kind of made the turn on that. Like, no, in archival stuff, we're going to, or if something is said in the past, we're going to show the Twin Towers to let you know this is the past. Like the Spielberg movie, The Terrorism, that ends with a shot of the Twin Towers. Munich. Yes, Munich. Munich ends with that. Yeah. I mean, before 9-11, I didn't know what any building in new york looks like i still don't but now in any movie i see before the time like oh there it is there it is

right there there it is your eyes just go on straight to it it's bob and me are both giant upright citizens brigade fans and they two of the guys they made the movie martin and orloff and they made it before 9-11 and then they kind of sat on it for two years because I think almost every establishing shot they had in the movie had the Twin Towers in it. They're just like, we can't reshoot all this. But fuck. And we did the entire series of The Critic for our podcast. And yes, you're greeted with the shot of the World Trade Center, like second one. Bam, there it is.

It is weird to think about the skyline now versus. Yeah, it just it's, I mean, and also like we have so many more, the buildings have changed in general. Like, you know, there's so many more new big dumb skyscrapers that are overly designed. But now with, and the Freedom Towers, it's a striking piece of architecture, but it does, it's not the same. It's a very, it's nice that there's something there as opposed to what you could only see if you're a New Yorker, a gaping hole kind of a thing you know what i mean like and i was kind of shocked

how quickly they got that up the weird thing there's that weird um alex jones-esque conspiracy theory about this episode or something or other is that weird shot of lisa with the magazine ad with the nine dollars and the trade towers are behind it and i always kind of wonder what like and people always like shout that out as like oh my gosh like did simpsons predict 9-11 like how like how and why like what were the people that if you believe truly that you know uh usa did not bush did 9-11 like did he was he a simpsons writer at the time like how did that work well the video i watched on the topic a while ago uh was the their press presupposition was matt graining was a member of the illuminati as well he's part of that group and so he was

kind of wagging his dick in our face like i'm gonna do this in four years me and the illuminati i have to assume there's some sort of harvard conspiracy all the harvard writers you know what that would be better matt graining is not in the illuminati it's all the harvard guys that's i mean that's a prerequisite is you have to either be incredibly rich or be illuminati or both ideally that's how you get in now it's well in the world trade center i had never really thought of it as a building i'd seen it in comic books and movies too or like and say um there's a very striking shot of it in the second home alone film that i i remember as a kid but then uh followed by donald fucking trump appearing in it uh but thank god he's not in this episode jesus christ thank thank the lord oh yeah that's nice it's uh not new york's favorite son uh thankfully and never will be again it is kind of weird

there's no aside from woody allen no other sort of new york mainstays kind of pop up in the episode even as an extra yeah actually there's sort of a sequel episode to this in season 24 which i'll explain i want to save for the end of the episode but in that one it does more of what you'd expect with simpsons which is they get a handful of like these are are the New York celebrities. We're going to have the New York celebrities walk around. And it makes me kind of happy. They're like, we don't need to have

Al Roker appear in this just because he's a New York fixture. Yes. It's a little easier and it's a lot more fun to do what they do here. It's like New York archetypes. Everyone is the guy yelling from his window, which is my favorite part of this episode.

Though, I mean, the World Trade Center, this episode, when you see it here, it just reminds me of like, it wasn't the prettiest building. This is not a judgment. I just think as a piece of architecture, it's like, it's just two boxes up in the sky with just like gray and lines on it. It's that 70s thing. It's really functional. you know what I mean? It is striking that it's two identical, very tall towers,

but other than that, it's a twin towers. That's it. That's what they were. And now everything has to be sleek and look like it can move a little bit. Oh, there's some of that New York traffic. Authentic. And not to get too maudlin or anything, but what was your experience like on 9-11? You were much closer to that than we were.

Certainly. I went to school, actually, I went to high school also in Westchester, but a little bit closer in New Rochelle, which is really like a 20-minute drive from the Bronx. So I wasn't in the city at the time. My sister was. And the weird thing is, so you were about like, I don't know, say 25 miles from Manhattan, 30 miles from Manhattan. And we're in a I'm in a Catholic, all boys high school, and I'm in religion class of all things. And somebody comes in talks to my teacher who is a priest, and the priest kind of stops and says, Well, a plane

has hit the World Trade Center. And we're like, OK, in my brain, I think in most people's brains was some kind of biplane or some kind of like, you know, what do you want to call it? They're like just a private plane just hit the tower and like, oh, my gosh, people are dead. But it's not anything where you know what I mean? It's not not the world is literally going to change as we're talking about it. And the day went on. And again, this is nobody has cell phones, nobody has any way to hear what's going on the outside world. And nobody was putting on no one was at least in this school putting on on the television. So really, nobody knew and the word kind of sort of throughout my day went through went throughout the student body. And then certain people got called to the office whose parents were in Manhattan or whose whatever,

you know, siblings or what have you are in Manhattan. And I think it sort of started to happen. And then at the end of the day, we had an assembly where the facts were kind of laid bare. And then we got released. And it's like, holy shit. And then, you know, of course, you go home and everyone is glued to the television. And my sister was in 9-11. She got, I mean, she was in Manhattan on 9-11. She was at like 42nd Street at the time, which is, you know, pretty far from, I mean, not terribly far, but far enough away from Ground Zero that she wasn't at all affected. And she was able to, she had to like sleep at her boss's house that night. Like there was no way out of the,

out of Manhattan for her for that. And then like the rest of my family was just kind of, everybody was safe, which is lucky, but you know, it's just this, you stand there, you watch talent, you watch the,

you're glued to TV. I wound up listening to a lot of like radio that night and just people calling in all these stories. Like it was, it was very immediate it was uh there's there was a show in the uh 90s called ryan fez i think they moved on to serious xm radio it's just ron bennington now but it was it was a comedy show but literally they shut everything down and just let people call in one after another about what was going on where they were what they

were seeing and that to me is kind of my 9-11 memory of listening to that show, feeling close enough to it, but also feeling very far away. That's my 9-11 story. Wow. Yeah, actually, I had a similar experience in that. I think I was in college, my first year of college, and the professor had heard something about a plane hitting a building, and he referenced it offhand in a class. I think it was a journalism class. Like, how would you report on a plane hitting a building and he referenced it offhand like in a class like i think it was a journalism class like how would

you report on a plane hitting a building like what just happened and i think he was like he thought the same thing too like oh a small plane hit a building in new york yeah it's sad but you know that happens sometimes and then getting out of the class it was like oh shit uh getting calls from my parents and stuff so yeah yeah it was, it was a different time. You couldn't just, your phone wasn't lighting up in your pocket and letting you know all the facts. I was in my first year of college, and though I only had an afternoon class that day, so I, at the time, left my radio on and fell asleep,

but it was classical in the morning and then turned into NPR. It was classical at night and turned into NPR in the morning. So I was hearing it in my dreams about that a plane hit the towers because I was on East Coast time. So then when I wake up at 9 a.m. or 9.30, I'm like, holy shit. And called my mom, and then they just came home that day, and I didn't go to class that day. Well, the terrorists won because Tuesday was our anime club's night,

and we had to cancel it. That's what it was. It was a war against anime. I can't believe we let them win. When I got out of college, you know, 2006, Andrew, who I do the show with, and I, and a couple other people, were doing a sketch show downtown and we were really excited about you you know we prepared it for months for a couple of weeks

and like had all these people we were inviting all of our friends and I mean like you know ideally 30 people would have shown up you know what I mean but like we were uh kind of it happened to be the same day I forget which Yankee some yankee actually did do that accidentally flew his plane into a building in new york and like the city kind of pseudo shut down again i remember yeah super uh uh uneasy about taking the train or being anywhere because it just it's this you know what i mean it was way too close to everything and it was only five years out uh and uh three people were in the audience that night so that's you know this episode for the longest time to me or after 9-11 for a bit it did it was hard not to think about you know the the event but now now that we're 17 years removed from it i watch this

now and it just takes me back to the fun pre-9-11 days, and I don't really think of the day all that much. I think about the fun of the late 90s, where the end of history times in the Bill Clinton era. That's what it really takes me back to. I mean, I think that's right, though. You know what I mean? That's not letting the terrorists win. You know what I mean? Those buildings existed.

The city looked like that. The city was this for a really long time. And I think it's better to have this as a time capsule of that as opposed to looking back and having to relive the horror of it. and then grew up from 10 to 25 in Florida. I'd never been to Manhattan my whole life. The farthest north I had gone on a family vacation was Washington, D.C. Never been to the big city, New York City or Bree, much any city. So it was just this kind of fantasy world. But because I was obsessed with pop culture like Broadway musicals, the WWF, Saturday Night Live, Marvel comic books.

They all took place in this mythical land for me of Manhattan. So then to get to see The Simpsons in it, it just added to that myth. When I finally got to go to Manhattan for a press event in 2011, I was 29, and finally got to experience it. And I was one of those slack-jawed yokels staring around, but it had kind of the feeling of like, I'm in a movie set. This is where Spider-Man swings around. Wow. My first real experience in New York was with you, Henry, on a Nintendo Switch event trip. Oh, that was your first trip to Manhattan? Wow. I spent one night there dropping a friend off, but that was it. I was mostly in my car, but that was my first real experience in New York. Wow. And we should have not have done any work yes that website's dead now looking back on it we

should have just entirely involved enjoyed manhattan i mean i've never gone to the outer boroughs i've only really i've i've gone from the area of new york that is jfk the trip from jfk to manhattan and then been around manhattan not any of the other boroughs. But yeah, I mean, Manhattan is, if you are, especially if you're only in for a day, definitely spend most, if not all of your time in Manhattan seeing that. And then you can kind of venture out and to get better food in outer boroughs and better pizza, that kind of stuff. And even when I've lived around San Francisco for the longest time and worked there for over a decade, I still, when I go to New York, I'm like, oh, this is a big city. Like San Francisco, San Francisco kind of wants to not feel entirely too big.

Like that's part of their laws and restrictions on building size. But because of that, when I go to Manhattan, that is when I go like, this is the actual big city here that I'm in. I'm your I'm uh your typical asshole New Yorker I work uh on 42nd street um right right right next to Bryant Park and this is the worst time of year to walk even 10 feet because everyone is a tourist because it's gorgeous you know what I mean like and that's the thing is that my eyes are just like focused on my next subway stop kind of a situation and everyone is looking up and experiencing the city and they're all german and i'm like please get the fuck out of my way like i know it's gorgeous and yes it's one of a kind and blah

blah blah what a hell of a town please get the fuck out of my way the simpsons will be right back whether you're listening to this at home or at the port authority bus terminal we hope you're enjoying this week's talking simpsons as we begin season nine. And what a great guest to have on Steven Sadek of the We Hate Movies podcast, giving us a real New York vibe. Hey, you guys should definitely check out his podcast. And if you enjoy this one and you'd like to say here next week's episode a week ahead of time and without ads like this one, you should be signing up at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Subscribers there at the five dollar level get to hear every episode of talking simpsons a week ahead of time and ad free you could be hearing about armin

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In January, we're doing Akira. All of those, me and Bob going through a different animated film for over two hours. And you can hear all about that and more at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Did you know you can get your own Talking Simpsons t-shirt? We have two different versions of them that you can get for yourself at tiny.cc slash talking shirt. We have our beautiful sky blue Talking Simpsons logo and we have our death metal. Death is stalking you at every turn t-shirt to reference our death jingle both of them designed by the wonderful friend of the show Nina Matsumoto you should check out both of them at tiny.cc slash talking shirt they started at $19.99

they ship relatively internationally and I have worn both of them they are great check them out for yourselves at tiny.cc slash talking shirt. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care well this is the start of season nine two and uh broadcast season nine but yeah this is still production eight so we're not in the new era yet but an interesting

thing about season nine is this is the only season where there are episodes produced by every showrunner of the show ever except i mean sam simon technically is also a showrunner who didn't do one this season but other than that bill and josh do three episodes al g to mike reese do two episodes david merkin oversees an episode, and Mike Scully oversees the rest of the season. And it's another big season 25, I'm guessing, right? Yeah. I haven't revisited this episode in a long time, and I was like, oh, is it going to have that later Simpsons thing?

