Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Secret War of Lisa Simpson With Kat Bailey

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

We're closing out season 8 with a story ripped from the headlines of the mid-'90s, and Kat Bailey from USGamer is joining us for the fun. After a bad trip to the Museum... of CRIME, Bart gets sent to military school and Lisa joins him. Too bad a butt load of sexism means Lisa has a horrible time there. Learn all about that and the real-life news that inspired it all in this week's podcast! Get your tickets for our January 16 LIVE podcast in San Francisco with guests Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

uh hoi hoi everybody we've got some great news about our second year in a row at san francisco's sketch fest that's right we have another live show on january 16th at 8 p.m that's a wednesday night at the gateway theater and boy do we have some special guests joining us that's right julia prescott and ali gertz from the everything's coming up simpsons podcast will be our special guest and we'll be discussing the episode The Principal and the Pauper. Is it the worst episode ever? Is it secretly good? We will decide on the stage that night.

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

right now, right now and get your tickets soon. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where the truth is harsh and disturbing. I'm your host, Hourglass Enjoyer Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today?

No longer the girliest cadet on this podcast, Henry Gilbert. Female motorist, Cat Bailey. And today's episode is The Secret War of Lisa Simpson. Lisa, if you ever want to quit and come home, I'll be here in half a jiff. I want to quit and come home. I want to quit and come home. Oh, honey, I heard you the first time. Today's episode aired on May 18th, 1997, and Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real-world history. Oh, my God!

Oh, boy, Bobby, love is in the air, because Sly Stallone married Jennifer Flavin, who is still his wife 21 years later, and Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker also got married. And, finally, the world is bopping away to mmm bop at the top of the charts. Finally, music has reached perfection. I like Hanson. They're fine.

Everybody was always kind of going after Hanson. Being like, oh, they look like girls. They got really long hair, etc. But they're cute. Teenage. I'm not one to talk, so. They, as Space Ghost himself pronounced, they have girl hair. Beautiful girl hair.

They're beautiful men like deer. I love the use of them in Anthology of Interest, the first one of those in Futurama. They are so funny there. They get killed. They let their song be licensed in an episode where they get crushed by a band. Oh, they do get crushed. That's right. Yeah, I don't think there are enough wholesome Partridge

Family Osmond style bands anymore. If there are any. I was just looking at the lyrics to that. They're kind of dark lyrics. And an oom-bop you're fucking dead, pal. Count your blessings. Time is running out. Yeah, it is like when you get older and lose your hair, what friends are still going to be around?

I'm all out of oom-bops. There's one line that's like can you tell me who will still care which is like damn who's gonna still care when you're old and about to die like ouch many moons ago i was listening to an espn podcast and for some reason they were playing a softball game against the hansons and they're like oh yeah we're gonna destroy the hansons it's gonna be great and afterward. So did you beat the Hansons? No. They cheated. Oh, wow. Yeah, the Hansons are very good at softball.

If they're Mormon type kids, they seem like the ones who do a lot of team sports together in softball. So wait, it was Splitsville for Matthew Bardrick and Sarah Jessica Parker? I believe they're still together. Oh, for some reason I thought they broke up. Well, I think they live very separate lives, perhaps. But they're still together this episode i want to say that the first time i looked this up was five minutes ago this episode's title

is based off of the secret war of harry frig we all love that movie don't we oh okay paul newman classic it's that and the great escape oh wow i do not i've never heard of that movie i didn't know that until now so i just want to put that out there i always get it it gets me thinking about the marvel comics classics, Secret War. Oh, man. That's the one with the aliens, right? And Venom showed up. Yes.

Yes, I got it right. The symbiote suit that Spider-Man will wear that becomes Venom, but yes. Yes. That is it. It's the one where they all get put on a planet and they fight? Is that the one? It basically was created for a toy set. They wanted to sell He-Man style toys of all the most popular figures. on a planet and they fight is that the one it basically was created for a toy set they wanted

to sell he-man style toys of all the most popular figures they created a tie-in comic which basically just has god or more or less transport all the toy figures to a planet to fight each other and that's why there's only two girls there on the hero side because that's all the toys they were gonna make because who wants to buy girl toys but, anyway, that's a lot like this episode, actually. Yeah, it's so interesting to talk about. They were promising a battle royale at the end, I mean. That was before I had seen battle royale. I knew how exciting that would be.

That would have been a great end to that episode, I might add. Like if Lisa had to fight Bart to the death. I'm mad at the Supreme Court. Yeah, stupid state Supreme Court in whatever state they're in. Well, I mean, this episode is based on real world events, isn't it, guys? The life of Shannon Faulkner, which I recall when this happened as a kid, I actually was slightly informed in the news only because 2020 came on right after tjf so i may as well keep watching it and i love that that's your thought process oh this news show just comes on

i guess i'm gonna just keep watching this thing just roll in from tjf into that like the gentle caress of hugh downs and barbara walters that's how i got to learn how the consumer's getting screwed do i turn off the tv no tv good 2020 why would you turn off the tv? No, TV good, 2020. Why would you turn off the TV? And in that one, it was, when they talked about her then, it was this kind of like centrist approach to it. Like, well, you know, she wants to go, but is it right? Or blah, blah, blah. Is it right?

Well, we didn't say what it was or where she wanted to go. So Shannon Faulkner in 1993, she applied to go to the exclusive male exclusive military school the citadel later seen in mass effect well this one's in south carolina not out of space and much less interesting sorry south carolinians listening to this show well it's it can't compare to you can't compete friggin mass effect so she applied in 1993 and they said, you can't do that. You are a girl and we never have had a woman here. And she then sued them for the right to do it because, I mean, that is discrimination, especially with government funds. Yeah. The big thing was they were getting lots and

lots of money from the government and you can't really do that if you're discriminating against people. So unless you're a church and the federal case though took two years it wasn't until 1995 before a judge ruled on it and at first they were even thinking of making her go to just opening up a completely different school and be an equivalent school and then they told her well okay you can attend classes but you cannot officially be a cadet here yes yes sorry all these military terms i they're like for me so officially the verdict came down july 1995 she starts attending august 15th of 1995 and will resign by the end of that week at the time some people in news stories were like i

guess she couldn't handle it or i guess she didn't stay in shape during all those court trials as she would reveal in a 2012 interview there had been a credible like threat on her family's life if she stayed there yeah and after all the torture by the entire country to this uh poor young lady i would also resign and be like i can't take this anymore i'm 20 i don't want this yeah she's getting called names like mrs doubt gender yeah yeah there were t-shirts uh that was something like 1900 bulldogs and one you figure it out yeah and she pointed out that a lot of students in these military academies drop out after the first week so she was not like the only one she was one of five who passed out from heat stroke during the first drills.

It is known to happen. And many students resign from there. But it's just so much pressure. I can understand, too, the pressure of being the first woman to break this kind of glass ceiling. All that pressure on you, national pressure on you. That's a lot to put on anybody, let alone somebody who just graduated high school. I mean, it's terrible wherever it is i mean uh the first female sports journalists who had to go into uh the men's locker rooms and the athletes would basically torment them and be like walking around with their schlongs swinging around and being like hey lady what do you think about

this and all this stuff and and they would just have to grit their teeth and bear it as they got to do whatever the heck they wanted. And that's just the way it is when you're the first one. But in Citadel, she did pave the way because a few years later, a few more got in. And then after that, by 2013 or so, a whole bunch of female cadets were graduating. And in 2018, she actually came back to speak there. Yeah, which feels like them trying

to cover their tracks a little bit. She called herself a Citadel alumni, and that actually kind of sparked a big debate within... Oh, my valor, help! It's been stolen! No, I think it's good that they broke that barrier, but also I think, how about we just don't have

those kind of places anymore? You mean like military academies? Yeah your kill bot factories yeah the kill bot factories we only got robots now so yeah we pilot them from mountaintops and maintain those robots that was very prescient there but we'll get to that though yeah the the idea of breaking barriers but in the military is always a complicated feeling for me uh because well so i'll just say this for like gay service members that it is bullshit that anybody should face discrimination and if you want it if you are openly gay and want to serve the government shouldn't stop you from doing that oppositely though i'm a very like anti-war type person so i would never join the

army also physically i would not want the demands of the army so for all those reasons i wouldn't join the military and i am kind of like why do you want to join gay person like but i mean i don't want to judge i won't judge them but it's just that that is the complicated relationship i have for that i mean right now it's about transgender people yes you look at you look at these people who are like very clearly really enjoying the military and they're like what i'm transgender i'm in the military i like being in the military i like doing this job okay well cool actually one of my best friends is in the navy still she's in the naval reserves she just got out a while ago and i mean she is a very unassuming like kind of nerd she likes pokemon

and that kind of things but she came from a military family her father was a military person her grandfather was a military person she was going to be in the military too and she likes the culture so i guess i can understand that it's just it's so foreign to me i would never oh me too but i mean so it goes right so well you all well you do have a military background yourself or in your family yeah i mean my dad was an mp in the air force because he was a college he was a high school dropout and everything so he served his four years but so yes i've been to as we talked about in what sideshow bob's last gleaming that's right i went to the air force base and saw all the planes and everything. So I do have like a small affinity for that.

But I mean, it's a complicated relationship as with anything. I have to wonder if the pitch for this episode was different than the final episode, because the very little of this episode is about Lisa's fight to get into the academy. It's just one scene, a girl scene. People thought that it was going to be her suing to get into the military originally. And I mean, her acceptance is very unrealistic by the student body. I mean, sure, welcome aboard. Yeah, I guess this does not really cover Lisa's possible objection to the military

or anything militaristic. She's more about the discipline and, you know, being challenged. Being a teacher's pet. Yeah. In concept, it's also very strange that you would pitch that vegetarian, progressive character of Lisa is the one who would want to join a military school, which I suppose that, you know, maybe it's an interesting pitch because it plays on your expectations. It's like, well, why would Lisa do it? That's interesting. But in practice, it's sometimes like I definitely was going, why is she there?

Why would she really want to be in a military school? I mean, I think it goes back, supposedly this pitch has been kicking around since 1991 or something like that. And in that time, Lisa was a much less fully formed character than she was by 1997. And so, I mean, they had this big idea, pile of ideas. Lisa goes to military school as one of them for some reason. And they're like, all right, let's develop this story because we're seriously out of ideas. And oh, we are so tired. So very, very tired.

It's the very end of the season. And I feel like this episode really shows that. And it's not to poison the well up front, but I think it is a really dry episode. You could tell that some of the touches that would be in earlier episodes are not here because they were so tired. So number one, the fun new character doesn't even have a name.

Yeah, the Commandant. Wow, that's a really good point. The guest star doesn't have a name. Exactly. I didn't realize that until this viewing. Like, what is his name? How did Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein miss a time to give someone a weird name? I know. It's very strange. I didn't know he didn't have a name until I was looking it up for notes of like, oh, I shouldn't just put Willem Dafoe in the notes here, so I'll put his name. The Commandant? What? Well, it was like I was listening to the Canine Mutiny

episode just a few days ago, and they didn't name the blind guy. It was just blind guy. Yeah. They just were losing steam. So I get get it though we we said this on the grimes episode but this this i'd kind of change positions like this episode i might think would feel a little less dry if it wasn't how they close a very good season of season eight you know yeah there was one other thing i meant to mention about faulkner is that she went on to when she left she became an english teacher and that her college was all paid for by the writer of the prince of tides novel he really committed to pay for her college he felt he felt bad for her what was happening to her and lowenstein

and and i do feel bad for her too and that she was facing the kind of death threats that in a pre-social media age nobody really knew about now now we all get to enjoy people had to work harder to make death threats back then too turns out that nothing has really changed all that much i mean back in the day people just sent email like actual letters with little magazine letters cut out uh like serial killers so they had to work a little harder yeah you had to actually it was like uh i'm gonna send a death uh i'm so tired i mean the death threats i get in my dms are just like very boring poorly spelled no effort at all step it up everybody come on yeah i mean think about your father like they were sending death threats through postage stamps i mean come on yeah spend

some money all right i'm i'm worth it yeah but yeah so this episode i think another thing that hurts boy we are really jumping on this at so this episode, I think another thing that hurts, boy, we are really jumping on this at the start here, but I think another thing that hurts this episode is that it peaks in like the first four minutes. I would say the end of the first act is really what I like the most. The weirdest thing about this episode is they dwell for a very long time on her reasons for going,

and going back and forth between the police station and her being in school. And then only halfway through the episode does she finally go to the military school, which is ostensibly the point of the entire episode.

