Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Joy of Sect With Conor Lastowka

Episode Date: April 17, 2019

This week's podcast belongs to the Movementarians, and we're happy to welcome to our cult Conor Lastowka (Rifftrax, The Pole Vault Championship of the Entire Universe). We talk about the real-life roots of this episode, how appetizing lima beans are, our dreams of hoverbikes, and so much more on this week's podcast! Now out of our way, jerkass!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!

attention talking simpsons listeners we have a special mini-series just for you we're going through the entire first season of king of the hill and you can only hear it if you're a five dollar and up patron at patreon.com slash talking simpsons we're giving the talking simpsons treatment to all 13 episodes of king of the hills first season and if you want a free sample you'll find the first episode available for free in the talking simpsons feed patreon.com slash talking simpsons it's the only place you'll find the first episode available for free in the Talking Simpsons feed. Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. It's the only place you'll find the first season of Talk King of the Hill. Made you go click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

It's real easy, man. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, recorded live in the Forbidden Barn. I'm your host, leader bean collector Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and I am dustier, dustier than thou.

And who do we have on the line? Hey guys, it's Connor Lestoka and I guarantee this is going to be a great show, not a guarantee. And today's episode is The Joy of Sect. Out of my way, jerkass! Today's episode aired on February 8th,

1998, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! 1998 and as always Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh boy Bobby Michael Jordan is the MVP of the NBA all-star game Blues Brothers 2000 arrives in theaters and lights the world on fire and neutral milk hotels and aeroplane over the sea creates a generation of hipsters in record stores today. It's a sad boy playlist. Yes, yeah. I love that album, as would be expected from my age and complexion and general overall demeanor.

But I do really love it. King of Carrot Flowers, Two-Headed Boy. The titular song. Yes, yeah. Holland 1945. All these amazing, amazing songs. And Blues Brothers 2000. It was not a hit. Amazing songs, too.

It's the airplane over the sea of movies. That's true. That airplane went down. I think it was not a hit because people were confused. It was called Blues Brothers 2000, but it was 1998. They're like, well, I'll wait for a few years to see that movie, sir. I remember the marketing blitz for it was that dan akroyd would appear everywhere like he was guest starring in everything

and he was also showing off that he was like in great shape well great shape by dan akroyd dan akroyd shape he was in like ray stan shape he's back to his fight and wait look i i am i am no one to judge the physical fitness of others. He was back to his busting weight. I mean, hey, Dan Aykroyd seems to be happy at the weight he's at now. I'm not judging that. But he was really, he was making jokes about how fat he used to be when he would appear on other shows. Look, John Belushi's irreplaceable, but Goodman's good. He's fine.

I'd say better John. Yeah. And wasn't there some sort of child Blues brother? There's a kid Blues brother as well, yes. And also, of course, you can't keep Jim Belushi out of it. Like, he's there too. I think he thought he'd get to be the co-star, and instead he's, like, hanging around to

the side when John Goodman's the real co-star of the movie. Look, if that movie had done well, Dan Aykroyd might not have been in a position where he needed or had to do Crossroads with Britney Spears a couple years later. So I think we are richer for him having done that. You know what?

The movie is very good, obviously. But whenever I would watch SNL reruns from the 70s, that would always confuse me. Before I saw the movie, I was like, who are these characters? They're not funny. They're wasting time. It's just two white guys playing the blues. Is that the joke? So when I wrote my only article for Cracked uh i did a ranking of the worst snl

characters and because i was uh very contrarian at the time i put blues brothers as number one because on snl they're not funny right and arguably they're not really that funny in the movie there's just lots of things happening around them but like i always was so annoyed when they would show up on those snl reruns like oh just have another sketch or something they're just gonna waste time covering a blues song as like blues fanboys. One of my favorite episodes ever of Eagle Heart is the blues episode where Dean Norris plays a blues man in the Blues Brothers style. Blues is really about selling appetizers at the House of Blues.

I was just thinking about Eagle Heart the other day. It's so good. And Michael Jordan on fire in the NBA that time. It's the last years of Jordan, I think, as the most dominant player in the game. I'm not pretending like I know basketball. He just played basketball in space. I would retire, too.

You know, that movie's a lie. They don't jam in space. They jam underground in the world where the Looney Tunes live. They're jamming to prevent going into space some things in the movie are from space sure i guess they are jamming upon space things but uh who's not from space is a special guest connor listoka of riff tracks podcasting and many other things how's it going connor right guys i'm glad to be back i've been considering watching space jam for the first time like i've never seen it, but the fact that it

doesn't take place in space, I'm reconsidering the whole ill-fated Enterprise, because that is garbage! Boy, if Space Jam was a bomb, as it deserved to be, you could easily do your riff tracks for it, but I assume that it's too hard to get those rights to get the video-on-demand Space Jam. Yeah, I think

probably what would hold it up would be the Coolio, Method Man, Be Real song, Hit Em High. It's like, it's what, you know, jam yeah i think the uh the probably what would hold it up would be the uh coolio method man be real song hit him high it's like uh it's what you know how it's a wonderful life got pulled back from the public domain because of the music i think that would be what no one wants to be associated with r kelly these days that's a stain on that movie yeah but well though meanwhile lebron james is making space jam too so i would think his production company would prevent anybody from making fun of the original Space Jam.

Yeah. Well, we'll see you in court, LeBron. But yeah, Connor, welcome back. We last had you on on 22 short films about Springfield. How's it been going on the podcasting front? I know you've moved on to new books. Yeah, so 372 pages, We'll Never Get Back, is still going strong. I got some helpful

advice from Bob about setting up a Patreon. So we relaunched it and man, that might've been a bad decision because I had people over last night and I had to explain to them why I had a copy of Sean Penn's Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff under my coffee table. Oh dear. It's a hard thing to explain even when you tell them you have a podcast because they just assume you're lying you have a lot to explain if you're running a podcast like yesterday i was out in public doing sonic the hedgehog research and i was just hoping no one would ask me what i was doing or ask me to leave what did that involve lots of lots of pictures and videos i just like i'm not that guy i'm not that guy believe me this is for a podcast but yeah so we've been reading uh some more bad books we

read tech war by william shatner which has a a simpsons tie-in that everyone was everyone assumed they were the first person to point it out to us we read a book called i can never remember the title because it was really long but it was about certified public accountants written by a certified public accountant who was who's a certified public accountant slash detective so that was very entertaining and now we're reading Sean Penn's novel, which is as terrible as everything you might have heard about it when it came out last year. I do love that a famous person like Sean Penn

can just write fan fiction and have it be published by being himself. It's truly stunning, man. Everyone who's struggling to create a creative endeavor is rightfully probably angry at the way that things actually work because he just crapped this thing out and it was shat upon by reviewers and readers alike, but I still assume he earned a decent penny. He was just on talk shows last week promoting the paperback.

You know, there's a thing with comic books too where people work forever to write Marvel comic books. They love it. And then meanwhile, if you're say former pro wrestler, CM Punk, you just say, I have an idea for a Thor comic. They just do it. They're just like, sure. Bubble shit. Go right ahead. System works, baby. No, that clip of him on the talk show. I'm sorry. And your most recent episode was so funny because he's just so like dour and miserable. Yeah. You know, I, I wanted to go into the, to the venture of reading his book, you know, giving him credit.

Like, you know, I, a friend of mine had sort of like, had worked with him on a humanitarian relief project in Haiti, but like that all went out the window. Like every, every orphan he pulled out of rubble has been, you know, that's, that's completely gone after the, the eighth alliterative sentence you've read in his terrible book. So we mentioned it earlier, Connor, you are one of the Riff Trax writers, and you guys have a live event coming up on April 18th. Yeah, so we're headed to Nashville in about a week and a half to record. For the first time, we're doing two in a week.

So we're recording a Riff Trax live that we're going to tape delay later in the summer called Star Raiders, The Adventures of Saber Rain. And that's going to air in June. And then there's also we're doing one called Octoman, which you can watch live in theaters April 18th. It's a Fathom event, if you know what those are. It's playing all across the country. And Octoman is relentlessly stupid. So if you liked Mystery Science Theater or Riff Trax, it's going to be right up your alley. I can't wait.

I think one of my life goals now is to just make it out to the Belcourt Theater for one of these shows in person. I've seen almost all of them in the theater. Oh, man, you should definitely do it. Nashville is very fun. The theater is a lot probably smaller than it looks on our broadcast, but it's always like an amazing energy in the show. People wearing costumes. There's some people who come to every show, Steve and Melissa, in these amazing costumes. And so I'm very excited to see how much better their homemade costume is than the actual Octoman costume. Though if I wasn't in the theater, then I wouldn't get the experience of watching it in the Fathom version, which means hearing all of the songs over the credits, which those are just a lot of fun.

Oh, yeah. I just Kevin Murphy has been sort of like he used to do it as a one-off, but now does original songs for every episode. So I heard his Octoman song for the first time two days ago, and it's also very funny. I'm a big fan of the Samurai Cop song that he wrote. That's his crowning achievement. I was listening to On the Plane on repeat the day after that show. That one is fantastic. It's so catchy. I listen to it when I run. Well, Connor, we gave you a spate of episodes to choose from. Why did you want Joy of Sect of all possible ones? All right. So this is one that when I rewatched The Simpsons, I usually probably don't go this far into season nine. But I remembered watching this, it probably would have come out my junior

year in high school, sophomore year. And I remember liking it. I had thought back to it recently in the past year when that documentary about the Rajneeshis came out. And so I had fond memories of it. And the other two that you offered me were the Carney one. And I don't remember. But this was the one out of those three that I thought was like, oh, yeah, I remember that one being funnier, despite it not being one that I rewatch all all the time so i thought that would be the the uh the best one to dive into and spoiler alert i'm not sure if it held up as well as my memories do i think this is this one this is sort of a height of season nine in my opinion at least because david merkin one of the previous showrunners this is one of two episodes he came back to produce because they always needed more episodes back then so it's very much of his style of humor just very punchy very mean and all about taking down institutions yeah yeah there's a lot of that i do like that it's uh i mean this is this is the end of an era this is the final dave merkin show run episode and this definitely has all the traits of his seasons five and six in it packed full of jokes violent anti-social uh anti-authoritarian and like also just mean to the audience like constant f-use to the audience i mean previous showrunners bill oakley and josh

weinstein would not be quite as mean to reverend lovejoy in this episode he's gonna burn down his own church he tears off his collar and stomps on it um they're they're very they're having a lot of fun with love joy in this episode yeah they sell out a lot of characters i yeah uh you know if there's failings in this one the only negatives i really saw in it were like it didn't feel like it benefited from that last run of rewrite for a ton of extra jokes but i think it's a really strong starting point of an episode and definitely uh one of my favorites of season 9 for sure. Alright, we'll have some

bones to pick, I suppose. I made a list of things that I noted in this episode that I thought that other episodes did better so I can point those out as we go through. And I guess we have to talk about Scientology because there are some connections to The Simpsons. Yeah, yeah.

The commentary is a really interesting one because obviously nancy cartwright is not there and uh they they talk about how the cults they're doing in this is kind of the movementarians are really a melange of cults like there's definitely similarities to jonestown uh the rajneeshis as connor brought up i think even heaven's gate with their costumes they actually had to rewrite some stuff in this because the heaven gate uh mass suicide happened as they were writing it it happened in march 1997 and this came out in february so yeah uh so they had to do some but but it was based on that too but it is undeniable that scientology is also being

mocked in this in as and they even talked about how they cut some jokes like in at least script form, they had a joke about e-meters or an e-meter type thing of a personality test. I mean, yeah, the whole sci-fi angle is very Scientology and also the founder being like this kind of slovenly man is very much an L. Ron Hubbard type. Yes, he doesn't have L. Ron Hubbard's disgusting teeth,

but he does. But yeah, Nancy Cartwright is a Scientologist. It's something we all like to forget about. And she's probably like one of their top donors, I would have to say, with all the money she's made. And she recently just wrote an episode of the show. I saw that, yeah.

Yeah. Nancy Cartwright seems like a very nice woman who just, she has, like her in interviews, she seems good in her books. In her telebooks, she seemed like a very nice woman who just she has like her in interviews or she seems good in her books and her tell all books she seemed like a nice person seems funny on all of the commentaries when she appears but yeah I mean she's also a Scientologist and she fell into that world and they I mean in our interview in one of our interviews with Bill Oakley he lightly hinted that they that George Meyer had a Scientology episode and And he's like, but that didn't happen. And you can guess.