He's like, oh, no, no. It's exactly where I want it to be. Yeah, I mean, we're in it for the long haul, and I'm excited to get to the later seasons, but this is really pre-Futurama brain drain before a lot of the good writers like Cohen and Keillor and a few others left for Futurama and Graining. Yeah. Season 9 gets a

bad rap. A lot of people say it's like, oh, this is when I stop paying attention or whatever. But when I looked ahead at the list of episodes we're going to be doing over the next 25 weeks, I'm just excited. Like, wow, I like all of these. Even the clip show All Singing

All Dancing is a good clip show with funny jokes about paint your wagon sorry i just now i just remember that whole bit oh that's great well this episode is written by ian maxton graham a new yorker as well i think this is my favorite episode that he has writing credit on though i would give almost a whole lot of that to jim reardon and his team of animators. Like this is one of the best animated episodes of the show ever. And one of the reasons is,

I was listening to the commentary and Henry and I, we learned recently in an interview that between seasons, everyone is laid off on The Simpsons, all the animators. So Jim Reardon was like, I kept the best guys

so I could have them in the future so all the best guys are working on this episode so they can stick around for the next season they don't get hired by anyone else so he has like an a team of people especially i forget the name of the guy who is like assistant director like one of his main guys but he is doing all of the car stuff and animating cars is very hard especially the stuff that funny writers put in the script that someone has to draw. All the boot stuff is just amazing in this episode. And it's all in execution by the animation. I think, yeah, I've

said this before on here, but this going through this whole series again has made me so much more appreciate the animation side of things than I ever did. I could always, I always looked up to the writers because that's who I dreamed of being, because I'm not an artist, so I never dreamed like, oh, I can draw The Simpsons. But I did

dream I could write The Simpsons. And that made me overlook how much the artists put into this. And a good joke or a bad joke depends so much on how it is drawn after somebody puts it in a script. A bad joke can be made better by good art, but bad art can hurt a good joke. That really shows you the difference in things in this. And this is one of those episodes uplifted by amazing art. Absolutely. And we'll probably get to it in more detail. I think the sting sequence of Homer's first trip to New York, all through music, all through gorgeous animation,

is one of the funniest and most impressive set pieces the show ever did, in my opinion. I just actually kind of watched it three times because I was just really stunned by it because it's so funny. It's so well-timed. Yeah. And we joke every second and nobody says a word.

Also, young Homerer is adorable i want a young homer in the 70s series yeah it's sad now that young homer would be a 2000 era guy he would his flashback now would be to 1997 yeah flashback 20 years yeah it's him at lollapalooza or whatever the hell. Or maybe he's waiting for tickets to Sublime or something. Oh, God. And yeah, this episode, first off, it starts fittingly with the Harlem Globetrotters reference on the couch gag for a New York City episode. Then we get into the designated driver program. Uh-oh. Here comes the evening rush.

Clear out, fellas! Man, I thought that radiation was gonna happen. Evening, bro. Morning, bro. Yeah, alright. Listen up, guys. The Springfield police have told me that 91% of all traffic accidents are caused by you six guys.

Yeah, I know, I know. But the bad news is we got to start having designated drivers. We'll choose the same way they pick the pulp. Everybody reach in and draw a pickled egg. Whoever gets the black egg stays sober tonight. The reveal of the black egg in Barney's hand is very well done, too. Just like, you know he's last, and he just slowly opens it. And then the black goose squeezing out between his hands.

So funny. This beginning scene with the rats really pays off a line from Homer's Phobia. Those angel rats, Bon. Like, these are his pets. They're not like pests. Homer's enemy also has uh mo and his rats joke definitely bill and josh were into mo and his cadre of rats and the i want him to use that i want him to be the rat king like let's go let's go for it because he

he's got a real agreement with these things there's a different era of simpsons in another universe where they embrace mo and his rats more than Moe and his suicidal tendencies. They zig when they zag instead. Yeah, I mean, it is kind of funny, like with all the 9-11 jokes, like drunk driving is so dangerous and so terrible and it's treated so lightly here. But all of that stuff works, though.

It's still very, very funny, like everyone being very excited But all of that stuff works, though. It's still very, very funny. Everyone being very excited that they are responsible for 90% of the traffic. Their pride in it makes it funny. You know it's wrong that they are feeling that way. Yes. And, well, you know, that drunk driving thing, it also does remind me of how it's happened twice in the last couple of years where you'd see breaking news someone runs over people in downtown new york and some people start thinking like was this a terrorism thing was this and then it's just really like no it's a drunk driver everybody shrugs like

well then i guess we don't need to get except upset about that i mean if you do get arrested for drunk driving or pulled over you're an idiot especially now that there are lyft and ubers and things like that like there's there was never an excuse but now there's absolutely no excuse and now when you're a bars and if you go to the bathroom there's just like hey idiot call a fucking lift you're not gonna make it home it's on your phone it's nine bucks just let it let it happen and you pick up your fucking car tomorrow yeah yeah if you can afford all those beers you can afford one lift home i have to say, Barney takes being designated driver very seriously here because I would think an actual alcoholic would eventually just break and be like, who fucking cares? I'll pay for a cab.

I'm just drinking. Yeah, like I could have a beer and then I'll turn to three or four. That too. Yeah, they talk themselves into it. Instead, Barney is very focused, like, I gotta have a beer. He's holding on to it. And it's very realistic, his sweating and shaking. It does remind me of alcoholics in my life when I've seen them react to, like, you didn't buy beer?

I need beer tonight. What are you doing? And I now see that as the DTs. I did not recognize it that way at the time yeah it's it's very funny i and i love the duff man is this the first uh it is yeah and henry and i were just talking they really uh with mike scully's era seasons 9 through 12 they really fell in love with duff man exploring him making him gay saying that he was not the first duff man uh he gets flanderized fast.

He would go on to be the boyfriend of later character Booberella. That's right. Duffman's a funny character and he's based on this really obscure mascot, Budman. Bud Light's mascot or Budweiser's mascot? I thought Budman looked so cool as a kid, which is exactly their intention

to make children like beer. He kind of looks more like Homerer than this cool duff man guy yeah he's a lot like a radioactive man kind of look except homer's body i'd say and was spuds mckenzie was he uh bud lights or bud weiser bud light yeah and that's that's just a fun drinking dog i mean i guess the dog never drank the dog should have never drank uh no very well the dog was getting mean i guess the dog never drank the dog should have never drank uh no very well the dog was getting loaded or not the dog fucked the dog definitely fucked that was a dog that was ready to fuck hang out with hot ladies i never i never think of duff man as a bill and josh character even though he absolutely is like he's they talk about how much they love

bud man and how stupid he looks and they have like collections of bad bud man merchandise so that's absolutely where duff man came from because i associate him so much as a season 9 through 12 superstar i totally forget he is a korea i figure i always think of him as a scully guy like uh like like gill and the wolves at old gill's door oh that's so cool he's the glasses on Budman. Those are the coolest to me, actually. Bob, you showed me some Budman pictures. Introductory jokes that introduce a character

that should almost sort of be a one-off, but clearly everybody loved the character design and the voice production and what they could do with it. Like Disco Stu. Disco Stu is like, it's just that jacket at the garage sale, and he makes that great joke, and it's like, well, what if we just that jacket at the garage sale and you know he makes that great joke and it's like well what if we just had him around a lot for other jokes and this is like clearly the worst thing that could happen to barney is to have the coolest dude you'd

ever want to drink with show up on this night when you're at the dd yeah let's actually hear the duff man debut here. I gotta have a beer! Not tonight! Not tonight! Are you ready to get Duff'd? Hey, it's Duff Man, the guy in a costume that creates awareness of duff. Duff Man wants to party down with the man who sent in 10,000 duff labels to bring me here today. I've got a bottomless mug of new duff extra Cold for Barney Gumball! Yeah, that's swell. Duff wholeheartedly supports the designated driver program. Now, who wants to party?

So yeah, that was the song Oh Yeah by Yellow, the 1985 song. And I think Bill Oakley said on the commentary, they used it because it is just what an ad executive thinks is cool. It's like the coolest song. And it really symbolizes just the best 80s party down party you could ever have. It's used in everything. And they got it when it came back around to be ironic. It licenses all the same.

I think yellow is fine. Like, hey, if you want to pay us money to use it to mock it or not, like, we'll take it. I wonder if yellow tours would just, like, what do they play on that? You know what I mean? Like, do you do oh yeah twice kind of a thing? They have to be on a multi-person show. They're like, we'll do 30 minutes. You get 30 minutes of yellow.

They save oh yeah for the second encore. We do oh yeah, and then we do oh yeah in spanish all two lyrics you saw the breakfast at tiffany's guys and he swears that they played that song twice oh i would be upset if they didn't play it twice i i went to a show where super drag opened for concrete blonde and i was like they played one song off of the album everyone bought. And they're like, it's time for all the new songs. I'm like, this is not why I paid $20 to see Super Drag. I mean, when I see old people bands like They Might Be Giants and Violent Femmes, they're

like, we know why you're here. Oh, yeah. We know why you're here. Yeah, I actually saw Violent Femmes a couple of weeks ago, and it was exactly the added up album. Like, that's it. Yeah. It's the greatest hits, and we're out of here.

And I'm like, thank you. Thank you. I want to shake their hand. Thank you so much. We have early mornings tomorrow. They might be giants. Let's get to Birdhouse. And then, oh, yeah, the peanut bowl dancing to Oh Yeah is one of my favorite little animation things in this.

It's so good. I love the unexpectedness of whatever the hell duff man is going to be barney's familiarity he knows immediately what is happening what night it is and he's absolutely furious it's just so funny and it should be the best night of his life yes yeah the dramatic reveal of duff man too like he comes in the cape right in front of him and then just throws it out like yes i'm here did the cheerleaders come in first uh yes they open the front of him and then just throws it out like yes i'm here did the cheerleaders come in first uh yes they open the door for him and then he comes it's a great reveal you guys are right and uh they mentioned too that brad bird was still helping on animation at the time and he

acted out a lot of the duff man stuff to help him they said like they they said oh i remember when brad bird did the arm movements of him, like, who wants to party down? So imagine Brad Bird as Duff Man, and that adds some extra character to it. And I appreciate his begrudging acknowledgement of designated driving. Legally, he has to. He's like, we can't say it's bad. We have to endorse it. I guess Duff Extra Cold is a reference to Bud Ice and all those other cold drinks, I suppose, of the time.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Bud Ice is a disaster in a can. It's more alcohol. It's like closer to malt liquor. Enjoy it. I never – I have – when I went to Tokyo the first time, I had a special drink that was sold as like, this is, it was like smearing off ice or whatever. But sold as like, this is below freezing this drink, but it's still liquid.

Crazy. And, you know, I was just excited to be in Japan. I drink more when I'm in Tokyo because I'm on vacation. It's just normal drinking. And it's just normal vacation drinking. Also, to let you know, when this episode takes place, they sing the Macarena. Yes. Hey, Macarena!

Hey, Macarena! I'm trying to drive. Hey, let's go to the girls' college. No, to Playboy Mansion. Playboy Mansion! Shut up! It's my car, and I say we're going to the lost city of gold. Well, that's just drunk talk.

Sweet, beautiful drunk talk. Good night, Barney's. Don't forget to bring back my car back tomorrow. Just slide it under the door. Yes, tomorrow. Just let it under the door. Yes. Tomorrow. Yes, the Macarena thing is actually more painful than the Twin Towers. It takes

me back to when you'd have to hear about the Macarena a lot. There were Macarena jokes and then there were jokes about Macarena jokes. Yes. Yeah, it was a dark time in America. Yeah, I guess that was probably a joke on Macarena jokes, probably, but it's still not. I think you're never allowed to mention the Macarena really ever again.

It is putting sunglasses on at the end of a wedding. It is that bad. It does remind me of time for me to brag about a cruise I didn't like. A family cruise? No, my family would go on, we'd go on a cruise this summer. It was my dad's preferred way of vacation in our upper middle

class way of doing things because my dad hated driving places. He hated big cities like New York. We never went on trips there. And he hated driving in general. So instead, you just pay for a cruise. You pay it all up front, and you don't go anywhere. And you're at home.

You don't have to drive or do any of that stuff. And you're around a certain class of people who can afford cruise tickets. But when I was on it, I got to see this interesting thing of when they would have done, like, it's time for the party at party meal. We're not going to... We used to do YMCA, but now it's the Macarena. Come on, everybody remembers. I was like, I was 16 and that was the least cool thing in the world, but everyone was like, you gotta

do the Macarena. Are you going to be the party pooper here? We'll throw you off the boat, Henry. You're trapped here. You have no other ways to go. So I begrudgingly did the Macarena on a cruise around this time. It was taking off when I was starting to go to school dances. So I associated it with, I've heard it a lot. I associate it with just standing around and not dancing with any girls.

And just sort of drinking Cokes and eating Doritos at the dance. I do wonder if younger when i that there was that famous week in school i don't know if everybody had this but like where you were taught how to dance in gym class for no reason like and we did the electric slide which is clearly obviously like 20 years too old for me so i wonder if like people now are doing the macarena i don't know how that works in in grade school in the late 80s early 90ss, I was taught how to square dance. Oh, wow. In gym class. Wow.

I think I had square dancing, too, maybe. What the hell? That was in the boot scooting boogie era as well. No, I mean, well, I would think the Macarena with its hip swivel is too risque for schools. I see. Well, it's a Catholic school. Too much side thrusting uh remember the uh the animaniacs parody of that the macadamia song with uh the hello nurse dancing which was really just

an excuse for them to draw minerva making hello nurse dancing as suggestively as they could it's too well animated uh this also you know speaking of things that feel like a scully thing but actually starts here i definitely think of the Scully era as where there are more than a few scenes of Homer, Lenny, Carl, and Barney being drunk together. And this is one of the first ones. It is sort of rare to see Homer this drunk on the show. He does get drunk, but it's like, then you think of the reality of the situation. He's coming home to his family. He does like just pass out in the door yeah this this is more of party drunk homer like we'd see in say spring break or uh the children of the core and we

know all your secrets episode this feels more like that drunken homer instead of the like i'm a little drunk homer like uh the what he holds his liquor a lot worse in this episode than he doesn't say mr plow there's i mean and also i love how annoyed barney is to be around his best friends because it's the one time he's not tanked and it's just like everyone is so obnoxious and so stupid it's like we're not going to the playboy mansion i'm dropping you off home you know what i mean like we're not going to a diner like that's that's what i feel like this reminds me of like no it's three o'clock in the morning i'm not going to a diner i'm going home you get to see yeah that is the feeling of being the sober one around drunk friends of just like oh this i would be having fun with you assholes right now if i was also drunk but instead i see

how like selfish and loud you're being and i'm on the side of these bystanders you suck great little animation bit too and they they open the side of these bystanders. You suck. Great little animation bit too. And they, they open the beer and some of his splashes on Barney. It's a little lick on the top of his mouth where the beer falls. I'm like, Oh, that's just little. There's so many little ticks in this episode that are great. Homer. I do kind of blame him for trusting Barney with his car. Like you shouldn't just tell Barney to sleep on your couch or whatever. Don't let him drive home with your car. That's just a mistake.