It's a really long first. It's like eight minutes, the first act. Well, that's another sign of a tired writing staff that they front load the first act when they're like,

because the first act usually is unrelated to the plot. So if you're not as interested in the plot, then let's procrastinate on starting that plot. All the best laughs are in the first half and then the second half is much more heartfelt well this opening here is my favorite bit of the episode because this this feels like what bill and josh did their entire tenure which is they find a part of

springfield that hasn't really been explored before the police station in this case and really explore it like they had been to the we've seen inside the police station in this case and really explore it. Like they had been to the, we've seen inside the police station before, like when guys are gambling about squirrels and pants or banner shows up. Yeah. But that badge out of your mouth, but we don't get the full tour of the place until here. And this also,

I think this has to be the first time the chief Wiggum and, and a Krabappel have ever had a conversation before. Hello. Hello? Hello? We're here for the field trip. Sorry, sorry. Boy, it's getting harder and harder to make it here by 10. We'll start the tour in a second.

I've just got to check the answering machine. Can't anybody in this town take the lawn to their own hands? This is the first time I realize that he comes in with the siren blaring because he had it going the entire way there so he could run traffic lights. I didn't realize that was a joke. That's a good thing. And also the listeners can't see it, but the key for the police station is under the doormat.

And also I don't think, even in a small town, I don't think the police station closes, right? Like, somebody should always be there. Yeah, right? I always love good old incompetent Wiggins. Oh, yeah, that's great. And him shaving, too. I was like, I never even thought of Wiggum as a person who needs to shave. Just so soft and fleshy.

That he just so callously deletes all the messages on the answering machine about crimes. It's funny because when I was watching the scene, I thought or just literally listening to you guys talk about this scene made me think about the episode where Marge becomes a cop.

And how she was kind of breaking barriers in that episode as well because she's like, I'm going to be a cop. All right. And how she was kind of breaking barriers in that episode as well, because she's like, I'm going to be a cop. And everybody just starts laughing at her for a very long time. She's like, oh, you're serious. Okay. Wow, yeah. She gets-

Welcome aboard. It's more just, in that one, it goes even faster of just like, ha ha ha. Anyway, yes, welcome aboard. Yeah. She faces no discrimination until after that. But then, of course, Homer treats her like crap the entire episode. She's not a real cop in Homer's eyes. But yeah, then after this, we get what?

The Museum of Crime is my line of the episode. Me too. Okay, let's make it official with the jingle. That's the joke. Gather around, kids. We're about to enter the museum. Museums of crime. Now, what I am about to show you next may shock and educate you.

Hold on to your values as we step through the looking glass into a hippie pot party. While Johnny Welfare plays acid rock on a stolen guitar, his old lady has a better idea. That's right. She's got the munchies for a California cheeseburger. What episode was it that Joe Friday and all them come on to the Simpsons? Oh, Mother Simpson, right? Yeah.

I used to watch Dragnet back in the day. Yes, I did. I think I did. I think I did, too. And they were always like, at the time, I did not appreciate that they were busting hippies and everything. So this is very much like that. It's like, oh, the hippies, they're smoking pot. Meanwhile, their kids are drowning in the bathtub. What do you think about that? I looked this up.

It's a real urban legend that a babysitter, the story is a babysitter took acid and then put the baby in the oven uh it was a turkey or something i'd heard uh and microwave it doesn't matter it never happened urban legend but actually it did happen uh there are there are instances of that happening but it wasn't lsd it was like one was like a three-year-old put his like baby sister in the oven while their mom went out to get a pizza or something like that uh one person was drunk another person had mental problems so there was never LSD involved. There's at least Wikipedia. If you want to go to the baby microwaving section on Wikipedia, there's three entries. No, no, I don't think I will. Come on, guys. I'm gonna put a link in the notes. I heard that urban legend first from

the comic Dork by Evan Dorkin, because he had a whole thing about this urban legend and how how attractive it was to kids in the 70s to tell because it was it was perfect to get born out of a fear of drugs that in the post in the post 60s uh years of just like no you should be terrified of this i'm thinking of uh the strangers with candy series the great series strangers with candy and they would take all of those over lunches and make them real like one of the ones that's in the first episode is like a girl a high school girl like thinks she's a butterfly and tries to fly through the keyhole of a door and kills herself yeah and that was an urban legend like somebody thought they were a bug or a fairy and they tried to go through a keyhole because they were on acid in one of those real

after-school specials that strangers with candy was making fun of i believe it was helen hunt in one of her first roles plays a girl who thinks she can fly on lsd and jumps through a window that might have been angel dust but yeah she did go through a window well i love california cheeseburger yeah name too it's so great because it implies the fear of california and californians eat babies yeah oh. Oh, boy. I've been flying a lot recently and flying back to California a lot and I usually will get a drink

before the flight and boy, there was a lot of talk about how much people hate California, how afraid they are, how they don't want to go there. California.

It's a big state, everybody. There's assholes there. Yeah. You can hang out with them. If you really want, just go to Fresno. It's cool. Yeah.

The best economy in the country and the best fruit and vegetables. Oh best uh weed bro and also we have a police state too you can be yeah come on i love about the barely hidden politicization of this museum of crime to johnny welfare johnny welfare i mean i love how outdated it is that's the funny part is like i mean it's from the 60s right but it's in this episode, it's the 90s. That's like 30 years after friggin' hippies. That installation has been there for a while. I mean, I told you, I was watching Dragnet on Nick at Night

and going, whoa, hippies, okay, whatever. Like, I mean, we didn't have a friggin', hippies were our parents by then, so. I love how that ridiculously long spliff is taped to the face so on the museum of crime front i actually went to a museum of crime when i was in school yeah but this one was actually the it was the liquor smuggling tunnels under saint paul oh that's cool yeah which is where all the gangsters are because apparently in saint paul the mayor had a deal with

all the gangsters like john d Dillinger, all that. Come to our city. We'll give you safe cover. You can do all the bootlegging you want, but you had to do all, commit all your crime in Minneapolis. Go across the river for that, buddy. So we got to go see all the old gangster tunnels and hear stories about how like Dillinger like was stealing things in St. Paul and all that. And all the Chicago gangsters were hanging out in the Twin Cities. It was rad.

That's fun. Yeah, that was actually a fun museum of crime. Closest I had to this was the, which I'm sure both of you guys had too, of the cop coming to your class for dare and giving you these kind of scary stories as well. They actually brought in somebody who was in rehab for us.

Oh man, we didn't get that. Who got to tell us all the scary stories about being a drug addict. Our cop just told us about how he had stopped smoking because he had a heart attack or something and then he also the one part i really remember this had almost nothing to do with dare and only about fearing the police had nothing to do with drugs but he told one student to flip him off in walk by him and call call a pig. And the student was so scared. He's like, he like half lifted a middle finger. He's like, hey, pig.

And he walks away. I smell bacon. And the D.A.R.E. officer then stopped and he's like, did you know, actually, a middle finger in old Roman times meant a good thing. And being called a pig means, I was like, that's not how you would actually react to that. Actually, when I'm told I smell like bacon, I enjoy bacon. It's a compliment. God. It was really just about intimidating us.

And there's Friends of the Show, Citations Needed, had a really good podcast just recently about cop propaganda like that. California Cheeseburger, one of my favorite. And just how fake that baby is and how the giant unhinged jaw of the hippie girl, too. With the hoagie bread and everything. Oh, yes. I wonder if they wanted to get a license song for that scene, though. I mean, when do you think that exhibit was built? That exhibit must have been around since before Wiggin was actually in charge.

Maybe the 70s. I would bet Nixon era that got built. And it's just obviously they wouldn't get new money to change the museum of crime which that takes up a lot of space in this uh this police station too probably could be used better i mean it just exemplifies wiggum's incompetence because he has this museum of crime but he hasn't actually updated it to things that we were scared of in the 90s like black people that's well that would be too overt. Gang violence.

There we go. Super predators. Actually, that's another of my favorite running Simpsons gags, where when he goes to the museum, of crime, yay! It's when you get the perfect reaction from kids, like of the delivery of something like,

this is going to surprise you when I say of crime, and then they all give you the exact reaction. I mean that if you had been in that class and you were that age you would have cheered i mean you have a crime that's fun i would have i would have gone with the flow of being in the police station sure yeah that's true i just remembered something that happened to me we had a sort of a scared straight thing it wasn't like prisoners talking to us but we took a field trip to juvenilevenile Detention Center. Whoa. And now that I think about it, that's incredibly fucked up that they did that to us. You could be like, these assholes drop out.

Yeah. Sorry, kids. It'll get better. I mean, you were growing up in Youngstown. But I was on the good side of the tracks. Oh, there you go. They had to make sure you stayed that way. Yeah.

You didn't get in with the wrong crowd. I was paying, my parents were paying money to send me to private school. I don't think I was in any danger of actually joining a gang. Although they were so worried about that. I mean, well, because the news told them so, like you're all joining violence gangs.

That's just how it goes. Oh yeah, many violence gangs. Meanwhile, Lisa couldn't be more bored. And this is like the laziest Miss Hoover has ever been, I think. The,

uh, it's really well observed that those educational film strips would end with a bad stop motion the end yeah i like that a lot on sand and that this clearly propaganda for sand they admit that it makes for sand they admit it makes low grade windshields yeah that's bad propaganda you should be saying you make good windshields and then they start up the trip to the moon the moon for several years she has fascinated many but will man ever walk on her fertile surface democratic hopeful adlai stevenson says so i have no objection to man walking on the moon. By 1964, experts say man will have established 12 colonies on the moon, ideal for family vacations.

Once there, you'll weigh only a small percentage of what you weigh on Earth. Slow down, Tubby. You're not on the moon yet. The moon belongs to America and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-man. Will you be among them? There is so much to love about this film strip. The only thing it could have better had would be if Troy McClure were narrating it. They missed a big opportunity there by not having it.

You're going to have a short film, have Troy McClure in it. This is very funny though, but it's just like we only have so many, there's like months of Phil Hartman left on this planet. Yeah, well. Get him in something. I can see why they didn't because this is basically set in 1953 and Troy McClure. Oh yeah, I meant like make a different short

with him in it. Yeah, I guess their choice was a Troy McClure, another Troy McClure one, or they can set it in the 50s but that means no troy mcclure god the trips to the moon stuff it's also funny i forgot that this it was actually in this one and it's always been one of my all-time favorite simpsons gags because i love cold war stuff in general i love that it's it was made in 1952 which was like five years before sputnik got launched. I love that it's Department of Moon. I love that. I love the, by 1964, we will have 12 colonies. I like the moon dad catching a moon babe while fishing.

And the moon belongs to America. That statement too, I like it a lot. And Adlai Stevenson is just inherently funny because he was the Al Gore of the 1950s, which is to say that he was a great man, actually. And he was the one during the Cuban Missile Crisis who said, don't wait for the translation, answer me here, to the Russians. Oh, wow. Yeah, like he was actually kind of a badass in that particular sequence. But he was not very good at running a political campaign,

which made him a lot like Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. He lost to Eisenhower twice which he lost to the celebrities he lost to eisenhower and then in 1960 he was like i really hope that they'll give me the nomination come on ask me about the nomination they're like ali no he lost the future stinging and battery show guest ike eisenhower yes yeah let's get busy i mean if you've got John F. Kennedy looking at you in the face, him versus a milquetoast balding guy who already lost twice, I'd go with Kennedy, too. See, this is why our society sucks, because Adlai Stevenson, by all accounts, was an amazing guy,

like extremely smart, kind of academic, kind of a wimpy nerd. But of course, we're not going to... Progressive for his time, too. We're not going to elect the guy who's kind of a wimpy nerd. No, we're going to get the celebrity. We want the general. We got the guy who looks good on camera come on which one of these guys beat hitler huh i'm gonna i'm gonna go with that guy yeah i don't care if richard nixon is his running mate uh yeah it's he he's a fun dweeby dude i the only thing i really know about his temperament is that peter sellers based his president in Doctor Strangelove on Adlai Stevenson.