That's not a direct quote of Bill Oakley. You gotta listen to the interview to hear exactly what he said. But it was implied that they had shied away from mocking Scientology because such a high-level star was involved in it. And I mean, if they had been more direct in it, they could have had a situation

that happened with Chef on South Park where Isaac Hayes quit the show in protest for being so directly mocking of Scientology. I like that you mentioned that, because I have a brief story about this. So, in the late 90s, I think all of us were just trying to figure out what Scientology was. There was, like, sites like xeno.org, and that information was just being leaked out. Here's what the belief systems are. Here's what they do. Here's how they prey on people. And I remember, I think that South Park episode was when everyone finally found out about Scientology. But I remember I had a world religions class in college, and I was totally cool and edgy. And we had to do an oral report on a religion, so I chose Scientology. Basically, I gave the origin story of scientology you know the xenu stuff the volcano the bombers and i was telling this to the classroom and i had to tell them like this is real i didn't make this up and then i see south park do the exact same

thing where they have a disclaimer on the screen saying this is what they actually believe so like i was i was doing that on a smaller scale two years before the south park episode but when that came out like finally people will know I wasn't fucking with them. Wow. Yeah, I wonder if like, if they started the show, like how public something like her Scientology would have been in like 1989,

or if that just is something you gradually get a sense of like around the office, like you're at the water cooler and she, you know, lets something about Thetans fly. Like, you know, like it might be something

that you don't know that well. And then you realize you can't do a Scientology episode seven years into the show. From what I've heard about living in LA, there are just a lot of cults and you can just find yourself in a cult. Like, oh, this yoga class I go to every week is actually a cult and I'm in it and I give it money.

So I assume like we didn't have like going clear and things like that in 1989. I'm sure people in Hollywood knew that Scientology was predatory I assume we didn't have Going Clear and things like that in 1989. I'm sure people in Hollywood knew that Scientology was predatory and did take a lot of your money. But some people probably thought, oh, it's just this kooky thing, this kooky new age thing that Tom Cruise likes. It's like meditating. Who cares? Yeah.

Things have really changed in the last decade just about what you can say about Scientology. And as much as we sometimes mock South Park for us not agreeing with it, I do think they really got the first hit that mattered on Scientology that made it okay. Like one of my favorite sketches ever on the Upright Citizen Brigade show makes fun of it. Me too. But they have to call it psychotonomy because they're told like, you can't directly call this Scientology.

After South Park, I think they made it so that's like, no, we're actually going to be direct in making fun of Scientology. After South Park, I think they made it so that's like, no, we're actually going to be direct in making fun of Scientology. But it was also in this episode, the Scientology gag of lawyers. That is why. Yes, 100%. They were obscenely litigious. And if there's one thing a Hollywood production is scared of, it is lawyers. So even if you wanted to say this is a weird crazy cult you will be attacked by lawyers all immediately and sued in the ground and so why bother just play nice you know i just want to know her ot level yes yeah well with the amount of money she has probably put into it their

ot level has got to be very high at this point well i think i learned a lot about scientology from last podcast on the left and then long series about L. Ron Hubbard and just the systems by which he did it. It's an amazing cult. There are so many cults beyond Scientology. It's just one of the most successful ever. The smart thing was moving to Hollywood and finding your marks there. That's what the moventarians have that makes them more like Jonestown and Rajneesh because they want to have like a farm, a compound farm far away, which Scientology is more about the ocean than farming. I hope this doesn't make things awkward. I probably should have mentioned at the start of it, but I am a believing Scientologist.

Oh, I'm so sorry. If we can maybe tamp down the mockery for the rest of the episode. I was going to ask about all the frequent pro-Scientology commentaries on rift tracks i know i know it's just you know once you get started on them it's hard to it's hard to tone them down last scientology thing i'll say on this too was uh the commentary is very interesting because obviously nancy is not on it i'm shocked she's in this episode uh honestly because she should know how direct they're being about mocking Scientology at times. They never mentioned Scientology until one basically 30-second stretch where David Merkin says, you know, a lot of people see similarities with Scientology in here.

And South Park just had a really great episode about Scientology at the time we recorded this. And, yeah, I could see the similarities there. No one else on the commentary speaks and that includes backgraining yardley smith and then there's a little silence and they move on to another point uh i'm sure other things were said and then cut off from that commentary perhaps so or they just like they know like i have to grip my teeth when i when we talk about scientology because i can't piss off nancy Like, they can't do the show without Nancy. They probably are friends with her, whether they agree with her cult or not. They probably are friends with her.

They don't want to hurt her feelings. But yeah, it seems like a very uncomfortable situation there, which, I mean, that I think is also a good strategy of Scientology. If you get famous people in your cult, then you use their influence to prevent anyone speaking ill of your cult because they're so powerful there's i mean leah ramini has uh has told so many interesting wild stories about what uh scientology is like the director of the awful movie crash he also had a very good um breakdown of what it was like to leave scientology there there were some interesting

there's a lot of uh things out there about, but this is, I guess, sorry, this turned into the Scientology podcast. But yeah, yeah. Also, yeah, Steve O'Donnell on the commentary talks about when they were writing it with their small team that they actually had jokes that were way more similar to Heaven's Gate. I would bet there was a mass suicide joke in this episode at one point that then after the hail bop comet thing happened they probably cut it like i think there's no way they wouldn't have done a drinking the kool-aid joke david merkin would totally do that joke but then after the heaven's gate thing happens it definitely would feel in more poor taste than to joke about a mass suicide from like 20 years earlier and we talked about the writer of this episode steve o'donnell and the all singing all dancing podcast and frankly he is too

qualified to be writing a freelance simpson script he's like the king of tv comedy writing but uh he's very good he was very good at these two episodes and that's all they wrote oh and they had an interesting bit of trivia too that like steve o'donnell apparently has a writer twin brother yeah who all who almost wrote for the original shorts, which I was very surprised by. What else did the writer do? I'm not familiar with him. He came from Letterman, right? Yeah, he was head writer of Letterman in the great Letterman period.

Yeah. So he wrote for Letterman for like 15 years or something like that? Yeah. It's all on that last podcast, but he's been all over the place. I'm sure, yeah, he's from Harvard, ofvard of course of course he's one of the most brilliant men ever and in the previously mentioned jimmy kimmel i believe he was a head writer maybe still his head writer but was was for a while uh but all right well why don't we get straight into this then uh we start out at the airport i like gassed that the opening joke is about an airplane crashing and it's just like

yeah just a one-off joke like this is a very pre-911 gag here also being able to just wander into the airport and meet people as they come off a plane yeah most simpsons first acts that are good start with a lot of great observational stuff uh about a specific thing and this is very good observational things about an airport as, as Bart learns everything from the airport. Thanks for letting me skip school to see the team come back from the championship, dad. I always say a boy can learn more at an airport than he can at any

school. Hey, I need to see your claim checks for that luggage. Oh, of course I have it right here. I'll need to see yours, too. You got it. I'll take your word for it.

You're just doing your job. That's the worst he's been beaten before, I think. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's smoking a cigarette later in the episode as he stands guard at the compound. Oh, you're right. He recovers pretty well. Yeah, it's amazing that that doesn't happen more often, the episode is he stands guard at the compound so you're right he recovers pretty well yeah that

what's amazing that more that doesn't happen more often retrieving baggage that isn't yours from the thing it would be a good gig if anyone ever wanted to do it yeah yeah i've never used that claim ticket in my life yeah i every i think every time i pick up luggage at the airport i'm just like what's stopping me from just grabbing another one i guess you know you do have the risk of somebody else sees that you took their luggage and they're right there and they stop you. It's a gamble.

Every time the lug carousel stops, there's always at least two or three bags that just someone forgot they checked a bag when they got off the plane type of thing. You might as well see if there's any Fabergé eggs in it or something. You call that an airport pinata. We're really helping people with tips on scams here.

I think if this episode were made today, there'd be more jokes. There'd be jokes, period, about Hudson News. It's the one store I see in every airport where you can buy very overpriced bags of chips. And it's still there. I'm shocked they're still. I love the Jess Crichton and King bookstore, though that's not book. I think now when I go to the airport, I don't know. The main amount of books are just like motivational celebrity biographies.

Like that's all I notice. Though you've been to more airports lately, Connor. What have you seen in these bookstores? My main observation, I was just walking. I spent a lot of time at an airport last weekend. I fell asleep on the floor for about four hours. But my main thing is like there are now just restaurants or newsstands that are just named after like CNBC or Fox News. Like establishments that you can go in and, I guess, buy stuff or they're showing those things.

Or it's like an ESPN zone but cnbc themed it's baffling i don't know why anyone wanted that or needed it uh the news is so much fun i want to live in it what's it called the the the bookstores you you just see ones by like you know vince flynn where the guys you know the characters have names like mitch rapp or uh you know clive cussler books most of them are like authors who are not you know not living anymore but someone is just writing them under their name and they give their characters utterly ridiculous uh hero names like all those tom clancy books that are sure by the tom clancy estate you know it's like a a daily comic strip where the person's uh the son just or the grandson

or the great-grandson takes over the Katzenjammer kids. Keeps it going forever. I think Snuffy Smith is still rocking out in 2019. I want to point out there's a return of one of my favorite characters. He gets no line, but Benevin Stanchiano comes back and Pooh salutes his high markups. He's colored differently, but that's

the guy who sold Marge a different magazine. Thanks, Benevin Stanchiano! I had to look him up. I thought he might have been the Krav Kalash guy, but that's the guy who sold Marge to different magazines. Thanks, Ben and Stanchiano! I had to look him up. I thought it might have been the Krav Kalash guy, but it was not. I've got a real eye for these very, very minor characters when they pop up again. Like, that's him! That's him! But they miscolored him, though. I guess, in

continuity, perhaps he started to color his gray mustache brown to look a little younger. Or maybe it's Ben andent Stanciano Jr. Could be that. Yeah, they were the business like the Catching Damage. We need to explore. I was disappointed that the Crichton and King guy

who says get out was not the just stamp the ticket guy. That was right in his wheelhouse. That was a mistake. I think he was being phased out at this point. I mean, he does look weird. I love his weird teapot head yes by season nine standards it's a weird head but uh yeah the markups at the airport or something else i uh time for all the airport humor here guys but i i i just bought like a bag of uh crispy m&ms there

and i swear it was ten dollars like uh i mean but they got you you can't where else you're gonna shop there you know yeah i've begun to fly so much that I now am writing airport jokes and airplane jokes because it's hell. It's nice to know that at some point they were just like, you know, what if airports didn't completely and totally suck in every sense of the thing? They're like, that's bold. Like, we can make this an actual, you know, somewhat pleasant place to hang out. And they're like, that'll never work. There's now like actual restaurants and, you know, modern-ish lighting. And, you know, they've ripped up the 70s motel carpet from places. Yeah, the San Francisco airport is, it's definitely been modernized.

And they have like, you know, sushi places and everything now, which are not like more chichi kind of places, though. When I'm at the airport, my mindset usually is like, I just want like greasy fast food to comfort me in this stressful time and I like more cheat sheet kind of places though. When I'm at the airport, my mindset usually is like, I just want like greasy fast food to comfort me in this stressful time of being at the airport. Well, there's still places that have the, you know, the hand dryers in the bathroom that are from a, you know, 80s McDonald's

that like, it's essentially like a cool breeze like blowing into your hands instead of like the ones that actually work. So some have a way to go. The Portland airport is very nice. And the last time I i flew out of there i had a whiskey flight before my flight oh man that sounds nice and it was way too expensive yeah the portland airport is pretty great that's where i didn't buy any of those famous portland donuts until they i went to the what blue star that was in the airport so and then just brought it home i was sitting on my airplane with my box

of donuts uh like i'm some fancy career or something uh simpsons loves to joke about breaking fabergé eggs like no matter who the showrunner is they just destroy fabergé eggs well uh ming voss's hack yeah fabergé eggs is where it's at yeah they've sort of like i don't know they've they've mentioned what like three I don't know, they've mentioned what, like three times, but I feel like they own it enough to the point where if I make a Fabergé egg joke, like that's what I'm referencing and not the actual existence of these valuable eggs.

Which, again, there's only very, very few of them in existence. That's why it's funny to see one get smashed as a fruity egg. We talked about the history of them in Round Springfield. Oh, yes. Yeah.

I also like implicit in that liver joke is that someone is dying because they didn't get that liver. Also, my reasoning that Barney is in the airport bar instead of at Moe's is because Moe is among the mob at the airport. So he must have followed him there and he's drinking there because Moe's is closed. Moe's a provider of beer. I was disappointed the airport bar was literally called Airport Bar. You know what? They didn't really put up much effort on that one. Yeah, you know what?

You're used to more sign gag effort in Simpsons than that. That's true. The Simpsons will be right back. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. thanks for setting aside your pile of leader beans long enough to check out this week's episode of

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patreon.com slash talking Simpson. So please consider signing up folks so homer i don't think this exists in the airports anymore either, the people who bother you towards the gate. No, I mean, I think they're just considered a security risk now. Like, you shouldn't be at the airport if you're not flying. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. But these religious nuts, it feels like kind of a callback to the Homer and Apu gag of the Christians at the Indian airport. Oh, right.