And I love that he's gone for two months. It's a great... You don't get a lot of super long time-lapse gags, but this is a good one. Yes, for two months, gone with his car, and I guess drove to New York drunkenly at some point, and now has hitchhiked his way back home. That's quite a bender.

Yeah, that's a pretty funny bender. I'd love to know the story of how he ended up in the trunk of that limo. There's a real back story. That is a great reveal. I'm also not sure if the Villanova joke is a joke on just kind of crazy Barney, or is that like a slam on Villanova? Are we Harvard guys slamming Villanova? He's like,

what did you do in the last couple of months? Oh, I guess, I think I guess lectured at Villanova or that might've been a street corner. I'm not sure where that is trying to stab. Yeah. I don't know if there's anything about Villanova in the news,

but I don't recall. I don't really know offhand any sort of Villanova jokes. And I looked it up. It's just the Catholic private college. So I could be a slam against, I don't know, offhand any sort of Villanova jokes. And I looked it up. It's just the Catholic private college. So it could be a slam against, I don't know, like a private college, a private religious college. I don't know. But I like the idea that Barney just had no idea where he was.

And that, well, I have a thing. If they're going to make fun of a New York school, they'd make fun of Princeton, wouldn't they? Like that's the. Yeah, Villanova's in Pennsylvania. Yeah. I think that's what it's supposed to be like sort of like he was all up around the all on the upper on the north the northeast kind of side kind of getting up to shenanigans maybe that's it like expanding the

world of barney's trip he wasn't just drunk in new york he's drunk in pennsylvania you got drunk in new jersey probably you know i mean who the hell knows the hell knows? He went to an Eagles game, likely. Finally, Homer does find out what happened to his car. Homer, I don't want you driving around in a car you built yourself. Marge, you can stand there finding fault, or you can knit me some seatbelts. Sorry, sorry. Dad, you got a letter from the city of New York. Throw it away. Nothing good has ever come out of New York City. Dear motorist, your vehicle is illegally parked in the borough of Manhattan. My vehicle?

If you do not remedy this malparkage within 72 hours, your car will be thrown into the East River at your expense. Oh? I don't want to go to New York City. Why not? New York is a hellhole. And you know how I feel about hellholes. Dad, you can't judge a place you've never been to.

Yeah, that's what people do in Russia. This time I told you about a chapter of my life I hoped would be closed forever. So, yes, I did do the geography homework on Homer's trip to New York City. It doesn't make any sense. There was no reason for him to stop over in Manhattan. I guess just the weird buses he took, but I guess he was going to

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to buy an irregular coat. Because Harrisburg, New York is like a nothing town with like 400 people in northern New York. I don't know if they're referencing that, but he did have to like change. What was it like changed to a bus or a train? Yeah. The port.

Yeah. He was going to Penn station. So I guess he was taking it. It must be like their super saver bus where they transfer twice in Atlanta. The geography of his trip in New York is perfect because he's at Port Authority, which is on 40th and 8th, which is basically the heart of Nightmare Times Square if you're in the 1970s

and that's where he winds up and that's what sort of is the inciting incident of the hilarity I would say. And all the things that happen to him within three blocks or however short walk that is but yeah you're talking about the scene, it's a parody of The Sting right? With the entertainer

playing behind him. Yeah and just it's a great scene, it's a parody of The Sting, right? With the entertainer playing behind it, yeah. And just, it's a great scene, so much happens, and I love that they chose a more muted color palette for the scene. It really imitates the sort of washed-out, dreary 70s film stock you see in stuff like The French Connection and movies of that era. It definitely reminds me of that era. As John Mulaney and Nick Kroll famously joked in their great show, Oh, Hello, they talk about 70s diner feel. And that's what I get in this, too, of like, can I get a gray coffee?

Everything is just very – a thin layer of grease is on everything. I just love the timing of everything. I love Homer talking to the cop after getting after getting his bag stolen and he's listening or whatever the first thing i think his camera gets stolen he's listening listening listening and then just runs off in his bag it's like a perfectly like what beat beat beat and here's the punchline joke it's a random reference though that's the cop from the odd couple movie ah yeah i i also love the the stickers on his suitcase too like especially the foot sticker so screams the 70s when when you see young homer too especially as this idiot in new york city

he's fry yeah i was thinking he's philip j fry of future but like young young thinner homer in this flannel shirt he's so adorable like i want to i want to follow him around yeah that haircut too yeah well i think because young homer and fry have a bit of young mac rating in them so that's why they kind of look a bit similar but especially seeing him this new york feel to it too it does it's a precursor to futurama which is all new york though new new y York, but still has the same kind of feel of late 90s New York, just like this episode does. Yeah, the timing of it to just, the chase with him being chased by the very 1970s pimp,

it works so great. It's like a Scooby-Doo chase almost. It ends on a Looney Tunes gag of him climbing up the ladder as it falls. That's so great. You get Woody Allen in this sequence, which is the world's most famous New Yorker, I guess. Dumping trash out of his window. Yeah, the cops should be going after him, man.

If only he knew. And also, I like that in this dimension, cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers are a real thing that Homer had to deal with. The joke closest to my heart is everything sounds terrible if you only focus on the pimps and the chuds. Are you the chud fan on the We Hate Movies crew, or is that Andrew? That is Andrew, but I've known Andrew long enough that I've seen chud about 16 times at this point. And I mean, it is a great, I mean, again, if you want to talk about old New York, like it's a great looking movie for old New York. It's a bad movie for sure.

But like, it's all these like apartments with like 17 coats of paint on them. Like where they're like, you're losing about three square foot of floor space because you've repainted your apartment so many times. It's just that everything's sweaty. Everything's disgusting god yeah daniel stern is filthy in that movie he looks like a subway he looks exactly a sentient

subway uh and this is definitely homers new york is the one of taxi driver and annie hall and all those movies it's i love seeing that in those films. That was something, as a Marvel comic book fan, I was so excited to hear about. It was rumored for a time they were going to make a Daredevil film that would be set in that time, in that New York, because the problem with the current Daredevil that's on Netflix, they have to make up a Hell's Kitchen that does not exist. It's like, oh, the gritty streets of hell's kitchen

like it's really not hell's kitchen right now and if they if they just said it in 1978 or like 82 it would be the hell's kitchen that people want to see daredevil in i'd be interesting to put daredevil in a period piece like that sold me whatever disney's next daredevil uh project i i i had like two days ago sworn off. I'm like, not today, Disney. And as you're telling me that, I'm like, I'd watch that. Yeah, I'd watch that. And I was just in Vancouver for two weeks.

So I was in fake New York. I was in movie New York. Or the Hallmark Channel version of New York, which is exactly Vancouver. That's where the woman gets yelled at by her bad boyfriend before she meets the single dad in a small town exactly, it's in everyone's business business, business, and for some reason

every holiday party is on Christmas Eve I just went to my work holiday party yesterday on December 4th, because no one's setting a fucking holiday party on Christmas Eve, because no one would go to it yeah, I want one of those holiday films to end on December 12th. I fell in love on December 12th. I really love the fake government-y speak of malparkage. Malparkage.

I just love that terminology. It's really great. So the East River, right? Yes, yeah. What is great. So the East River, right? Yes. What is the reputation of the East River, Steve? It's disgusting. I actually did some kayaking in it a couple of years ago. And it was fun because you got to go around and it's choppy as all hell. But you keep your mouth closed the entire time.

You're just terrified of getting anything on you uh you want to remain as dry as possible it's i mean it's green it's lovely and green uh it's it's very very very you you should not drink it uh you shouldn't look at it too long uh actually now i'm thinking about it uh i was driving back we were driving back i should say after like a long weekend and there was traffic and like, this has never happened to me

before or since. We're hitting up the traffic, going up the highway and we look off to the side and yep, they're just dragging a dead body out of the East River. Oh,

I'm glad that I got to see that. Jeez. That water is seasoned with corpses in front of way guns. It is the mafia's disposal unit. And I'm pro-mafia. But so after that very fun sequence, Homer seems pretty dead set about not going to New York.

And that's when the chuds came at me. Oh, Homer, of course you'll have a bad impression of New York if you only focus on the pimps and the chuds. Oh, I'd love to see New York. We could all go with the bus company's special super-sitter fare. Nine bucks? This one's on me. Great! We're all going to New York! You lousy bark. This is money.

All right, New York, I'm coming back. But you're not getting this! Dad, our baby pictures were in there. Don't you start. This episode's got a lot of great muttering in it. I like how Homer's like, Lousy partner's money. The sit and stare bus lines

reminds me a lot of Megabus. I had a friend who rode Megabus a lot to go to concerts. She had a great time and she enjoyed it, but it didn't make any sense to me. It's like, so this bus drove you 800 miles for $20. Does one of you get your organs harvested on the trip? I don't see the profit margins on that.

Just gasoline-wise, it doesn't make sense. I mean, and also for every two great Megabus stories you hear, you hear six that are absolutely atrocious. The success rate is very low. Well, so recently I did take a Greyhound bus trip this year down to Los Angeles. And the drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles is only about seven hours. It was maybe eight total. And it was fine, but i would have paid looking back i was like i would pay 140 extra to just make this a one hour flight like that's i'm getting that age as well where it's like yeah but what if i spent more money and

did it yeah in your 20s that's when you just go like my time is worthless i'll pay 20 bucks to take this to make this last 17 hours i believe i'll live forever exactly oh my back feels great like no not anymore uh yeah no the problem uh the the worst thing that happened on that greyhound trip was we drove through some cow country and oh there's a lot of cow country between la and sf yes and uh the driver was like i now see that the air conditioner is not working i'm sorry you'll be smelling manure for two hours and 45 minutes yeah that was it was only about an hour only and yes that nine dollar advertisement that is the crux of the 9-11 truthers related to the simpsons there because you have the nine dollars and right next to it are the twin towers which

look like an 11 as we all noticed after the like i think it was either time or news week their week after 9-11 their cover was a nine and then using the exploding tower as an 11, which is just like, that seems tacky now, but it felt important then? I don't know. It was weird. I mean, if you think about it from a joke writing perspective, 9 is just a funny amount of money. I imagine now, like, were they talking like,

should it be $8? Should it be $7? Should it be $13? They decided on 9, and 9 is a funny amount of money for this trip. It's something that Bart could afford. Well, he could. He could pay the $36. I'm assuming they didn't have to pay for Maggie. She's cargo. We see that in the

opening shot of Act 2. I think that's in the new movie Vice with Christian Bale. It opens with him and it's Paul Giamatti playing Matt Groening and Christian Bale. It opens with him and it's, um, uh, it's Paul Giamatti playing Matt Groening and Christian Bale hands him an envelope that says, make this Simpsons joke. That's how it starts.

I understand. They take the bus. The Homer throwing his wallet in the fire is also quite a good joke. Uh, he, he'd rather, like he said, he'd rather die than let New York take him.

He's, my parents were definitely terrified of taking us to any big city. They were not fans of that. My mom is still, I just talked with her about this at Thanksgiving when I tell her about all the trips I take for work and stuff, and also for fun. She says, I'd never want to go to New York. It's so terrifying.

She said she maybe wants to go to Boston, but New York is just too overwhelming for her. I mean, Homer is very emblematic of the suburban view of cities. And I grew up in the suburbs. My mom is always terrified for me. And like I went to, so we're talking a lot about going to Tokyo in this episode. I'm sorry, but I went to Tokyo this year and I told my mom about it. I'm going to Tokyo.

She said, just be careful. I'm like, it's safer in Tokyo. I was just mugged, by the way. In America. That's how America works. That's how they get you. Yeah, you know what? Actually, we were never mugged in New York City, the times we spent there.

Mainly my time spent in New York City was in the area around the Javits Center, because that's where the business was taking place at the New York Comic Con, which that's a fine place. Sure. Comic Con, the Javits is kind of at the edge of the earth where if you're walking west, you're like, can New York go more west? And you go three more avenues and you're like, oh my God. Oh my God. And you're out in the middle of nowhere. This is the first year in forever I haven't been to Comic-Con, but I always like to go for a day. It's a real good a day situation.

