Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Seven-Beer Snitch

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

"I only did what I had to do to survive... in a style befitting a French monarch." - Homer Simpson When Springfield's new concert hall goes bust, Mr. Burns buys the property and turns it into a for-profit prison. Homer fails to get hired as a guard, but finds a much more lucrative path within its walls by becoming a full-time snitch. Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. Event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, home of the mean-spirited hate-hout. I'm one of your host, the man known for his netiquet, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. I'm shoes, butt back.

No, I mean Henry Gilbert. And this week's episode is The Seven Beer Snitch. March, they're going to kill me. Oh, I only did what I had to do to survive in a style befitting a French monarch. This week's episode originally aired on April 3, 2005. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Sin City tops the box office. Peter Jennings does his final live newscast for ABC.

and Lego Star Wars, the video game, is released on home consoles. Very nice. Not a bad day in history. I was an in-theater viewer of Sin City, Henry. You may be shocked to see, to hear, rather. Well, you're looking at me, but to hear that I saw a comic book movie in theaters. And, of course, you're probably at the same mindset. They follow the comic book to the letter.

That makes for the perfect movie. Yep. Yes. And now I am so over that. It was like word for word and shot for shot. I think this story is that like Frank Miller, he ended up getting co-director credit from Robert Rodriguez, just out of respect Robert Rodriguez had since he simply used the comic book pages as storyboards and the script as his script.

So he gave him, and unfortunately that gave Frank Miller too much power. And we empowered Frank Miller too much. We learned our mistake there. It's true. He directed, was it a live action, the spirit film? Is that Frank Miller? Okay. Yes, yeah.

I didn't even see it. So I can't say it's something. sucks, but it sounded like it really, really sucked. I love the Will Eisner Spirit. It is a very important comic. Well, I've only read books that are like the top 40 spirit comics, so I'm not like Mr. Spirit expert. But his stuff is amazing, clearly inspiring to Frank Miller.

And Frank Miller pretty much pisses on the grave of Will Eisner and the Spirit with that movie, according to most reviews. Yeah, I'll say I really enjoy this movie in the theater. I have not seen it since. And I'm kind of terrified to return to it because 2005, 22-year-old Bob Mackey had different tastes from 44-year-old Bob Mackey of today. Not too different, but I don't know how

this would go off in 2026 or beyond. And I know there's a sequel that no one should touch, but maybe one day I will return to Sin City. When I was a teen, I loved the Sin City comics. They were brutal and violent and full of sex and nudity and swears

and guys talking in very brief sentences. And every woman in town is a sex worker, either honestly, or lying about it, but they're either a nice woman or they stab you in the back. That's pretty much...

But I think that yellow bastard, I think, is my favorite of them, I think, of the ones, which is the Bruce Willis section of the movie. You know, I never read the comics, and I love noir. In fact, my wife and I are getting ready to head out for the first noir night

at the Cinemattec in Vancouver. They're having a Noir FM festival they do every year. Every cool city does. Henry, that festival visits Seattle. Oh, okay. Hop on the train, go there. climb out of the criterion closet.

There are other movies. I just watched the big heat for the first time, a noir classic because it was at my criterion shelf of shame that I've yet. Well, I will say the best thing about these noir festivals, yes, you'll see the big sleep, yes, you'll see the Maltese Falcon and others. They will show you a bunch of movies you've never heard of, which is great because there were so many of these crime movies, and it's always fun to see a movie that has like 200 reviews on Letterbox

when you go to one of these festivals. I think another interesting thing about Sin, City is that it was made by Rodriguez at the time. He was pioneering, mainstreaming, and very much dating films that were filmed in the now current green screen, put it all in post style. Like Sin City uses the exact same techniques as Spy Kids, except it's stylized in the totally opposite direction and also content-wise in the opposite direction, too. So Peter Jennings, I didn't know when he retired, and then I looked at the time. up when he died and I have to assume these two items are related. Yes, the longtime newscaster

with a real shelf of hair, well, not shelf of hair. It really looked like painted on like Spock hair to me as I remember. It's Lego hair, right? Right. All these old newscasters had Lego hair, often a piece. But yes, he, I think thought he was retiring for treatment and then passed away from lung cancer four months later, yes. Though my home was not like a, Peter Jennings was not the channel we had on. I think we were pretty much just a cable news family. in general or it was local news plus cable news we didn't have a dog in the fight of nightly news morning news we were an NBC today family yeah back in the 90s and probably around this time i could tell you the difference between all of these old newsmen they all had stern voices they were all no nonsense

they all had haircuts you could set your watch to now i'm missing the sensible newsmen whose politics were often unclear yeah and you could assume they were probably a centrist liberal type who would in general not disagree with like any invasion America wanted to do, but kind of ring their hands about it. But yes, now the job, we didn't know how good we had it with a Peter Jennings type. I hate to say it, it doesn't make bad things better just because things are worse now. But the CBS evening news and potentially all future evening news is just where you go to be highly controlled mouthpieces for the American government is pretty bad. Or more like Israel's government, right?

Hey, one in the same, man. They're calling the shots now. You know, it's hard to tell what tail is wagging who there, I think. But did Peter Jennings survive long enough to play Lego Star Wars? I want to know. I hope with his grandkids, he was playing it. Lego Star Wars, these games do represent like a, oh, I'm too old to have nostalgia for this, like, moment for me. I have played a few of these here and there of just Lego games made by Travelers Tales, a great developer.

but it just, I think they got like a retro game collection like a year or two ago. That's when I turned into dust when I saw that. These are fun, I'll say. They're very frivolous. They're very fluffy, but they're fun. I think I played the first Lego Star Wars game just because it just seemed like a funny idea, retelling of the Star Wars saga through Legos and fun pantomime sketches that are basically telling you the story of Star Wars without any dialogue from the movies.

It's all like Simlish, basically. Or I guess no dialogue. at how it worked. It was like miming. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there were Lego games before this. This is truly where Lego games began, though, for most people. And this spawned an entire franchise of turning different stories into Lego games, things like Harry Potter, The Incredibles, Batman, the Justice League, et cetera, et cetera. And all of these games are essentially the same. You are in these worlds that are packed with a billion secrets. There's nine million things to find in all of them. 60 playable characters. You're basically solving puzzles and things are just like a little jinky, but

they're faithful enough to the IP and they're all pretty much love letters to the IP that you can excuse some jankiness. And I will say I've been playing the recent Lego Batman game and it is more of an Arkham game than it is a Lego game. And I know this because there's a Steam Cell recently and I bought a bunch of these Lego games. I started playing Lego Jurassic Park.

That is a Lego Traveler's Tales game. The exact same game they've always made but the new Lego Batman game is just an Arkham game with Lego characters. But I do like, the Lego games are kind of growing on me as something frivolous I can play while I'm waiting for my wife to get ready or come home from the gym or if I have 20 minutes to kill and I want to collect a bunch of little pieces. And especially now that Sam Neal has died, I'm revisiting Jurassic Park.

It's like, oh, I'm not sure if I like how they've moved on to just inserting the film dialogue into the character's mouths. But it's a fun way to say, like, to see rather, how do they turn Jurassic Park into a game where you jump around? How do they transform each scene into a Lego style playground? And that's fun for me to see. From the Lego Travelers Tales games I've played and also back in my old days in the games press, the sense of humor really stuck with me. I believe we have an active commenter on our Patreon who always has fun stuff to add, who I think has worked on some of these games, has mentioned.