It basically is set in a universe where he won instead of Kennedy. So we would have all died. Yeah, they are saying that President Muffley is kind of a wuss. Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is a war room. No fighting. No, I'm good too. Well, how do you think I feel? I can't believe Strangelove is coming up again after Kat's first episode or second.

Dr. Strangelove, Star Trek. We haven't hit Star Trek yet. Get to sports and we'll shoot the moon. The Sentence will be right back. Mmm, what a tasty California cheeseburger. Oh, hi! I didn't see you guys there. Want to thank you for listening to this week's episode of Talking Simpsons, and a special big thank you to our guest kat bailey you should definitely be checking out all the cool stuff she

does as editor-in-chief at the website us gamer they just posted a ton of their best of the year content and did you know that me and bob do this full-time thanks to the support of wonderful people on patreon.com talking simpsons those members of the talking simpsons network help me and bob do this every week for you folks and for just five dollars a month not only does it keep me and bob going but it also lets you hear next week's episode a week ahead of time and ad free and the same goes for our other podcast what a cartoon where each week we go through a different animated series in the talking simpsons style if you sign up for $5 a month as a subscriber, not only will you get access to that, but also all of our amazing interviews and exclusive content.

You can hear interviews with Simpsons veterans like Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, Mike Reese, Dan Graney, David Silverman, Mark Kirkland, Nell Scovel, Mimi mimi pond and so many more and for five dollars subscribers you'll also get to listen to our exclusive limited series on there as well such as talking critic podcast where me and bob go through every episode of the critic including those webisodes and talking futurama where we went through the entire first season of futururama for you listeners. And you can find all of that only at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. And at $10 a month, you'll get access to our monthly What a Cartoon Movie podcast, where you can hear me and Bob talk about a different animated film each month, like Batman Mask of the Phantasm and Kiki's Delivery Service.

Consider becoming a subscriber to the TalkingSimpsons network today and visit patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Once you're finished with the Eliminator, the perfect way to relax would be seeing Talking Simpsons do a live podcast on January 16th in downtown San Francisco. Me and Bob are doing SF Sketch Fest for our second year ever, and boy is it going to be a lot of fun. We'll be doing a live episode about the Principal and the Pauper. Yes, the Armin Tamzerian episode is going to be happening live right there, and me and Bob have the perfect guest for it. Allie Gertz and Julia Prescott of Everything's Coming Up Simpsons will be joining us for the discussion.

It'll be a Simpsons crossover event. We'll have fun, surprises, clips, all of that. The episode will go on the regular feed as usual. But if you want to be there live to see the fun, get going before they sell out. You can check out the schedule for yourself at sfsketchfest.com and get your tickets soon before they sell out. That's January 16th, a Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Gateway Theater in downtown San Francisco. We will see you there. and also the imagined moon 100 reminds me of the whalers on the moon section oh for sure the moon is just inherently funny i mean we were talking about aquatine hunger for us in another episode

them saying we're from the moon oh that's immediately funny the moon it's hilarious there are 5 000 dimensions on the moon the moon is such a funny concept because it used to be so mystical to us and it's still you know like what 18 people have ever gone on the moon not a lot and now it's just so boring. Yeah, it's a moon. Yeah, it's a moon, whatever. I'm interested in Jupiter. The moon's boring. When the film strip ends, Hoover's just gone. She just abandoned 30 children at school.

She gets no exit line either. It's like when the strike happened and she was like, go home, children. This time she couldn't even be bothered to do that. It's shocking. She really hates her job. I feel bad for her.

I've never had a teacher who hates her job that much, thankfully. She seems too bored to even try to be funny in this episode. When you're that poorly paid, and all of your children are that dumb, and seemingly you're teaching the same grade over and over again until the end of eternity. And you're also dealing with

untreated mental stuff that's causing you to think you have Lyme disease. Do you think Springfield's hell because she's just stuck teaching that same class forever uh well yeah they've they've graduated this is one of their many graduations from a grade the third one by my i mean kerbopple did go to heaven so she's fine now okay that's true she's free she escaped the mortal coil uh but this is another of my favorite lines here I had forgotten that this was the scene Where Skinner talks about Less intelligent students

Where's Miss Hoover? Hey, her car's gone Maybe she drove to the moon Good Ralph line It's not my nature to complain But so far today We've had three movies Two film strips

And an hour and a half of magazine time. I just don't feel challenged. Of course we could make things more challenging, Lisa, but then the stupider students would be in here complaining, furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the situation. I really enjoyed magazine time at my schools. I mean, we didn't have magazine time, thankfully. But we did have book reading time, so step above, I guess. You couldn't read comic books, though.

They had to be real books. Really? You couldn't read... I mean, we just read Goosebumps, and those are barely books. I mean, those are technically still books, though. Those are the trick. I could read a Goosebumps book in one sitting. Yeah.

Same with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles prose adventure I read, where they went a teenage mutant ninja turtles prose adventure i read where they went into outer space a prose adventure i don't think it was actually called that but it was i'm just saying it was one of those ones where like there's a there's a drawing every 20 pages but then otherwise it's all writing about the turtles in space well we all talked about being obnoxious gifted kids or a lot on this podcast before. And I remember just because you would go to your special outside of the school gifted trailer that you had to do your stuff in and play Carmen Sandiego in. The gifted trailer. The gifted trailer, yes. That was just outside of school property because you were too smart to be on school grounds, I guess.

And then when you go back to normal classes, you get a test in a period, and then you have like 40 minutes of that period to read a book. Like, oh, I'm done with this test. And I'm looking at the kids like, you're still doing this? How dumb are you? Yeah, you know, gifted classes were a blessing and a curse, I think. I am glad I had them because I would have been very unchallenged in classes. When I got to go into gifted classes because I just could do the multiple, when they introduced addition, subtraction, and then multiplication, I just did it it instantly all the other kids couldn't do it that fast and

that's when they started letting me apply to the or they accepted me in the gifted program but then after I did it it was just like well this gave me too much like uh too much confidence honestly or at least not confidence, expectations. And they also put a target on you a little bit of just like, well, this kid thinks he's better than you, huh? Get them some guff. Well, it just goes to show what a bummer our school system is, that Lisa really is actually extremely gifted and totally deserves to be challenged as much as she can. But of course she can't be because there's no budget and the teachers are extremely underpaid. I mean, she's borderline a college student based on how much she's able to do. She will later be able to pose as a college student because of how much knowledge she has. That's right, yeah. I mean, when I was in high school, there were people who were literally

going to college and getting college credit because they were just so far beyond any of the major classes that were being offered at our school i was lucky at my high school they had ap classes so i could take ap for english we had ap classes i'm saying that they were so good that they were literally just like we're going she's going to the university she's taking chemistry there wow yeah i mean something i don't as an ex-gifted kid something i I don't like in online communities now is just the idea of like, well, by being smarter than everyone, I'm better. Just this kind of elitism or just also this obsession with IQ points. No one gets Rick and Morty like me. I hate that shit.

The burden of being intelligent. And so this kind of joke is a little snobbish now i don't like it as much but i do really love how skinner just like almost his pity for the unintelligent kids like furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand what's going on the joke is on skinner because he doesn't care he doesn't care about lisa he doesn't care about the kids who are struggling he just doesn't care though this also does come from a very kind of uh fountainhead way of saying like well we have to keep everybody the same yeah like which uh that's i would think that is wait is that the fountainhead because you would think that lisa would be the one there's

like we gotta raise lisa up because she's amazing well the enemies that is the final message of the fountainhead but the villain in the fountainhead says that if a blade of glass grows too tall you have to cut it down it's the same we have the same principle here can't draw build too high i learned that from the fountainhead parody they did in the simpsons in one of their storybook episodes which lisa does preface by saying we're going to read an ayn rand book she influenced modern Republicanism. That sucks. But anyway, yeah, I do like the line of him just hating his dumber students, which he could try harder to let them learn something.

It's funny because Skinner really likes, on the one hand, being the principal is his whole identity, also being the son of his mother, I guess. But on the other hand, he's extremely cynical about it he doesn't really care some days he cares a lot other days he doesn't well he's just a really boring guy so what else is he gonna do i guess i guess this is my job and i mean this is very important to me and i want to be a very good principal but screw these kids though also he's a member of Mensa, so maybe that's where his intellectual snobbishness comes from, too. Oh, you're right.

Yeah. Revealed later. So, meanwhile, Bart and the rest of the kids learn about the Comru. We're now in the communications room, or the Comru. This is a police radio. The single most important piece of equipment in the Comru. This is a police radio. The single most important piece of equipment in the Comru. As you can see, some of the boys like to put their banana stickers all over it. There's Chiquita.

There's Del Monte. There's a Bonanco. Gorilla's Choice. Now, everyone follow me to my chair, where I just need to get off my feet for a few minutes. Oh, I won't be getting up soon. Standing for two hours. I just got that joke about the com-roo. I didn't get it till this one either.

I didn't even hear that until this clip, that he was also abbreviating room. It depends so much on enunciation that if you just think he's saying room you don't hear it yeah that's why i was like when i was watching this like for the 43rd time i was like well where's the joke here what like what is the joke why is he saying this is it just because it's so obvious i thought that was a joke before when i thought he was just saying this is the communications room or the comm room it's like yeah you didn't make that up and then yeah like we don't need the abbreviation so com rube makes it the first three letters of each word so it's like yeah you didn't make that up and then yeah like we don't need the abbreviation so comru makes it the first three letters of each word so it's which is very confusing and

i also love those banana stickers they're all really good well designed bananko gorilla's choice gorilla's choice is my favorite the red and blue gorilla uh red white and blue gorilla is just a cool i'd buy a sticker of a Gorilla's Choice banana sticker for sure. Somebody spent a lot of time designing those banana stickers. That's what they get paid the big bucks for in the production side of things. I wanted more names. They don't really have more names visible than what's listed. Hey, you know, in an episode where they couldn't name the guest star character,

I'm happy that they could think of those many bananas. They sure didn't spend hours agonizing over the name like they have on shop titles or whatever. Yeah, that's true. Well, yeah, you're right. They named like four banana companies where they couldn't name the character in this episode. It's odd. Well, much like Police Chief Wigga, maybe they're just very tired and they need to get off their feet for a bit and not think about that stuff. I'm not getting up anytime soon.

I wish we'd seen it though one of the funniest things always is the uh wigum just trying to get up on his own strength and cans and uh now actually i i meant to say during the moon thing this this making fun of overweight people reminded me of the uh the the meanness of the joke to the fat kid also is so great oh yeah it's just like in 50s stuff where they would make fun of overweight kids which you could never do you it's it's mean and irresponsible but in an old disney thing they just do that yeah fat kids love armor hot dogs i love how long it takes mark to figure out he wants to do the thing with the making back and forth back and forth and back and forth and uh i also love the kid math of it which is well if this megaphone doubles up the sound of another megaphone then exponentially louder these megaphones shall get if i may talk like yoda um but that is not how it would happen in reality you're telling me this is made up it

is they just they just made it up for a cartoon. I can't take Simpsons seriously anymore. We could have all assumed this isn't actually how it would work. I knew when I was like 15 watching this, man. But how would we really know until a YouTube scientist tested it out, guys? This was not on Mythbusters? You know, it may have been. But I know this was tested in 2017 by the YouTuber The Backyard Scientist

in a video that has 18 million views. So this went pretty viral. He paid for all those bullhorns. Thank God for YouTube. So he bought 10 bullhorns, lined them all up, though I will say not hanging on their own. There's a little space between each of them. And when he does it, I'm not going to play it because it just sounds horrible he finds out that it just causes a feedback loop

and it's just a ton of very awful feedback to hear but based on his like sound measuring device on decibels it only raises it by one decibel from 80 to 81 i I mean, it's obvious, but the final bullhorn in that human centipede you've got going on there, it can only be so loud, no matter how loud the sound going into it is. So that's true of every bullhorn in the chain. I've debunked this! Well, here's his full

explanation. So, Sandra says it didn't sound any louder down there, but it sounded a lot more distorted. You know, the power supply in there can only amplify the sound so much. think that's what's happening and instead of amplifying the sound it's actually just distorting the sound 10 times until by the time it gets to the last one it just feed back and garbled jarvage so there there you go it's just yeah power supply can't get any louder plus the sound too in air can't get much louder either unless you're going to have like a concussive explosion which is what bart does yeah and also i found out that

apparently it's easier to amplify sound in water than in the air much easier you actually that like say if you're if you happen to be by a submarine while it sends out the sonar ping that sound would kill you it's that strong like yeah and that's uh why some people think whales beach themselves is because they hear that sound from sonar and they're like shit fuck i'm scared and they just swim into the out of the ocean that's that's more things that the guy revealed just watch the little video guys look it up the backyard scientist so there there's the real answer that the megaphones would not work and he's not a nazi yet right oh boy i should i didn't do a milkshake test on this

guy he's a famous youtuber we can't know for sure he filmed a video with a girl so that feels like it turns down the the chance a little bit you know who had a girlfriend than at least one person then you know who else had a girlfriend? Adolf Hitler. But not a wife. The connection is proven. And when Bart sets it off, the shockwave that sends him back also really reminds me of Back to the Future. Oh, yeah. That's right. Okay, cool.