It's honestly too big for the Javits Center, but they can't build the Javits Center any bigger. So they just kind of put it to the Hammerstein Ballroom and even the Madison Square Garden. They do events there just because the thing's gotten too big, but there's no more space to build a bigger convention center in Manhattan. It's shocking that the

Javits is even that big with what a premium space is in that city. Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, they must make their money for the year that week. And then, like, that subsidizes the car shows the rest of the year. i really like the parallels between homer's perspective and marge and the kids because homer assumes the worst of

everybody of everybody in new york he thinks something will happen when the sun goes down and in the end he becomes a bigger asshole than any new yorker could ever be yes yeah meanwhile marge and the kids are having just a pleasant touristy time in new york in my first viewing as a kid i was like is something bad gonna happen to them i keep waiting for something bad of like they they turn the corner into like a peep show or something and it never happens and the third act that's that ominous cue on the sun going down is just so funny i mean i think that that's the joke of the episode is new york is safe now like in the 70s it was exactly oh yeah what home experienced and now it's the 90s giuliani is ruling with an iron fist and uh you know nothing can happen to you in

new york anymore which is it and that's like they're experiencing that and homer's got this weird kind of grudge against the city it's it's a fun it's a fun like a fun counterbalance. So here's them arriving in New York. I love, once Act 1 is over, the start of Act 2 begins in New York, and they never leave it. That took too long. How come we had to transfer to Atlanta twice? I just think we should have paid the extra $1.50

and gotten a bus with restrooms. Hey, Marge. I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my legs! Homer! Homer, those legs belong to the man behind you. Hi. We're here!

Wow. I feel like such a nobody. It's wall-to-wall landmarks. The Williamsburg Bridge. Fourth Avenue. Governor's Island. So the writer for this episode is in the bus. He's a very tall man.

Very tall man. Ian Maxton Graham. I think he's like 6'7 or something like that. But he is a New Yorker, as we said. And I think there are photos of him at studio 54 yes in fact that's in there's a there's a reference to him in clerks the animated series there's like a picture of studio 54 and a very tall man is there and it's ian maxton graham he gets around dave mandel was just shouting out to his friend buddy ian maxton graham and clerks yeah i won as a new yorker he's the the joke only makes sense to new yorkers about the landmarks that marge is marveling at i mean steven could you give us some insight into how unremarkable those are yeah uh i mean fourth avenue is just i mean

fourth avenue is very nice it's just not fifth avenue where you get sacks and the whole thing it's just a fun like a little bit play on that. I do love the Williamsburg Bridge, which is the least attractive bridge in New York, where you have the Brooklyn Bridge. Even the George Washington Bridge is gorgeous, which you get at the end of the episode. GWB, to those in the know, FYI. If you ever hear somebody say GWB, that means the George Washington Bridge, and that's a little bit of something for you. Governor's Island is just an island.

It's becoming kind of in vogue now as like a fun kind of couplesy spot to go. You take the ferry for the day. There's like hammocks and stuff. But there's literally kind of – it's nice because it's grassy and pretty, but there's nothing there. You know what I mean? It's not Ellis Island with the Statue of Liberty. It's not anything. It's not even mean it's not it's not ellis island with the uh statue of liberty it's not you know anything it's not even it's it's nothing it's not even staten island well staten island's gross i i had wondered if the williamsburg bridge had gained any more prestige since brooklyn is now

like hipster town it's a fun that's actually one of the funner if you ever are in new york and it's the you're you have time you want to go to Williamsburg definitely walk over that bridge because it's a one of the few bridges that has the an above-ground subway on it so like you'll be walking there's a train ride by you which is kind of fun and like it's just and it's actually like a again like for a nicer day it's a pretty walk and then you could just kind of walk right into hipster town and go to a bunch of cool bars and so on and so forth although that williamsburg is even it's beyond

that at this point it's turned into like another yuppie kind of like everyone there makes a quarter of a million dollars which is funny because when i was hanging at williamsburg and my misspent youth everyone decried like oh my god just 10 years ago this is a beautiful polish neighborhood and i'm like shut up there's cool bars here and now like that's how new york is and then like 10 years later it just kind of uh replaces it's a snake eating itself all the time uh we get enough of that in san francisco well then we get the hasidic jews is easy top joke which uh i didn't get as a kid because i Florida, not a lot of Jewish people, especially not Hasidic Jews there. So I was like, who are these guys?

What's them? You didn't see enough jokes about them to figure that out? Not yet. Oh, wait. Did they have the Hasidic Jew rapper in the Simpsons? You know what they did, but I guess I, in my lack of knowledge, if I saw a Hasidic Jew rapper, I would think they were a joke like that. I would think they were just a rabbi. I think of them just as indistinguishable from a rabbi like Herschel Krustofsky or his father.

And that instead, I think it wasn't until Modest Yahoo became a big deal that I understood what a Hasidic Jew was. Modest Yahoo taught everybody a little something. He taught us all. He taught America in the post-9-11 time. So they get to the Port Authority bus terminal. I've never been there either to the Port Authority in my walks around Manhattan. I usually stick pretty close to either the Broadway area, Times Square, or I went a little bit through Chelsea, like the UCB in Chelsea, too.

Is there a statue of Ralph Cramden there? That's what I was about to bring up. That is the one thing that they should have added to this episode of there is a lot, for no reason aside from, I mean, he's famous, et cetera, but it's not a Jackie Gleason statue. It is a Ralph Cramden statue in front of the Port Authority, which is kind of, I mean, it's a bus terminal.

And I get it. He's a New York bus driver. He's the patron saint of bus drivers. But it's kind of weird. And actually, for my honeymoon, I went to New Orleans. similar ignatius j reilly statue in front of yeah i think a mall uh or not a mall a department store where that uh the confederacy of dunces opens on which is really kind of like i just love this uh cottage industry of brass fat guys fictional fat guys adorning major metropolitan areas i have still never been to new orleans but that is going to be one of the first pictures I take with Ignatius.

Folks, if you've not read Confederacy of Dunces yet, it is such a funny book. You were never a white English major. I know. What the fuck happened to you? Did you go to college and were forced to read it? I'm actually rereading it now because I'm not a huge rereader, but I was like, ah of you know just and i'm not a huge rereader but i was like oh you know and it's just after seeing the city itself i wanted to sort of like actually read the book and like kind of see it again it is it does hold up i mean the race stuff's a bit but you know that's just the 70s uh it's just it's it is a laugh out loud book you will literally you cannot

help yourself from laughing out loud well i think social media has uh really helped the ignatius's of the world share their share their thoughts all the time with everyone i mean he would have been a podcaster let's let's cut the shit here like that dude would be you know he'd have a patreon it might be better than both of ours put together you know uh so i think for sure uh that's when we write confederacy of Dunces 3000 That's going to be the plot So yeah

They get to the Port Authority Homer is freaking out While meanwhile the kids are having a good time Now remember Criminals prey on small town folk like us So if anyone asks We're sophisticated millionaires from the Ozarks Homer you're scaring the children

Good I don't want to spend one extra second in this urban death maze. You wait here at the bus station while I get the car. The bus station is just one of the sights we came to see. We'll meet you in Central Park at five o'clock. Oh, all right. But not a minute later.

Because once the sun goes down, all the weirdos turn crazy. I'm on to you. This episode's very Homer-centric. A little bit of Bart, almost no Lisa, but the Marge jokes just are so rubish and so perfect. All of her things about, if only I had another pair. If only I didn't own one pair of shoes, I'd buy another one.

It's just so funny. Marge does get to have fun, which is nice. There's such a fun, innocent ignorance to Marge that I just love. They really capture what makes great mom jokes. The director, Jim Rohn, talks about it on the commentary. You kind of take for granted how populated their New York is, too, that it has to feel alive and full of people and you if you think about it from like a live action standpoint you're like well then they

got a bunch of extras or whatever but when you think about it of these are more characters to draw to walk around and design then that is so much more work exponentially more work for what people may not even notice is more work everybody you see in the background someone had to think about where are they moving how are they moving how long do they show up which characters do we use there's a lot of work put into making the city look you know populated you're right and that's kind of interesting too because you're not it's it's smarter than just like transposing your your springfield extras into new york because people wouldn't dress that way people wouldn't you know what i mean like all that stuff it's very you you blink and

you miss it but it's all there and it actually gives the the the episode the kind of gravitas that it needs i think this is animation wise the best of the simpsons let's go to a place episodes because you know when they go go to Brazil in the future or Australia, like Australia looks good, but it's very much a postcard Australia. While this does feel like the Simpsons are in New York City, it feels real different from the other ones. And I get the sense that Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, who ran this episode, they love doing this so much that they really brought a lot of this to Mission Hill.

And like... When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part.

Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Care. Care. Did I mention that we care? Making a city, making lots of characters, making lots of signs and stores and just thinking of the place first. And I think the difference is the geography too. It's like the geography is laid out in such a way that it makes sense. You know what I mean? Like everybody's kind of moving around and kind of fantastically, like it would be a lot to go to the Empire State Building, a Broadway show,

and Chinatown in one day, but it kind of works. The World Trade Center and the whole plaza is so well done. It really understands the space. You get a real sense of the space, though I would think in real life, which obviously that's not what the show is, but if a car was parked in the middle of the World Trade Center, that would be major news for one day, I would think, locally in Manhattan. And then it would be towed immediately. It would not be left there for two and a half months by the count of this episode.

It's a great image of it just being between them, just covered in tickets. It's like a very striking image. It's very evocative. I love the boot. I love just, yeah, the plaza is really nice. I love Homer boot. I love just, yeah, again, the plaza is really nice.

I love Homer having to wait there and accidentally panhandling, which is really great. Juan, did you ever get to visit the World Trade Center as a youngster, Steven? You know, I never did, which kind of goes to what I was talking about before. Like, I didn't get to the city as much as you would think. Yeah, which just now a very big bummer like i really wish i would have i mean i would we would drive past it a lot you know my dad lived in brooklyn for a bit so we would drive back and forth and you'd go past it and it was just comforting to look at uh but never never got in there i still haven't been to the freedom tower

which is a total ripoff it's like 60 bucks to kind of get to the top and look at it which is it's a scam uh but so yeah uh our tax dollars paid for that place we should be exactly free and then speaking of visiting places marge and the kids visit statue of liberty and marge is still looking at governor's island liberty and still looking at governor's island i just love the line governor's island looks so insignificant from up here which is like i mean i guess guess she's becoming a New Yorker in an hour kind of a thing. And Bart becomes a very blood and soil type guy briefly to tell the immigrants there's no space here in America to get out. But what makes it funny is that they're 1920s immigrants, not current day ones. And they're very depressed about having to go to Canada.

Oh, Canada, no, no, no, no. It is like you were saying, some of the better muttering in the series. Just like, oh, I don't want to look at the car. And she goes underneath. It's like, it's so beautiful. I forgot to remark on one of that earlier. When they arrive at the bar, Lenny's's like i don't know about radiation like meanwhile as they're dealing with that homer is trying to deal with his boot and until they remarked on it in the commentary i didn't catch that homer definitely says

motherfucker here all right you You? Oh. Hey, when you're done with that, I got something up here you can fight on. And why don't you be polite, you stinking puss bag? Pal, you got to call that number on a boot. Sorry about that, guy. They stick all the jerks in Tower One. That's it.

I'm coming over there. Yeah, why don't you come over here? I got something for you. Shut up, the both of you. Thank you for calling the Parking Violations Bureau. To plead not guilty, press 1 now. Thank you. Your plea has been... Rejected. You will be assessed the full fine plus a small... Large lateness penalty.

Please wait by your vehicle between 9 a small, large lateness penalty. Please wait by your vehicle between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. for parking officer Steve Grabowski. They expect me to sit here from 9 to 5? That's how many hours? 10, 11, denominator. Oh, where's Lisa when you need her? So whenever I see a boot on a car, I haven't seen one one in a while i don't know if they do that around here i i always think of this episode i always think of the damage it could do to the uh to the car itself and i do have to point out that uh the

they got joan kenley back to do the voice of the operator bill oakley josh weinstein got her three times i think the first time was in uh home sweet home dim dudley doodly whatever that name episode is called she's like you negligent monsters and then and then the dialing wand uh she's the voice on the dialing one hotline are too fat so yeah that was joan kenley the official voice of the phone company at that time she's so great at doing her thing and that's i i like that they put in the effort i believe they flew her down to L.A. to record that, too. And one of my favorite lines this whole episode is the Steve Grombowski. She clearly has said a bunch of first names.

Yes. Or that all the police in New York are named Steve. It's just a different man named Steve. I love that i love i love the the uh clothesline gag of that kind of old fake new yorkie kind of thing would you also kind of see in um the older episodes where marge and homer lived in that weird apartment that also felt very new york yeah you guys want to play stickball that that whole thing which is a lot of fun um i do it reminds me of like the best stan lee cameo of all of those marvel movies is him playing that guy out of out the window

in spider-man homecoming asking how's your mother which is like a very i don't know i love that that's like a new york it's a stock joke but it always makes me laugh that is a very sweet one in into the spider- verse actually i'm not gonna spoil it for folks who haven't seen it yet the i think it has my favorite my new favorite stanley cameo maybe it means more because i saw it after he passed away but yeah it's a very sweet i actually watched that last night which is amazing we're in the exclusive into the spider verse club seeing it before release right here let's just start. Let's ruin the whole movie right now. Yeah, okay. Bob in the film. Which one of them dies?