Yeah, I believe they worked on Lego Dimensions, which was the Toys to Life brand. Which Simpsons was a part of. And that they plugged in so many clever little jokes into that game. The one that sticks with me is when they then also, got the rights to put Sonic into Lego dimensions. They wrote Sonic interacting with Bart and saying the things that the Sonic-like guy says to Bart when he's telling him to steal Bonesstorm.

Like Sonic, the actual Sonic is as a Lego, is saying to Bart, just take it. Take it, take it, take it, take it. I wish you could play some of these Lego content packs without having to buy the figures, which are probably hard to get these days. Because if you play Lego dimensions, you can play the only good ET game,

which exists within Lego dimensions if you buy the ET figure. I've always been curious about what that's like, what their Back to the Future game is like, what their, I guess, Beetlejuice or Goonies was part of this too. But it was inaccessible unless you wanted to buy the little figures, and I didn't. It was right near the end of the peak of Toys to Life.

It was on the downslope of Toys to Life. I would have liked it to go better too. But yeah, Travelist Tales, they have such a good sense of humor in their games and put in many funny little jokes. When I've played a little or watch clips from there, Marvel games too. They have jokes that are like, okay, these jokes work on me, a sicko who understands Marvel references. And I think it works for that pretty much everything that they update or put into the Lego form. Well, ultimately, Nintendo won the Toys to Life genre because we're living in 2026. When they release a new Amoebo, it costs $50. What does it do for your game? Nothing. It sits on your shelf. They're still getting third parties to make amoebos in this day and age. That must mean they're still making money. If Capcom's like fine, we'll make. a character from Pragata into an amoe as well.

Like, it must still make money. Yeah, like, they are attractive, the amoe figures, but I kind of drew the line of buying any more of them when they stopped actually having any functionality with the games. Although I did buy the Hay Pickman Amibo, because nobody wanted it. Hey, that's a nice one. I like that.

I am staring at it, and you know what? I still have not played Hey Pickman. I played, like, a level of it. And that's, like, the one Pickman game I need to play, but it's kind of a fake Pikmin game. So I'm not, like, you know, tearing myself into pieces that I haven't really touched it yet. But that's all the stuff that happened this week that an episode of The Simpsons aired.

And our special guest this week is no one because this is a bad episode and we're a little pain piggies. And this is a service we provide to you, the listener. You can hear a squeal because, boy, I think by the end of this episode, we're going to try to figure out what it was about. Because I go into this with my notes. I know I've seen this before. I own it on DVD. The name isn't really telling me a lot. But when we get to the end of Act 1, I'm like, what is this?

What's this episode about? And gradually they find their way to the point by Act 3, but by then it's too late. And then there's a B plot that has really no resolution. It feels like a half-written episode or an overwritten into half-written, like that they rewrote it too much and that the last draft they rewrote was half-written. I think they just, this is what can often define a lesser Simpsons episode. It seems like they had a guest star first and they wrote backwards from there. Or there was a viable Act 3 and then Al J.

hit the Fat Tony button. Oh, yeah. And things spun into crazy town from there. Yeah, definitely the third act falls apart. And it's like too similar to the Wandering Juvie from the previous season, which wasn't the greatest episode ever. But that at least was a more complete idea of, you know, Bart is chained to a person he disagrees with.

They're at least just ripping off one movie and they know the plot they can follow there. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, we'll get to Fat Tony and Act 3, but it's funny, we just recorded Homey the Clown. I'm not sure when that goes live before or after this, but we were remarking that this is a second appearance after Bart the Murderer and Homey the Clown. They didn't use him for three years.

And then we remark that in the teens era, especially, he is like the emergency character you drop in when you need high stakes in Act 3, and this is exactly what's happening in this episode. Yes, well, Joe Montini can save this because they don't have Phil Hartman anymore, I think, too. If Lytle Hutz was in prison with Homer here, I bet this would have improved

episode more than we all like Fat Tony, but I think Al Jean definitely overdid him. There's some season 30 and 31 Fat Tony episode. I'm like, do this really need to happen? Did we need a whole Fat Tony episode? And I know, I mean, again, we'll get to all of this, not to deliver all my complaints up front. I know the show has gone to crazier places in the past 16 years, but it seems like a big deal that, it should be a big deal that Homer goes to actual prison, an Oz style prison where he essentially becomes an Oz style character. within its walls. Yes. Yeah, they don't even really do. They do an Oz parody without really doing it. Though this is like the 80th time Homer has gone to prison. I stole the observation from the Real Jims, the Simpsons YouTube journalist.

But season 15, he remarked that every Simpson gets arrested in season 15 at least once. And now we're a year after that. And Homer's in jail for two acts of half the episode. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess he's been to prison before. goes to jail, like the local jail, but this is a really just a supermax penitentiary within Springfield. So I feel like this is very dark for this character, and he's about to be killed in prison, like it's the wire or something, or to be more fair, Oz, because that's what they're going for here. I appreciate, though, as always, when they do a Simpsons in prison joke, they stay away from prison sexual assault jokes that other family guy style cartoons would have easily gone for in 2005.

Yeah, Homer is showering with Dredrick Tatum and there's no drop in the soap jokes. I respect that. Not even a joke just about a penis being visible. Well, actually, that's in one of the deleted scenes. Okay, well, I'm glad they cut it. Yes, yeah. It also feels weird to be dumping on like an episode written by a writer. We both really enjoy his work in so many other places.

Bill Odenkirk is one of the best writers for Mr. Show. He did many great episodes of classic Futurama. I think, like you said, this shows a good writer who is assigned to something that is then heavily rewritten by somebody else. Yeah, and at this point, we should point out that they are hard at work on the movie, and this is like the most scatterbrain, spread thin era for the writers of the show. We're going to be trapped within this era for a bit until the movie comes out the other end, because, again, working on full seasons, 22, 24 episodes, working on the movie, all 900 drafts of the movie, working on the ride, working on the Simpsons game,

working on all the promotion for the movie and all the related materials. So this was a hellish era. And now they're in another one on The Simpsons. I don't know how these men all 20 years older are going to survive. You know, maybe that's the real secret of why they went to 15 episode seasons for the next four years. Maybe that's really it. Yeah, it's like an emergency break. The number of like just for 2007, two years from when this episode aired and the film comes out,

they have like probably a whole episode's worth of animation just for commercials, just for all of the commercials they were doing for Burger King and 7-Eleven and all of the other tie-ins, many, many tie-ins they were doing for the movie. Like, yeah, they're very busy, I get it, but this episode really needed to, like, get together more. I don't know. Matt Selman on the current show. He does co-show runner things, and I think he learned that from, in a Donny Don't style way from episodes like this. Valjean just trusted like a pod of writers and a different showrunner on this, I think it could have stayed more consistent.

Yeah, I think so. And I was also looking up Bill Odenkirk just to see where he ended up because I forgot that he is done with the Simpsons kind of around the time they go to Disney. So it feels like that could have been a Disney cutting budget kind of loss for the show. Because we talked to Dan Graney a million years ago and he kind of intimated that Disney was pulling the purse strings a little tight. some producers might not be around for much longer. Thanks for the dirt, Dan Green. But yeah, he moved on to disenchantment, and currently he is back on Futurama, which may explain why I've really liked the recent round of episodes,

not the ones that are live now. We're trapped in July still, so I meant the ones that went live in September of 2025. So Bill Odenkirk back on Futurama, where he belongs after 20 years on The Simpsons. He's too nerdy for The Simpsons, just nerdy enough for Futurama. Maybe it was that Bill Odenkirk once he finally wrote an episode where Bob Odenkirk appeared on The Simpsons, which was, I think, one of his last ones. That's when Bill Odenkirk's like, all right, I've completed my job here. I can move on.