Actually, let's hear the explosive effect. Whenever I see a non-violent parrot joke, I always think like Bob, Bob, Bob likes that one. Those parrots enjoyed that sound. They didn't die. They showed a lot of restraint by not having the parrots explode or something like that. Right? They survived a lot better than Homer's beer.

Yeah. Which the animation on the beer exploding in his hand, it's pretty cool how it just pops out of both sides so it doesn't cut up his hand. My question was, the kids are on field trips or whatever. Why is Homer at home drinking a beer? I guess he just, does he even go to work anymore, Bob? That's true. We don't need an excuse. Lenny sent him home to think about what he did. It could have happened on the same day.

Well, the timeline on this episode is interesting, too, because they go on this field trip, then they come in the middle of the semester, so Bart and Lisa spend a couple months there, too, at the Military Academy. Yeah, we come back and it's just a shockwave that's been going through the town for hours at least it's like an emp wave or something or or like um

after an earthquake these are the aftershocks of just the sound or if there was a nuke there would have be the big shockwave that shattered all the windows and killed all of the electronics that's basically what bart did yeah yeah i mean, for as terrible as it sounds, the sound design on this is amazing, especially in the scene of just the feedback afterwards. Someone had to create that. Like, what would this sound like? And they had to create it.

I cut a little bit of it, but slight warning to listeners here. You will hear it for the joke at the start of this next clip. When do you expect the ringing will stop? In about 10 to 15 seconds. I certainly hope so. That's better. Now about your punishment,

young man. I know. I'll go to my room and think about what I did. No, no. Your room is full of toys. You're going to the garage. You're the boss.

I tell you, Chief, I just don't know what we're going to do with him. You know going to the garage. You're the boss. I tell you, Chief, I just don't know what we're going to do with him. You know, you do have options. For example, there are behavior-modifying drugs. How would it argue to the Bart you know? Not very. No! No drugs! Bart just

needs a little discipline. Uh, hey, what about military school? It set my brother straight. Now he owns and needs a little discipline. Hey, what about military school? It set my brother straight. Now he owns and operates a famous cave. Hmm, you know, maybe Chief Wickham is right. Military school is a good idea. I like that. It's such a good throwaway line.

Famous cave. Famous cave. Owns and operates. I guess we were on the precipice of the idea of over-medicating children. Yeah. And there would be an episode about this. One of the few written by George Meyer. We're a few years away from the Ritalin episode.

I feel like we were already there. It's just that pop culture picked up on it a few years later. Was in the zeitgeist enough for them to suggest it for Bart. I mean, I love his how wedded to you are you to the Bart you know. Not very. Well, South Park taught me you just need to hit kids and they'll pay attention. That's the way, dude.

Oh, is that the answer? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, really. It was really in the middle. Another piece of South Park wisdom dropped on us for it. The concept, though, definitely feels like a very old school one that, like, my parents never threatened me with this, but this was, like, in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

If you piss me off again, I'm sending you to military school. I'm going to send you to military school. It was the classic threat, but upon thinking about it, that would be very expensive and it would require a lot of follow-through. Well, now in China,

if a kid is quote-unquote addicted to video games, they will get sent to basically military school where they have to go and do major exercises they're gone for months it's basically prison i mean they're not paying for children yeah yeah it was a it's a big story yeah during the uh the citadel stuff we talked about earlier i we didn't really mention this but that was in the much more peaceful 90s where we were making fun of the military and we're thinking like what are they even doing anymore so the idea of anyone being rejected for military service just seems pretty silly now they want any warm body it's like we got like 34 wars going on you're absolutely true

unfortunately yeah people are going on like 10 tours of duty yeah yeah it's ridiculous actually the burnout is incredible i mean well we're in a state of perpetual war yeah i had to laugh later in the episode when he refers to the current time as peace time he's like i don't like hearing that from a cadet at peace time which is like oh yeah i guess it was i mean except that we were in bosnia but yeah we've never not been bombing somebody but but comparatively to the afghanistan and iraq it's kind of it's in fact i think that was the year, roughly, that we were starting to bomb Serbia. So. Good.

Well, that's how Bill Clinton. It begins. Bill Clinton showed he was a tough guy then. Yeah. That, I, Marge has some really, she's light in this episode, but I think she has a lot of funny lines in this. Like she would, her like, that's better.

Like she has just a lot of good dead pants in this and it's a really funny line of they could have just ended with owns and operates is a famous cave but then marge hearing that information that should scare her away from putting bart in military school she said goes wiggum's right that's a great idea any future is a good future for bar that's not behind bars or you know in the gutter owning and operating a famous cave is a good future for Bart that's not behind bars or in the gutter. Owning and operating a famous cave is a pretty good future for Bart. I always took that to mean that Wiggum's dressing up the idea that

his brother is a hermit who lives in a cave. A crazy person living in a cave. That's what I took it to mean. I didn't read it like that. There's a cave you can visit and he just runs the gift shop or whatever. I've been to caves. It's all over the Pacific Northwest.

Are they famous? Some of them weren't so famous, but somebody operated them. I once, my family visited a cave on a vacation, like a cross country trip. And I was so scared at the idea of getting trapped in that cave that even two steps into it,

I was like, nope, not doing that. Nope, I'll die in this cave. I'll be trapped forever like i think caves are rad oh they're too scary for me that movie about the about the monsters that are that attack the women who are going uh spelunking ego there are no monsters in the cave no no the scariest part to that movie is when she's stuck wiggling through a hole and she almost dies and freaks out. I'm like, this is horrifying.

Well, there was that Thai soccer team that was stuck in the cave not too long ago. Yeah, no, that... Well, in that case, they weren't... Yeah, that also scares me. But that's where they had to just swim forever instead of... So it's not the tight space so much as...

Elon Musk rescued them, didn't you see? He sent a coffin to them, which was very nice of him And then he called One of the actual rescuers a pedophile Which was pretty cool He's like the Iron Man Some would say that those are the actions

Of a person addicted to cocaine But not me That would be He enjoys California cheeseburgers He could afford to cook any babies with his celery. Oh, I mean, he can bake all the babies he wants. So they're tricking a bard here with Disneyland is also quite funny. I do like this.

Wow, I can't believe we're going to Disneyland. Hey, where's all your luggage? Hooray! You dream about this day for so long. Then when it comes, you don't know what to say. Edna, your tears say more than words ever could. Military school? You lied to me.

Well, I'm sorry if you heard, Disneyland, but I distinctly said military school. It's nice to see a callback to Edna and Skinner's newer relationship. It feels like the first time since grade school confidential they've really done a joke about their coupledom, I think. Yeah. And, of course, that will figure very heavily in a couple episodes. Oh, yeah. Best episode yet.

Yeah, at our big live show show January 16th In San Francisco With our guests Allie Gertz And Julia Prescott Come on down I'll be there Wednesday Oh boy

Yeah Have you got your tickets now? They might sell out soon Oh my god I better go get them right now You need to get that ticket now You'll totally get me in the door right? We can't make any promises

Oh my god Honestly You're gonna leave me out on the street Freezing in San Francisco With California cheeseburgers? Man. It'll be a California cheeseburger in no time. At the last venue, I put people on a list, but nothing happened.

They just had the dignity of being on a list, I guess, was their reward. Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah. But you listeners should get your tickets right now. You can't get on a list like Cat can. Anyway, so. I also, I swear my parents did do that. I distinctly said this when they totally lied to you type thing.

I feel like this is a sitcom joke that I've seen somewhere where they're like, oh, we're taking you to Disney World. Ah, just kidding. You're going somewhere horrible. It's a good joke, but not good enough to be a callback at the end of the episode. Yeah, not a fan of that i do like that bart is so overwhelmed by the excitement of disneyland that he doesn't notice the obvious tells that no one else is going to disneyland and that also skinner and edna are right across the street from him watching him leave he should really pick up on that there's not a ton of great commentary on this one but i I actually do like that Yardley Smith on the commentary goes,

how did Bart not see them right across the street? And the animators go like, you know. The car was blocking the way. Sure. Disneyland excitement was blinding him. I mean, Disneyland's a lot of fun. We've both gone to Disneyland this year. I just went there.

Bart is not a smart kid. It's true. Just like straight up. He is not a smart kid. Of course Just like straight up He is not a smart kid Of course he missed them It actually doesn't make sense That Lisa came with them To drop him off

Yeah it's weird I mean what were they gonna do Leave him at home Leave her at home They can leave Lisa at home She can babysit others She can babysit herself I mean I guess

But it sounds like It was kind of a long drive Wait where was Maggie Was she in the car Of course she was Yeah Maggie's there too She closes the scene with a sock later. Right, okay.

But, so, they arrive at Romelwood. There's a great sign gag of a tradition of marriage. Which, by the way, Romelwood's a great name. That's good. Yeah, it is. Yeah, let's name him after a Nazi Germany from North Africa. I mean, granted, he was a good Nazi, but, I mean, come on. I've had to hear from a lot of dad types that he's a respectable Nazi or something,

which I'm just like, who cares? Well, put it this way. He has a museum dedicated to him in Germany, and you're not going to find many Nazis that have museums in Germany. He drove the hell out of that tank. He did try to kill Hitler. Yeah, they bring that up on the commentary

as like their cover for doing a joke about a Nazi. He tried to kill Hitler. That was their excuse for Macraening when he asked about it. He's in the room. Maybe Macraening gave them a look like, I told you no more Nazi jokes. Founded in 1812, which, by the way, was totally a war that we lost.

Well, we don't like to think about that. They did kind of burn down Washington. Yeah, but they were so afraid they ran away. Nobody talks about the fact that we lost to Canada in that war. That was Canada. Actually, we didn't want the White House because it was haunted. No, I never think I, as Americans, they don't really teach you a ton about 1812. No, because we lost that one.

In Canada, I think they take a little pride in that. I was in Vancouver and I went to the Museum of the War of 1812 expecting some really good shit talk. I was really looking forward to it. And Canada was like, and now we're best friends with America. And that was a really well-fought war. I'm like, come on.

Come on, Canada. Just for once. Good sportsmanship on both sides. So, we meet the Commandant. And that's how we'll mold your boy into a productive member of society through an intensive program of push-ups and formation marching. Well, it certainly was nice of you to accept Bart in the middle of the semester. Fortunately, we've had a couple of recent freak-outs,

so that freed up a couple of bunks. Freak-outs? If that happens, are we still charged for the entire semester? Our high standards challenge students to reach their full potential. Look at how disciplined they are. They're just like the terracotta warriors of Xi'an. They sure are. That's not so disciplined They're just children Mr. Simpson

I guess Truth is beauty, beauty truth sir They're discussing poetry Oh we never do that at my school But the truth can be harsh and disturbing How can that be considered beautiful I sure suck the fun out of that poem It's a very Marge line.