Yeah, I guess that was sort of like a, sort of a 80s, like you, I would assume that if you watched one of the 17 Police Academy movies, there would be a joke about Harry Christians at an airport. Yeah, the airport film,

the airplane films must have had a joke about them in there. I can't remember. Oh yeah, there is one. There must be a Harry Krishna joke. I can see it foggily in my memory. But yes, Homer, Homer thinks they're all bullshit, except for one.

Have you heard of Krishna consciousness? This part is a crazy man. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Right, that'll work. A new and better life awaits you on our distant home planet, Blastonia. Hmm, makes sense. We're having a free get acquainted session at a resort this weekend. How much is this free resort weekend?

It's free. And when is this weekend? It's this weekend. And how much does it cost? It's free. I see. And when is it? It's this weekend.

And what are you charging for this free weekend? Come on, Dad. The team's arriving. It's free, right? I love that run. And when is this weekend is my favorite. Yeah. It's always fun to get Homer in a vaudeville-style act of just completely not understanding something.

It feels like an accentuation of the VIP conversation he had years ago. So the Blistonia bit there, obviously when you know about Xenu, it immediately pulls your mind to that. But that is what Heaven's Gate thought too. They did think they would be teleported. Or I guess in their minds when they died, they were teleported to that comet to go to another planet. Xenu is not alone as the outer space destination of your consciousness in a cult. But now all I can think of when I see Blistonia or hear it is Xenu and their outer space destination of your consciousness in a cult but now all i can think of when i see blistonia or hear it is xenu and their their outer space colonies and i love the designs on

the movementarians too like they're weird ill-fitting suits yeah they're very drab looking yeah a woman's haircut is very odd yes it fits with her like like that's pamela hayden right yeah they they look malnourished they're eating all that gruel i don't know if their skin is a different tone they just look like sickly they do look slightly sicker yeah yeah and yeah her haircut especially is uh it's like a he-man wig on her or something and yeah when you see the leader on the brochure it immediately looks like elron hubbard or what elron hubbard imagined himself to look like, not necessarily what he did look like. If you look up Raiders owner Mark Davis, you guys are from the Bay Area. Oh, yes. Yeah. That's her haircut. Oh, totally. Oh, my God. Mark Davis. Bob, you should know about Mark Davis. He's one of the

greatest fail sons in the NFL. Oh, he looks it. Yes. He looks like he should be like a little stinker character with a big lolly. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. He looks like he should be like a little stinker character with a big lolly. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, he inherited from his father who lived to like late 90s. Yeah, and like, you know, looked like he was in his late 130s. I know. He seemed like a terrible person to hang out with, but he was just an intriguing character of like, just live forever, be 107 and running the raiders still i i'm looking at pictures of him now and uh i mean i know the term beaten with the ugly stick i think he was burned in an ugly fire is that safe to say uh yeah the uh well actually speaking of football teams springfield is here to welcome welcome them back with violence and beat them up.

I wonder how much of a turnout losing teams get when they come back from the Super Bowl. I've never really paid attention to that. When I lived in markets where the team lost the Super Bowl, I never really paid attention to what happened to them when they got home. That's something that probably only happens in movies. People turn out to applaud the team that lost. There's got to be like a couple dozen diehards who show up. I think we just have parades now. The Golden State Warriors, they always win still.

That still happens. I think so. And there's always parades for them when they're done. Well, they're either winner or they lose to LeBron James' team. So it's one of those two things. I don't know where we're at now in the play. Again, we are not sports fans. But I also just love the idea of these giant football men beaten up by regular people.

And then they blow up another plane. Two planes blow up in two minutes in this episode. I love Harry doing another very dumb guy voice. Yes, even though we lost. I like that line. So they're talking over the free weekend. and Homer is set up as quite the pigeon, as we already noticed in that Bart Cunningham episode. Yeah, back-to-back pigeon episodes. I've never heard of these movementarians.

Are they some kind of church? Who cares what it is? The point is these are some decent, generous people that I can take advantage of. But what if they try to talk us into something? Marge, Marge, Marge. Remember when those smooth-talking guys tried to sell me a timeshare vacation condo? You bought

four of them. Thank God the check bounced. So I beat the system. Watch yourself, Dad. You're the highly suggestible type. Yes, I am the highly suggestible type. So what I was curious about is that when he says he's good, decent people that he can take advantage of, that never really comes into play.

He sort of just goes there and goes fishing. He just gets distracted. Yeah, I don't understand the free weekend exactly when he thinks he's getting out of it. But, I mean, he can go fishing anywhere, I suppose. Well, also, like, Homer's interest in fishing kind of appears every 100 episodes

pretty much. Like, I guess dad's fish sure by by virtue of being a father that that does feel like a outsider of the simpsons writing something of like yeah homer must love fishing he's an american man sure homer homer and lisa have two very good responses at that dinner table where he's just like this one especially of i am the very highly suggestible type i do really like the gag about Homer. Homer in a very dead move misremembers. Like, yeah, remember? I check those people.

Like, no, you didn't. You wrote them a check. But he beat the system. You do beat the- By not having money. It wasn't a check bouncing scenario, but I did beat the system one time where I realized I got scammed on like a buy magazine subscriptions type person, but I wrote them a check and then immediately like 20 minutes after they left, I was like,

wait a minute. No, no, no. Cancel that check. This isn't real. I didn't get a magazine subscription. I don't think Henry Weekly exists. Those Iraqi veterans aren't getting any money of this money. I bet. Did you guys ever, uh, back uh back in 2005 maybe use any like the free ipod sites no no you would like sign up for a weird you know just just things that don't exist anymore but they were like based on referral fees you'd sign up for like this is the home improvement club and you're gonna get and then it would charge you like 60 after the first month wow but if you were if you were into the free iPod getting seen like I was, because they had more than just iPods,

people revealed that PayPal gave you like a virtual credit card number. And that virtual credit card number would not let them charge anything more than what your PayPal balance was, which of course was zero. So it was the perfect way to avoid those scams. You're scamming the scammers. That is, you did beat the system, man. That's nice. I had a non-free iPod. I'm getting screwed. You know, the closest I had to being scammed, I can remember now. I was worried I didn't have health insurance because I had just gone to be

unemployed. So I was like, how do I get health insurance? And then I went to a website that was like Obamacare.com. It was a lie. It was a scam site to get your information. And I filled out stuff. And then coincidentally that same night, it was one of the eight times I've ever taken a marijuana edible. And that night. I'm glad you know exactly how many times. Yeah. It's a low number. Because every time what happens happened that night too.

Where I woke up at 2 a.mam and my mind was just thinking like, oh no, I gave it to the wrong people. I have to, I have to, I have to get my information back. I have to call whoever I can. Okay. Calling on the phone. Call. I just, it was, I was a wreck of anxiety.

Yeah. Mailing multiple people, like canceling a credit card. It was a, it was a rough night and I feel like I would have taken it a little more relaxedly had I, had I not been under the influence. I'm really not sure still if the place I bought insurance from is a scam, but that's why marketplaces are great. Yes, yeah. Also, I like this gag with the check bouncing. It sets up Marge as the only smart person in this episode or as the only person who can't be scammed by them and it

makes her the hero i i like that they can't appeal to any of her weaknesses it seems even lisa is swayed yeah actually marge uh that isn't consistent with her character in other episodes is she's actually a very trusting person who just like if she sees an alligator wearing sunglasses she's very impressed but uh in this one not so much i i like recasting marge almost never gets to be the hero so it's it's fun that she gets to be that this time so uh homer heads up to the welcome center that feels very scientology though again the compound is much more jonestown rajneesh kind of thing but uh calling it a welcome center that felt very scientology to me this is the first utterance of jerk ass and it's a big moment in the series, I think.

As we've talked about it for actually years on this podcast. Yeah. The character, the myth of Jerkass Homer. You said myth? So have you talked, I haven't listened to every episode, but like there is a- Wait a minute. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It's a narrative right and like most

probably are truths and falsehoods to it yeah i mean uh it is a bit of conventional wisdom i would say that this is the beginning of jerk ass homer and he says the word out of the way jerk ass but through doing this podcast and looking at the simpsons so closely we've really realized like a lot of this conventional wisdom is not true or it's just a good story like the whole thing about well uh the principal and the popper is a bad episode and that's where the simpsons changes forever it's like we've been doing this we're past that that's not true and i think we convince most people out there that that is a fun episode and that's very true to skinner's character but it's easy to make part of myth making is to take signposts or like moments

people remember yeah that go around with like a general sense of decline of the show and then blame it on that and i think also this myth making of it really centers around internet forums of like 1999 to 2007 you know and this really is david merkin's version of homer like if you want to say jerk ass homer started with the david merkin show it would have been homer goes to college he is just as crazy and violent in that one as he is in this one yeah and cruel too yeah yeah i think if i had to say what makes mike scully's homer different than david merkin's it's that his homer is a little more sinister in his reasonings for cruelty but they're both just awful people. Like Homer, yeah, like Homer in Homer Goes to College, which is an all-time great episode.

Homer runs over the dean and makes him apologize to Homer. And turns the dean into his enemy for no reason. Yes, yeah. Because he's a... I think that there's, you know, it's very hard for me to put my finger on what's different about the Simpsons and, you know, whether it's this jerk-ass narrative or not. But for me, it boils down to watching Dibba's episode or not,

that I think there was just more... You know, Homer goes to college was a lot more clever, I feel like, than this one. And there's a distinct moment, like, in a couple of minutes when he gets distracted. And, you know, in Homer Goes to College, it was him getting distracted by fighting a dog over a ham. And in this episode, it's just a bird,

which, you know, I was sort of like, all right, it's just a bird which you know i was sort of like all right it's pretty much the exact same gag but one just has a lot more effort put into it the other one was like what could it be distracted by a bird sounds good like yeah and it's also homer was also distracted by a dog with a puffy tail yeah as well so yeah it's like a third time getting a joke this this is something that recur has been recurring a lot in our season nine episodes which is even if i like the joke which i actually i'm not the biggest fan of like a bird distracted him but i think like this is a good joke but i know i've seen at least one other version of this joke before told in a previous simpsons whether the writer is aware of that or

not i mean when you have the same writers writing the same show for so long, they have a style of comedy. And that doesn't mean they're stealing from themselves or reusing an old joke. They just came up with a joke they've come up with before and didn't realize it. It could be as simple as that. Oh, I know how that works. When you've been doing something like Riff Treks for a decade plus. But I'm not doing that at the current exact moment, so I can criticize the hard work of others. Yeah, I was gonna say, as a joke plus, but I'm not doing that at the current exact moment. So I can criticize the hard work of others. Yeah. I was going to say like, as a, as a joke writer, how do you feel about repeating yourself? Do you often question that? Because you have guys have to write so many jokes for riff tracks. We have able to, you know, working in our favor is that there's at least a different canvas of a different movie every single time. So that makes you think about different

things. And if you do make a similar joke intentionally that like, hopefully there's a different context to it. That said, you know, I'm hyper aware that we of course have made the same joke and it probably has been out of laziness when you're putting in 600 jokes in a, in a two hour movie every now and then. No one's immune from that, obviously. And it would be disingenuous to claim otherwise, but you know, it just sometimes things stand out. And when the answer is that it was, you know, just a lazy or less clever version of something, it's something that Simpsons fans are going to notice. Yeah, especially obsessives who break down every second of the show. I hate those weirdos. I guess my final thought on Jerk-Ass Homer, now that we've arrived to the titular Jerk-Ass, Dave Merkin is the inventor of Jerkass Homer. This is a Dave Merkin episode.

He made the truly sociopathic, amoral, hilarious, violent Homer that we all loved from seasons five and six. He was going to give Ned's noggin a flogging. Yes, happily, happily. David Merkin, for very comedic purposes, sold out the character of Homer in seasons five and six. In season seven and eight, Bill and Josh tried to dial it back or in episodes like Homer's Enemy, really dug into what an awful type of person that jerk-ass Homer is and how it could drive one insane to be around him. Then when you come into the Mike Scully years, Mike Scully was just more into that type of mean-spirited Homer and created his own version of it. But it's not.

Jerk-ass Homer is four years old at the time of this episode. And I think it's very telling that, you know, the time he said jerk-ass that everybody coined the name of it is in a Dave Merkin episode that is intentionally made more like a season six episode and not in a season nine style that everybody blames on Mike Scully. Sure. And like, you know, when you're talking about it, like the, the name, the, the jerk ass name, which they doubled down on twice in the episode, it's not particularly clever or, you know, it's even, you know, he's applying it to like a collection of people. So it's not even, you know, grammatically correct when he's doing it. So it

just, it seems sort of like, it seems kind of first drafty to me i don't know yeah yeah now jerk ass is the joke is how uncreative homer is being with his insults though it's that also is uh can work as kind of a balm over the uncreativity of the term sure uh but yes let's let's hear the moment jerk ass was invented out of my way, jerkass! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Fishing! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Fishing! Fishing! Fishing!