I mean, it shouldn't be suspicious, but when someone who has been writing for the Simpsons for 20 years leaves, you have to ask, did they commit a murder? Because they shouldn't be going anywhere. It is like a tenured professor. Like when a tenure professor leaves at Harvard, it's like, well, he must have been emailing Jeffrey Epstein then because that's the only reason he would have been fired. As far as we know, Bill Odenkirk on the up and up. And his brother is so successful.

Yeah, I want Bill Odenkirk's memoir someday. He's just as deserving of one for his amazing career writing on like the three of our favorite TV shows. Yeah. And hey, let's get Nobody Three in theaters. It's going to be Bob and Bill team up. What if there's a long-lost brother? I've never seen the first two movies. I assume there's room for more lore within the nobodyverse.

You know, those nobody movies, there are a warning, though, to you. If you try to get an amazing shape like Bob Odenkirk did, you'll just have a heart attack. so don't bother. That's the moral. Never exercise. Yes, that's what, that's how he had a heart attack. Exercise too much.

It turns out the Donald Trump theory about your body is true. There's a battery inside and you can drain it. Though it would be fun to see if nobody three just had all the Mr. show original cast and they all spent six months with the same trainer that Bob Odenkirk has and all of them came back like super,

super jacked and ready to run a marathon. This episode really is, they only did it because they could get it. a famous a famous guy to them, honestly. Yeah, famous to nerds,

I guess. I mean, I don't think, I mean, I was a young man at the time. I'm not sure if I would know about this guy. He was on the Simpsons,

but Frank Gary is the guest star on this, and he is a famous architect. Though my blood was already boiling on this rewatch, because I had forgotten that this is the Shelbyville musical section, which, look, it's actually a fun little musical.

I wish they did honestly more of it, but it made my blood boil back then, and I had forgotten, and now it does, again, Like, this completely changes the lore of Shelbyville, and I do not like that. I'm against this. I don't like this pit stop in Shelbyville just for five minutes of jokes.

There's just too many ideas fighting for attention in this episode. Is it about Shelbyville? Is it about an opera house or a concert hall, rather? Is it about prison? Is it about a fat cat? Nothing from Act 1 really ends up in Act 2 or 3, outside of the fact that the concert hall becomes a prison. And I'm sure listeners remember in season 6, they go to Shelbyville for the first.

Well, okay, look, they went to Shelbyville for the football game, for instance, and there's been Shelbyville talk before. But in Lemon of Troy, that's the real Shelbyville and showcase episode. And that one is, Shelbyville is in a very David Merkin point. It's the exact same place in Springfield, except both think they're better than the other. It's a great comment on the stupidness of rivalries. But they change that for this. And this tries to develop some new Shelbyville lore. I'm not sure if they follow up on.

I don't know if the Huit returns. And it's like supposed to be the fancy town with more money and a full... It has a theater district to rival Broadway in Shelbyville. Yeah, it's like they're in capital city or something. Yeah, and that they look down at Springfield as Hicks. Like what this reminded me of, you know, from like six or seven years after this aired, is when Parks and Rec creates its Shelbyville, Eagleton, which is the snobby town that looks down on the Parks and Rec town.

But yes, we see them going around the merchandise mile of Shelbyville. Our street performers won't bother you anymore. And they kind of just have the jokes like Marge saying a whole place for shoes. That's pretty much us reacted to Manhattan to the shoes. Yes, but I already have a pair. And this is where they're trying to decide what to do. This also just feels like writers are reacting to taking their kids on vacation to New York City, I think. It also feels like Mike Reese's thoughts.

on having to see any play. Yes, okay, I agree. Bart's reaction sounds like how any of the writers feels. This is more my wife made me do this comedy of this era of Simpsons. Yeah, I think so. That's how it reads to me. But why do we see where they end up in our first clip? Look, we'll compromise.

We'll go see a play that Lisa doesn't want to see. Oh, let's see. There's Equis starring Sight Show Mel, the $3 Bills and Gay, Gay, G, Gay? Oh, song of Shelbyville. From the schoolhouse where our grandparents lurts to the bad zoo where all the animals burst. We're home to Christian, Muslim, and Jew, although not many of the last two. There's a girl for every guy.

Earthplace of the buttonfly. Fellow Shelbyvillian, enjoying our famous low humidity? I'll say, the only thing low, than our humidity are the greens fees on our public golf course. Which one? All three. Yes. Yes.

And apparently there were many, many more verses of this song in the original script and it had to be severely reduced. Mostly about the zoo animals catching on fire, right? In case you didn't know, it's an outdated term, but the expression was as queer as a $3 bill. Ah, yes. That's why the gay performers are called the $3 bills. You know, my most laughs in this episode are usually, usually for, from Hank Azaria seemingly improvising an extra joke to a scene of just like, yes, yes, like the guy soaking in the applause.

Shelbyville Pride. Yes, I don't, you know, I don't mind too much the return to Shelbyville, but they don't make anything of it. And I wish this rivalry would have kept up throughout the episode, you know, it would have been more satisfying if there was some connective tissue instead of just this wild improv game that ends up in a wildly different place from where it began. This song of Shelbyville, I can tell you who those. unnamed and uncredited singers are because it is on Testify.

And so I pulled out my testify liner notes. Listen, listen, listeners, can you hear the- They're thumping the mic? There has not been another Simpson CD in 20 years now. What are they waiting for? I know they're reissuing songs in the Key of Springfield on vinyl, but we've had almost 20 years of the Simpsons since Testify. There's got to be enough to fill one CD.

Come on, guys. They do songs so often that you would think they'd have like two CDs, a double album worth of songs, but maybe it's a mix of. they don't think it'll sell enough and also they'd have to like pay performers differently for maybe they didn't even sign deals for physical media release. Also you're asking Disney to put something

on a disc and that's not going to happen. No. They have to license it to like free levels of boutique places to press anything. So the two main performers who are singing the birthplace of the button fly part. The female voice is Edie Lehman Boddicker

and the male voice is Amrik Byram and they are long time just studio musicians, singers, choral singers who have like hundreds of credits on IMDB. That's great. Usually these studio guys and gals don't get a lot of credits in terms of letting us know who they are. Yeah, Edy is interesting that she is a choir singer, regular singer, and also a choir conductor.

She has recent credits as much as like minions and monsters. she has a credit on. And a credit goes all the way back to like a 1978 Scooby-Doo TV movie. She has been doing it for forever. She lets people know, or, well, somebody lets people know in her IMDB bio.

She is sung with Aretha, Madonna, and Quincy Jones. It's not very nice. Good history on these guys. And Amric Byram, his most famous thing is a session artist, as he calls himself, is he is Moses's singing voice in the Prince of Egypt. Oh, hey.

Who played him in the actual movie? Is that Brad Pitt or something? I think Moses... Matt Damon? Oh, man, no, I think it's Ray Fines. I think Ray Fines is... Or Ray Fines is the Pharaoh in it. Man, I can't remember now.

If Ray Fines is the Pharaoh or Moses. This is something I need to watch now that I'm no longer in Catholic school. It's a bad movie to come out when you're in Catholic school. In fact, it's Val Kilmer as Moses. Okay, Val Kilmer is Moses. Ray Fines is the Pharaoh, though, right? Ramsey's?