But again, Marge never gets the joke close to a scene line. But throwing rocks at children feels like a real early jerk-ass Homer. But it's so funny. I do. It actually feels more like a Merkin cruelty joke. It's a very mean joke. I always like when Lisa says something extremely smart and knowledgeable and Homer's like, yeah,

I totally agree with you. Yeah. Terracotta Warriors of Xi'an, totally. And yes, and his guest Willem Dafoe there, who was pretty famous in 97. I'd say his biggest roles at that time,

he had been a supporting actor in The English Patient in 1996, and also received his own share of death threats for starring in the 1988 The Last Temptation of Christ as the Jesus Christ who fucks. Whoa. Have you guys not seen The Last Temptation of Christ? No, I forgot he was. I never did, but I knew that it was pretty, I mean, infamous in the same way as like a lot of these other things that mess with religion yeah it's uh i mean the book was infamous too it's an interesting film it was martin scorsese dealing with like being a you know uh pot a cocaine addicted guy in the 80s who also had a strict Catholic upbringing and was trying to

get his punk rock teens with his strict Catholic upbringing. And the interesting thing in The Last Temptation of Christ is the last temptation is that when he's on the cross, the devil appears to tempt him one more time with, here's what a regular man's life would be. And you don't have to die here. You don't have to be the son of God. You don't have to be any of this shit. You can just marry Mary Magdalene and just be guy and uh and part of that is him fathering children and there is one moment of like the camera's far away but he is having sex with mary too just to make it clear and for that there were literal bomb threats at theaters are you serious because i mean it's the freaking devil's temptation it's not like he's actually saying

actually alternate history jesus f mary yeah it's still freaking devil's temptation. It's not like he's actually saying, actually, alternate history, Jesus F. Mary. Yeah, it still depicts it and that pisses folks off. But yeah, it was. Okay. That temptation, spoilers for the end of that movie, but. Spoiler alert, oh my God. That temptation, which for him is more like a dream, but it feels like he lives the rest of his life. On his deathbed, Judas comes back.

Also in the film judas played by harvey kytel is actually the good guy uh and he's the one telling him like harvey kytel is judas is amazing oh and he doesn't do he has his accent the entire time i love it yes and he's the one who points out to jesus that like no that's the devil you idiot he's like oh no oh my god i just figured it out put Put me back on the cross. And so they do. Also, they did a choice to be historically accurate in the movie. Like he's, you actually, well, you don't see his genitals, but he is nude on the cross to just to have it be accurate. He's all man. When I was looking at the Simpsons wiki, it said Willem Dafoe is

best known for his role as the villain in spider-man i was like is he really the best known is that his best known role i don't think so i know him as the hero in antichrist oh god that movie oh so we've all seen it okay good no i just know what happens i'm not watching that uh he has had a long and extremely varied career outside of the superhero genre. But of course, if you've been in a superhero film, you are best known for being that. He's a very interesting actor who makes a lot of cool choices and still does. He, I believe, was nominated for an Oscar just last year for that film about being a Florida hotel manager. DeFoe's a really good actor. Like he's not, you know, kind of a all-time heavyweight actor,

but he can come in and basically do anything he wants. He's got a big weird skull. That's fun to look at. I mean, it's a very distinctive look. Okay, so I watched this episode not even realizing that he was the guest star. And I was watching and thinking, oh, the Commandant's kind of a distinctive and interesting character. I kind of like him.

And then I looked at it, I was like, oh, wow. Oh, kind of a distinctive and interesting character. I kind of like him. And then I looked at it and I was like, oh, wow, oh, okay. I didn't, had no idea. Like, I did not think, when I looked at that character and I did not think

Willem Dafoe. I've heard he was also really good in the best part of the live-action Death Note remake, too. What? Oh, he is in that. Oh, my God.

Who is he? Is he the detective? He's the demon, I think. He's Death Note. Yeah, he's He's the note i think he's death note yeah he's he's the note john death like i i've never read death note i come on i'm gonna i got the shonen jump app so it's part of it it's really good and so willem defoe though guys did you know he returns 18 years later to the show in season 26 blazed and confused okay where he plays a new teacher for bart because ed and his

dad and so they did some episodes about a new fourth grade teacher starts and he is a very intense man who the funniest joke in it is he says he gives a speech to skinner about how good he is at being a principal and he says and i and I didn't even give up when I got this scar. And then he's like, what scar? He's like, this one. And then he cuts into his face slightly on his cheek. And he has a scar the rest of the episode because he did that in that first scene.

Did they name that character though? Yes, yeah. He's Mr. Black. That's why he came back. But they did name him. Here though, he's good at playing a military type, which is kind of against type for him. He's played a military guy or a cop in a few movies,

but he's just so weird and strange with a very slim disposition. He's very perplexed the entire episode. Yeah, he's not a negative force on Lisa, but he's kind of dumb, or he needs to be at least a little clueless for multiple scenes in this to work, because otherwise he should just say, hey, stop bullying her, or I also don't approve of this child. Yeah, he's pretty oblivious. I mean, we don't need the typical drill sergeant type, I think. That would have been a little boring. So I think he's the main comic force in the entire second half of the episode.

And they already had Colonel Happablap. He already did Arlie Ermey with Arlie Ermey, so try something new. I like that choice. They could have brought him back. They absolutely could have, but I think the showrunners

who came after them didn't use a lot of their guests. Some of them were because they were dead. They were very old. Something more understated maybe works for this episode, I think. And the chalkboard that identifies John Keats as, parenthesis, civilian, that's a funny little gag there, too. I wonder how much they actually discuss poetry at

real military schools i mean i'm sure they take real classes and study literature because you got to be a well-rounded soldier when you're killing people you got to be able to quote poetry at the people though again i must say it's so like she's inspired by the poetry that's that's why it's necessary they have that scene where she shows how unchallenged she is in school because otherwise it really doesn't make sense that a vegetarian of lefty like lisa would join a military school especially when she knows it's a punishment for bart too and probably homer and march have to pay for this too yeah now they're paying actually yeah now they're paying double tuitions like that can't be cheap well i mean i think they're just playing on the fact that she is chronically unchallenged at Springfield Elementary.

And literally anything looks better than that, even military school. And so she's willing to put aside the fact that she knows it's all about killing people. Which, I mean, she's a little girl and she's being a little naive, I feel, about what a military academy actually entails. Like, she's going, oh, wow, we're going to sit in classrooms and we're going to study poetry and it's going to be really challenging. Oh, wait, yeah, actually I'm going to be doing push-ups and climbing ropes and crossing the eliminator. And also, I guess Lisa never pronounces,

oh, and I'm going to join the military after this, or this made me want to join the military later. That never comes up. Oh, heck no. Here's when Lisa decides to stay. So, and for the last time, you're staying at military school. And so am I. This school has everything I ever wanted.

Lisa, no. This place is just a jail for children. No jail can hold me. I like that Lisa, Marge just drops all pretense. She's like, Lisa lisa no we're putting bart in jail this is punishment it's the closest we could have to the like a death penalty for our kid is to send them to military school actually following through on that that's pretty intense but i mean obviously they've reached the point of no return with bart because he i mean even

in the way that they were punishing him and bart's going i guess i'll go up to my room and think about what i did because i mean and it's no seriousness in it at all and so when you're on your last wit i guess that's what you do also the recurring gag of him being chased by the cops and like low-speed chases are pretty funny oh yeah we missed the first one with the uh riding mower yeah which are always funny that has to be ned's riding mower. That has to be, yeah. Of course. Porter can't afford a freaking riding mower. He must have stolen it a long time ago. And one thing I noticed in a nice design-wise of the military schools,

there's multiple times when you're in the offices that you can see paintings of the school's founder, who you can recognize him from. He looks the same in the statue as he does in the paintings. Oh, really? In the Commandant's office, there's a big painting on the wall next to it. So it's an interesting choice design-wise, but it does kind of, setting the rest of the episode at a military school,

almost entirely, except for the phone calls, really, it does take energy out of the show and also color. Like, the color is children. They're gone. Yeah, you get the sort of the show and also color like the colors children they're con yeah you get the sort of drabness of color and design of a military installation or military establishment and everybody dresses the same too it's just it's a very boring kind of look to it that could be why i think it's a big part of why i think this is pretty dry after the first act because you never escape rama wood i would also venture that these are a bunch of Harvard jerks who probably have never been in the military, have nothing to do with the military, and probably don't have a lot of

references to draw in writing jokes. Yeah, other than movies in writing the actual jokes. And so as a result, the humor doesn't really pop as it does in the first half of the episode. I think really that when they go to cut to homer a little later it makes me think they could add a whole b story about how free margin homer feel like something spinning out of that that isn't too much like camp crusty yeah that's yeah actually i was talking myself out of it as i was doing like oh wait that's just ripping off camp crusty i think that if they had gone into the military school really fast, like rather than spending the first episode of the episode dwelling on film strips on the police station, which admittedly is funny and it's not especially new territory, but it's fun.

Yeah, it's good times that maybe they would have been able to develop the military academy a little more. Though not that Mike B. Anderson and his team on the animation side do their best to make it as interesting as possible. They do a good job. And Mike B. Anderson is all over this too with his do their best to make it as interesting as possible. They do a good job. And Mike B. Anderson is all over this, too, with his – there's a character that's just drawn to be him. The blonde kid with the spiky hair, right? Yeah. Which they will just identify as Anderson later, too. But, yes, unlike in real life, the Commandant is quick to accept a girl becoming a cadet.

All right. Let's go over this one more time just to make sure I understand the situation. You're a girl. Yes. Oh, gosh darn it. I just don't understand the situation. You're a girl.

All I want is a chance to prove myself. In our 185 years, we have never had a female cadet. But that seems to be the way the wind is blowing these days. After all, we have female

singers, female motorists. Welcome aboard. That joke makes me mad because there's not a third funniest thing in it how can you only have a list with two things in it that's true that also feels a little lazy

for the writers on there I have to say I think I love his blandness of like female motorists female singers he doesn't really have any objection to it he just is kind of confused you're a girl you want to okay for about eight years. He doesn't really have any objection to it. He just is kind of confused. You're a girl.

You want to... Okay, I guess. Sure, welcome aboard. He's kind of rolling with it. Yeah, I mean, very progressive of him. Good job. It seems like he lives a very girl-free life, so just the concept of like, you're a girl. No, it's true.

I mean, these kinds of situations, it's all men all the time. Never see any women. So you're like, suddenly you have this, confronted by this eight-year-old girl telling you that she wants to be in your military academy that's all boys. And this would be national news in the real world. But they kind of, they also sidestep that too. They don't, they treat it sort of like a big deal. But, and they knew they were making a Shannon Faulkner reference with this.

They don't say her by name on the commentary, but they say this was happening at the news at the time with the citadel so they they know but i guess they didn't want to they didn't want to make it a court case which there's a lionel hutz scene right there guys if you're looking for some fun so you missed troy mcclure and lionel hutz yeah in this episode coincidentally this was about the same year that gi jane came out and i don't think they really had anything to do with one another but I guess it was just kind of because of what was happening at the Citadel people were thinking about this and that kind of thing

Lots of people were pitching and I haven't seen G.I. Jane. Is that good? It was the first movie that my partner and I watched when we first started dating and it ends with Demi Moore screaming suck my dick and that's when all of the male cadets ultimately accept her. So, yes.

She can be a toxic man, too. Absolutely. It's actually a little bit like Top Gun because she's going through the entire process and training and everything. And then at the end, there's a big mission and everything. It's by Ridley Scott. I didn't know he directed it. He directs lots of stuff. He directs too many movies.

Well, he slowed down a little. It's true. Apparently, Demi Moore got a Razzie't know he directed it. He directs lots of stuff that you're surprised by. Well, he slowed down a little these days. It's true. Apparently Demi Moore got a razzy for her performance in it. Aw, that just shaved her head. The only reason I know about that movie is because there's always been a big pissing contest between video game fans and everyone else in the world. And at that time, I believe

Final Fantasy VII came out that first weekend of G.I. Jane, and it beat it in terms of profits. Take that, G.I. Jane. We we can beat one movie but it's got to be g.i. jane that's a good lesbian first date movie too at least for the 90s yes it was very hot i like how the passionate voice it was extremely hot oh boy oh boy and that's what i sound like all the time come on there's also one of the most interesting projection things they reveal in the commentary is the seemingly nothing shot of lisa blinking yeah yes is a cover for they had a animation fuck up that apparently they couldn't afford to fix in the normal retake way so internally all in office they drew anime drew painted and shot the animation

of the lisa blinking shot when it you know he's saying the female that's the way the winds are blowing and it cuts back to lisa that was all done in america by the regular team to draw her blinking a few days before it aired right they finished it the day, the Friday before it aired on the 16th. That's, yeah. That's insane. Pretty nuts. But that's above and beyond Anderson and the guys there. What was the mistake, though?