Hi, how are you? Fishing! It certainly is a beautiful day We should thank the leader Who the hell is that? Some kind of leader? Yes He's the head of our perfect family

And when our galactic vehicle is complete, he will take us to our new home, Blistonia. Why don't you come chat with us about the leader at the Welcome Center? Will there be beer? Beer is not allowed. Home in no function, beer well without. Would you rather have beer or complete and utter contentment? What kind of beer?

The leader knows how miserable you, Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie are. Really? I'm surprised about Maggie. Just come up and watch her orientation film. You're free to leave at any time. Whoa, a free movie! Thanks! Out of my way, jerkass!

Homer is an obnoxious monster. Like, that's the gag there. At least he's being cruel to the right people. Yeah. You know, they are cult members who want to recruit all of Springfield. Who want to steal all his money and are clearly stalking him to learn in a pre-google age to know that all about his family cults had to work back then now everybody including me just reveals all your secrets as a as an internet personality i take online quizzes i do like commerce like who the

hell is that some kind of leader yes them being a dry cult you know withholding alcohol is another part of the mental conditioning of some cults that to me is the explanation of some of homers in mania later in this episode that he is going through detox and he's just losing his mind from no alcohol so he's going through withdrawal that's that is my assumption there yeah makes him go crazy yeah that's right no tv no beer wow the only tv he's going through withdrawal. That is my assumption there. Yeah, makes him go crazy. Yeah, that's right. No TV, no beer. Wow. The only TV he's getting is the cult's movie, which is six hours long.

Yeah. And I love the line of like, once we collect enough money for fuel, that's a great bit. And you have the spotlighting of people to prevent them to leave from peer pressure. That also feels very like Scientology for sure. They're not technically being held captive. Yes, yeah. You're free. It's like social pressure will keep you there.

I love that they have kind of like their legal guideline of like, you're free to go whenever you want, but why? Why would you leave? It's great. Yeah, and Otto's reasoning is because it reeks of the wacky tobacco, which is an odd, you know, when your jacket smells like Otto, like that's a seem like an odd thing for him to object to. Yeah, that's, you know, yeah, that actually is odd. Why would he be, why would that push

him away? We see Mr. Burns' head in this scene. Were there any Mr. Burns jokes in this? I can't remember. I don't think there were. There's a big Mr. Burns joke in the middle. Oh, right, right. Oh, sorry. I mean, at the compound. So, at the time I watched it, I kept an eye on that

because he was like, this is the first I'm hearing about this. And I'm like, well, you clearly saw his head when you see a different angle. It's Kirk Van Houten in the front of it. Ah, so either they miscolored Kirk Van Houten or, like, a character was mixed up in the... Yeah. So, I must have thought it was Burns. Okay, yeah. I know the one burn scene

because it's so great but i didn't know if he actually had any lines at this i totally forgot and they say on the commentary the six hour length of it or the very long length of the movie is uh that's actually based on est the uh the 70s oh uh well guide like guide to life i don't know if they're fully a cult but it was depicted in the americans the uh that's all i know from uh s thing all i know about it is that it's a long meeting and they won't let you leave to go to the bathroom and that's what drives you crazy you gotta hold it and it that breaks you down sounds like a marvel movie though though also that yeah this uh this movie they're watching i can't place what which one it was, but I remember in the pre-John Stewart Daily Show, and they made more made fun of weird people than any particular political thing,

I remember they had a video like this on there of some cult that they had found. It was about laughing at the horrible production design of this cult video, which is definitely, there's some Plan 9 from Outer Space type jokes in here too. Oh, sure. UFOs on fishing wire. Totally looking like a pie tin. And the Blistonia is like a reverse colored Earth globe,

I guess. Once we collect enough money for fuel, our leader will throw open the doors of the Forbidden Barn, where we will all board our intergalactic vehicle, Rose 1-31st. Upon our arrival, we will begin our new perfect lives on Blastonia, well known for its high levels of bliss. Hey, I don't know about you, but they're not exactly winning me over with these lousy production values here. I'm going to slip out. You're free to leave whenever you want, but, uh, would you mind telling us why? Oh, I just didn't, uh, I didn't think, um,

oh, it's, it's, it's pretty good. Man, this whole place puffs into wacky tobacco. I'm outta here. Going somewhere? Uh, though you're free to do so. Uh, did you just rearrange my underwear? Ah, there it is.

There it is. I love that. Good joke. Yeah, that's good. What do you make of the Rose 1 through 31st line? I guess it's a boarding joke of, like, everybody boards the plane in certain orders. This, like, mythical religious thing still has just a boarding process. Yeah, I guess that's it.

You know, speaking of repeated jokes, that's not a guarantee. That's a reused joke in Simpsons history too. Oh, right. Yeah, each cell is guaranteed to increase in value. Not a guarantee. Yeah, again, another David Rookin episode too. Check will not be honored. Yes.

And then Homer, though, he wasn't paying attention. He just shut down his brain and made up a movie in his head which that seems almost too creative for homer i think i think he should just be when he closes his eyes he just sees turkey in the straw playing that's what it should be uh but yes after the film six hours my god i've never i've never even like for a thing i like set still for six hours. Wrestling. Oh, shoot. I challenge you. Actually, I'm about to do that this weekend for WrestleMania.

That'll be probably eight hours. 18 glorious hours. You're invited over, Bob. You can have some wrestling fun. Wild horses. They have production values. Oh, my gosh. The production values.

They can't be beat. Yeah. They look like human beings almost. Well, of course, they yeah they look like human beings almost well of course they're not treated like human beings if you watch that new john oliver uh piece on them being independent contractors uh but anyway uh yeah so homer then is distracted by a dog with a no not a dog with a puffy tail just a bird like that yeah you know a bird that's not even detailed enough i have to say at least a dog with a puffy tail that's a little extra than just a dog bird yeah

it's a hilarious uh detail that you know no one would ever notice in real life but it's a yeah the difference between those two is stark in my mind and uh so then they're trying their next thing you know what i think carl got caught because he wasn't hanging out with lenny uh they need to be together to protect each other. Lenny would have kept him strong. I think maybe he and Carl were on the outs, and that's why Carl got picked up by the movementarians. I think, you know what? The movementarians were at the airport. All the people who beat up the football players were at the airport.

They must have all been tricked together. The whole same mob. This is my theory here. No, it makes sense. It tracks. It tracks. So now they're trying to break homer with the circle of judgment which is uh in the cult of mal in malice circles was called a

struggle session is was the ironic name for friends of the show their podcast leslie lee and uh jack allison like they their podcast is not literally a struggle session which is very effective at breaking people down by just screaming at them and tearing them apart. Homer's kind of acting like Ned did in Hurricane Neddy. Yeah. When Homer had to make Ned mad, he wouldn't get mad. This is also kind of a repeated joke then. Yeah.

They definitely were burdened with a smaller staff. Yeah. But I still think this is better than the Gene and Reese smaller staff. No, I totally agree. Like Simpson tied in a couple episodes. This is funnier than that. Here is the circle of judgment. The circle of judgment never fails to destroy their self-esteem.

Then he'll be ours to mold. Let the judgment begin. I'll get the ball rolling. You're a fat idiot. Yeah, lose some weight. Hey, man, you're fat. Moron. Yeah, I guess I could lose a few pounds and I can be kind of thick sometimes. You failed at everything you've ever tried.

Whoa, you've got my number on that one, buddy. This is a smart group. And your stink brings tears to my eyes. Oh, wait a minute, Mo. Oh, my mistake. It's hard to hear Otto's insult. He's like, you're a fat moron type fatso. Fat. That gave me a laugh. No, Homer is just, this is the only time Homer has not been sensitive about himself. Otto line is very gazorpazorp field

yeah it did feel kind of rick and morty ish yeah you're right yeah i would bet that terry sheer just ad-libbing and uh say acting like a uh unintelligent person i like that and uh yeah homer homer almost disagrees but smelling his underarm made him realize like oh i really am oh wow i wonder if he improved his hygiene living at the boometer. He should take away his most improved odor trophy. Wow. And so, yes, they are having trouble breaking Homer. They won't even – they're eating all this gruel, which the low-protein gruel is killing the stamina of everybody else there, which, again, is a real tactic of cults.

Controlling your diet to control uh keep you pliable is part of it i think the military does it too uh anyway uh homer homer also though they finally break him because they realize he loves the batman theme which i like the line everyone loves a droning repetitive chance and uh they they talk about too how they love to use the batman theme family guy has uh the creators on that have said this too if you use the batman theme in your fox show you can just do it for free because fox owns it so they can just and now disney owns it i guess boy this is really complicated i haven't thought about the thing with the adam west batman show the reason it wasn't on dvd for the longest time was because warner brothers and fox jointly owned it like fox owns the show but warner owns the batman character so they can only release it together

and it took him 20 years of dvds to finally put it out and now though, Disney owns it and I think Warner is even less likely to work with Disney on releasing those. So I bet my unopened Blu-ray box set of the Batman 66 is only going up in value. It's appreciating right now. Let's hear Homer breaking.

You gonna finish that, Boney? Let's try the chant. Everyone loves a droning repetitive chant attention everyone let's all give thanks to the leader for this glorious day the leader is good the leader is great we surrender our will as of the state the leader is good the leader is great we surrender our will as of the state it's no use he's obviously the most powerful mind we've ever dealt with I really like Leader! Batman! I mean, leader! I love the leader! I really like the original chant that has some legalese baked in.

Oh, yeah. It's like, as of this date. As of this date. That's good. I like that. During that chant, there's an excellent front-facing Simpsons of Moe. He has a very strange expression there. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Moe is one of the worst front-facing characters. Moe and Burns just look like goblins when they're front-facing. My favorite member of the audience there is Frank because once he just loses all energy, he still is chanting, but his head is on the table, and so he's like

wiggling his head while smashing his nose in the ground, but still saying all the chants it's it's really well done animation it's a nice touch yeah i forgot about that uh the director steven dean moore and his team did a really good job there with all the chanting and yeah that helped the miscavige of this group uh here he finally realized like they were overthinking tricking homer like they don't need all these things to trick homer they only need to recite the batman theme that's all they had to do he may not have been the brilliant negotiator that he was led to believe yeah and i love the way homer jumps up to say batman instead of leader like that's that's a nice little extra stupidness to him here we get another david merkin touch

which i love which is the uh the double fake out of the coming back from a commercial break with obviously if you've ever paid attention on you know animated sitcoms like south park made a lot of fun a family guy for this what i can't believe you did this or what are you talking about all these things is an excuse to restate what happened in the previous act and so here marge does it but it doesn't take so she has to say it a second time there's like a second establishing shot of the house it cuts back outside of the house for her to go what again like restart the scene it's very clever yeah i really enjoyed that if you've ever taken a uh an improv class in about lesson three they'll get to you uh you you being able to tell your other characters,

you always do this. So you can establish that as a, as a behavior. Oh, that's a good trick. You know, I've noticed that in improv, but I never,

I, I stopped at class two and it started being hard. You wanted a challenge you could do. Yes. Yeah. I was like, no, the point of this improv class is that you all think I'm funny and do what I

say. You what? Come again, the point of this improv class is that you all think I'm funny and do what I say. You what? Come again, Marge? You what? I've joined a movementarian, and so have all of you. We what? All I had to give them was our life savings, the deed to the house, and a commitment of 10 trillion years of labor. I can't go along with this, Homer.

Marge, when I join an underground cult, I expect a little support from my family. Dad, do you think you might have been brainwashed? I have not been brainwashed. 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? Kill the girl. Kill the girl. Homer! What? What did I say?

Church, cult, cult, church. So we get bored someplace else every Sunday. Does this really change our day-to-day lives? Of course not, except that we're all moving to the movementarian agricultural compound to be near the leader and serve him. I'm not leaving my home. Oh, yes you are. I'm afraid it's our home now.

This house will become the new local welcome center for this district. And it didn't cost us a dime. Bart's line on cult church, church cult, I like that. That made me laugh as a smug atheist as a kid. Yeah, that was a good one. I still think that the you did what is clever, but I prefer the I borrowed your nail clipper. Oh, yeah.