Yes. Okay. And you have, Amic Byram, the man's name, provides Moses' singing voice. So yes, that same singing voice you just heard there in the Song of Shelbyville. And this is where I have, the closest thing I have experienced to this is seeing a musical in New York City. There are many musicals where it is like local reference that they know the musicals are written to be performed, you know, all over the world. But there is a certain level of like this one will originate.

in New York. So time to have a joke about like, oh, they live in flushing. Like just that that is a bad place to live. But you only know that if you're a local. I had to turn to my husband and be like, okay, is flushing a bad place? Why are they saying this? Everyone's like, shh. Sir, please. That's why they hand out the reference cards before the show. And then here we see that it's Springfield is the hated one. In this case, Springfield Billy comes out, who is a Johnny Appleseed style guy. he has a barrel, a tin pot hat, and a bindle over his shoulder.

And instead of spreading apple trees, he's spreading ignorance. Isn't it also weird? This is like the third episode in a row. They've mentioned free to bet. Yeah, so weird. Was that a clause in Richard Gears contract? That he made them promise like three more of them. Or maybe they were still just mad at China after the last one they did.

They just wrote a he-ha joke, which I appreciate, because Billy thinks there's gambling in Springfield because he saw a bumper sticker that says free to bet, aka free to bet. You know, that's a good joke as a he-ha joke because he-ha couldn't actually write that joke, nor would they write that joke, I don't think. They wouldn't acknowledge Tibet. They don't know what exists outside of the continental United States on he-ha. If it's outside of Appalachia, they don't want to talk about it.

And this is where there is the first of three deleted scenes, though two of them are secret deleted scenes on the DVDs. Was it shame at one of these jokes? I'm not sure. So this one is, while Lisa is reacting to them mocking Springfield, before it cuts to Cletus and Brandeen reacting to looking at it like its reversifying glass, they then cut to Homer in the audience, also acting a bit like a Hick. Springfielders are stupid Hicks.

Well, that's ridiculous. Homer, do you have to eat all those pistachian nuts now? Come on, Marge. These shells muffled my guess. Only the sound. So a fart joke. If you could see it, Homer is buried under a pile of pistachio shells, and during that little bit of silence, it ripples with the movement of clearly he farted inside of it.

A visible fart on screen. I can see why this was cut from the Simpsons. It muffles it, but only the smell. So Marge is smelling a stinky fart in that scene. You can see why they cut that and decided to instead have a joke about Gleetus and Brandein. reacting to it. Not understanding what a mirror is. I guess Brandein does, but she uses a different term. And so they head outside to hear continued laughter of the patrons at Springfield. And the person who reacts to Lisa pointing out that they are, you know, hey, we're from Springfield,

not everybody is a hick. That should be a wealthy dowager instead of just some guy. Yeah, they need their own multi-dowager here in Shelbyville. Also, look, Matthew Nastic, one of their veteran directors of this era. I don't want to. to take his team to task of sloppiness. But when that one guy passes out, there's two rich snob dudes who have an ascot are drawn doubled up. Like one is in the foreground and one is in the background.

Like it's simply a screw up. Okay. Or they're identical twins who dress the same for fun. Sure. Yeah. You know what? I went to a performance in Vancouver and there were two old actor ladies who do dress alike and go to events together.

And it freaked me out. Oh, right, right. And they told me I looked like Oscar Wild. That was a nice thing they said, I think. And I said, I have a wife. So did Oscar Wild. True. But I was never arrested for Petterasty.

Take that. They then hoot back at Lisa in reaction to this. And Homer knows to join in with the hooting. And so then we cut to the Springfield Cultural Activities Board for another meeting. And I do have to say this crisis is kind of like a star. as Burns, it's just weird. The echoes to 10 years earlier you notice when we're doing our podcast about the 10 years separated episodes. I do love Marge's line. I've never heard such mean-spirited hate hoots. So she has heard hate hoots before. But this is on a whole

another level. Well, it seems, as we see later in this act, the Shelby Villians just drive through in their like 1930s jalopies to hooted people. Yeah, yeah. I'm surprised there are no raccoon tails hanging off the arials of these old roadsters. And you know what? Here's a compliment to this script. They recognize that they've been doing a lot of jokes where Mo is attending a thing he never would just so he can say a line. And Marge finally questions it. And I like that.

I hear that Mo suggests that they should start a fancy restaurant and then leave their patrons with the bill. And Marge asked, why are you even here? He's like, I think he wanted to steal their hats and coats while they were eating. That's it. That's right. It's to steal their stuff. You were punching up that joke, Henry. I can do you one better. What if they charge them, overcharge them? But Mo just wanted, he's really just there for free water, which apparently Mo has no access to normally.

Then Marge is trying to figure out what to do, and they say on the commentary that her stream of consciousness pitching style is an unnamed Simpsons writer that they are clowning on a little here. You know, I just heard the commentary. They were not identified as a Simpsons writer. Matt someone just says a writer, he or they know, that goes into the stream of consciousness rhyming game in order to come out the other end with a pitch, and it's very annoying and tedious to listen to.

Okay, you know what? I won't put it on a Simpsons writer then. It's just some writer they know that they're making fun out. I thought it was like a Batman Ridler kind of game she was playing. And she eventually rhymes scary with Gary, and that's where she thinks of Frank Gary. We'll explain him in a second. but we get another rhyme.

I'll admit, I'm not urbane enough Shelbyville style to know who Gustav Mahler was before this rhyme. All you need to know is that it rhymes with squalor, and that's all they're going for. I looked at him a little bit. He died in 1911. An Austro-Bohemian romantic composer says Wikipedia. But the thing is, most of his music

does not appear in movies all that much, so that's why I wouldn't have heard of it. I see. Well, this little sketch about how the Springfield Philharmonic is playing in a gym is the home of one of three very mean-spirited gay jokes in this episode, Henry. Oh, well, the reaction of, you mean the very sassy person who replies to the basketball players? Yeah, and then they throw, in the terminology of the time is like a girl.

They throw, they pass the ball with very limp wrists. That is true, yes. You know what? I didn't even, the other gay jokes in this are so harsh that I didn't even catch that one. It definitely is. That is a joke that this homo who plays music. cannot throw a basketball. They're in a mean place here, for sure.

Yeah. So we're going to get to Gary next, right? Frank Gary? Yes. Oh, there is a tuba player there that looks like David Silverman. Of course. A different caricature of David Silverman. They drew a new one.

They drew a new one. So this is a very L.A. focus plot because this is really about the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Frank Gary, the famous architect, he designed that hall. And famously, it took a very long time to get off the ground. I believe the plan went forth in 1987 to build the concert hall. And then after many delays, after losing funding a billion times, the thing finally gets built in 2003. And that's why there's a joke later where Lenier calls as, oh, they built the hall so fast, we didn't have time to think about it.

And I think that as they talk about out of the commentary that it's a very creative, wavy-looking design that's similar to how the future prison is designed in this. and that it was kind of an eyesore or also people pointed out that it is very shiny, that it would heat up the apartments across the street, that it would reflect upon. And apparently Frank Gary ended up on the show because he approached Matt Graney at a TED Talk, which is what you did around the 2000s.

And Frank Gary told Matt Graney, oh, some friends of mine think I should be on your show. It seems he didn't really know what the Simpsons was because when they brought him in, he wasn't aware of who Bart was. It was what the story is on the commentary, of who Bart is? I mean, he would have been in his 70s then, I think, right?