Dan Castaneda totally says motherfucker while with his finger in his mouth or whatever there. It's shocking they got away with that. And the sound of teeth on metal just makes me squirm a little bit.

It just goes, ow. Cramp his gums real bad. And obviously that line, they put all the jerks in Tower One, feels a little different in a post-9-11 world, I guess. But the next scene with Bart on the subway, I don't know if you have a clip of that or anything. Oh, you do? Yeah, let's hear The Simpsons hit the subway.

Here's a better idea. You give me your address and I'll write to you. Okay, I just sent it to Jesus. Carry the Pentagon. I'm so glad we took the subway. Laser wart removal. Wow, the future is here. Hey, where's Bart?

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to disturb your pleasant ride, but unlike yourselves, I was born without taste buds. Let me demonstrate. I'm in over my head here. Thank you for your time. So I ride a lot of mass transit now in my life. And when I tell people from the suburbs that would never imagine sitting next to a stranger on a bus or even getting on a bus or a train, they're just horrified. I always hear like, I would never ride a train.

I would never ride a bus. And I deal with this all the time. And this is just going out to the panhandling community out there, anyone listening. I don't have any money. I never carry money on me. And what bart is doing is different than what i usually experience i usually experience a showtime yeah the dancers yeah yeah the the badly trained dangerous dancers on the subway that are always on the subway when i'm coming back from the airport always every time it is like it is like bizarro Duffman entering Moe's bar. I'm just like, not today.

Not today. Ladies and gentlemen, they put down the boom box. I'm like, oh my God, I just want to get home. I want to take this hour ride home from the airport. I don't want show time. Time for the same dance they've done for seven years. I'm just like, I've seen this same one seven years now. And the one I saw on the way back from the airport this time was the guy was

doing the dance and like shit, shit was flying out of his pockets. It's like his phone flew across the damn train. Wow. It's always, it's the lead. It is a not tonight situation. I've always,

it's like, cause I ride up and down the A train, uh, for the show, for the movie show, like, uh, Andrew,

there's all the top, all the way at the top of Manhattan. I spend most of my night from 9pm to 10.30 on the A train once a week. It's always the show time. I've got a big book on me. I'm almost enjoying myself.

It's like, oh no. I'm actually a very generous New Yorker. I'll always give to homeless if I have it. I try and keep a couple bucks on me just for that reason, but I will never in my life. You will have to hang me upside down for me to give a nickel to Showtime people. I have no patient tolerance for Showtime. Showtime people, get a YouTube channel like the rest of us. Get a Patreon.

I gave to them once, and it was one of those times of like, I pull out what I think is a dollar, and as I drop it, I see it as a five, and I just go like, look, enjoy your five, but you will never get another. Now that I gave you a five, I will never feel like I have to give you a dollar again. We're all in the same community of Showtime. They all live in a big house. The five bucks went very far in that house. I also have been approached by the homeless on the BART and it scared me at first, but by BART

I mean the Bay Area Rapid Transit. It scared me at first as a suburban kid living in the city, but now I'm just like, I have my headphones in. I don't have to listen to you. You're not going to do anything. Let's just forget it. And they walk away to deal with somebody who will uh seemingly listen to them so i i've kind of gotten over that fear that was it was definitely tough on me at first the the closest thing i've had to this uh jesus moment

here that lisa has is a guy sat right next to me and was like hey can i have some money i was like no no i and he's like oh come on let me just see he showed me this scar on no. And he's like, oh, come on. Let me just see. He showed me this scar on his leg. And he's like, see, I got real hurt. I'm like, please, I don't have any money. He's like, well, can I just, like, I can go with you back to your place and get you some money there. I was like, no, no. No, you may not. Yeah.

It's always tough. I mean, it's always best not to engage. If somebody's walking up and down, I will give the buck. But if somebody starts to talk to me, it's time to move. One time, me and my wife were riding into Brooklyn. It's one of those things where you're sitting next to somebody you're not sure is crazy. She starts talking about the way the subways go. You can't even hear what the next announcement is.

You're almost going to be short and just look like a totally nice lady so you know you're you're almost sure to miss your stop and my wife you know kind of did the thing like the the the chuck the polite chuckle of like what a shared experience and she's like that's not fucking funny and what if i stop it's like oh no she's crazy oh shit oh god it's like ghostbusters if you think it's a person and then they turn their face and there's a skeleton on the left i was talking to a ghost the whole time uh the oh oh there's one other experience on the train with homeless people i've had which is just uh walking onto the train and saying to myself boy there's some open seats here.

Why is nobody else in here? Sit down, and behind you, you see is a man sleeping, but you smell it first, and you're like, ah, I see. Well, time to get on that other train. Well, I'm sure just like with SF in New York, once Amazon sets up shop there, all that money will take care of the homeless

and give them places to stay and feed them and places to use the bathroom. The business will take care of it. It give them places to stay and feed them and places to use the bathroom. The business will take care of it. It'll revamp the subway system for sure. It's going to make it run so efficiently. I like Bart. Bart is the overwhelmed small town grifter. It's kind of like a midnight cowboy type moment.

He's pulling the same grift that works on the, out in the, out in the boonies, but now in the city not working so well uh but so yeah homer accidentally panhandles the guy the guy in the ponytail who gives him the money is uh assistant director or one of the assistant directors at the time bob anderson who's now still a director on the show big time director if you see a blonde guy with a ponytail that guy is usually bob anderson And yeah, apparently they really based that pizza place on one that was or is across the street from One World Trade.

I mean, it's a famous original Ray's, which is a thing in New York, right, Steven? Yeah, I mean, everything is a Ray's pizza. Even now, still, it's funny that that myth still pervades. There's just a famous original Ray's, a Ray's original, blah, blah, blah. I guess at one point there was a really good slice of pizza called Ray's. It's almost like

basically how Beowulf kind of got started. It's all just through folklore and retelling of stories. Different shops open up all throughout. To the point of no one knows what Ray's is anymore. It was never the best slice of pizza in the city.

It's just a regular pizzeria run by not Italian people, usually Eastern European descent. And it's all fine. But yeah, there's famous original Ray's, Ray's original, etc., etc., ad nauseum. That was my experience in Manhattan of just like, if I stop somewhere and buy a $2 slice of pizza, it's good enough for a $2

slice. I was settled for it. And most of those places, that's not to say any of them are bad, you know what I mean? But it's just, it's one of those things where it's like, it is, there is no, there might be somewhere that has the best slice of pizza called Ray's, but I've never found it. Do you have a favorite pizza place in that borough in Manhattan? In Manhattan, I enjoy... Oh, God.

Actually, there's a nice... It's a little bit more upscale. It's not even New York style. It's called Emmy's Squared in the East Village. It's really nice. i usually eat pizza in my borough of choice i have a great pizzeria in jersey city like everywhere i've lived i found my small pizzeria but never really in manhattan i mean are you sick of hearing people say it's the water the water makes the i mean i i will say i have a pizza snob insofar as like i will not i will almost never eat pizza outside of new york or outside of the the tri-state area we'll call it like when i get down to

when i was in new orleans like people raved about the pizza i'm like i'm never gonna try that i respect your opinion steve chicago is fine yeah totally fine i i respect your opinion steve because you are a true new yorker but i am against any sort of pizza supremacy. I embrace all sorts of pizza, weird California pizza with corn and no sauce on it, pizza without cheese. I eat really good Chicago pizza. And I just posted a picture on Twitter to troll people because I knew they would get mad. It's like, it's bread and cheese and sauce. And like, you can do anything you want with those. It's going to be good. That is very true. Bob is a real pizza troll in general either sharing his photos of

chicago style pizza he's eating berkeley or him talking about how much he enjoyed the pizza he ate and then showing a bunch of pizza crust because he didn't eat the crust and then there's like eight replies like you're just leaving those crusts there what are you doing i love trolling people with food choices i i've just learned to bite my tongue when I see the cross there. I'm like, oh, I know. Listen, the carbs I'm saving on that I can spend on more beer. That's why you're skinnier than me, and I don't like that. I'm eating a napkin if I can.

Well, speaking of food, Homer is getting a special treat on the street of New York. Get your club cash. Hey, could you go across the street and New York. Get your club collage. Hey, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? No pizza, only a club collage. Oh, shoo. All right, all right, give me one bowl. No bowl, stick, stick. Oh, jeez, that's just awful.

Mmm. Jeez, that's just awful. Now, what do you have to wash that awful taste out of my mouth? Mountain dew or crab juice? Oh, jeez. I'll take a crab juice. Uh-oh. You got a men's room in there? Only half cash. Men's room in tower. Tower.

Observation deck. But I can't leave my car until the parking guy gets here. Why did I drink all that crab juice? That might be my line of the episode. Why did I drink all that crab juice? That might be my line of the episode. Why did I drink all that crab juice? That's the joke. Sorry, I had to play the jingle.

Make it official. I do love the slamming Mountain Dew, which is really, really pointed. Yeah, I'm surprised. This feels like right before Mountain dew began it's true like extreme gamer sugar drink advertising i guess the kakalash doesn't exist but there is like um all throughout new york uh halal meat carts all you know up and down uh and like four out of ten of them are the best food you'll ever eat and six are just like oh this is dry and from three days ago if you see a line go to that cart if you see no line avoid that cart now my husband used to work uh down near the flat iron building and he really misses now in one of the things he mainly misses

when living in the bay area is how much more available halal meat carts were. And just that I, well, my first trip to New York, I thought I would find hot dog carts, but really it is just like a kebab cart that also is like, well, we even buy a hot dog here if you want, but this is mainly kebabs, delicious kebabs. You're much better off with a halal. Yes.

There is a halal guy's chain here that uh that so my husband doesn't uh he can he can still get it if he wants it yeah the the club collage is not a real dish uh though i did see somebody online made a recipe for what they would think it to be and it's basically like kind of a lamb and meatloaf pretty much and so a lamb meatloaf on a stick is is pretty much clove kalash it would be lamb that would fit with the mediterranean uh style of this individual i would be against crab juice but i recently had a something so i was in canada in vancouver and there's a very canadian drink called a caesar and it is like uh their version of clamato and vodka and some other stuff oh and it was like, I was surprised I liked it.

Oh, gosh. Yeah. I'm a monster. Bob, I can't get you out of that. We just lost Steve. Steve hung up. I'm not talking about that shit, Bob. Sorry.

And the ClavColosh man actually has a very surprising long shelf life. He made five other appearances after this episode, usually whenever they just need an immigrant immigrant type guy to be hanging around. Though in the season 24 Return to Manhattan episode, they do have a joke where when they arrive, Homer hears him going, Clav Kalash. And he's like,

Oh, this guy again. And he turns around and the guy has opened a giant Clav Kalash restaurant in downtown Times Square. He's a huge success now in the Times. That's great to hear. Rags to riches. Humble beginnings. Also voiced by Middle Eastern impresario

Hank Azaria. He'll do all the accents. And yeah, also I love how off-model Homer gets when reacting to the show. His face expands. I love when they break the rules like that for a character reaction and yeah his little pee dance for why did i drink all that crab juice so funny and i was talking with henry before the show like the simpsons has done toilet humor before like there was a scene

in um the union episode where homer pees. Burns' mansion, just one of the rooms. But this is the really first super extended toilet joke. Just like a character has just the agony of having to pee and then an extended peeing like, ah. Yeah, and not too long from now, we'll have the one where Bart goes to sleep and dreams of how much he needs to pee. Yeah, this kind of opened the door uh the the toilet stall as it were to more pj although bill oakley and josh wine saying we're upset that they couldn't have an unzipping sound or urinating sound no tinkle yeah i do love that each tower has one bathroom and it's 20 floors up yes though my only logic flaw with this is that can't you just pee on any

street in Manhattan? Like, no one's going to stop you. I see that in San Francisco all the time. We live in P-Town. Yeah. Yeah, but it's a move. You are letting yourself go down three social strata by doing that. It's a dignity thing.

I did have that happen walking home one night in San Francisco. I leave the bar and I'm standing next to somebody. I'm like, I walk out. I'm standing next to a person. I think, oh, we're just two people standing together. That's just how humans are in the big city. And then I hear the splashing. I look down like, you're peeing on that car. Walk.

I just take several big steps away. I was like, we are not equals anymore. You are pissing on this car now uh so they head to chinatown which uh felt very exotic to me as a kid i didn't have a chinatown where i grew up i i really love chinatown in uh there's a really good one in oakland that's under underrated but also the san francisco one is a lot of fun too yeah i've been that was one of the things that i did in san Francisco, which I loved, was here at Chinatown, which is beautiful. And the food is fantastic. And there's just, I mean, the Chinatown in New York is, it is, I mean, again, you can get amazing food.