That they didn't say. Okay. I would just assume it's like a bad lip flap or something. Something that they couldn't just put on the air. Apparently not. They felt weird enough about it. Maybe they were out. If it's the end of the season, maybe their retake budget's getting pretty low.

So they've got to make some choices. It was all before digital editing and all that stuff. Yeah, it probably made it a little harder, too. I also love the soft meanness of Marge just going like, I heard you the first time, honey. She kisses him, though, at least. It's pitying, is what I would go for. She understands

what she's doing to Bart, but she doesn't really care. He was pretty bad. This is punishment. You gotta follow through. Well, when you're sick of it and you're at your wit's end and basically it's like, alright, I am actually putting you in military school. I am paying to get rid of you because i can't i can't anymore i can't figure out you destroyed the

entire town again i mean you already set freaking snakes loose everywhere oh yeah and there was that time you were caught in a well and faking that and now you're shattering every window in springfield we're done you're going to military school here is uh here's another funny scene i do like that i uh also implies a darker thing about the school that they do not they just kind of give up on darker attend gentlemen we now have a girl cadet among our ranks, so we're going to have to make a few changes. First of all, Franklin, you are no longer the girlie's cadet here. Well, we'll see about that. Second, this is now the girl's barracks,

so pack your things, you're moving in with Company L. Company L? But they smell! Yes, we've all heard the chant. Now fall out! Sorry, sorry. I know we'll be friends talk about getting off on the wrong foot i can't believe they let a girl in don't worry we'll drive her out of the academy that is why god created hazy she gets her own barracks at least it's pretty roomy i mean legally they need to have a girl's barracks yeah but it's an entire barracks all to yourself pretty nice sleep in every different bed you want

yeah i feel you think they just buy her one of those gifted portables and just put her in there so the character franklin apparently had their own storyline yeah really okay yardley mentions on the commentary that maggie roswell did the one line of Franklin there. And apparently there were other lines and then they cut them after the script reading. I could see they're like, how much do we want to do with this sassy child? They said that the character was, quote, a little too creepy. I guess. Maggie Roswell does a great line.

If I hadn't heard Yardley identify her, I wouldn't have known it was Maggie Roswell. Yeah, I didn't realize that until this clip, just listening really closely. I was like, oh, it's Maggie Roswell. But I give approval to the girly Franklin character because he's proud of it. He's like, I am the girliest here.

Clearly accepted. He's got to up his girlishness. Everyone calls him girliest, but he is sassy about it. He's not afraid. He's not like, hey, don't call me that. He's got to up his girlishness. Everyone calls him girliest, but he is sassy about it. He's not afraid. He's not like, hey, don't call me that. He's like, we'll see about that. It almost seems like he takes this as a challenge to out-girl Lisa later in this episode. I really was kind of cringing for Lisa at this point because I work and hang out with a lot of guys.

And basically because I'm an editor in chief of a video game magazine and I've been in the press for a while now and also over the years I've gone to a lot of male dominated things I've been in a freaking male Madden league or whatever and in these situations when I'm around all guys I don't want people to really point out that I'm different I'd rather just kind of be like I'm one of the guys I don't want people to really point out that I'm different. I'd rather just kind of be like, I'm one of the guys. Here we go. Yeah, we're playing the video games. Hooray. We're all having a good time, right? The second that somebody says, and here's Kat, she's a girl. I'm like, ha ha. Yeah. So she shows up and the best possible situation is if she could have immediately

integrated with all of them. And she probably wouldn't have been accepted but maybe she could have been tolerated but the second that she is being singled out and they're like all right you get your own barracks get out of here like well now they hate her and it sucks if i think they didn't need to do it would have made the kids even worse i guess if they just were like a girl's here yuck but if they give her a very bad first impression it almost lets you uh you you can feel more for them not liking her at first anyway and it also just it's a very like kind of homer-esque stupidness he's like you know you're a girl in the barracks now just get out out. Like he doesn't, the commandant does not understand what he's doing to Lisa here.

Well, the commandant was just trying to figure out the nature of you're a girl a few minutes ago. So it's not surprising that he's not handling this very delicately. You know, I met her in chief at the website I worked at who he had that problem too of just like he kind of had a,

you're a girl reaction to some women working at the thing and so and he got some notes about that from hr uh but then he instead overcompensated the other way of just saying like now guys we don't want to get too broey around these girls here you know we got women here so don't swear too much and then they're liable to get pregnant any moment one of the women there was like she hated that so much that she had to say like yeah fuck no don't swear around me just to get people to know like this is not me asking you to not swear please this is this is the overreaction of this guy yeah i've seen i've had that kind of thing happen to me before and it just

makes me like want to crawl out and often it's well intentioned it's like no no shit we got we got to make this the best possible place for her we want to point out that she is right here pay attention to her gender and it's like can we not okay like lisa says later in the episode i, I'm tired of being an issue. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And actually, one of the things with Lisa is that she's a very feminist character. And one of the nice things about The Simpsons is that it really puts you on her side most of the time. Like you're feeling bad for her.

And you're just like, okay, I feel sympathetic toward her. And with this hazing here, I wonder how much of it is inspired by hazing that these Harvard writers went through to get into Phi Kappa money or whatever. Phi Kappa money. But this hazing ritual, the push-ups in the mud, that's taken straight from an officer and a gentleman.

Oh, I thought so. Okay, yeah. I found the scene exactly. It's the, he's just being yelled at by lou gossett jr about how you're never gonna fit in never don't eyeball me boy i say yellow card for referencing the movie that late hazing was a big deal in my school because i guess there was a huge scandal about it because oh you know the whole well they got a little crazy with the hazing rituals

and to the point where there was like media reports about it and then we had to go through the old school assemblies telling us about why hazing was really bad and then hazing was straight up banned and all of that stuff so in the fraternity good old boys nature is just like it was just sanctioned bullying and you would do it because you got it first so now it's time for you to do worse to somebody else i mean it's one thing where it's like okay stand up on your table and sing your school song it's quite another we're like i've heard some truly awful hazing stories oh yeah yeah we're like they're doing permanent damage crime yeah exactly yeah uh but this hazing isn't well it is thankfully

not yeah there's one that gets pretty extreme in this, though. Not like that. What's the matter? Don't girls like doing push-ups in the mud? Is there any answer I can give that won't result in more push-ups? No. No. Hey, look, it's the school motto.

I'll die before I surrender, Tim. Who's Tim? Apparently, Tim was somebody who was with the General Moments before he was shot in the head. Cleaning graffiti off a statue makes a mockery of everything I stand for. I don't think I can survive here, Lise. That's how they want you to feel. But if you just hang in there, they'll eventually accept you. Get to work!

I want to see my face in that horse's ass! That's a good line. Yeah, I do like the whole Tim thing where no quote ever has the name of the person that's being addressed in it. You would edit the quote. You just take out Tim. And the mouth movements are way off on that,

so I think there was another reason for the Tim line, but I like that he says that and he's immediately shot in the head on the battlefield. He was right. That's pretty funny to me. And just the statement of like, I want to see my face in that horse's ass. That's pretty like,

that's a, that's a great reply. I was kind of shocked back then when it was new, I was like, they got to say horse's ass. They said ass. Oh, my God. Simpsons doesn't get a lot of asses.

Hey, the critic, give us five minutes, we'll give you an ass. That's Fox. Yeah. A flaming horse's ass. Horse's ass is a fun comparison. I like that. And then also we get a kind of a callback to El Barto with him saying cleaning graffiti is the opposite of everything i believe in and poor lisa she thinks that things are gonna life is gonna be fair and that she'll be treated the same as a boy would for going through

all the hazing stuff and that she'll gain their respect eventually how how wrong she is welcome to life lisa and it's Lisa. It's very sad. The propeller thing, that is the silliest slash most murderous of the ones. And also, you don't get to turn on a plane. If you're a cadet, one, you wouldn't have access to a plane at the military school, and two, you would not be allowed to turn it on

when you feel like it. That's true. But that's why it's a joke in a cartoon. My favorite thing with Lisa is when when my favorite depiction of lisa is when she's obviously very smart but she's also extremely young and naive and kind of overly optimistic and she gets taught a hard lesson but maybe not one so hard that it makes her completely cynical so she is getting that lesson right now of i'm just gonna be accepted oh god no i'm not going to be accepted this is actually going to be really hard well they uh yeah i think we all

three of us have gone through the feeling too of like being smart but not exactly having emotional intelligence to understand people too or understand situations until i don't have emotional intelligence now god we're working on it yeah that's why i'm on a podcast i'm just emotional and so then we go to the firing range for scenes that just feel kind of like they would never happen now never like yeah you would never do a scene where bart shoots a grenade launcher like it's nothing it reminds me of starship troopers actually yeah it's uh i just keep waiting for bart to blow up one of his uh command one of his squad mates well that's also what's shocking that like it's a hilarious visual of lisa just flying around with a gun on auto fire but like

it should be bullets should be hitting people right they die shrapnel should be killing everybody there i mean that's what would happen if you handed her like an m16 she would be flying around trying to aim this thing no eight-year-old could hold it no no i'm a big gun guy i think it was an ar-15 and that stands for awesome rifle awesome rifle my apologies bob you are the gun i love guns and i have several this isn't true no they're all what they're really oh my god i feel so lied to they're all for duck hunts for new for new listeners i wanted to make that clear uh but yeah seeing lisa with the auto firing gun is uh it's kind of shocking here four out of five simpson impressive but you missed your target did i

you're a born soldier, Simpson. Too bad it doesn't run in your family. Mom! Can someone help me? It's stuck on auto fire! Ah! Do you hear anything? No!

Oh. Oh. Maybe you should just learn to use this. If there's a war, just blow on it and I'll come help you. Oh. Look how patronizing he is. God. You have the same moan as Lisa at the same time there. That was super condescending.

Oh, my God. I like that her automatic rifle is stuck on automatic. Oh, that's even funnier. I just got it this time. When Skinner gets his car blown up, I imagine him going, no. That's a great, I want a cell or just a poster of just Skinner gets his car blown up, I immediately, I imagine him going, no. That's a great, I want to sell, or just a poster of just Skinner standing with his keys held out and just the

crater in the ground. And it's just, it's a great, it's a great composition. I love that image. This is where like video games have hurt this joke for me. Cause I'm just like a grenade launcher in a video game. Doesn't shoot it that far.

Come on now. I'm just thinking it's like, Oh, the area of effect damage from that grenade would totally take out Skinner. He'd be just a mist, a red mist. It's a bit of a Looney Tunes joke for sure. Haven't you ever played Doom?

The exploding car would have taken him out immediately. Also, continuity error, Skinner doesn't own a car. He doesn't have the money for that because he's paying back Mother. Maybe he finally did. He finally bought that car after seeing that honda and now it's now it's just got blown up by i like the storyline this would have been actually a pretty good episode we're adding a lot of extra plot to this we're each coming for their own b plots to juice this up a little bit uh so lisa is feeling very sad and lonely and it's's the sound. It actually is a really heartbreaking sound.

And when she, the sound of people pretending they're not having fun so they can tell you to go away on the other side of the door. Like, that hurts. I didn't like hearing that. That was a bummer. Too real. And then also Bart just saying, like, nobody. And just closing the door in her face like, ouch. I'm glad that it's only a couple minutes before he learns his lesson and because otherwise if you had to wait until the end of the episode for

bart to do that like that's too mean for too long for bart well i mean it's a powerful drug to be accepted and when you're in the group and the group is rejecting even somebody that you like it can be difficult thing to go against the group and be like, no, I actually like this person. Screw you. Even a sibling, apparently. Being popular is the only thing that matters as far as Homer's top part. Yeah, absolutely. And so Lisa is feeling so lonely, she even calls Grandpa. After trying to call Homer, which I really actually love the character to it of like Homer has a beer on his stomach. He's taking off his shoes to have his feet warmed by the dog.

Like Homer and Sansa Little Helper never do shit together. So I just love that shot too. And then Homer actually seems to think that his remote turned off the phone, which I love that too. It's a very 90s joke of the idea of the phone ringing out of reach. Not that you're staring at your phone constantly and you sleep right next to it and just move it with you everywhere. And the universal remote, which presumably could answer your phone, not really. But so after, yes, running out of all other options, Lisa calls Abe. Simpson.