Or like late 70s, based on when he passed away, I think. Yeah. And Odencirk approached Gary recently around the time of the 2013 commentary, and he wasn't sure if he'd remember it or if he wouldn't like the episode, but Frank Gary remembered the episode. He thought it was great. And he showed Bill Odenkirk like, oh, my lock screen is me on the Simpsons. So he really liked this appearance, although if you read online,

thanks to some clickbaity article titles, it makes it seem like he hated this appearance, because if you look it up, it'll say, Frank Gary regrets his appearance on The Simpsons. And it's just like a little exchange he had with an interviewer where the interviewer is asking him, oh, there's this legend going around. Do you really crumple up pieces of paper in order to come up with your designs? And he's like, no, no, no, that was a Simpsons joke. And the interviewer was trying to say, like, no, this existed before the Simpsons, this rumor.

But he insists like, oh, no, the Simpsons made that up. So I think the Simpsons were running with this urban legend about his designs because they're wild, they're crazy. They deviate from what you think a building should be. it seems like randomness, like random shapes. So really there's a method to his madness and it's not just crumpling up a piece of paper and throwing it across the room and then making a $300 million building based on what you see. Yeah, I had found two interviews, one in the Jewish Journal profile of him in 2009 and 2011 in a CNN interview. It seemed like this joke meant he had to address the criticism that he had faced before for his things.

So, yeah, like he said, there's a perception that I just crumple up a piece of paper and that's the building. Though also this from the 09 profile, I had to say after the crumpled up paper at the floor, you're a genius, Frank Gary, and they had to really coach me on that because I was having trouble admitting it. What a modest guy. Yeah. And he lived a very long life. He passed away just this last December at 96. And I know that you and I have both been to at least one building that is designed by Frank Gehry as well.

It's in the Seattle area. Oh. Is it the Mopop? The Museum of Pop culture, yes. Oh, okay. I didn't even realize that was one of his buildings, but it makes perfect sense. Yeah, I looked up a list of his most famous. He does a lot of public works around the world, and the mopop is exactly the type of thing he would do,

which is like a billionaire wanted a fancy and the cutting-edge style design. Mopopop is a wacky building. Like, it really is like four buildings shoved together. And also, a Montereil goes through it, I think, too. And the house he's standing in front of in the shot we see him in is his actual house. And his mailbox is the Walt Disney Concert Hall. So they're really hammering home like this is where we came up with the idea, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which I've never been to. Marge even holds up a picture of the concert hall when she mentions it, which is funny because she just happened upon the Frank Gehry name there in a stream of consciousness.

I've never been there either. They remark on the commentary, even if you like classical music, Los Angeles is not known. is a classical music-loving city and having a concert hall there seems kind of useless. And I think, Bob, you've recently-ish seen the movie Collateral, the Michael Mann film. Yeah, it's been about a year, but yes, in recent memories. Jamie Fox picks up somebody in his taxi

at the start of that movie from that concert hall. Okay, and I guess it was fairly new when that movie was being made, because it only opened in 2003. Yeah, maybe it was like almost product placement for it. And, hey, if you are going to be in the Los Angeles area, fall, there's some classical performances planned, but who cares about that? You can see Home Alone with an orchestra there. Hey, you know what? That's a viable way to absorb classical music or, sorry, an orchestral performance. I just saw Jurassic Park with an orchestra playing the music. It was

fantastic. A great way to experience a movie that you really love in a slightly different way. Hey, if you see it as home alone, that's another John Williams score as well, just like Jurassic Park. Yeah, John Williams, Beethoven can sit and spin. John Williams is where it's at. Why don't we hear a little from Frank Gary and listeners judge his acting ability here, perhaps? Then it's agreed. We ask Frank Gary to build us a concert hall. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bo Bill. Snoopy, Stationary.

Dear Mr. Gary, would you please build a concert hall for our town? We may not be the biggest city or the prettiest, but we were the first city in America to abandon the metric system. Frank Gary, you're a genius. Behold, the new Springfield Concert Hall. And none of this would have happened, if not for a letter I received from one little girl. I wrote that letter.

You wrote I was the bestest architect in the world? Well, aren't you? All in favor of building a $30 million screw. you to Shelbyville? Hi! I'd say charmingly wooden. I think it's very heartwarming these deliveries,

and I'm sure it took them 30 takes to get there because he's not an actor. His Snoopy stationary excitement is, you know what? Compliment this episode again, that you can see the writing, Marge wrote down her nervous laughter in the letter.

Yes, now she's on the other end of, oh, look what you made me write. Though Marge is not normally written, this is a Homer joke of Marge writes like a child. Yeah, they make her kind of dumb by writing bestis and writing out her actual laughter. $30 million. Los Angeles wishes the Walt Disney Concert Hall cost $30 million.

Wasn't it closer to like $300 million? I think so. I saw the Wikipedia page where it put one estimated like $120 to $150 for the hall and then the same amount for the parking garage next to it. That's got to be one amazing parking garage if it costs as much as a concert hall. Hey, this makes me want to go take in whatever is there the next time I'm in the L.A. area. But hey, in Los Angeles, parking is more important than any other art in the universe. Yes. If you want to do anything, at least have as much space has to be.

At least the equal amount or more space has to be dedicated to parking. And very notably in the front row, when Quimby is calling this vote for the concert hall, I see Jacqueline Bouvier and Allison Taylor sitting together. That is strange, isn't it? That's a random pairing. I mean, they're worked in the crowd scenes. I'm just like, oh, it's so odd that they're here. I guess I don't see Jacqueline Bouvier as much in crowd scenes. She sometimes doesn't even seem to live in Springfield.

It seems like it takes a drive to pick her up and get her from places. Bowler's Thumb. Pot belly. Peabree. Let's operate. This is not good. It's Operation. We're Homer will tell you just how well you're doing.

Operation the Simpsons edition. batteries not included. Welcome to the break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert, co-host of a podcast that is not about a dog named Beethoven. And thank you very much for listening this week, as me and Bob keep exploring season 16. It's our full-time job to do this chronological exploration of The Simpsons,

and we couldn't do it without the supporters of listeners like you. Listeners like you who probably also think, uh, why do I have to hear ads like this? Well, you don't, because if you just went for five bucks a month at patreon. slash Talking Simpsons, you would get early an ad-free podcast. You get here next week's right now. It's already out on the Patreon.

And without any annoying ads like this one. Plus, you also get lots of bonus content each month. We do an episode of Talking Futurama and Talk King of the Hill, where we cover an episode of both of those shows just as in depth as we do an episode of The Simpsons. We are deep into the fourth season of King of the Hill, and we are past the 100th episode of Futurama. And those are just our most recent ones.

covered every episode of The Critic, every episode of Mission Hill, and many of our favorite episodes of Batman the animated series. Plus tons of interviews and other bonuses to sign up today at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons to hear all of the cool stuff you're missing out on that's ad free. If you want something even fancier than an opera house slash prison, then you should sign up today at the $10 a month level at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons because you get all of those add-free bonuses I just talked about. And you also get basically three extra podcasts a month because that's where you get the What a Cartoon movie podcast

where we cover an animated feature, just like we do an episode of The Simpsons. Super in-depth. This month, you're going to hear us talking about Big Hero 6, which is wrapping up our summer of Disney 2010s. It's a secret Marvel movie, which has a lot of interesting history of how it

ended up that way. And you can only hear all about that if you sign up at the premium level at patreon.com. com slash talking Simpsons. The entire back catalog of what we've covered is so huge and expansive of nearly eight full years of them, hundreds of hours. We have covered every Disney Renaissance film, tons of Disney classics, tons of Pixar films, including the first four Toy Story movies, tons of studio jibly films like Kiki's delivery

service and My Neighbor Totoro, Dreamworks like Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon, Warner Bros stuff like Space Jam and Lutie Toons back in action, and so much more. You can see the entire back catalog, including our longest podcast ever, six and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit. If you sign up at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And if you sign up for an annual subscription, you get 10% off. So sign up today. I do have a quick little clip here of one other Gary bid here as he's being bullied by Jimbo Jones on his design.