There's amazing little deals and all sorts of stuff. And it's just so different. That is a part of New York that has not changed in 30 years. It's exactly what it always was that's cool i the chinese fire drill joke yeah it's it's a it's a lame joke somebody really wanted that in this in this episode and yeah it's like chinese fire drill was when you get out of the car and you all run around the car i mean it's just it's a frat boy type behavior anyway it was from a simpler

time where the word uh chinese could be used as an adjective to mean like mixed up or crazy like that language they have that crazy language yeah backwards and upside down and same with uh i mean i have had that culture i did have that culture shock in chinatown of just seeing with american butchers and meat, you are used to a kind of removal of the head and the face to not have to think about the death involved in the meat you're eating. And they're in the back of the grocery store usually, like way in the back. And meanwhile, in Chinatown, you will see dead animals hanging in the window. And it does, it's something you got to get used to i think but it's not

i don't want to make a cultural judgment it's it's just a difference i think you meat eaters have to live with yourselves i mean i think if we were more in touch with it and knew what we were doing we might take it more for granted what factory farms we might not take it for granted what factory farms do to uh animals i do love the oh no they're just sleeping inside out yeah on the commentary they're kind of groaning at that joke because they were saying you know lisa should know the animals are dead lisa is not like a three-year-old that's true it does infantilize her a little bit yeah but the flushing meadows thing uh is so great and it is really so we bring them up a lot uh because they do this a lot.

Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein love season three and this is their tribute to the Land of Chocolate scene. They wanted to do their own version of it. He's doing the walk. A throwback to a simpler time, for sure. What I've heard, I've never been to Flushing and I couldn't even find it on a map, but

I've heard it used as a joke of like uh we moved to flushing is it like we we uh went down a peg or whatever what what is the deal with flushing it's one of those things i mean like queens is so massive where you are it's like you're not in new york city anymore at a certain point you're basically on long island or you're basically you know what i mean like it's and the bronx is like that too like if you get north enough in the bronx the difference between the bronx and westchester is not much and the difference between that and what you would consider to be new york city is vast you know what i mean so it's it's much more residential much more kind of it

just doesn't feel like what you would consider to be new y. So it's one of those outer, outer, outer borough things that is probably a nicer place to raise kids, but it's also not exactly urban, I would say. The nanny was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens. Oh, that's right. I'll do the whole song. I forgot.

Thank you, Nannycast, which I know is the next one. Once we get to episode 660 on this, it's going to switch to the nanny. Nattering on about the nanny cast which i know is the next one once we get to episode 660 on this it's going to switch to the nanny nattering on about the nanny uh so i also do love the animation of just homer constantly crossing his legs like you can really feel it it does if you have an ounce of urine in your bladder you'll want to use the bathroom watching the scene they do it so well. We also get a quick return of the wealthy

dowager that Homer jumps in front of when jumping the line. She was not killed by Krusty. It's funny to hear her opine that she'd hope someone stabbed him in the eye. No, the observation deck of the World Trade Center seems very well

recreated, too it seems there's so such specificity in it that it feels very uh it feels realistic like it but it would really have been oh yeah i do love the attention to detail but there would be a line you'd have to pay and he has to do all this you know what i mean like there's a lot of business to get up there and yeah the the lock on the door too just actually It's out of order and you can't even go in. It's locked. That just hurts so much. We've all been in that situation too of like, okay, I'm finally getting to pee.

No, I can't. Oh, God. As a kid, when I was in those situations, when I had to go to the bathroom in general, for some reason, like my mind palace was basically, George went, ran my bowels, and like he was like a foreman with a bunch of levers. And it was like this thing where it's like, I got five more minutes, dude. And I'm like, I know, I know, George.

I'm going on break. Exactly. And that sort of pops up sometimes when I'm really in dire straits. This is really toilet time on the podcast. Yes. Coming from a smaller suburban town and living in tiny college towns and coming to the big city out here, I really had to learn the toilet rules where it's just like, oh, it's a restaurant. I use the bathroom.

It's just like, oh, no, it's like an adventure game. I need the code. Where do I get the code? Was it on my receipt? No? Oh, boy. Oh, the code. Damn you, Chipotle.

But yes, Homer finally gets the satisfaction of peeing. But at what cost? Oh, yes. Yes. No! No! No! No! No! No! and the third act is just homer being furious the entire time this broke him which i i have had that feeling of the closest feeling i've had to this is when you think all right they're not my delivery my special delivery won't come the one time i'm in the shower

for 10 minutes they're not going to be here this early they're never early and then your phone starts ringing when you're in the shower yeah damn it this was the first time i noticed that on the second dough you can see officer steve grumbowski in his cop car driving away oh nice it's not just a cop any old cop car it is the same cop to let you know like he not only missed homer but he immediately left he is not waiting at all for homer he's just gone he got his ticket one more ticket 250 small large lateness penalty and then homer yeah poor homer like if honestly he kind of lucked out because if he had to pay that, that had to be $3,000, $4,000 of penalties. He is a wanted criminal in the state of New York now.

Yes. It's shocking they actually went back when he owes them. So, I mean, he would be arrested within minutes of him doing the first thing in this third act here. I do love how much, like, so we're spending $9 on bus tickets because we don't have a lot of money, but Marge goes on this really kind of extravagant day in New York. She's racking

up a bill, too. Yeah, going to a Broadway show with the kids? Yeah, actually in the Manhattan sequel episode, a compliment I'd give to it over this one is that Mar the joke is Marge and Lisa are trying to have only free fun in New York City and they so they can't do anything like they can't even get on the subway Marge is like if you cross that turnstile we've blown our

budget Lisa Homer is broken by it and when he sees the sun setting i really do think the the sound cue on the sun setting is from escape from new york it's yeah it's the john carpenter escape new york noise i think you're totally right about that that sounds right yeah it's i mean not enough escape from new york references in this that well that is the new york homer and many suburbanites imagine of like well i gotta get out of here before the King of New York murders me. Cuts off my finger. Ernest Borgnine taxi driver kind of situation. Come on.

That movie. I rewatched that movie recently. What's one of the most interesting things of it is they create a real interesting supporting cast of like you have Adrian Barbeau, Ernest Borgnine, and Harry Dean Stanton all with him, and they survive until the final reel. And then when they get on the bridge, they all die immediately. It's like, did you not have any of them planned to kill them earlier? It just felt so wasteful to just kill them at the end like that. It feels like they forgot.

They're like, oh, we didn't kill any of these guys, and they're not going to be there for the finale. That sounds about right. That's very Carpenter kind of. I'll just kill him. Oh, kill them all. That's the last reel. Kill everybody or almost everybody.

Yeah, Homer is getting out of New York, whether it kills him. What? Failure to wait by vehicle. $250. $250. Oh, no. It's getting dark. Well, that's it.

I'm getting out of this town alive if it kills me. I'm not going to have a clip of it because it's all sound. There's no dialogue. But the boot is one of the most amazing scenes in the show. Yeah, driving, like, cars are hard to animate and make them look convincing, and what it does to the car and how it changes how the car moves, the car goes downstairs, it's all very,

very well done. It is sharp to figure out how that would look. I mean, again, make it just cartoony enough that it would actually work, but also like, the physicality of the lopsidedness is so much fun to look at. And the way it peels back the wheel well around it and just like it's it's amazing and just every i would think you'd in at

first i did think like well this isn't realistic you'd break your axle at the start but there are many viral videos out there of real life people going fuck it it, I'm driving on my boot. And there are just as many people in the background, like with Homer, just like, no, stop, you can't do that. There are lots of shocked people he's driving by. It's great. So we have seen the reality of this, which often really the boot, this is a powerful boot. Most boots in the videos I watch, they will break, they'll fuck up your wheel before they break, but they'll eventually break on about the fourth or fifth turn. They're not that strong, but this is a super boot that's put on Homer's car.

Yeah, the boot is really asking, how much are you willing to damage your car to get rid of this without paying? And yeah, I love all of the, it's more like people yelling at him. I love the taxi driver yelling at him. And then the messenger he ran over is yelling at him as well. And the, just his, that he turns into, like he puts on his blinker as he goes in. Oh, another cool thing I noticed was the number that was on his boot when he called it earlier. It is the 212 area code of New York. Oh, that's fun.

There's more than one area code for Manhattan, apparently, right, Stephen? This is what my answers told me. Yeah, it's 2347-646. All the goodies. There's an old Seinfeld joke. It used to be 718 was the original. I think all of New York was 718. There's a Seinfeld joke where Elaine wants, I think she wants to keep her 718 area code and then she has to get a 212. Yeah, that's familiar. She's on a date and when she gives the number, the guy's like, oh, 212. She's like, no, no, it changed. I live in a good neighborhood.

This scene is, this is, actually this might be my line. I know I said that about crab juice but this line from marge is so sad i i love it look at all those beautiful shoes i know they're made from animals but wow if only i didn't already have a pair of shoes speaking of shoes i don't care about shoes i'll meet you ladies back here in half an hour. Okay, Dad. Stay where I can see you, honey. It's a great line, and I also like Bart's. Speaking of shoes, I don't care about shoes.

Yes, yes. Well, Bart absolutely was me on vacations. If we were doing anything that didn't interest me, I'm like, why are we doing things that aren't something I want to do? I mean, I was raised by women, which is why I'm a soy boy currently, as I've been called online. And a lot of that was just looking at blouses and being in clothing stores. Oh yeah, you've got to go.

That is the pain of having only a mom raise you. You're like, alright, I'm in a department store for three hours. What can I do in this JCPenney's? And just Marge is just so resigned of like, well, it would be selfish to own more than one pair of shoes. Those are the rules. It's just how it is.

You have one pair of shoes. I'm not the biggest fan of Lisa falling into such a stereotypical woman role of like, I love shoes. But it's funny that she's like, I love shoes, but it's still, it's funny that she's like, I know it's made from animals, but wow. She likes some girly stuff like ponies. She's got a lot to do in this episode

and she does kind of betray a lot of what the kids should know and act like in this episode too. And she's not used very well, I agree. But this Mad Magazine thing coming up is so great. Yes, Henry and I were at Mad Magazine,

the new offices in, it in Burbank, correct? Yes. Our friend Allie Gertz from the Everything's Coming Up Simpsons podcast got us in there. She wasn't there. We took a tour. We met Bill Morrison, who we later interviewed. And Dan Telfer, the writer and comedian also for the magazine. And it is not the Mad that we see in this episode.

It is like, oh, this is like where I used to work. This is like the video game office I used to work in. But there's, I mean, there's tons of great memorabilia. They were still sort of setting up, but a lot of the stuff from the old mad office was in there. And Bill Oakley, when he was a child, like a seven-year-old, he got a tour of the mad offices and he said it was great. It was really run down.

He met a lot of the artists. They gave him all these books. He said it was like one of his greatest memories ever. He wanted that in this show. We did get a bunch of free books when we were there. We did get that. Yeah, comic books. Yeah.

I wanted more Mad. Well, because when we did the Mad magazine thing, it was in the same offices as DC Comics. So it was kind of also a DC trip too. But it was a lot of fun to see it. I mean, Bill Morrison's office was amazing, especially like he owns so much merchandise of batman like amazing amount of merchandise plus some spy versus spy stuff in there and i think

his key simpsons collectible in there was a sell from the do the bart man music video and everybody's when bart and his posse are dancing through the street right before Lisa plays her damn saxophone. And then realize that Bill Morrison drew every t-shirt you wore as a seven-year-old. Yes, yeah. I worked at Marvel for a little bit. That's right, Steve. I forgot about that.

It was exactly that, though. You would get a lot of people. And the offices were a little run down in terms of it's not a totally of people. I mean, and the offices were, they were a little run down in terms of like, it's just still a very, like, it's not a totally new revamped, beautiful office, but there is like memorabilia all over the place. The conference rooms look gorgeous, et cetera, et cetera. So you would always, it was always kind of funny to be like, basically it's all in the outer rim of the, all the offices are on the outer rim.

And then like, it's a sea of cubes. And I was in the sea of cubes. And like, you would always have then like, it's a sea of cubes. And I was in the sea of cubes. And like, you would always have these like celebrities and pseudo celebrities kind of walking around you while you're working. And you're like, that must be fun. And my move was actually,

I was still pissed. I was always, I was more of a DC guy anyway. And I was like, you know, I'll work at Marvel for a couple of years. And then with that experience, I'll switch to DC or,

you know, I'll wait for a good opportunity to open up at dc but then dc moved to la yeah i hear that uh that sucks but i i would have been so the reverse like i that's as a kid bart's age i would have loved to go to man magazine i would not have said no to it but my dream was to tour marvel comics of like if i i told myself if i ever go to Manhattan, I'm going to see it. And, uh, I still have not, I did walk by where the offices were my first trip to Manhattan just to have done it. But I dreamed of it so much that as a kid in the early nineties,

late eighties comic books, I was reading, I memorized the, the address. Cause I was like, if I ever go to New York, I'm going to go to new york i'm gonna go to 387 park avenue south i'm gonna check that out and see all of the cool i'm gonna go through the marvel bullpen i'm gonna meet todd defalco and ralph macchio not that ralph macchio but that was yeah actually i guess you worked with ralph macchio or around him no he wasn't around when i was there it was top brevoort mostly oh yes yeah and that crew uh everyone's super nice it's it's funny though like the it is that thing that's

it's invite they have a place on lockdown like you do not see normal people get tours it is you know somehow famous people somehow not you know what i mean like just like maybe a youtube star, but that's it. Well, what Bart gets to see is what you dream of when you as a kid dream of going to like Bob and me have now worked in print magazine some, and we know we now know what a regular office full of editors looks like. So it's been demystified a bit for us here, but what Bart sees on his visit to man is something else.