In version of that. You're right. This is just a bunch of recycled jokes. You are destroying this episode for me. They've almost written 200 at this point. you are destroying this episode for me they've almost written 200 at this point i i still love this episode but you haven't defeated me yet all right we'll see who wins i also boy this feels like a joke mac rainey would not have been okay with of homer almost strangles lisa to death yeah and i like that i love that homer brags that it didn't cost them a dime to give away everything they owned.

So I still think he thinks he's taking advantage of them. Yeah, I think so. Homer definitely thinks he's getting a really good deal out of this. Most cults expect you to be a slave for them, but I think the triple lifetime contract or whatever, that's Scientology. For sure, yeah. They sign you to billion-year contracts, which seems illegal. That are unbreakable. Unbreakable.

And then we get a great joke about the media. Again, Dave Merkin, it's another of his greatest hits, making fun of the media and how easily purchasable they are. Springfield has been overrun by a strange and almost certainly evil sect calling themselves the Movementarians. In exchange for your home and all your money, the leader of this way-out and wrong religion claims he'll take believers away on his spaceship

to the planet Blistonia. Excuse my editorial laugh. But, ladies and gentlemen, I've just learned of a change in this station's management. Welcome, Movementarians. Continue to improve our lives i love you perfect leader and new ceo of kbbo broadcasting they're really taking over springfield they really are conquering springfield the uh picture of the leader before they change it the

stock photo is pretty pretty great it's pretty yeah yeah i love that wife beater and smoking a cig i also love i love the drawing of kent when he says with open arms i love you perfect leader that's that's great and yeah this this is what happens cults get influence in the media and get good coverage like or the you know jonestown had a ton of that in the san francisco area they were pretty friendly with diane feinstein that's true yeah yeah it's uh again i learned this from the last podcast on the last it's a really really good five-part series they did yeah the jonestown thing is very as as somebody who you know moved to the bay area a long time after that

i was shocked to hear what an institution jim jones was here and how what a respected leader he was in the area until uh until the the kool-aid incident as we'll call it it sure would be bad if media companies were bought out by people who then influence their messaging yeah that wouldn't be good they move into their compound they're going to be living there for a hundred thousand years until something opens up in a double and so they're all splitting the room and uh another murkin greatest hits the return of the little bastard brand i was so happy so before we saw the clock tampering kit and the Boy Who Knew Too Much, and also the Traveling Little Bastard Kit from Itchy and Scratchy Land.

That's when he had the smoke bombs and things like that. So now it's back. Now there are two new ones. Yes. Yeah, I wanted to look them up, but you can't Frankie X search for text on screen. So stuff like that always proves difficult. There are wiki entries for the Little Bastard Kits. That's where I found pictures. Merkin loved those little but i mean i think his merkin uh in his youth was a little bastard i would have loved to have those kits you can also

just in the world of the simpsons buy a kit for children of like yeah you can tamper with these things or brainwash people or all this stuff it's plenty of tools for prying and jimmying bart is easily taken care of thanks to the little bastard brainwashing kit homer apparently loves cb radio too which was a surprise to hear uh and yes also of jokes that made a uh very smug atheist laugh i uh i too yes the the gags about reverend lovejoy here is something else. Homer Simpson, your family will be housed here for the first 100,000 years. Then something might open up in a double.

Why even unpack? Dad and all these other people are obviously the products of mental conditioning. Yeah, maybe it'll wear off, like his interest in CB radio. That's a negatory good, buddy. I kind of think it's cool.

Just pretend you're in a zombie movie. Besides, this is just another place for me to wreak my special brand of hysterical havoc these rubes and robes haven't met the likes of Bart Simpson before instantly I love the leader. Of course you do. This so-called new religion is nothing but a pack of weird rituals and chants designed to take away the money of

fools. Let us say the Lord's prayer 40 times, but first let's pass the collection plate. Very, very good. Yes. That's one of three really good Lovejoy jokes that Murky gets in again he's all about institutions yeah and taking them down well in the commentary they talk about how they wanted to be fair in in the sense that like well if we're making fun of these new religions i mean

we should mock the other the established ones like they they joke on the commentary of like a religion is a cult that's been around for a thousand years that's that's what especially just the the snap the whiplash of like say the lord's prayer 40 times and pass around the collection plate that's that was very funny the only people who are not brainwashed yet are the flanders and lenny yeah somehow lenny poor lenny he's probably looking for carl you know what lenny must be living in his just empty shack wondering where everybody went it is a pretty uh i mean you know of course that's that's the way it works but it is nice to have a a ned type of figure that is makes sense for them to be the

one person that helps them get free at the end it really works they set up ned strongly here as uncultable because he is just so dedicated to christianity he would never join a cult he's their savior once again pretty thanklessly actually as as their savior absolutely i do enjoy the extra big collection plates yes yeah the emergency one as as we see that the uh the basically the entire town is in the cult now we go back to the harvesting and they say on the commentary that this is very directly based on the 1980s Bhagwan cult that was living in Oregon

at the time. Marge thought her harvesting days were over when she married Homer. That was a really funny line. I will give them that one. But yeah, when I watched, was it Wild Wild Country?

Yeah. When it came out and I think the Rolls Royce was the thing that clicked with it for me, him driving around. And in that was the, the real tip off about it being the Rajneeshis.

I got to watch that. I, cause I love, I love a docuseries. I love learning about cults and, and I don't know that much about the Bhagwan cult other than it's a, it sounds really interesting. It was,

as I recall, it was interesting as I recall, it was, you know, like any Netflix show about could have been cut down by about 75% and still been just as effective. But yeah, they did sort of come into a small town and essentially do what the movementarians did, just really take it over by virtue of exploiting municipal loopholes and stuff like that. So it was pretty spot on. And when they were making this episode in 98,

I guess that would have been fresher in people's mind, especially if you were from out West, but it would have been a lot harder to research and to get people to remember it. So it's an impressive job on that front. And farming was a big part of it too, right? That is something that I do not remember, but the lima bean harvest is a great craft to be doing. That's one of the worst vegetables. So a funny thing to- No one wants them. No one likes lima beans.

Whenever I add beans to something, they're never of the lima variety. I don't know what they're included in. Right. And like, you know, the fact that you can just add corn to lima beans and it's magically succotash. I didn't know this. Oh, yeah. That was a staple growing up. It was green giant succotash, which was just corn with lima beans, which is a bizarre combination.

That is weird. I had no idea. You ever wonder what Sylvester was referring to when he said suffer in succotash? I assumed it was a food item, but I didn't know it was just two vegetables next to each other. That's probably the poor man version of it. I'm guessing you probably could have had an artisanal succotash that might have additional things. But no, it's primarily sweet corn with lima beans. So, yes, the Forbidden Barn opens and we get to hear about their bean harvesting. Look, the Forbidden Barn opens.

He's coming. Boy, we get to see the leader pass by. We toil in the fields and he rides around in a Rolls Royce? Yes, it would be nice to feed by American, but what are you going to do? I'm covered in the dust of the leader. He favors me. I am even dustier, dustier than thou. Oh, look who the new pet is. I've never been so happy.

The resentful of his leader, Mud. I love that. I love that Lisa points out the unfair distribution of labor there that all Homer thinks about is he didn't buy an American car. I like that. If you're in a cult and you notice that one person gets a lot more stuff than everybody else, maybe that's when it's time to get out of that cult. No way, man. We're all just temporarily inconvenienced future cult leaders. Exactly. We're all going to join our own cults. I think the writing was on the wall for Jimbo Jones. They say on that podcast series,

last podcast on the left, and I totally guess this is advice that I follow in my real life. If one of your friends starts wearing sunglasses indoors they're in trouble and that's all jimbo jones did for like the last five years of his life they're hiding something if they're wearing sunglasses inside and at all times there's something going on i forgot the character in the simpsons of jimbo jones was named after jim jones yeah i did not no yeah the the sunglasses indoors that it's that realization you have as an adult of like oh wait my friend who always wore sunglasses was hiding his bloodshot eyes because he's constantly fucked up that's bad the hand waving with the glove on they have a another funny in retrospect joke on the commentary

where lisa says oh is that a reference to like mickey mouse and no for plot purposes it's so you can't tell it's a man or a woman's hand. But then they just joke about how powerful Disney is and how they own everything. Much funnier now, 12 years later, after they've recorded that commentary. Yeah, I mean, Merkin loved making fun of Disney. So naive at the time, though. They laughed like, well, we'll never be owned by Disney. We have our own giant company.

But up next, we get just a sketch about mr burns i i like how it just compact and isolated and just this one just like a couple scenes all smashed together a bunch of fun burns jokes this is my favorite bit of the whole episode i think actually let's uh let's give it the ceremonial uh speaking of repetitive chance the line of the episode jingle thatekyll. That's the joke. Smithies, why haven't I heard of this The Leader? He's as rich and wicked as I, but he seems to enjoy tax-exempt status. Actually, sir, with our creative bookkeeping and corporate loopholes, we only pay $3 a year. You're right. We're getting screwed.

There must be something I can do about this. Wait. Yes. I think I know just the thing. Uh, sir? You have to tell me what your plan is, or nothing will happen. Oh, yes, of course, the plan. You see me as a guard, right, Smithers?

Absolutely, sir. You'd kneel before me boy would i yes uh then i'll form my own religion with its own symbol we'll use this special k i believe that's already a breakfast cereal sir can people worship it in a way all right then uh how about this uh why don't you leave the symbol to me, sir? And the symbol is a Christmas tree. Yes, yeah, that's all he's left with. I think Smithers left it to the last days. Like, a Christmas tree with a B in it. Let's go with that.

A moment reminded me of, if I can be self-indulgent, we did a live read of my book for Sketchfest. You guys came to the Riff Track show after that. But we had to consolidate it down a bunch for the live show. But at some point in time, there was a moment that in the real book ended a chapter. But since it was consolidated, it was like, you know, you're going to, it was like, you know, the cliffhanger type of thing. Like, you're going to like this, you know, let the games begin. Andy Richter said that and then a beat.

And then Janet Varney was like, you're just going to say, let the games begin and sit here awkwardly. And this was, we had to stitch things together for the, for the library. This isn't the way it was unconsciously influenced by this moment in the episode. So that's funny. I feel like it's been a,

been a while since we got this much burns in an episode too. Like, I don't think Scully liked using burns as much as Oakley and Weinstein and, you know, I think they were kind of burns doubt, but man, I Connor, I'm sorry. I didn't go to that liked using Burns as much as Oakley and Weinstein and, you know, DeBurken. I think they were kind of Burns-ed out. But, man, Connor, I'm sorry I didn't go to that read. That sounds so funny.

I wish I had known. Yeah, it was a good moment. It was really fun to hear that. And what's the name of that book? Yeah. The Full Bolt Championship of the Entire Universe, available as an audiobook with an all-star cast at Audible. Wow. I think we were mostly too busy freaking out about our own live show. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, man. After that was done, that was just three days of anticipation

and stress. And so I didn't look at Twitter for 24 hours until that was done. So I missed you guys at the Riff Track show. But next time. Obviously. I mean, yeah. Now I look back on all the times I tried to contact people who were in town for Sketch Fest and see if they'd want to hang out or do podcasts even. And I think back to how stressed out I felt every second working on a SketchFest show. And I remember like I would have not replied to anyone or done anything for anyone because I was too stressed out about my stuff. Right. Yeah. And, you know, you add on. There's always other people who are doing the same thing to you at the same time.

So it's like, just leave me alone and let me entertain people okay i love this burn scene so much because i didn't know this about tax loopholes and how little uh corporations can pay that this line has always struck me especially like burns is saying you're right we're getting screwed like the idea that you he is even paying three dollars to the government in taxes he feels is a grand injustice. And so he wants to get it down to zero, which getting tax-exempt status as a church was the dream of Scientology as well. Like that's the plan.

Like the Corporation America is more protected from taxes than you would hope, but they are not completely void of it and uh and meanwhile scientology is because it is a church sort of like how uh technically apple is an irish company yes and uh they pay no taxes that might be apple uh a lot there's lots of tax shelters everywhere what i know of is amazon yeah there was a lot of there was news a few months a couple months ago about how in 2018, Amazon paid no taxes. And their loophole is that you can, which also our president enjoyed, which is if you have a bad year, you count those losses, bad year in quotes, you count those losses against all later taxes.