And then we also get our first bit of the B story. Get off my masterpiece, you punk. I'll call your mothers. Yo, Frank Gehry, like curvy linear forms much? Ah! Hey, cat, get your own pants. Kids, why's the cat so fat? Dad, Snowball's not fat. She's just got winter fur.

Okay, she's fat. Oh, can't breathe. Someone dangles some string. But Snowball's too lazy to reach for that string. to reach for that string. Yes. I'm surprised. I forgot that this beef story

starts here, so something from Act 1 makes the cut for Acts 2 and 3. And folks, I don't mean to ruin the surprise, but Snowball 2 is fat because Snowball 2 is eating a lot. That's it.

There's nothing clever about it. Snowball 2 has... It takes about three to four minutes of scenes to get there. Yes. They act like something is revelatory later in the episode. I think they kind of discover it

three times, I think. Though, hey, I am happy that Snowball 2 gets a dedicated story that isn't about her dying. Yes, that's true. And I guess there's a story in the commentary where Mac Grainning talks about his fat cat and how I guess Purina was putting together a calendar of celebrity cats or cats of celebrities, rather.

And they came to Grainings Place to photograph his cat Frosty, but the cat is so fat. A conversation had to be had. Should we include this unhealthy cat in our calendar? And eventually they did. You can look the picture up online. And I've seen fatter cats, to be honest. But Frosty made the cut. Well, in today's age of viral cat videos,

you see some cats where you don't want to laugh. You want to arrest the owner for the size of the cats. You want to intervene, like medically and with the police. Yes, I had a couple of chunky kitties as well, so I can't judge the people who took care of them to, they meow's so cute, you want to give them a treat. Some people may say that it reflects the parenting techniques of the parents who also has fat cats.

You're falling for their meows or the parasites in their poop that control your brain, either one. What those two, If you want to hear an extended version of Graining Frosty the Cat story, he tells it on his WTF podcast, which is where I found, I was trying to find the picture he mentions, and it was on the WTF Reddit,

where I found the result for it of somebody linking to it. That's where I found it too. I would look it up, but I don't listen to the podcast of quitters. I'm sorry. And he has stayed quit. Like, we're a year out from this. We'll see if he stays that way.

But I was sure he's going to quit. And then in six months, he announced a big deal at Spotify or some other place for a new easier podcast. How dare you quit and then release a documentary about your podcasting? You son of a bitch. That's his victory lap, I guess, there. I like Mark Merrin, by the way. I'm just sad that if you podcast, it's an agreement with your audience.

It never stops. Never. You cannot violate that agreement. It drives some people crazy the fact that we don't stop, but that's why we keep doing it. I guess, you know, he's, we don't have the guilt. built on us of feeling like we inspired Joe Rogan to start a podcast. I can understand that. Joe Rogan started before Mark Marin. I think, yes, the format, yes, I actually think really Joe Rogan, I've heard this, other people say this, that you can see Joe Rogan on an early

Tom Green YouTube video. Like Tom Green had a live show before most people, even called it a podcast. And Joe Rogan's on it as an innocent Joe Rogan. And he's like, wow, it's this easy, And you can see him just putting together the future empire he's going to build. Sorry, I will correct myself. Joe Rogan started three months after Mark Merrin, so technically he did start later. And I was having this thought in the shower the other day while listening to Chapo talk about Joe Rogan. And I was thinking when I was first getting into non-video game podcast, the Joe Rogan experience was very popular. This is like in 2010.

It was popular right off the bat. And I thought, oh, Joe Rogan, he's funny. He took down Carlos Mencia. And I'm sure his podcast is great. if people like it, listen to one episode and I thought, this is awful. And I don't like this guy. So I was able to see the writing on the wall, like many people. But, man, stinkeruny.

I listened to the episode of Dave Foley because I wanted to hear Dave Foley talk about his very bad marriage and divorce. Though, yes, when you listen to it, it's already there. Joe Rogan hasn't fully become the right-wing thought leader he is now. But he is going like, man, that's what bitches do when talking about like a, bad divorce that Dave Foley had. I honestly think that for as much as he's really fallen off lately, he's a great guy, but Kevin Smith needs to be given more

credit for being one of the godfathers of podcasting because I was looking up when he started podcasting. It was early 2007. So I guess retronauts happens like four months before Smodcast get started. These are the early caveman days of podcasting. No one is really talking about Kevin Smith's

podcast. I assume he still does it, right? I think so. I don't think he does it as much as he used to. I've seen people ask for like bring back fat man on Batman type stuff. And if he's seen Clerks 3, he should stick with podcasting. He's really good at that. Yeah, or the Jane Silent Bob reboot. Yes.

Oof. Though he'll prove us wrong with mall rats too. He'll prove us wrong with mall. I might give that a, let's call it a download. Maybe I'll watch half of it. So yes, Snowball 2 is fat. We then, I think they also do say Carolyn, they can barely remember. They think maybe Carolyn Omini came up with this.

I'd love to have her back on. We learned that she was the one who took care of the crow. at the offices to inspire the Homer has Crow Friends episodes. So, hey, maybe she does have a fun story about whatever plus-size kitty that this was inspired by. Yeah, a cat being fed by another family. I spoiled it. I'm sorry. So we head to opening night of the concert hall.

And again, if it wasn't for the commentary, I would not have known that the conductor is designed to look like Esa Peca Saladin, a Finnish composer conductor who works at the L.A. Philharmonic. If you look up the guy, he looks like him. The only conductors I know are Leopold because of the jokes in old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Leopold! It's Leopold, Leopold, the guy with the long hair that's like firing all over the place as he's conducting. Why don't we hear the town turn on music? Where's everybody going? The symphony she has just started.

So, we already heard the dumb, dum, dum, dumb, dumb, the rest is just filler. I thought this was going to be the soundtrack to the movie. Beethoven. Was I sadly mistaken? Sounds better on my cell phone. Don't leave now. The next piece is an atonal medley by Philip Glass. It really warmed my heart to hear that old

timey cell phone jingle. Yeah, there's a couple of old cell phone jokes in this episode, isn't there? Now, that Phil Glass, I'm going to steal a joke I heard from an Onion Rider one on a podcast. I wish I could remember his name. I apologize, but Philip Glass joke

What's wrong with Philip Glass? Not much. Not much. Not much. Not much. Not much. It's a joke that Philip Glass just repeats like two notes over and over and over again. He's for a certain crowd, the tote bag crowd, let's call them. He's mainly known for the Kowana Squasi soundtrack, that documentary.

You call it it. It's real life. It's life and balance. The documentary is accurate for it, I'd say. Sure. It's very repetitive, the Philip Glass soundtracks. And I feel for these Matnastic and his team. So they've already had to animate a musical.