Excuse me, is this Mad Magazine? No, it's Mademoiselle. We're buying a sign on the installment plan. Seriously, though, my name is Bart Simpson. My father has a subscription. I'd like the grand tour, please. Listen, kid, you probably think lots of crazy stuff goes on in there but this is just a place of business oh okay get me kaputnik and phone bone i want to see the drawings for the new kids on the black and watch my for slugging up as shawmy sandwiches and epistrami sandwiches. Wow. I will never wash these eyes again. That was very much the Mad Magazine of the 60s and 70s, which apparently was the peak

for a lot of people that generation. The Mad Magazine I was reading at this time and before, you would see reprints of some of these characters. Like at that point, Don Martin had jumped ship to Cracked. Oh God. Yeah.

And I liked Cracked too. Cracked was also funny. I bought some Cracked comics. Oh yeah. like at that point don martin had jump shipped to cracked oh god yeah and i liked crack too cracked was also funny i bought i bought some crack comics oh yeah i mean they were mad and cracked together on the shelf and they were both two bucks you like what do you what else you're gonna do not buy one of them no i my favorite as a kid was spy versus spy it's sergio aragone it's like sergio aragone's living legend he's He's the greatest doodler of all time. I just love his doodles so much. We brought up, I think we brought up Al Jaffe before who did the fold-ins because there have been fold-in gags on the show. And again, he is in his late, late 90s.

Like he's probably 97 or 98 by now and still doing fold-ins. And go back to, again, we mentioned this podcast on every episode, the Gilbert Gottfried Amazing Colossal Podcast. He's on an episode of that from a few years ago, and he is like the sharpest 95-year-old. Like Gilbert Gottfried interviews some people, and it's like, wow, they are like, their brain is half gone. But this Al Jaffe, I don't know what he does,

but he is so sharp. Maybe it's making those fold-ins that keeps them sharp, you know? I will say, a little on New York, if you come here, go to the Society of Illustrators. It's up in the 60s somewhere, but it's a really

three-story building where they have kind of rotating... It's basically a comic book and illustration museum. When I went there last, they had a bunch of Avengers stuff, and they had a ton of old, mad, and ec comic stuff just kind of hanging around and that was really neat so that's a little uh a little i'll give you a tourist you guys as we go along oh awesome oh man i i am totally gonna do that steve sadek's guide to new york

also ominous both for future episodes. When he says New Kids on the Black, that will happen. That is the name of the episode. Yes. With NSYNC where they become Bart and everybody else becomes a boy band, which in February of 2001, they do a joke where they blow up the building where Matt is in and everybody lives. They're like, actually, I feel better with you. They do a joke where they blow up the building where Matt is in and everybody lives. They're like, actually, I feel better with it. It was seven months before 9-11 they did that joke.

It's shocking. And they were much meaner to Matt. I think one of the jokes in the episode was like, why don't we call it Everybody Hates Raymond? Well, they did say Tina Brown is just starting to turn it around. We'll be getting to that one soon, soon enough. So meanwhile, Homer is just driving down the street, fucking up everything. Everybody's right to hate him.

This has a ton of licensed songs. They get in Ray Stevens, Everything is Beautiful. Even he gets a payday in this. I won't play it live for us, but I'll cut it in here. It is Checking In. You know, when I'll cut it in here. It is Checking In. You know, when I was a girl, I always dreamed of being in a Broadway audience. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you.

Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? How do you find the defendant? He's guilty of mayhem, exposure, indecent Freaked out behavior, both chronic and recent Drinking and driving, narcotics possession And that's just page one of his ten-page confession

I should put you away where you can't kill or maim us But this is L.A. and you're rich and famous I'm checking in He's checking in I'm checking in Checking, checking in No more pills or alcohol. No more pot or Damerol.

No more stinking fun at all. I'm checking in. He's checking in. He's checking in. No more looking pale and thin No more bugs beneath your skin Hey, that's just my aspirin Chuck it out

You're checking in When I grow up, I want to be in the Betty Ford Center. Better start saving now. It's very expensive. Shh, they're strapping down Liza Minnelli. It's really great. I believe Ken Keeler wrote it. He wrote a lot of the songs from the Bill and Josh era.

And it is all about Robert Downey Jr. Yes. Period. I was like, is that Charlie Sheen? But no, actually, Charlie Sheen's problems were a little bit later. And he's wearing his outfit from Less Than Zero in this musical. But yeah, things are, I mean, he's like the world's richest man now compared to what was happening then. It's one of the better Broadway parodies because you can tell what part of the show it is.

It's the very beginning. And like, you can almost imagine what the whole musical is. Like when you see like the hockey player and the beauty queen. Oh, those are all characters. We're meeting the characters for the rest of the thing. I don't know. I was watching it today. I was like, oh, wow.

I could write the rest of this show. They're each going to get a solo. The hockey player talks about how he ended up there. And so when we do this show, we've done this show for almost four years now. So I notice a lot of background characters or reused characters. I was tweeting about this last night. The doctor who's with the nurse checking him in, he is also the NASA scientist that has the blackjack in Homer, Deep Space Homer. And he is the same scientist with the syringe in My Sister, My Sitter, who's about to kill Lisa for seeing an alien.

So he gets around a lot this guy but congratulations on your broadway career now it's a scientist guy and i don't know i mean uh i know i knew new york has been cleaned up a lot but uh we have our own theater district in san francisco it is in the worst the worst neighborhood really bad the theater did the orpheum theater it's like you get out of it and you're surrounded you're surrounded by homelessness and and broken windows just like a giant a giant poster of shrek the musical on the side of a beautiful building and just like 30 people dying of heroin underneath it jesus yeah i mean it's our time square has gotten you know quote unquote better you know it's less uh there's a lot less porno theaters but there are some if you go further out enough or just places you can be reared in uh but there's also uh we are besieged by your classic uh which is i think

which started in hollywood the people dressed up as famous characters trying to get for tourist pictures kind of a deal and it's those are the people you need to run from as far as you can they live dark mysterious lives lives. They do. And again, it's one of those things where I feel bad that that's the only way you guys can get around, but I am not going near your pea-soaked costume. I apologize. I have fulfilled Marge's dream of being

in a Broadway audience myself, too. I've been to two shows. I've been to Avenue Q, but this was definitely a smaller production of Avenue Q, but technically on Broadway. And then the other one I saw was, I mentioned it already in here, but I really do love John Mulaney

and Nick Kroll's Oh, Hello. It's one of my favorite things. I got to, they were doing their Broadway show while I was in town for New York Comic Con and I was like, fuck working tonight. I'm going to see oh hello oh it was amazing i saw the theater i i saw that uh live as well and it was just one of the most

i've ever laughed period and all the jokes are just so specific but also like vague enough that everybody's getting them but like if you're in on your laugh some more but it's just it's so freaking funny and uh it's also funny in this episode that's a tribute to new york they get a dig in in la uh it's just like if you're if this is la and you're rich and famous you so nothing happens to you which is still true i'd say or well now i think the cycle is it's not that nothing happens to you but you do have to go on an apology yeah i mean any other uh you know drug addicts who did what robert downey jr would do would just be lost in the

system forever but he was rich and famous already so he got out now he's even richer that's the move and now yeah now he's the when you're a white guy you've got a lot of chances oh yeah yeah when he yeah actually this was only he hadn't even hit rock bottom yet when they're making this joke. Like, he would go to jail, and then he'd get cast on Ally McBeal in a couple years, and then get arrested again, and go to jail again. And it's, I can't, I mean, it was the power of Iron Man brought him back. Like, that revitalized him. Not unlike how an arc reactor brings back to life Tony Stark. So in this case, apologizing on Oprah how an arc reactor brings back to life Tony Stark.

So in this case, apologizing on Oprah was the arc reactor. Yes. Okay. I do love the – it's an underrated joke too where they take away – I never really caught until this time. They're like, oh, they take away his belt and shoelaces so he can't kill himself. Oh, you're right. Wow. Yeah. It's super dark and really quick.

And if you know what that means, you're like wow yeah it's super dark and really quick and you're like if you notice know what that means you're like oh jesus but then you're like as a kid you're just like oh they're just taking his clothes off like no no no boy i didn't notice that until you pointed it out that's great that's a great touch i love it oakley actually like bashes his own jokes in this episode he says like hey that's just my aspirin he's like we could have done something better like that's fine it's funny I like it bugs beneath your skin to aspirin that's if that's a good rhyme I'm in on it yeah totally after that it's time for Homer is just about hit the end of his rope and it's time to say say goodbye to Mr.

Boot I've got it rain how could I ever thank you just don't bump me on your way out of the car sorry just a minute everything's under control yes I'd be upset too hey hey

what the boy says you're fired I'll get him so long Mr boot yeah i do love the uh unseen damage he causes to that man's boss yes he's clearly not happy with the guy already i'll get him and god the destruction i love this scene so much because the destruction homer does to his car just when i think i'm like you've totaled it in all the ways you can he'll then break it in a new way like him kicking the front of his car with the boot stuck to his foot like god you're you're poor car i mean getting the boot caught on his foot is just the perfect little topper to all the damage he does to the car like the hood flies open you can see what's happening to the inside of the car it's so uh so much of

this episode is carried by the animation. If this joke was executed poorly in animation, it would not work. Because it's all animation. You viscerally feel every single dent that that car gets. It's really beautiful. Especially the cheese board holes it just punches in it when he loses control of the jackhammer. But when he sells it, it's speed holes. Yeah, it's true it's cars a lot

faster you're gonna get home faster and then that bus it is amazing that that car can drive back to springfield after all that damage i do love the casual violence a of i'll get him like everyone's ready to kill somebody and then when homer is like he kind of gets a moment of cheers because everyone's like yeah you stuck it over to the man, but then there's a gunfire at him. Don't push your luck. Yeah, we go back to Central Park, which I have to say that's not the best plan. We're like, we'll be in Central Park. Do they know how big Central Park is?

You can't just meet someone out front in Central Park. It's difficult to even be like, i'll meet you at strawberry fields or whatever the hell it's like you get in there it's like it is where am i how yeah i also have no sense of direction period but it's difficult my first visit to central park was being a real uh law and order fan boy just like all that i know they found a dead body there and look under that tunnel uh lenny had a funny joke there when he saw a corpse. But yeah, as the sun's setting on New York and we get to hear a little more of like the John Carpenter tones, the murderous drive through Central Park with the gradient background, it's both gorgeous and hilarious. Homer, again,

he's in jail forever. If you drove through the crazy man who drove through Central Park, that guy is arrested for terrorism. But I guess this is pre-9-11 comedy here. And also, I would never take a horse ride anywhere, aside from how depressing it is to see those horses. Oh, yeah. The horse shit smell, my lord. Yes, yeah.

You are constantly downwind of a horse ass. I just think of the, uh, we're talking about Seinfeld a lot in this one too. Like I think of that one where Kramer became one of those drivers and he fed him beefarino and then the, the horse just farted in people's face all night. And though,

yeah, in the, in a future episode, Lisa wouldn't ride this because of the animal cruelty aspect of it. Yes, for sure. But at the time, it was just like, ah, it's romantic. It's a horse-drawn carriage in New York. How nice.

But yes, here's the wonderful ending of Fleeing the City. My God, that maniac is heading straight for us. Go, Secretariat, go. Ow. Oh, my God, that maniac is heading straight for us. Go, Secretariat, go! Ow! Hey, it's Dad. Right on time. We're getting out of here. Now, jump in, Marge.

Trust me, throw the kids. No time for the baby. We're not jumping, Homer. Come on, let's go. Everyone into the car now. Tell your friends to ask for Jimmy. What a magical city. Can we come back next year, Dad? We'll see, honey.

We'll see. Oh, so like lots, lots of gross out humor in this episode, more than I'm expecting from the Simpsons, but the bag of medical waste exploding in his face feels like a new, a new peak of gross out jokes on the Simpsons. And I love just syringes on his face laying on his face.

Syringes. And yes, yeah, it's, uh, this presage is a lot more of the uh homer horrible violence we're gonna see in season nine and through 12 in the mike scully years it reminds me a lot of the ending of summer of four foot driving home in a fucked up car yeah yes yeah

and like being homer being the only one that's like furious at everybody i i love that posing too that the the family is all in the backseat happily looking backward at New York City. Meanwhile, Homer is looking forward and all he can see is garbage. It's all about their different perspectives on New York. One of them, they just see the glamour of it. And all he sees is the garbage smacking him in the face. And this amazing sort of fake helicopter shot the episode goes out on, they're definitely showing off

and this was CGI assisted. It's not computer graphics. It's like, let's see how a computer would turn around this shot and then we will trace that. We will trace that. So it's sort of like someone

tracing the screen of CGI. But they had not done anything this ambitious animation wise with like sort of 3D technology that wasn't real you know we had Homer Cube before but it's really impressive and you could tell they

spent extra time and money making this a really beautiful season premiere. Reardon says that Korea really freaked out when they got sent that art too.

They're like oh my god. They also I think they had to write a special note to Fox like do not cut the commercial let this play. You know you spent a lot of time and money on this. It looks really cool.

Yeah. It runs throughout the entire credits. I forgot that. I thought, like, oh, after the turnaround, it'll just be over. But no, it keeps going through the entire credits. So, yeah, they had extra time to work on this, and they wanted to make, like, any season premiere

a really, really good episode. And Homer gets whipped right in the eye. Yeah. It's so funny to me, but the, uh, yeah. And I mean,

they end the episode with the very normie, but I mean, New York embraces it. Frank Sinatra version of New York, New York, like it, I believe it has ended every Yankee game for 30 years now. Yeah.