So if you were in the negatives a certain year, then you can count that against all previous ones. So even though Amazon was, I'm sure, quite profitable in 2018, on paper they were not versus their previous year's losses that they're counting. And so that's how they pay no taxes on that money. This year I'm making much less than my projected $1 billion profit. So I got to count that against my taxes. I wish the government would listen to that uh where i have taxes in mind a lot now because we literally are paying our taxes this week so uh it's always fun to do as an independent contractor boy oh boy mr burns falls hundreds of i love this yeah yeah he is what he was made of that was what i was wondering the whole time i like the looks like homers when he's a solid gold man but yes very quickly he's glistening he's got a fake beard and everything i i think

it's some rubber type yeah the way it melts to his body yeah that he's originally that's i just love the god written out in fire spinning behind him that his strong man costume with his beard like it's all the the way they imagined a monster i wonder too if smithers is putting some of his sexual pathology onto burns's strongman costume as well could be that he designed that costume but i think lenny didn't get snatched up by the movementarians because he worships special k special k is a fine serial i mean i i worship kashi more than that i'd say i like i really liked the uh stormtroopers there's like a half second shot of them yeah advancing into the crowd to intimidate

those are the same stormtroopers who beat people at the end of his birthday oh you're right yeah uh yeah also they another uh awkward in the future moment on the commentary merkin saying that the statues of himself and the posing of the spotlights and everything is directly a reference to michael jackson's his story music video okay which uh they they said was proof dave merkin while everyone else is quiet dave merkin says when i first saw that his story video i was like you know i think something's a little off about this mich Jackson guy. I hope they tore those statues down like the Confederate soldiers statues.

They were on the cover, but I think they put them up all around the world. They had them just erected in various cities and stuff. That's bizarre. I didn't put the two and two together on that, though. By the time his story came out, which was... Oh, I get it now. Yes. I know.

It was like a mix of new songs and greatest hits like beatles anthology kind of thing well but yeah yeah yes but he wrote more new songs including a a very controversial one that had a uh a slur for jewish people in it and yeah but really him building monuments to himself and about how he is the greatest victim in the world like uh that probably should have tipped some people off about michael jackson at that point uh now michael jackson jokes are not funny and uh they just make you sad so anyway uh yes that burns is dead like he the way his the he is on fire and falls about like a hundred like a hundred feet. Smithers assumes he's alive. We'll try this again tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen,

behold your new god, Mr. Burns. Ahoy, ahoy, lowly mortals. In addition to working for me, you may now praise me as your almighty. Amen, sir. Hmm. We'll try this again tomorrow.

He's all right. But he's no ball of special cake. And also the Burns says, ahoy, hoy, even as a cult leader. I love ahoy hoy. And yes, meanwhile, everyone's getting married. At least you got to choose your mate. We got matched up on the printout. Hey, remember our agreement.

I'm the man. You're the man. I could have done a lot worse, mother. Speak for yourself. So, do you enjoy comic books? And who can tell me where thunder and lightning come from? Yes, Bart? The leader, ma'am. Very good, Bart.

And who invented Morse code? Oh, I should know this one. The leader? Ah, correct again. He's wrong! You're wrong! The whole damn system is wrong! Ah!

What's the matter, Lisa? You used to be such a good student. Don't you want to please your teachers and get good grades? Ugh. Grades? So they're winning over all the children. Lisa's won over with the prospect of good grades. And I have to point out that in the next scene,

Maggie is being entertained by a Barney-style figure. Number one, 1998, last year you could do a Barney joke. Actually, you shouldn't have done it in the first place. But if you go back to the 2 plus 2 is 4 from Rosebud, it's the exact same design and the exact same dance. Yep, yeah, you're right. I went back to Frankyak. I'm like, oh my God, it's great. same design and the exact same dance yep yeah you're right i went back to frankie i'm like oh my god it's great they reuse that same animation yeah they and their same barney-esque design i the 90s were an era of parodic barney designs though this one

really was just like well he's still purple and has the same shaped head but a fin as well so 10 different strength yeah i wish that bart had given the answers of boner land and some guy for when he yeah but he I I love that he's searching his head for like the leader that's that's good acting there the so the mass mass weddings that also was a very uh that's done in many cults I guess it felt very Jonestown especially this was the first time i really got the joke of i'm the man oh okay yeah because i i love the exchange that clearly otto means that he is the man in their relationship which would mean certain things in the bedroom i would assume uh though barney just takes it as you're the man like he's like just the expression of like you're the man we're a few years before you're the man now dog duh you know well that's 2000 or maybe yeah silverman wait what was it

called again finding forester i confused that with saving silverman somebody needs to be gerunded in some way a male character who is the comic book guy marrying was that that wasn't lurleen was it princess cashmere with her hair up or in the air or something like that it's like princess cashmere took Lurleen's hairstyle. I should have said after my nuptials. So do you enjoy comic books? You knew that was true. I already know that to be the case with my partner, yes.

It's kind of gross how excited Skinner is to marry his mother. I mean, Edna is there. Yeah. Come on. Yeah, well, it's just who you get matched up with. Yeah, I don't think they knew that continuity, Merkin and O'Donnell. Oh, yeah well it's just who you get matched up with yeah i don't think they knew that continuity merkin and o'donnell oh yeah that's true they're they're in a satellite office writing this stuff yeah that's that's also true well yeah well speaking of marcia wallace like i think she does a very good job playing a brainwashed version of edna very good part that's

really good acting on her part it does make me me sad that even Lisa can be destroyed by this. You'd hope that she wouldn't be susceptible, but she's young. That's what I blame it on. Her great grubbiness gets in the way of her moral integrity. I really like her chair kickover, though. It's very like an Angry Chief kind of thing. Sabotage video. Yes, yeah.

I like just her like, rah like when she kicks it it's good it's a nice like yardley she doesn't get to make noises like that too often as as lisa so i like her her really showing her anger there marge is really questioning things and she finds out she's the only one these lima beans are even better than the ones we had for breakfast and lunch oh a lima bean that looks just like the leader. I'll put it with the others. Homer, you know I always try to put the best face on everything, but there's no face on that damn bean.

We hate it here, and your family wants to leave. No, we don't, Mother. We love the leader. No! No! Alrighty. Time for bed. I'm leaving this place, and you'd better step aside. Lady, people are

free to go whenever they wish. Then we get an extended prisoner parody. Yes. It felt weird. It was a pole vaulting scene. Oh. Right there. Man, is it accurate to your weird a pole vaulting scene oh right and is it accurate to your ideas of idea of paul paul vaulting yeah it's about the height that the idiots in my book were competing at so you could easily jump over without a pole that's one of my favorite gags in this episode is it feels like a parody or commentary on on Twilight Zone endings where that would be, if this were a Twilight Zone episode or something else, Marge going, no, that's the end.

Like, that's a twist ending. But now it's a commentary. Like, well, at a certain point, you have to start talking again. All righty. You don't just pass out. So it's just like, pause. All righty. Time to go to bed.

Like, I love that gag. That's a really funny gag and just the the drawing on marge you know tilting as she's screaming and then it goes back to straight on it is a great scream from julie too yeah yeah she's really going for it it does seem weird watching the squeaky voice team smoke though that that feels too bizarre and yeah wholesome for that homer with his leader beans i i like that and marge is like i can't put a face on that damn bean like she's marge is broken homer just his shelf of leader beans that's so funny they would do a much longer prisoner parody later in the show like a few years

later they would have an entire act basically be the prisoner and homer on an island i found that one to be quite indulgent this this one so because the prisoner is still pretty obscure i mean i still haven't seen it something that as a kid i watched him was like you know this must be something but there's no way i can figure out what on on you know it was one of those things that would rarely air on pbs i think because it's like it was a bbc show and so it's legality in amerality in America licensing kind of went in and out. For the longest time, it was one of those shows that would be on lists of, put this on DVD, back when people bought DVDs. And then when they finally did, it was only available for a year, and then it went back out of print.

I remember when I worked at a mom-and-pop video store in 2007, our prisoner DVDs were usually out because we're in a college town people are going to watch it but if we lost one like we were always worried every time we'd rent it out because like if we lose one of these discs our box set is ruined and we'll never get another one because it's out of print in case anyone is wondering the prisoner is a 1967 uh british series yes only 17 episodes making it one of the longest british series in existence you know i should really watch all of it so i've seen a few episodes i mean from what i have seen if you were to see that 50 years ago i could there's nothing like it it would blow your mind like for for nerds then who nerds now are just inundated with so much media how can anything

be special but when you have three television channels that show maybe one show that's geeky for you, like Star Trek, you then get the prisoner that has to be, tastes like filet mignon to somebody who's been eating white bread the entire time. But yeah, the bubble scene, I do love the animation of the bubble eating Hans Wollman.

That's exactly what happens. I watched a clip. It's exactly what happens in the prisoner. You taken back via bubble and it's always the same stock footage though that i hear like matt graining uh and dave merkin have a disagreement on the commentary dave merkin's like i love that bubble matt graining's like that bubble looks like crap it's the same shot every time uh the uh but yeah marge gets to have a big action scene which i like that a lot like just her her running and her like to the prisoner music. They license the real music, too.

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?

And the gators, I like those gator designs too. And clearly people are dying leaving that place. Marge does escape, and we get to see Reverend Lovejoy, and they really sell out his character here. Oh, God, yeah. Oh, I never thought I'd have to do this again. Reverend Lovejoy, you've got to help me. My entire family has been taken in by the evil movementarians.

Oh, I feel for you, my child, and I'd like to help you. Now, how are we going to get my homie back? I'll kidnap him for 50, deprogram him for 100, and I'll kill him for 500. No, no, no, just the first two. All right, I'll throw in the killing for three. I guess with Skinner and Krabappel and all the students being at the cult, Willie's got to work for the church now. Oh, that's true, yeah.

He's keeping their grounds. That's the only reason he should really be there at night to do the Jaws scene, which you talk about it's too late for Barney jokes. It almost feels too late for Jaws reference. I think it's always time for Jaws. I giggled at it. I did. But now it still feels like, you know, friend of the show, Leslie Lee III, he mentioned how like everybody back then, you could make a Jaws reference or a scarface reference and you could count on

everybody knowing it of stuff made in the last 10 years can media do that can media really pick a thing from like a movie or a tv show that's happened in the last 10 years maybe game of thrones but like so specifically reference it and count on most people to get it i think only like the most biggest mega hits you can do parodies of any of those big the big mega hits these days don't have iconic moments like what scene of you know black panther would you like do a parody of if you were or the quote type of thing the one when you said that the first thing came to mind was like well sure anchorman you could say that and everyone would get what you were going for but that was probably 15 years ago this that was

yeah yeah pretty old now yeah no i mean well yeah if you want to talk specifically about marvel movies like they are they're more like big tv shows they just kind of wash over you like the uh i mean of a scene from black panther i mean definitely there there are movements of wakanda forever are memorable actually you know what i think if people were to reference the somebody putting a spoon in a teacup, I think they'd get the Get Out reference. Maybe. Oh, yeah, maybe. I think that's a stirring enough imagery that would click.

I mean, The Simpsons just did a couch gag about the scene where the space glove guy turns everyone to dust. Yes. So I think that's the one iconic scene that I know from all of Marvel movies. All right. Yeah, that's true. Because it's been memed so much. Everyone did the meme of like i don't feel so good or whatever okay see yeah boom one for marvel 23 movies one iconic scene

yeah there's nothing you could get uh you know two moments out of just like the simpsons did with this because bart did the quince scratch in homer goes to college yeah oh my god wow yeah another american repeating but it was on a chalkboard, so this is heightening that. I do like that Willie's just like, I'll kill him for free. He just really wants to kill children. Love Joy is going to burn down the church for insurance fraud, which he has done before. We did at Sketchfest one year a riff track short that was called More Dangerous Than Dynamite. Oh, yeah.

The message of it was, hey, folks, we know that there's a lot of people out there that are washing their clothes in gasoline, but that's really unsafe. So go to a reputable dry cleaner. And someone just made the joke about it on stage as part of the banter that was just like, gasoline is terrible for washing clothes, but I will say it has gotten me out of several unsuccessful restaurants. That's great. That short, I didn't realize people had to be told like, hey, gasoline is flammable and also not something you clean laundry with. It was, to me, I still have no idea because there's, you know, I didn't look at the newspapers from that day, but it seemed like one of those, you know, like how nowadays there are like invented things, like, you know, kids are eating Tide Pods. And then it's like there aren't any that are doing that.

But that then becomes the story. So it had to have just been like people are washing their clothes in gasoline. And then it's like, are they? Who cares? Now we're talking about this story. That short seemed to be made by the dry cleaning advisory board, too. I love all the cartoon fire in that short. Oh, my God.

Wonderful. It's a real treat i think only shake hands with danger has made me more like worried watching one than that like that that it ends with a woman lit on fire and covered in burns i'm like oh my god this i can't believe this short went there well there's one we did too about kids in Britain going into like power substations that, you know, just kids getting set on fire and to try to retrieve their Frisbee from these places, which is, I don't know. It's a good genre for us. At least, you know, with Shake Hands With Danger, I could understand the violence in it because it feels like it's being pitched to their imagined audience were men in their 40s so they're like look we don't have to soften this for you we're gonna show you a man bleed to death because that could happen to you but when it's aimed at like children

or the whole family that's when i'm more shocked at the uh the violence the idea of like burning down a church for insurance money is uh it's hard to get lower than that as a person or though stealing marge's wedding ring has payment to help his family that that's a pretty low too lovejoy again they it's getting pretty bad in this episode matt graining has said before he's like he doesn't like when they do mean jokes at lovejoy's expense because it seems like unfair to religion or just them taking pot shots at a religion they're not a member of he shouldn't have left to develop futurama then that's his fault so with willie and lovejoy and so they head back to the forbidden barn what an honor we've been called into the presence of march you're the leader you don't look anything like the beans. Knock him out, Reverend!