Then they had to animate a full orchestra playing music. And then also a stampede of dozens of people out of a building. And later they're going to have to do a riot. A riot. Yes. Even the orchestra leaves and carries Marge away. They're sick of playing

Philip Glass too. Yeah. And we see the marquee changing on the concert hall. It goes from concert tickets half price to XXX movies all day to an evening with David Brenner. Now, to explain things to people who are maybe slightly younger than us, I barely know who David Brenner is, but he was a comedian who was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, known for telling very boring stories about his life and travels, and he would

also be a frequent co-host of The Tonight Show. So they're not saying he was a great guest or host. I mean, that shows you the power of Al Jean back in place again, of like making jokes about the Tonight show 20 years after it's over. This is like more than 20 years after Carson steps down. Oh, you know what? No, Carson would have stepped down in 92. So this is 13 years. It's 13 years.

Oh, it's only, yeah, 13. I'm sorry. Now, I can't do math. I don't know when Joe Rogan started. This is where they're also repeating jokes here. Like, or I'm not calling, actually, this is a compliment. They are doing a runner in this season because in our next clip here, Quimby opens up the floor.

to pitches just like he did and there's something about marrying. And I think with at least Barney and Lenny, I think, give pitches in both of those scenes. Doesn't Barney scream giant rats or something? Yes, yeah. Okay. But who will win this bid for the concert hall? You stupid Hicks, why didn't you tell me you hated classical music? We didn't have time.

The concert hall was designed and built so quickly. We're broke, but I have a plan. We changed the name of the town to escape our creditors. I need names, people. Lema Perrault. Got them city. Wiganville. Burger King.

Perhaps I can be of assistance. Smithies, tear me a new drape hole. If you hand over the concert hall to me, I'll assume the debt, and all of your problems will disappear. The building is yours. Excellent. He's turned it into a prison. So I guess that is the first of three unflattering gay jokes about Smithers, who gladly tears burns a new drape hole. Yeah, that, I mean, Dreypool doesn't even really rhyme with, like, asshole, right?

I don't really get the, but I mean, yes, it's a gay joke. I agree. Yeah, it's not great. This is when I, when we get to the end of Act 1, I'm like, oh, right, this is where it goes. But then where does it go from here? And where it goes from here is that Burns becomes like the boss of the prison. This is a very heightened reality where Burns has his own prison office that's very much like his Springfield Nuclear Power Plant office. He's really hands-on with running this prison.

It also is a retread of the casino episode, Springfield with a dollar sign, of like that they have the end act one with a town meeting of like, what are we going to do? And then Mr. Burns says, I'll own the thing that does the new thing in the next act. Yeah. It is nice to see Mr. Burns, but I feel like this is way too heightened of a world for him to dwell in. I don't think he would want, I mean, he loves torturing people, but he's got a business to run. Yeah, this feels a little like how they were using. him at this time. I'm comparing this to when he then buys all the local

media that's in a good liberal way that the Simpsons writers were hearing about how the media oligarchies and they go like, oh, Mr. Burns would do that, wouldn't he? And Bill Odenkirk barely gets to talk about it, but I do think he did have a view of like this is

supposed to be about the prison industrial complex. So they're like, well, that's a bad thing. And Burns would own that, wouldn't he? Yeah, Burns is a stand-in for like the oligarchs of the time. in this era. And yeah, Bill Odenkirk does indicate this is a send-up of private prisons, four-profit prisons. And then we get a very centrist lib take from Al Jean, which is a take a lot of people have in that prisons are so expensive because they're overcrowded and we pay guards too

much. Right. Yes. Yeah. There are a lot of people in prisons, but the problem is we're arresting too many people. We're making too many offenses, send you to prison offenses, not the fact that once you go to prison, everything is monetized when you're an inmate. Many people go to prison for nonviolent crimes or for just drug offenses that should be treated and just a general like need of treatment for people as well. And in an oversentencing, especially with a prevalence of oversentencing based on race and class level at America. But Algin, not as interested in that, I don't think. No. They don't go as dark as these things do in real life where prison labor is what's making a lot of your clothes and shoes and toys and things like that. Yeah. In 2016,

there was a very good documentary that Netflix shared, which honestly would now be presented, that would now be seen as like way too woke for Netflix to invest in. But the one about, I believe it's the 16th Amendment, about how slavery is still okay in America if it's a prisoner. Like, you can make a prisoner

a slave. And the main point of it was that slavery never stopped in America. They just had to find a reason to charge you for some drug offense first and then you're a slave again. Yeah, it's not really clear how in this instance locking people up makes the prison money, but they drop that angle entirely and just make it an Oz parody once Homer

gets within its walls. Yeah, Byrne says he's losing money on the prison. That's the only real, like, this is a business story that they're engaging in. I want to believe the way Odenkirk brings it up on the commentary without Gene Present, my belief is that his script had more to it, definitely had more of it in there at one point. Oh, hey, and if I could offer a punch-up, if you're going to have a joke where Mr. Burns snaps his fingers, he should have trouble. doing that because he's weak. Instead of just motioning to Smithers to do it for him.

Yeah, yeah. But I have a tiny clip here as the act begins because if they got a warden, we know who they're going to get to play it. Though compliments to them, this is a brand new character with a separate Wikipedia entry. This is not the warden

character who appeared in several other episodes. They should have just made it the warden from Pokemon and the one that we had seen earlier that was like when Bart was Bartina and breaking March out of jail. Right. And the wandering juvie, I think, is the same word, too. Yeah.

But why do we meet Officer Crackney? Let's see. Now, barely finished high school. You've challenged me to fight six times since the interview began. Make it seven. Mr. Simpson, I like the way you go nuts over nothing. All you have to do is pass this drug test. Yep, that's Charles Napier.

a critic cast member. I wonder if they were recording with this episode with him while they were doing commentary for the critic DVDs that were released. Oh yeah, that was around this time. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. I was thinking about like the commentaries for this round of DVDs. But yeah, credit commentaries were recorded right before Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor because that's all they're talking about. Right. Oh, and that would have been

fall of three, I think, right, for that special election. Sounds right, yeah. Maybe then one of Napier's previous appearances because this was probably recorded in early 04, mid-O-4, I would bet. We love Charles Napier, of course, based on the critic and his media appearances in media. This is his last appearance on The Simpsons, unfortunately. He had passed away when they recorded the commentary.

So this is really their last chance to talk about him. It's too bad. He is a great voice, a perfect voice. It's weird. He's playing a younger-looking guy than he normally is. The way Officer Krakney is designed, one, I thought he's like, is this a reference to some guy? My first thought was Crackney

sounds like Officer Kruppki It is, yeah But he doesn't act in any way Like that character Like as a parody of that character Right? No, it is just the name And honestly, whenever they do a West Side Story parody

I just point the finger at Algin Because he loves parodying West Side Story I guess it was newly relevant Much later, but still This is one of his go-to references So yeah, crack knee is Kruppke But it's also reinforcing Like he's a brutal officer

Who will like crack you in the knee With a Billy Club Right. Yeah, okay. Okay, okay. And you know what else? This is the second time the Wandering Juvie had it too. They tease, the plot of this episode is Homer is a prison guard, and then they flush it away. They intentionally do not do a Homer as a prison guard story. Homer is technically a prison guard for like one scene in the wandering Juvie and then leaves Bart high and dry after that. Yeah, I completely forgot about that. Yes. So it feels like this is the direction the show is going. Like what if Homer was a prison guard? And honestly, it just kills time. And so Homer takes his drug test, which he says, okay, all this left is the drugs test, which means it's your last phase of it. So Otto also got that far with Officer Krakney to become a prison guard and to get to the drug test. Maybe he thought Otto could speak the prisoner's language.