It's, it, that's the, that's the winner you will get for a while i don't know if it's the yankees but we you know that the jz new york uh still kind of actually did some damage to new york new york which i'm okay with um like it's it was taking us some of its real estate a little bit which was nice yeah i think it's new york yeah empire state of mine is a fun it's a fun song i was listening to that today, too. Actually, that was

speaking of normie reactions to New York. When I first got to my first night in New York in my hotel room, I was like, I need to put on the Jay-Z song and listen to it while I'm in New York to really feel it. And you turn on the Muppets Take Manhattan. That's a great idea. I do love

the song Saying Goodbye and that is one of my favorite sad Muppet songs. There's a lot of those. That's Lose. They played New York State of Mind with Billy Joel. Oh, God, Billy Joel. It's a very depressing song in general. And like, yeah, you're walking out of Citi Field.

You're like, oh, God. Billy Joel is a sad man. I mean, I have strong opinions about New York,ork and uh which is the eliza minnelli version is better and it was written for her and like if you've never seen the film new york new york it is lesser scorsese and if you're somebody who loves like goodfellas and casino this this is one of his opposite movies that you're like uh oh this has robert de niro in it but also it's it's a tribute to old style judy garland musicals it's one of scorsese's biggest experiments at the time it was right after taxi driver he's like i can make any movie i'm martin scorsese i'm full

of cocaine he uh he learned he couldn't make any movie after this he also part of that cocaine binge was he was even dating Liza Minnelli at the time they were an item the song is written for her the movie is called New York New York they write the song for Liza Minnelli to sing it she was a huge star just coming off of Cabaret and so the song is written by Broadway legends Kander and ebb for her. And she sings it so well. And yet in 77, it gets overlooked, not even nominated for an Oscar in the song category.

It was like, what the fuck? I think it was just, there was such a stink on that movie as a flop that even the song, the great song doesn't get nominated. So when the Oscars are like all or nothing, like it's a good movie and all of the parts are good or it's a bad movie and all the parts are bad.

Sometimes, a lot of the times it's in between. Sometimes it's a great supporting performance in a terrible movie and that should be nominated. Yeah, it's sad. It's sad that when that doesn't happen for all the great character actors out there. And so, yeah, this song, then a couple years later,

after the 77 release of the movie, Liza Minnelli is still singing it, becomes one of her standards. But in about 78 or 79, Sinatra slightly adapts it, adds a couple more kiddos to it, his whole track. And it becomes popular in his live performances, and he then releases a 1980 version of it that is the one we hear in this credits which becomes the hit like most people didn't see new york new york they're not big liza fans like me so they never really uh associated it with her and he kind of stole the song from her but that's funny because they they because they're sort of taking his version of the song, and also there's a diss on Liza Minnelli in this episode. Yes.

They're strapping down Liza Minnelli. Yes, yeah. People are too mean to Liza Minnelli. So if you've seen Arrested Development, you can see she is actually a very funny actress who is good and can play in on jokes about herself. I think the drag about La Minnelli likely will be when she eventually passes, which I hope is

many years in the future. That's when the reappreciation will happen, and everyone will re-watch Cabaret, etc., and say, oh my god, what a force. And it'll just be, not too late, but it's always that's the drag of it, when you become a punchline for so long, but

you were a legend, and you're right. The only reason you become a punchline for so long. And then, but you were a legend and you're right. The only reason you are a punchline is because you're a legend. Usually legend does win out, but it's just hard because it doesn't happen until you die. Yeah. There's a great joke about this very thing happening to Liza Minnelli in Arrested Development in season two, in the episode where Tobias buys his drag club,

which he doesn't know is a drag club lucille too goes on a date with michael there and michael is trying to talk to her and they start in the background here he's like what i'm trying to say is and then in the background here and you think it's going to be a cut to Liza singing and it is instead David Cross singing the song poorly and she says everybody thinks they're Frank Sinatra I love that joke so that's why this episode

of this podcast is ending with the best version of it the Liza Minnelli version not the Frank Sinatra version. I usually filibuster about Liza Minnelli you convinced me please that's it I wanted the audience needs to know

I feel very strongly but this episode it's a great start to season nine I'm really looking forward to you know a half a year in Talking Simpsons time

of season nine it will ease us into the Mike Scully years and there's a great mix of different tones in this season oh yeah and I'm really happy

that Steve Sadek could join us he's on one of my favorite podcasts ever We Hate Movies any final thoughts on the episode Steve? yeah. And I'm really happy that Steve Sadek could join us. He's on one of my favorite podcasts ever, We Hate Movies. Any final thoughts on the episode, Steve? No, I mean, yeah, I'm glad to be here

for this episode specifically. I feel, I like inaugural episodes and, or as Arnold Schwarzenegger would say, inaugural. I think it's super fun.

The jokes really hit in here as a New Yorker. Like I said, it is a weird postcard to sort of a lost era of new york and i think most new york i remember speaking of new orleans that uh in the what do you call it there the episode of uh when they do the streetcar named desire musical there was like a lot of backlash because they made that really mean new or song. But New Yorkers love this shit.

Yes, we are garbage people. That's how we talk to each other. We will shove you if you're in the street. And we know that. We can take a joke. And I think that's sort of kind of the difference here. This is one of my favorite episodes because it is making fun of New York quite specifically. I loved being teleported to New York as a kid.

I felt bad that I didn't watch this episode for such a long time just because I was like, this feels weird, the 9-11 stuff. I just couldn't separate it from it. But now, in 2018, being able to go back and just teleport to that time and not even think about domestic

terrorism was a lot of fun. So Steve, I'd like you to talk about We Hate Movies again Henry and I are both big fans I've been listening since the first year and you guys have been really kicking ass lately and your Cat in the Hat episode almost killed me I think nearly killed me

please talk about your Patreon what you guys are doing you guys have the I think it's my favorite bad movie podcast and it's what I look forward to every week and you have bonus episodes and stuff you do a Star Trek podcast an animation podcast like us yeah we do we we kind of overdoing patreon at this point we it's the best way to support the show i don't think the show would still exist without the patreon it's one of those things we did this we've been going for eight years we did it for without like really any kind of any kind of monetary uh impetus for so long. The Patreon just made so much sense.

It just gives us an excuse to do more content. This month, which is January, we're doing the worst of 2018. I can announce here that our Patreon exclusive episode will be on Jurassic World, which we're super excited about.

We just wrapped up a ton of great patreon content for our we love movies month we dropped on our we have a three dollar level which gives you an animation damnation we do kind of a uh a quick 45 minute kind of recap on an episode of a cartoon usually a bad cartoon but for uh we love movies month we did my favorite cartoon of all time uh or one of my favorite things period which is batman the animated series we did my favorite cartoon of all time uh or one of my favorite things period which is batman the animated series we did uh almost got him uh that's that's a three dollar level we did a five dollar gets you a sort of another a probably call a prime episode of the

show uh we just did a new hope star wars we did three hours on that somehow uh good enough five it's like one of our podcasts. Exactly. And then we did, um, uh, we also have an $8 level, which gets you, uh, a show.

We call it all the stuff below, but, it gets you the nexus, which is usually one episode of Star Trek, the next generation, one episode of Star Trek, the original series back to back, uh,

kind of recaps and fun jokes. But this last month we, we did a Star Trek, the wrath of Khan is kind of another prime-ish episode a full-on episode on that and then we also did a commentary on the movie commando which i saw for the first time which i i am totally shocked that that's a movie it's the most general schwarzenegger movie i've ever seen i think that's where basically every video game got its ideas from commando he's he's ripping chairs out of cars in that movie like

he's eating glass practically it's like more terminator than not uh that's that's so i i look forward to all those and yeah the cat in the hat one i mean your double shot of seuss was was so great the uh but especially just his the this the suffering of mike my Mike Myers was something else. I feel like he'll bounce back eventually. I don't know, though. He seems like an asshole. It seems like that might be his big problem. He's done a lot of comedy, but will he ever come back?

He seems like too much of an asshole to do that. Maybe he's been humbled. I mean, he's really talented. But if he's humbled, I think he'd have a chance to come back and do something new. A friend pointed out to me a long time ago, and I still think this is true, that his female love interest in movies never kiss him. And it feels like that tells me that the co-star is like,

I don't want to touch you. You're an asshole. You're going to have to pay extra for a kiss if you're getting one of those. I look back on it, guys. You didn't even kiss Cassandra? you're an asshole you're gonna have to pay extra for a kiss if you're getting one of those like I look back on it guys like you didn't even kiss

Cassandra Tia Carrera does not kiss him in those movies he almost does in the scene where he pulls up his underwear if you remember that

when they're in bed he almost kisses her but does not but thank you for joining us Steve we definitely will have you back if you can make it and you guys

are doing the right thing people that like podcasts want more of them and we try to do the same thing here. So I really love all the extra stuff you're doing. Absolutely. Yeah. That's one of the things is like, yeah, just get more. We keep it free

but we also have enough behind the paywall that hopefully they both compliment each other. And thank you guys so much. I love your show. I love talking I love talking Simpsons in an abstract way and I love talking Simpsons in a in an abstract way and i love talking simpsons in a very specific way oh thank you that's so flattering yeah thanks a lot steve so thanks again to steve seda he's off the line right now but again i have to reiterate how much

i love we hate movies and it's so great we can have one of the guys on the show maybe in the future we're gonna get andrew chris or eric and i want to talk to all those guys because they make a lot of simpsons references on the show and if they make it out here for sketch fest or something or like a West Coast tour, definitely we'll try to get one of them on. But again, check out We Hate Movies. It's a great podcast. And like us, they've got a lot of extra stuff going on in the Patreon. And you can give to more than one Patreon. It's really cool. I do it too. You should join the Talking Simpsons Network because you'd get to hear next week's episode, which I'm sure will be a doozy. You

can hear that right now if you were a Patreon subscriber. And the same goes for our sister podcast, What a Cartoon, where we talk about a different animated series and a specific episode of it every week. That's right. We've also done Batman the Animated Series, Steven Universe, King of the Hill, even anime like Cowboy Bebop and Robotech. It's a great podcast that you should be listening to as well. I think I led by promoting the We Hate Movies Patreon, but we've got a Patreon too.

And just like We Hate Movies, we survive off of it. It funds everything that we do. And if you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, you can join. Like Henry said, at the $5 level, you get those advanced podcasts. You can listen to The Principal and The Popper right now if you're on the free feed and see what we think about that controversial episode. But also at that level, there's a ton of bonus podcasts. If you've never been a part of the network before, you have so much to catch up on, so many hours and hours and hours of podcasts. If you like listening to us,

there are so many things you haven't heard and won't be able to hear unless you're subscribing to the network. If you like this New York chat, for example, we talk a lot more about it in Talking Critic, where we cover every episode of The Critic, even the web episodes. It's a lot of fun. And same with the first season of Talking Futurama, where we did

the first 13 episodes of Futurama. I'm just realizing both of our miniseries to date so far have been shows that take place in New York. Yeah, I feel like we have to do something like King of the Hill next just to get out of the New York groove. Our patrons will decide what our next miniseries will be. And very soon. Yes, very, very soon. We're going to lead off the year by voting on a new miniseries for the Patreon. And that'll probably start in the first couple months of the year. So look forward to that. A whole new exclusive

series for you if you're on the network at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. We like any kind of support. If you give a buck a month, that's great too. You can at least listen to our community podcast where we talk about comments that people leave us and also news in our world in the simpsons world as well so i've been one of your hosts bob mackie you can find me on twitter as bob servo i have another podcast it is called retronauts it's a classic gaming podcast every

monday and occasionally on friday go to retronauts.com or look for retronauts in your podcast device it's a classic gaming podcast i recommend if you're into video games or have played one in your life go check out our list of episodes. There's got to be a topic you want to listen to. Download that topic, download that episode and you might want to subscribe. I suggest that you do. We are a great podcast. We do a lot of great stuff and we've been going on for a long, long

time. We'll be going on a long time into the future too. So yes, please check out RetroNuts as well. Henry. I was your other host, Henry Gilbert, and you can follow me at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter. You'll see new updates on when we do new episodes of our exclusive podcast and the Patreon and our regular episodes and other news and events going on in the world of the Talking Simpsons Network. So please, again, follow me there. H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for joining us, folks.

We'll see you next week for the controversial episode, The Principal and the Popper. We'll see you then. The day has finally come. Start spreading the news I'm leaving today I

wanna be a part of it New York New York, New York. These vagabond shoes are longing to stray. And step around the heart of it. New York, New York I wanna wake up in the city that doesn't sleep To find I'm the king of the hill

Top of the heap My little town blues Are melting away I'll make a brand new start of it In old New York If I can make it there I'd make it anywhere It's up to you

New York, New York I want to wake up In a city that doesn't sleep To find I'm king of the hill Hell's a lift To find I'm king of the hill Hail the list Cream of the cross at the top of the heap My little town The land of the king Oh, passing away

I'll make up a random start of it In old New York If I can make it there I'd make it anywhere Come on, come through New York New York Thanks for your patience.