Ow! Ooh! Oh! Oh, the devil has given him superhuman strength. Give me that, you noodle-arm choir boy! Ow! Well, that didn't do it, Mr. Kilt. Look, let the three of us try it together.

Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!

Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, boy. We've all learned that only Dredrick Tatum

can knock home a round. But I love the scene of them all. Also, Lovejoy's very wussy bat holding. I love that. But also, just them all taking turns hitting him is very funny. Well, he's driving, looking back at them. Yeah.

He should be focusing on escaping the compound because they did just kidnap people. Also, I'd like to know how they snuck into the bar He should be focusing on escaping the compound because they did just kidnap people. Also, I'd like to know how they snuck into the bar and stole the Mercedes and get them in there. Or the Rolls Royce, sorry. Maybe they rented it like the hover bikes. Yeah, that fits. I don't think they rented the hover bikes.

I think they were counting on those being returned with a receipt. Yeah, they were purchased for the intent of returning them's right yeah policy abused i love how homer just his face getting like his eyes going in different directions even just as his head is being bashed on over and over again but he just can't be knocked out because uh he has too much brain damage already i guess now it's time time for Henry's tale of the tape. Here we go. Put the music in. So this is a classic Henry tape blunder where I never wanted commercials on the tapes when

I was recording the brand new episodes off TV. I'm very mad about that. So I would hit when you're recording. For people who've never had a VHS player before, you're recording it off TV. You press pause, and it stops recording during commercials because you don't want to. I didn't want to see commercials or fast forward through them on my tapes. The danger in that is you have to guess when it's coming back from commercial and you get a little bit of forgiveness when you hit unpause but uh sometimes you miss that and uh i missed the

line you'll break like matchsticks before in my tape so i never in my in henry's brain uh replaying the episode you'll break like matchsticks that line wasn't there it was only i promise you that it always comes out i promise you that then the episode starts so at this point we've had several tales of the tapes why didn't you learn anything from these constant tales i refuse to admit defeat this time this time can i put it out there for everyone who uh grew up uh taping the uh like six to seven block of simpsons in the dc north of virginia area just i want to say something that i will call back an immediate memory for you guys super vga cd rom that was an ad that showed pretty much every single commercial break for the computer show

and sale that was once a month that uh that those are two things you could get super vga in my area the commercial that played the most during Syndicated Simpsons was much louder than The Simpsons because that was at a time when that could happen. They could legally do that or they were not prevented from making commercials much louder. So roughly eight decibels louder than The Simpsons you just watched was the Journey song, Any Way You Want It for a car dealership. So just like act like, Any way you want it. It's like, oh my God, scrambling for the remotes. Man, I can't remember what were the omnipresent. The only commercials I remember

were commercials for other syndicated shows that I would just marvel at of like, how can you repackage Seinfeld again for us? Like, how can you tell us how this Seinfeld, but they always found another way to put together seinfeld clips to tell you to watch more seinfeld that was the the simpsons was close to highest rated in my market but seinfeld was number one in syndication just for i think a lot of people didn't watch the first like five seasons until became

the hot thing on must see tv had a very urbane northern florida audience i think there were gun show commercials we didn't get yeah though i i think i remember like computer shows too it's a mix of gun shows and computer shows um and this also speaking of callbacks it's the return of the rumpus room this is the kind of net i like he's got a fun streak to him he's got uh taps installed he's got uh yeah so great now i'm not as impressed by beer taps installed because we've worked in an office where like oh we have a beer tap and it's just like you have a keg under there and you put like you basically have like a garbage bag full of beer that you then pull a lever on it comes out it doesn't feel as special now that i know what's behind it and most of them are not very well maintained so the beer i ended up getting from

that tap was what the beer that the movementarian lawyers got. Oh, yes. Just like all head. Yeah, you wasted a lot. That's why I never touched it. If it was beer drinking time in the office, I went more to the liquor cabinet there and didn't bother with all that head. And yeah, the reason, too, this was last seen in Homer Loves Flanders when Homer destroys it saying, they don't call me Virginia Fats just because I'm morbidly obese and breaks it.

Now you got a lawsuit on your hands. Just kidding. Stephen Dean Moore, the director on this, said he was happy to go back to it because he worked on the episode, though didn't direct. He worked on the episode where it was first introduced, Dead Putting Society. Okay. This is a classic version of the man cave a rumpus room is a funner name than man cave i think it has less shame to it honestly there's

a real stink on man cave though i mean having your own bar like that's that's pretty cool i'd i don't think i'd have that uh cigar store native american anymore yeah though uh a mistake here again we talked about the burns head there was also for the shot of him coming in with rice krispy squares lisa's arms are painted orange like her dress color so freaky a real goof up there i hope somebody was fired for that blunder the the lawyers are called into action outsiders have kidnapped some of our property we must respond with our deadliest weapon. The lawyers. Attention all citizens. Even though the leader himself is completely non-violent, he urges you to be as violent as you like in capturing the Simpsons.

What are you doing? They're not here, you idiots. Idiots? That's slander, sir, and we have it on tape. All right, I'll get on my checkbook. What was that? I said, meh. He answers a mumble with another mumble. But distinct from each other.

I said, meh. They note on the commentary that Kent is looking a little chunkier in this shot. They think they miss, Stephen D. Moore thinks they misdrew him as a little heavier than he normally appears. Though maybe it's just we're not used to seeing him without a desk in front of him, I suppose. Yeah, so all these lawyer bits here, this definitely felt like the Scientology gag to me. Because in 1998 people didn't bring up scientology on shows because they were terrified of lawyers yeah they end the episode of south park by saying we're gonna sue you we're gonna sue you so hard and that's why the people

credited for that episode are all john and jane smith that's right i forgot about that and yeah that terror being terrified of lawyers was what protected Scientology for the longest time. The way they got around it, I think, you know, South Park was the show that finally called their bluff. They're like, all right, are you going to sue us? And when they weren't destroyed by Scientology lawyers, I think that made a lot more people, satirists, and documentarians more brave in going after Scientology. Yeah, on Futurama, when Bender joined the Church of Robotology, which had nothing to do with Scientology at all, it was not even a joke about Scientology, just a similar name,

they hassled Matt Groening about it. He talks about it on the commentary. He's like, let's just call them S. And he was very clear, like, we're not going to say Scientology. We'll call them S. But I got a call. Yeah. I'm surprised Groening hasn't been approached by them.

You would think at some point he has, but, I mean, man, the money they'd get off of him for all those things. MS. But I got a call. Yeah. I'm surprised Groening hasn't been approached by them. I would think at some point he has, but I mean, man, the money they'd get off of him. I bet Nancy was ordered to recruit him. Yeah, probably. Oh yeah. Also the, the be as violent as you like. That's another great, uh, commandment from them, which that seems more worthy of being sued than the slander of calling someone an idiot to incite violence yeah yeah which also i don't think uh i don't know slander laws seem weird i think um the question of slander laws is like do you really want to go to the courts it'll take it'll take forever and you'll probably lose so uh why why bother i think on what was it on the penn and teller show they said like we can't call people liars but we we can call them assholes, so that's what we'll be saying. Yeah, that was

the common go-to phrase on that show, bullshit. Yes. Look at this asshole. I also just love Harry. Harry Shearer is really good in this one. I said, meh. That was a really good line reading by him. Yeah, whatever he's interpreting on the script,

it's a creative way of interpreting probably indistinct mumble a couple times and then we get to the kids being broken of their brainwashing uh we get to see the like ned has a very religious collection of trophies i i'm not sure what he got them from but like one most prayers what what is like a um a cup with a just a cross right on it like i i'm not sure what he did it for but uh yes it's it's time to break the children so you kids really love the leader huh even more than your parents yeah of course absolutely right already but do you love the leader more than having your very own brand new hover bikes? What do you have to say about the leader now?

Who do you love now? Hover bikes! Close enough. Yay! Sorry, kids. There's no such thing as hover bikes. They're just a couple of huffies on a fishing line. But we heard them hovering.

Oh, I'm afraid I played a dirty part in this little charade. Can we at least keep the bikes? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. They'll do back at the store by six. Get off them. Get off, off, get off. I like how hard they hit get off of them. It so cruel to the children it feels very murkiny it's not just deprogramming it's also a prank yes it's uh you know and it works to set up you know the the reveal at the end of it too but

it also capitalizes on if you were of a certain age the idea that there were you know hoverboards either out there or on their way or being actively suppressed by like a very, very powerful urban legend. So I don't know if they were, you know, capitalizing on that or if they were just doing it to set up the gag at the end, but it was well done. You wanted to believe that a hover bike was just out of reach and if somebody could someday sell it to you very soon. And yeah, I think it's bullshit that we have things called hoverboards now that are just like they're just two wheels they're just a motorized skateboard it was one of the biggest travesties of justice of the 21st century now i just get mad if someone's on the sidewalk and they're not

walking just like what are these stupid ass uh unicycle thingies i see everywhere is this only in berkeley it's just like uh it's like sf2 yeah it's like you're riding riding a pogo ball or something. I want the person to fall off. And get hurt. Yeah, no. These are sidewalks for regular walking, not your fancy walking. Oh, and then they have the segues without the giant stick or whatever you hold on to. The things you just lean forward with. It's like, can we just walk?

Well, then people can't show off that they had the money to buy that, Bob. That's true. They should get out of my way. I love the kind of walla walla on the kids there, too. Like, oh, the hell are they taking? Finally, as I'm concerned, or Lisa's saying, like, no contest, at least twice as much. Those are great.

Love our bikes. And on the commentary, they make a good point that they don't need to tie up Maggie. She is a baby. Maybe just hold her. That's all you need to do. The picture, just the drawing of Ned with the wax paper in front of the comb is just so funny. He's ashamed.

He's like, I'm sorry. I was part of that trick too. Marge reestablishes trust from the children to immediately break it and laugh at them like that's so funny so the kids are fixed meanwhile homer not so much he's uh we i like that willie is so susceptible that hearing homer describe the leader makes him a convert immediately it really reminds me of steven colbert's character in the strangers with candy episode about the cult yeah like he turns immediately i'll do anything you say. Yeah. But yes, they're trying to break Homer,

and things are not working until they find a liquid solution. Maybe we should take a little breakeroonie, huh? Anyone like a draft beer? Beer? Would you like a tall, frosty one, Homer? No. Would you like a tall, frosty one, Homer? No, must resist temptation. Go ahead, give in.

Beer, beer. Oh, these cotton polyplates are so comfortable. Go on, Homer. Our commandments clearly state that beer is all right. Try some. This man is coming with us. Homer, you don't have to go with them. But I want to go. Well,

I would say the matter is settled. You know, I pride myself on being a good host, so I'm obliged to offer you a beer. But I'm so darn mad, it's going to be mostly head. Too much head on beer is a nightmare. I say if there's more than an inch of head on your beer, you should be able to send it back. I have a Kagerator, and it's like, I don't know what the deal is with it, but pretty much the first beer you pour after it's been a couple days is always like that, and I think about it every single time. It's foamy treat like i know my favorite bars they give you

a beer it's like up to the surface it's just like you can just uh there's like a little bit coming over the surface even just like perfect and you can't like you know ask them to give you like the last inch because then you seem desperate but like that's clearly you know the glass tapers so there's more in that last inch than there is in the last three inches combined. If I'm paying for an $8 beverage, I want that glass to be full of that beverage. Yeah. It's not about alcoholism or all I need for more drink. It's like you paid for this. It's partially about that. I just want every cent of what I paid for. I'm not as much of a beer drinker but when i get like a mixed drink

like if i order a uh say screwdriver at a place and there's so many ice cubes and i'm like what come on like that always pisses me off great drawings on this uh break in there like you really they made sure to show you a single drop hits homer's tongue it's it's and a great camera move as it like pans around him to see you can see the door where they're about to bust in yeah and a really cool like it felt very filmic overhead shot of the glass dropping and shattering yeah that was great i don't know if it was a specific movie it felt very like much like you'd see in a goodfellas type film it reminded me of him of uh me of him taking a baptism for bart yeah Yeah, actually with a single drop, though this time he enjoys that single drop. You know, this also feels like a really season two thing that Ned even has beer and offers it to people.