Hot diggity, I don't care if it's bad news. Oh, Grandpa, you're not busy, are you? Well, you're really asking two questions there. The first one takes me back to 1934. Admiral Byrd had just reached the pole, only hours ahead of the Three Stooges. And I guess he won the argument, but I walked away with the turnips. The following morning, I resigned my commission in the Coast Guard.

The next thing I heard, there was civil war in Spain. And that's everything that happened in my life right up to the time I got this phone call. Uh-huh. So anything else you want to talk about? Oh, I'm afraid I'd just be repeating myself, honey. Anyway, other people need to use the phone.

I've already talked to her for 20 damn minutes. I like the subversion or the inversion of Lisa wasting old people's time instead of old people wasting everyone else's time. It's great. Hey, they said. And it shows that there is a limit to grandpa's nonsense sideshow bob like would have been able to take it i mean of course it would have been all the old folks so i don't know they might have been able to give each other breaks and in this

case uh abe just talks himself out which it is i mean it's also sundowning like it's the end of the day let the let the old man go to sleep, Lisa. Come on. I feel like this joke was cut in syndication because I actually did not remember this bit. I would bet it would. You cut the whole thing out, yeah, safely. It's great, but you don't really need it

to know that Lisa's lonely. It's a good time, fella, really. If you're trying to mark scenes that could be cut for syndication when you're making the show, that's a good one. Like Grandpa ones usually are. They're pointless but funny.

Non-functional to the plot. All that Lisa really needs to be is right there to get the letter from her mom with the cassette in it. Which there's a funny line on the commentary too of Anderson saying his kids were like, What's that videotape? What is that? The idea of a cassette was impossible for them. What? Are you kidding me

for children in 2007 it's oh 2007 well they recorded the commentary yeah oh okay that makes sense because i mean in the 90s i had cassettes and everything i i had um because uh i wasn't fancy enough to have a cd player until like my birthday in 99 i think no i mean i definitely had a cd player by 97, but I had cassette tapes. I have plenty of cassette tapes, but if I was born in, I don't know, 99 or something, I wouldn't.

I mean, if I wanted to record something, obviously I would have used a cassette tape. Oh, yeah. I recorded so many cassettes of my favorite CDs for the personal mixtapes. No gifts for friends, because I didn't have any. I want to hear one of your personal Mixtapes It was mostly the time for a Weezer song

Now time for a They Might Be Giants song There's a band that sounds like Weezer Superdrag or Weedus And yeah then Lisa finds a letter From her mom And this recording is really cute and sad This is a nice

They do a good job of getting emotion in this episode, even if there's not as many laughs. Don't worry, sweetie. It's very common to be homesick when you're so far away from the people who love you. Okay, I'm not going to give up. Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known.

Then went crazy as a loon. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray you'll never know dear how much i love you so don't take my sunshine away oh what a down act break this was a scene that i always remembered from watching it in syndication five billion times like that was the one that stuck with me because i always thought it was a little heartbreaking i like the march goes a little down at the end too like away that's not you're supposed to go up on away it i think too that she's she's singing kind of poorly in the way just a mom recording to her kid

would too which i like that i could have used a joke about her being dumb on the cassette tape before she goes into that marge what are you doing in here oh man we're punching this up come on we got we got our own writer's room here oh and also right before we have the sad scene with lisa i do like the little the quick scene of lights off lights out lights on and the thing he tripped over is like a skew that's really good and it. And good little animation on his one-legged hop. I'm like, uh, uh, uh. I think it's his pain. It's pretty funny.

The barracks also look very much like, well, I mean, barracks are uniform. That's kind of the point. But it reminds me of the Full Metal Jacket ones, though. They probably used that as a reference, I'm guessing. I would think, right? Yeah. i'm guessing i would think right yeah but so that ending that commercial break too you get to see visually that bart is now regretting throw uh you know not paying attention to lisa and then casting her side he he kind of learns his lesson twice in this like he learns i need to secretly

be your friend and then then learns to not be a secret yes yeah i really do like this scene just because it uh it's kind of mocking like trying to come up with ideas when you don't have sorry froze you out lease i just didn't want the guys to think i'd gone soft on the girl issue i'm tired of being an issue part maybe everyone would be better off if i just quit but if you quit it'd be like an expert not tire quitting-tying contest right in the middle of tying a knot. Why'd you say that? I don't know. I was just looking at my shoelaces. Look, the point is, you're going to make it, Lisa,

and I'm going to stick by you. Don't do that. Why should we both be outcasts? Then I'll just stick by you in secret. Like a sock maker secretly working on a top-secret sock that... Will you stop looking at your feet? He's easily distracted, that part. Going soft on the girl issue.

You've got to be strong on the girl issue if you want to keep friends in this boys club. So going back to the empty barracks thing really quickly, I like to read the AV Club reviews of these episodes before I actually talk about them because usually they have some good observations that I can steal for myself. And one of them was that one of the fundamental aspects of Lisa's character is that she's lonely. And this is really driven home in this particular episode because she is isolated by the fact

that she's away from her parents. She's staying in this completely empty barracks. She is surrounded by boys and i mean it really just reflects how she's very smart but also she has no friends and nobody really understands her and i mean that is a fundamental part of her character yeah i didn't even really think about how the emptiness of the barracks adds to the isolation she's feeling like that she's sleeping by herself in basically an empty warehouse. She doesn't even have that

extremely basic support structure of her mom who her mom even doesn't really get her. And can't even get her on the phone to talk to just a little bit. And it's reflective of, I mean, it's the opposite in some ways of Summer of Four Foot Two where she makes friends.

In this one, she has no friends and she never makes any friends they're just removed yeah she she only befriends her brother more which actually that makes it the opposite too because yeah that's true bart bart comes to her instead of pushing her away like she does it those were both season finales as well yeah boy you've really uh opened my eyes here cat but one is perhaps a little bit better than the other. Yes. A bit.

Just a little. So we then get to hear about how there used to be an anime-style Battle Royale, but now they have a new thing. Traditionally, the Academy tested these virtues by pitting you against each other in a two-day battle royale. That was prior to 1957, thank you very much, State Supreme Court. Consequently now, no cadet can receive a passing grade for the academic year without first conquering this. Meet the Eliminator.

That's a 150-foot hand-over-hand crawl across a 60-gauge hemp-tute line with a blister factor of 12. The rope is suspended a full 40 feet over a solid British acre of old-growth Connecticut Valley thorn bushes. Gentlemen, welcome to Flavor Country. This wasn't in the brochure. I really wish this was introduced earlier, though. There's like two minutes left in the episode after this thing comes up, this ultimate challenge. Yeah, I mean, they get to it early in the third. It wasn't in the brochure.

They get to it early in the third act, but I guess they just wanted it to be the threat in the third act. They should drive by it at the start of the episode, but instead... I think Lisa is pointing out it's a little bit late to introduce this kind of plot elements. Yeah, though it's a little bit late to introduce this kind of plot elements. Yeah. Yeah. And though it's a, it's a cool, as far as them having to come up with a creative, like obstacle course, physical challenge for the kids to do. This is a big one. Like this is a really interesting one to do.

I, I think it's creative, especially the idea of like, you will, I mean, the drop would kill a child anyway. Maybe it actually, the,

the thorn bushes would soften your fall when they would cut you up. But I, it's, it's kind of shocking. It in universe, the Supreme Court hasn't shut it down yet. Next year. Next year. I have several friends who like to do Spartan challenges. And Spartan challenges, if you're not familiar with them, are basically mud runs.

But they have you doing all kinds of insane obstacles. And if you can't complete going underneath barbed wire that's electrified and you can't handle them then you're doing tons of burpees it's ridiculous i'm sure they're nice people cat but i think all those people are weirdos oh i mean and they're trying to prove something you don't see me doing them i mean but people enjoy that because i guess they're soft living they need some danger in their lives or something but whenever I see the eliminator, I think of those and I think about how I really, really don't want to ever have to do that in my life. And I'm really grateful that I don't have to. If they want to feel danger, live without health insurance. I've earned these soft

hands. Yeah. I feel exhausted just by, because I've tried to do some of those obstacles. And I guess when you're eight and you're tiny, it's a little more doable because you're not lugging so much freaking weight across that rope. When your joints are young and extended. You're still like compact. You're not like long. Have you tried to go across monkey bars lately? You know, one, the closest thing to this I did once was at a county fair where it was like, climb this rope ladder. It's like a rigging on a ship or something like that.

Yeah, and I got up like four steps and immediately just flipped over. And the embarrassment I felt made me, reminded me, this is why you don't do physical challenges, especially in public. So they're really high up in the air, and they're over Connecticut thorns

or whatever. A British acre of them you know which by the way is specificity uh great humor that's yes yeah they needed more than this episode i like that one but if lisa had actually fell she's dead right it's over i i think maybe those uh the storm bushes cushion your fall whether you were their thornsorns yes well it's like you know falling on a bunch of boxes would cushion your fall too even though it wouldn't feel great but it give you something to collapse other than just the hard ground breaking your bones again there's a reason this gets shut down by the supreme court at the end of this episode it seems like an extra mean thing to do to throw meatballs at a vegetarian, too.

Ooh, yeah. I wonder how she's surviving as a vegetarian there. Does she just eat like the hot dog buns? The answer is she's not. Rich and bunly goodness. There are times when you're a vegetarian and there's literally nothing else to eat that you just have to just hold your breath and realize that you're going to be sick and just eat it, which...

I don't do that, Kat. I starve for my principles. Well, good for you. But thankfully, this hasn't happened to me in like a decade. But I mean, in her situation, either she's going to eat hot dog buns and get absolutely no calories and then starve, or she's going to eat the freaking meat. I mean, when you're in a military school, you don't get other food unless you sneak out for corn. Ooh, that's some good corn.

My God, the corn thing now i also really love lisa's reaction reminds me we talked about being a gifted kid that is how i feel too like you thought you wanted to be challenged a challenge i could do like i wanted a challenge that was easy come on yeah a challenge that made me feel good about myself it was mildly hard but not too hard I do think of that I mean I'm not a huge fan of this episode But I do like that line a lot A challenge I could do It sums up a very specific

It's a mood fam But yeah here's Here's a scene also With the big cheat of Lisa being saved by the rope Which is completely invisible And they call it out on the commentary Boy where'd that rope come from I can't do this Bart I'm not strong enough invisible in it. They called out on the commentary, boy, where'd that rope come from?

I can't do this, Bart. I'm not strong enough. I thought you came here looking for a challenge. Duh! A challenge I could do. It was worth sneaking into town. That was some good corn. Uh-oh. Uh, hey

Simpson, what are you doing out here? Nothing. Nothing? Doesn't look like nothing. Uh, hey, Simpson. What are you doing out here? Nothing. Nothing? Doesn't look like nothing. Oh, yeah? Well, um, what are you doing out here? Uh, also nothing. Well, okay.

Okay. Then carry on. All right, we will. That was close. Be right, we will. That was close. Bees. Bees. Bees. Ah!

Ah! I like Yardley's way of saying bees. Yeah. Bees. I love Chess McNeil playing a teenage boy. Yeah. Doesn't happen much for her. I like it.

And Dan also doesn't play kids that much either. And I love corn. We're sneaking into town to eat corn. Not for a girl, not for liquor, just corn. The bullies aren't bad. I mean, they're kind of dopey, so they don't really come off as pure evil. But at the same time, they're not named either, are they? Nope.

No. Franklin, the girly boy, is the only one that gets a name, actually. And we see him for like 1.5 seconds. Yeah, I wanted more Franklin scenes. I really did. Me too. So it's the day of the Eliminators here, and this is a really good, this is a very funny fakeout.

Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that the state Supreme Court has determined that forcing cadets to cross the eliminator is a barbaric and malicious practice hence you will be the last class to be subjected to it anderson you're up get screened by that was that was mike anderson the director right in design it was dan on the screaming but yes yeah it's it's made he's uh that's him as a kid as an adult he has a ponytail but uh oh yeah he's in episodes as an adult too right yeah yeah he's in hurricane netty he's one of their fans and he has a background appearance in new york city versus summer simpson too he's

yeah he's one of the at this time the animators love drawing Michael B. Anderson and stuff. Once you're in a show, you just enter a character package. So it's like, let's get some background guys. He looks pretty cool. Get him in there. So now he's just the background character. There's no better feeling than hearing you don't have to do something you thought you were going to.

So then to take that away from Lisa, that's one last cruelty to Lisa in this. So this is something I like about this episode compared to Old that away from Lisa, that's one last cruelty to Lisa in this. So this is something I like about this episode compared to Old Man and the Lisa, which is a funnier episode than this. But we talked about on that one how you feel so bad for Lisa, she just gets shit on the entire episode. In fact, she kills her father.

By the end of that one, she finds out that recycling is even actually horrible and she shouldn't be doing it. In this one, it's a rare lisa win lisa does get to win and succeed which doesn't happen all that but has to go back to second grade next year anyways well it's like lisa and ice i mean she gets a win in that one i i was argue summer foot four foot two ultimately she has a win oh now wait and lisa and ice they both tied as homer tells us they're both losers i mean in, in hockey, that's a win. No, I subscribe to the Homer school. One must win.

Fair enough. I mean, she manages to spark a riot in Springfield. That, to me, is a win. Yeah. That's amazing. And so I guess they're going in alphabetical order because they start with Anderson, and then they said, final, Lisa Simpson,

which if there's nobody with a name lower in alphabet than Simpson, then she would go after Bart. So it's just her bad luck that she has to go last. It's not the commandant picking on her. It's just the alphabet. It's just bad luck. What was that? I love being a Simpson. Yeah, that's right.

We'll start with the Bs. Bart. So Lisa's going up there They do a good job of making it look terrifying From Lisa's angle, too I mean, it is terrifying Did you see that thing? Yeah, no, I would never attempt this

Never And especially that blister factor of 12 I like that too What scale are they using? They just make up a scale of rope i mean apparently 12 like gauge is actually a scale but it's tiny it's like wire okay yeah ouch that's all that sounds like it cuts you even worse it's cutting in any case they just made some stuff up lisa is starting to fail they're all being pretty mean to her which the commandant should really not let

this kind of bullying go. She, he should tell them like, Hey, straighten up quiet. But it seems like Lisa is going to lose it all until Bart actually saves the day. I know you can. Come on.

I know you can do it. Just get your hands back on the rope. It's just a little further. Come on. It's a little bit more. You're doing great. That little further. Come on, just a little bit more. You're doing great! That's it. Come on, just a little bit more. I know you can do it. I believe in you. Yes!

You thought I couldn't, but I could. I did, and I could do it again. Let's do it again! Lisa, it's over. You made it. You can put your arms down. I can't! They're stuck! We're going to make your life a living hell for the rest of the semester. But graduation's in three hours. We better go change! Last year at this time, I ran a 15K,

and I actually got a pretty good time on it, and i felt really good at it at the end i was like yes i did it i did it i won i i knew i could do it i did it i can't i'm so exhausted oh my god i just need to sit down right now it just all smashes you at once yeah exactly i mean when you cross that finish line, you got that adrenaline rush. You're like, yes, I made it. Oh, God, just get me a drink, please. And it's a really good shot of Lisa's triumph, too, of the sun in the background and her jumping up and down. I like that shot. I love happy, excited Lisa. It's great.

And like, they're stuck. Like, it's a cute reading on that. It's very cute. Oh, my God. Yeah. And so we get to their graduation, which this, actually, now I think about it, the staging in it reminds me of Stripes, actually, from the graduation in that. Oh, right, yeah. Which would definitely fit with the tastes of the producers on this show. They grew up being Stripes fans.

I mean, I grew up being a Stripes fan, so. It's good until they go to Russia. It's a good movie. I forgot about that part of it. Everyone forgets that because it's boring. I assume the entire movie is just training. Do they have an RV or something? They get a super tank that they drive through Russia.

The people in Russia are Canadian, too. It's mostly a Canadian cast of SCTV folks surrounding Bill Murray. But yeah, so this story of the war of the future was satire then. Let me remind you listeners, these were jokes then about robots fighting all our wars for us. The wars of the future will not be fought

on a battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots and as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear to build and maintain those robots thank you great delivery on that speech by the way seeing into the future i like his thank you and yeah this is that's drone warfare right now, baby. It's very important to maintain and design those robots.

Even better, we're going to have kill bots in a good 10, 15 years. Not even human kill bots. Yeah, we're going to have assassin droids that are coming after you. And then they will be building and maintaining those robots. Well, that freaked me out. Obviously, there was that shooter, i believe it was in texas there was a shooter at a at a black lives matter event they chased him down the cops did and they blew him up with a drone which is like they needed i mean he had a gun and was still a threat and so sending a drone i guess that is a

way to deal with the problem. But just the idea of like, now the cops have a drone that can explode and just send it. You're like, that's scary. They can blow up anyone they want. Yeah, it's scary to know that. Stephen Hawking was saying that his greatest fear essentially with robots was that you would have these killer robots that would be able to do basically whatever they wanted. They could go after people and they would just follow their directions extremely specifically,

and then we wouldn't be able to stop them because they were following their directions too dang well. Well, nearby where we record Retronauts, there's like a robot in San Francisco that like runs around. I hate it so much. Is it an assassin droid?

I think it's there to kill homeless people. Oh my God. It was weird. We had to walk by it like twice. I find it threatening,? I think it's there to kill homeless people. Oh, my God. It was weird. We had to walk by it like twice. I find it threatening, which I think is the point. Oh, yeah. No, it's a soft threat. I mean, physically, it can't actually do anything to you.

But I guess, too, it's also like, well, this robot will probably film you break it if you were to break it. I told that robot, fuck you, buddy. But AI warfare is just around the corner. In the meantime, drones are shutting down airports. Whoa. Did you hear about this? This is a very recent thing. Entirety of Gatwick Airport was shut down for multiple days by a drone flying around.

Holy crap. Yeah. That's dangerous. Somebody just found out that if you just have a drone flying around, I mean, you can shut down major air travel. Wasn't the plot of a Call of Duty game, I think it was Advanced Warfare, where somebody gets control of all the drones and you gotta fight

them. Advanced Warfare sucked. You can jump in that game. You've never been able to jump in a video game before. Oh my god. So, after that little speech, we get a final scene of uh we get to find out that bart has learned a lot of combat techniques which he instantly forgets

after this episode never uses it again but he can also use grenades yeah which he also forgets the next time he's bullied he should be pulling out those uh self-defense martial arts he learned but he does not. The one positive, I said why I wouldn't want this season to end with this one compared to the other options I had. The one thing I do like about it as a season finale

is I like when they graduate at the time. I liked when they end a school year when I was ending a school year in May as well. In season seven, it ends with the end of the school year too. If Camp Krusty hadn't been delayed, that would have ended season four with a school year in May as well. In season seven, it ends with the end of the school year too. And if Camp Krusty hadn't been delayed, that would have ended season four with a school year.

And then also Bard of Darkness too was meant to end a school year too. So they've done a number of them. They've graduated from school many times. And also, for example, in Bard's tenth year of life,

he graduates from military school, elementary school three times, and also lives in France for at least a month, at least one month. The season two premiere is Bart Gets an F, and that's when he graduates the fourth grade, right? That's right. Or he was about to be held back, so his school year is about to end, too. I mean, he was also born in 1981, so. Well, okay, yes.

He's older than me. But so here is the ending where we get a cute little callback. Lisa, before you go, I want to present you with this. A medal? Thank you, sir. For satisfactory completion of the second grade. Well, kids, we're so proud of the way you completed military school. We thought this time we'd take you to Disneyland for real. Yay! Hey!

Who is B Hoffman? I guess that's a good boring, it's a satisfactory boring name. Don't want to say good. They saved their fun boring name for the dentist we don't see. It's, yeah yeah so that As a last joke to end The season with it especially

Like I think of little Henry Who's not going to get new Simpsons For a whole three months little Henry This is the joke you're just going to Have to watch the old ones on syndication over And over and over again until your eyeballs Fall out and then watch 2020. No, no. I'd be wearing out my VHS

tapes all summer, which I would do many a time. The tail of the tape. But yeah, the dentist joke, when I think of like, if they could have ended, the last joke is Grimes' funeral or Troy talking to Osmodear, those would be funnier. I'd laugh more.

Damn straight, Henry. Especially the spinoff showcase ends with him saying, and what comes in season nine? So it's basically throwing you to season nine. I kind of wish that was it. Yeah, it would have been

a better ending. This emplacement is just kind of a weaker season eight ending, I have to say. Though I do think that the episode itself is the slightest bit underrated just because there's some good jokes in there. It's a solid Lisa episode. She gets a win. You feel her loneliness. And I think Willem Dafoe does a really good job in that role. It's an enjoyable watch. I mean, I'm not going to call it a classic. I'm not going to say that it measures up to some or many of the other fairly superior Lisa episodes,

but she comes off as really, you know, sympathetic in this episode. There's some good performances, and I would watch it again. It's still a season eight episode, which means it's good, no matter what. And also, unlike, say, we talked about the two Marge episodes this season,

though Bart is there, they don't let Bart take over the story, unlike how Homer, in both of those episodes, takes over Marge's story. Yeah. Thanks for listening, everybody. This has been Talking Simpsons. Before we tell you where you can help us

and support our show and get bonus episodes, Kat, where can we find you and help you and listen to your stuff? Hi, I'm Kat. I am the editor-in-chief of US Gamers. You should go check it out. We have all of our top 20 games lists and all that stuff.

Plus, I'm the host of Acts of the Blood God, which is a US Gam gamers podcast about RPGs. Yes, we are still doing the top 25 RPG countdown right now. I appear on Retronauts sometimes. But yeah, subscribe to all of those podcasts on Spotify or Stitcher or iTunes,

I guess, if you really care about it. And also, I'm on Twitter at the underscore catbot. Thanks for following me. I really enjoy being on the show. Oh, yes. We love having you. Yeah. The audience loves you, too.

So it's always great to have you back. So if you want to support our show and get tons of bonus episodes on top of that, please go to the Talking Simpsons Network at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Of interest to you, probably, because we reached the end of Season 8, we'll be doing a Season 8 wrap-up episode, and we'll be going through the deleted scenes of Season 8 for our patrons only. So check that stuff out at patreon.com talking simpsons also if you give it the five dollar level you get every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and at free and the same goes for our other podcast what a cartoon and at that level there is so much more

going on bonus episodes uh you know bonus mini series you can't get anywhere else including our new 2019 mini series it's still to be decided as of this recording that's going to be 13 new episodes that you won't be able to hear unless you're on the Patreon and subscribing. Henry, what else do we have? Well, there's a ton of classic interviews on there that we've done. We did so many cool ones in this year of 2018. We did a new one with Josh Weinstein, with David Silverman, with Mark Kirkland, and many others.

Or if you're in the holiday spirit when you're listening to this, you can check out our one from last year where we interviewed Mimi Pond about her complicated relationship with writing the first episode of The Simpsons. If you want to also hear about a woman in a man's world, you can hear a little bit about that too. But also at the $10 level, if you want to get up to the premium level, you get access to not only all of the videos we did in the previous years, we've been doing the Patreon,

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patrons can vote on that very thing and listen to it in January. So check that out. And as always, I got to say it again, January 16th, San Francisco, SF sketch fest, Wednesday,

8 PM, the gateway theater. We will have guests to talk about the principle of the popper, Allie Gertz, and Julia Prescott from the other Simpsons podcast. You definitely don't want to miss that

if you're anywhere in the Bay Area. January 16th, you can find it on the schedule at sfsketchfest.com. And if you're listening and you think

you might want to go, buy your ticket immediately. We have both of our audiences going to the show. As far as I know, it could be sold out now, so please go to the website and check it out. Make sure you get a ticket if you're going to be in the area. So I've been one of your hosts, Bob the show. As far as I know, it could be sold out now. So please go to the website and check it out.

Make sure you get a ticket if you're going to be in the area. So I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. Kat mentioned it before, but my other podcast is Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast. We've been doing it since 2006. Go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast machine. You can find it there and check it out and subscribe.

Henry, how about you? I've been your other host, Henry Gilbert. You can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. You'll see when new episodes and other content comes to the Patreon and onto the free feeds, not to mention when new events happen like our live

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All right. Lights out. Ah, damn it. Lights on. Lights on. Lights out. Lights out.