I looked this up. Yeah, so Lovejoy is not incorrect that in at least the American form of Christianity, alcohol is fine, though it is a vice to overindulge. But it's worth remembering that it was a very Christian movement, the temperance movement, that led to prohibition. So it wasn't always that, at the very least, American Christians were pro-alcohol. But in this case, they're just fine with it. The Protestants were just afraid of the Irish and the Italians. So that's really what all the temperance was for. I see.

They're drinking their wine with their hopes. So it's racism, as always, I see. Anyway, they take Homer away. We do get a nice return of Homer's brain-talking jokes. I think it's the first time we've ever heard his feet talk in internal monologue. And they take Homer away. He's their husband now. And Homer then has another very murky moment

of a complete change of heart for no reason other than it's the end of the episode. I'm glad I'm back. Because the moment that sweet, sweet beer hit my tongue, I was born again! Hallelujah! Now I can show all of you what I've come to realize. The reason we're not allowed in the forbidden barn

is because there is no intergalactic spaceship. He's taken our money just so he can build one hell of a spaceship! Homer Simpson, because of your lack of faith, you've ruined mankind's chance for salvation. Whoops. Nice going there, Homer. Oh, my gosh. Maybe he was telling the truth about everything.

Oh, mercy. He's the real deal. Oh, my gosh. I love the bags of money with the dollar signs on them. It can be more obvious. He's got a real hover bike. Hover bikes are real. He's got one. It's actually a bike in the center of it.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it's an old newsreel flying machine that you see when they were trying to test them. They would always crash. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it's a perfect classic old flying machine. 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? I love that ending too there. It another like twilight zone fake out that multiple twilights like it is a it is a sci-fi staple twist ending of no the aliens were real and they would have saved all of you but instead you'd betrayed them and we we have to go away now messing with the audience as much as very merkin yes yeah characters constantly flipping back and forth i definitely i don't know as a kid or 14 year old in first viewing of this i probably didn't believe it but for a second i was i think i did think is is this kang and kodos or this actually space aliens in this regular episode?

This was coming after Sherry Bobbins and Springfield Files. So weird stuff could happen in a normal episode now. That's true. What is the leader's voice? Is there another character that has that same sort of voice? It sounds a bit like their lawyer. Yeah. Oh, did I continue talking after you left?

I don't know why he has this weird kind of sinister... Oh, yeah. For the leader yeah yeah well in the well the alien voice he puts on it kind of reminds me of godfrey jones oh yeah too i like that he puts on a different voice for when his thing is floating and uh he goes away and i think you know i wonder the more mercenary choice would be that he just gets away and keeps all of his money so i wonder if that was a later rewrite of like it feels too cruel that he gets to take all their money he should also they should also lose like no one should get to succeed except for cleatus yeah his dirt farm is very profitable this year well he needed some money for uh scout and cubert's college fund.

I bet it paid off. Yeah, I guess from this point on, we should all consider that he's a millionaire in every scene. But yes, yeah, here's the happy ending. Stranger, you're a trespassion on my dirt farm. Do you happen to need a messiah? No, but I'll take them sacks of money from you. I should have stayed with the promise keepers. Damn it, it fell apart like everything else I've ever believed in. I guess it's back to good old fashioned voodoo. Wow, I need a drink. Come with me. Is that your collar, Reverend?

Oh, yes. How did that get down there? Come back to Papa, baby. Just think, I turned to a cult for mindless happiness when I had beer all along. And you, Marge, the bringer of beer. It's wonderful to think for ourselves again. You said it, sister. You are watching Fox.

We are watching Fox. That is a very Merkin-y sentiment. There were so many jokes about being controlled by TV,er hugging and kissing the tv dial z for zombies yeah yeah i you know merkin man fall down funny we've uh we've get we've joked before about how merkin hates that he works in television but also is very good at it he hates sitcoms but he writes them it's all he does i i think that kind of like self-hatred is what fuels so much of his very funny comedy oh on his on his way out he gets one last pot shot at the fox network especially as their their own type of cult it's amazing that they uh they you know i used to like those jokes when i was younger just because i i appreciated them making fun of the hand that fed them but

the context that they've taken on you know in the past 15 years has has gotten so different too and you know it seems to justify them in retrospect too yeah totally oh yeah the animation so the animation on the bags of money falling off the roof is really good like unnecessarily good well observed money bag physics they all feel like they have a specific weight to them, and they all just drop very, like, I don't know. I wonder if one of the anime guys on the team did it just because it feels, or just a guy from outside the studio, because it does not look like comedy animation. It looks like action animation for how it falls. I don't know. I'm just guessing here.

My detail I liked, I would buy the Barney and Little Tiny Beer Voodoo doll if that was a accessory oh boy they need to make that they should yeah i so uh my reading on that is that that's why barney also didn't go crazy having no alcohol like homer because he actually has no need to drink unless mo uses his voodoo on him wow and uh that it's also mo kind of me mo is both a snake handler and a voodoo uh priest he's got a really open mind you can't but don't put labels on mo that's my that's my mistake there so you told me you had some stuff on the promise keepers yeah yeah i don't uh connor do you remember the Promise Keepers? Name rings a bell, but I probably, I grew up outside of D.C. and I feel like they probably did a march

at some point in time. They did indeed, yes, yeah. That's about my knowledge of it. It was a thing that was happening and I wanted no part of it. Yes, so they were a Christian evangelical group, though intentionally a chauvinistic group. Like they are they were response to feminism and also a very white group, too.

OK. And their march was kind of it felt unnamed, but like a response to the Million Man March as well. It was a very religious group about how men are being held back. And they were ahead of their time. They were, they were, they just waited for the internet. This is what happened before the internet. And, and yeah, it was also about, you know, uh, keeping women and girls in traditional roles, like very much and, and citing their reasoning from the Bible that they said supports those facts. It facts like a twitter hashtag now and and they also were they could fill up like stadiums for event well arenas they

they had big big turnouts for their stuff in the 90s they went through some financial troubles can you believe that somebody would like embezzle money from it or resign a disgrace that doesn't sound likely but but somehow that was the promise he, that he was going to embezzle all the money, and so he was just keeping it. It was a secret promise. But yes, the Promise Keepers, though, still exist, but they are a shell of their former selves. The chauvinistic

hardcore Christian groups, there's sexier, newer ones out there. The Promise Keepers are just kind of old school. There's plenty of competition. Some of them have video games, too. But yeah, so that's the gag that he had been part of the promise keepers and that was his previous scam that was uh that was a nice little uh little gag there on another current cult one one last cult gag there do you think that was uh you know there's been other other gags that have clearly been ad art after the fact like you know don't forget ken star do you think that was in there from the beginning or was that more of a current reference the lip sync is so close yeah it's not adr yeah though it could have been i mean they do get retake jokes

sometimes so it's it's possible but yeah from from 96 to 98 the promise keepers were a known thing like they were getting news stories about him i love joy just picking his collar back up and pretending it never happened they didn't like stamp on it yeah he sold out his faith immediately instantly and everybody i guess the ownership of the house reverted back to them after the movementarians left but it seems like everybody lost all their money at the very least i think so that ending also felt very like dr seussian of him leaving well like like the star-bellied sneaches one yeah oh yeah sylvester mcmonkey mcbean wow i forgot that i just remember the once letter but that's that's a different evil dr seuss capitalist i guess we should wrap up this episode and say goodbye to david merkin who will be back

as a consulting producer which means like i think it's sort of like a Mike Rees deal where he sits in on writing. One day a week in the rewrite room, you're kind of, you're consulting, you help, you're a respected voice in the room, but you don't approve stories, you don't lead stories, you don't make choices on directors. That let him go back to film direct or transition into film directing as he did with Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion and Heartbreakers. That's it, yeah. The Sigourney Weaver, Gene Hackman, Jennifer Love Hewitt film. Not quite as well known. I haven't watched that one. I love Romy and Michelle. I don't know if Heartbreakers is any good.

Though then, of course, Merkin would get back into the flock in the mid-2000s as one of the executive producers on the Simpsons movie. I don't think he was the lead voice on it, but he was one of the top producers on the simpsons movie i i don't think he was the lead voice on it but he was one of the top guys working on it uh and yeah he still is a friend of the simpsons to this day though right now he's working on his own youtube series uh comedy series so hey best of luck uh mr merkin we'll talk to him one day i hope i feel it's gonna happen our fingers yeah that one week gig sounds pretty sweet i need to uh get him to approve that a riff track just tell sit in and tell other people what to do your paycheck is the same and it's just one day a week and just tell people what to do yeah nice work if you can get it this episode i think is full of very funny observational stuff about

cults you know in review of some jokes being uh of previous jokes, it did lower my grade of it just a little, but more down to like a B+. But I still think of this as a strong, comedically strong episode in this season that hits. It's a great farewell to Dave Merkin's specific style of satire that he brought to The Simpsons. So I still give it a thumbs up. Yeah, I don't think that I, I was probably, you know, harsh in my assessment of it earlier, but I'd give it a B.

I don't think I'll watch it in my normal seasons, you know, three and seven, through seven rotation. But it was, you know, definitely had good moments and made some good points. And the leader is a very memorable character,

especially in his, scratching his underarm form. So Connor, thanks again for joining us uh can you yeah guys my pleasure can you please promote the stuff you're working on absolutely uh check out riff tracks you can go to see our live shows which there's going to be three of this year uh octoman star raiders and giant spider invasion which i've still never classic i'm looking forward to watching that one for the first time. Listen to 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back, which is a podcast where me and Mike Nelson from Riff Trax and MST read books that we're pretty sure we're going to hate. I don't know what's coming up after Bob Honey, who just do stuff, but I think there's no

way it could possibly be worse. And if you go to audible.com slash pole vault, you can listen to the audible original audio production of my novel, which features Paul F. Tompkins and weirdo Mike, Kevin and Bill from riff tracks and Janet and John DiMaggio from Futurama. So that was a really fun project that I'm really proud of. Wow. Really star studded.

I got, I'm definitely going to check that out with my audible credits that I renewed at the start of the month. So yeah, thanks again for having me on. I really enjoy talking Simpsons with you guys. So thanks again to Connor Lestoka. Again, check out Riff Tracked. It's so great. We're big fans of it. And they have another live show that might be simulcast to one of your theaters in North America. It's going to be Octoman on April 18th. I'll be there somewhere at a theater. Don't find me. I'll be having my own fun. Yes, leave me alone.

Please leave me alone, everybody. That's all I ask. No, actually, I think me and you left a Riff Trax viewing once and had a very nice fan say, hey, wow, you're Bob and Henry. Would you believe that's not the first time I've left a Riff Trax and met a fan? There's some crossover there, apparently. Let's make plans now. Let's go to this.

Yes, yeah, totally. But as for us, if you want to help support our show and get tons and tons of bonus content on top of that, please go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And for the incredibly low price of $5 a month, you'll get every episode of Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon one week ahead of time and ad-free. You'll also get all kinds of bonus podcasts,

including limited series like Talking Futurama, Talking Critic, and the currently unraveling Talking of the Hill. Those are Patreon exclusives, and they'll never be free. Never, I say. And we also have tons of interviews, end-of-season wrap-ups, community podcasts, and so much more. If you've never been part of the Patreon, you will just be flooded with podcasts you've never heard before. You'll be in for a real treat if you enjoy our voices. If you've been listening this long, I think you do. And, Henry, what does our newer $10 tier include?

Well, if you sign up at the $10 level, you'll get access to all of the previous premium content we did, and that is including our most recent $10 bonus, the monthly What a Cartoon Movie podcast. Me and Bob give the Talking talking sims treatment to a different animated feature film each week that includes the secret of dim a goofy movie akira kiki's delivery service and batman mask of the phantasm and in april we'll very likely be doing spider-man into the spider-verse under under duress for one of us perhaps but no no i want to see it's a good movie yes it's a good movie but yes uh that's only for $10 and up patrons. Me and Bob put a ton of effort into them. They are

almost all over three hours, and they're a really good time. And you can only hear that if you are a $10 patron, so either sign up at that or up your pledge to enjoy some premium content me and Bob are very proud of. Patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons.

And this is our full-time job, so anything you can donate will help support the show, and you'll get tons of free stuff on top of that, so we appreciate it if you think about it. As for me,

I am one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. Find me on Twitter as BobServo, and at this point, you probably know about Retronauts. It's my other podcast I do that's about classic games. Please listen to it

at Retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast device. I've been doing that for a long time, so I'm sure I've talked about something that you enjoy. Henry, how about you? You can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. If you follow me there,

you'll learn all about the new things that go up on our Patreon and all the other podcast adventures we're having. That's H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next time for DOS Bus. We'll see you then. Do you have anything by Robert Ludlum? Get out.