This is why you don't leave your urine sample sitting out because it'll get traded with a man whose body is mainly made of drugs. and they couldn't pay for Inagata DeVita. All of the music drops they do in this friggin' season, and they couldn't actually pay for it. Yeah, Otto looks into, we see what both characters P looks like, by the way, if you're into that. And Otto looks at his P

and it's full of like trippy, psychedelic imagery, and he goes, cool, but I'll never pass with this, so he thinks it does look cool. And that's where you hear not Inagata de Vita, but at least like the first like three notes of it before it becomes a legally distinct song. Well, the last episode of Season 16, covered had four licensed songs. So I think

they're like blowing through their budget this late in the season. So after that exchange happens, we hear the results and Homer is not happy with it. Simpson. I haven't seen so many drugs in a wang since I ran a Chinese opium den. Crack, smack, uppers,

downers, outers, inners, horse tranquilizers, cow paralyzers, blue bombers, green goofers, yellow sun marines, LSD, Mach 3 and trace amounts of Human urine There must have been a mistake My body is a temple Guards remove this

Coked out manned balloon from my sight But he misread my pee He misread my pee Lenny and Carl Are very brutal to Homer Now that there's one rung above him For one moment it was reminding me of a Clockwork Orange

Where his old droogs are now the cops And picking him up to but Alexander gets picked up in it But anyway, yeah, this bit here of Homer, the reaction of Burns were eating drugs, that's all right. Him being disgusted at the last thing is that there's traces of human urine

in a piss test. I chuckled. Yeah, that was funnier than the list of drugs, honestly. Also, I'll give the credit to the animators here too. They have to have the interiors of this prison be wacky Frank Gary designs for the entire episode. They do not make it a regular prison on the inside. It's wacky inside and out, despite being converted into a prison.

And so Homer is dragged away by his friends. He is denied a Homer gets a job plot line until, I guess, Homer gets a job, but it's prison snitch. That's the Homer gets a job. It takes so long to get here. Then we cut back to the Snowball 2 is fat story, so fat that when Snowball gets in a hammock that normally holds Homer, she seemingly is heavier than Homer.

She's now made of Dark Matter. or whatever this family is feeding her. It's not good. Then they are going to follow her, but Bart says, he's more interested and says a little helper, I am too. I actually am too.

It seems like a more interesting story. He's become the Snoopy World War I Flying Ace character, so we have two Snoopy references here in like the first 10 minutes. And you know what? If we had just gotten an extended parody of the Red Baron sketches

from many of Peanuts comic strip and cartoon, then I think we would have had more fun with it then the very empty Snowball 2 story. Yeah, just camping out outside of a stranger's home and figuring out the obvious. Now, we see that Snowball 2, as they follow her, she takes her collar off. So she must put it back on every time. But how does Snowball 2 do that?

Yeah, she snags it on a branch to remove the collar. So I guess the family doesn't know she belongs to someone else. But here's the thing. When Snowball 2 goes to the other people's house and they greet her as smoking, She goes inside there. This story is over. You don't need anything else unless there is a clever twist and there's not. You figured out the solution and it's Snowball 2 is being fed by another family.

Although we get a very dark joke about Marge that I do appreciate, although it really might be too dark for the character. We give a little listen to the very, very dark, though after the episode Mobile Homer with a look at their relationship, this sounds very accurate to how they are acting towards each other in Mobile Homer. You are, Smoky. Snowball 2 has another family. This is worse than when we thought mom was having an affair.

Turned out she was just going to the library to cry. Now she just bottles up her misery like a normal mom. Gentlemen, my prison is losing money. We need more convicts in the dungeonarium. Dungeonarium, that's catchy. Well, I could beef up arrest by enforcing some of these old forgotten laws. Lucky-ducky. See, here.

Here's one from 1834. It's unlawful for a man to be hatless during daylight hours. Oh, Smithers. If I didn't arrest you that night in the park, I'm not going to arrest you now. There's our second Smithers joke. So Smithers is seemingly engaging in public sex acts in the park. I would assume he's cruising. Basically, the plot of the film cruising happened with Smithers without the murder.

George Michael figure here, not the rest of development character. Oh, yes. Yeah. I guess this is right in the shadow of his arrest, right? No, that was a little earlier. So I'm thinking of him passing out in his car on drugs. That was what happened to him in the odds. Smithers is a real gay punching bag here.

And also he barely smithers, I wrote in my notes like, wow, Smithers doesn't talk this whole episode. No, he does for his one other gay joke. But this is a very silent Smithers for most of this episode. Yeah, despite the fact that Harry Shearer is regularly performing burns in this episode, maybe he drew the line of two characters. And this bit here also like, I noted a couple other Shira characters that could have talked but didn't. So yeah, I think he was working on a quota.

But they're pulling from the fodder of morning radio DJs of our youths of just like, oh, here's a crazy law that's no longer enforced. Like chickens have to be taken across state lines and they're charged for each, like that kind of thing. These ancient rules that no one ever bothered taking off the books because they just thought, like, let's not enforce this, but they're still buried in some town charter somewhere. This is the closest to the social commentary we were talking about earlier of that Burns is saying that this is a profit-driven prison and he is directly working with the mayor and the chief of police to arrest more people on bullshit charges to make them work for him. That is actual social commentary and satire. That is lost every scene after this.

I wish the inmates were forced to do things for Burns that would help him turn a profit because, a certain point this doesn't make any sense. And there is supposed to be a turn at the end of the episode where you feel bad for the prisoners, but they are written in a way you would never feel bad for them. Yeah, March calls them murderers. Yes, yeah. And the joke about March crying in the library alone,

that is very dark. Nothing was fixed. She just hides it better, like all moms, apparently. And this was another one. I thought, hey, Azaria's having fun. He is just reacting to Dungeonerium being a good, Burnsism. And he's like, oh, I like Mr. Burns jokes. So we see that people are going to be arrested more. Meanwhile, Homer is sad. His friends are

all getting hired to be prison guards. And meanwhile, he's just kicking a can down the street. They think they're so cruel and corrupt, but they're not. Classic muttering behavior. We have better sanitation in America and other countries these days. So it's harder to kick a can on the street than it used to be. Well, also, like an aluminum can, not as fun to kick. as a tin can was back in the old days too. And the Homer then has to kick it five times for it to be counted as transportation of garbage. And he runs back into the frame

to kick it one last time to make him arrestable. He is called Kicky Mantle. And then I had to double check this. It's like, oh, this was a very established TV show for this parody at the time. I wasn't watching any of the CSI-related shows then. No. In fact, because I do a regular year

interview on Retronauts of what happened 20 years ago, I was tracking the popularity of CSI. So when this aired, CSI was the third year of being the number one show on television, period. It would drop to number three for the following 2005-2006 season, only because

American Idol Tuesday and American Idol Wednesday took those top two slots. So it was still the most popular written show on television afterwards. Well, every TV show on TV now is a cop show, but this started the further expansion

of cop shows dominating television. Not that cop shows weren't on everything beforehand, too, but though CSI was famous for all of these like crazy camera moves to show off the evidence as they parody in here, though fortunately here it's a kicked can

instead of like a corpse with semen in it, which I think was what most of those things they've zoomed in on on CSI. Yes, if you weren't sure how they feel. What does Wiggum say here? A lot of flash and no meaning. Yep. That was it. Yes. Yeah. And by the way, because that noir festival is coming up, we're not seeing any Edward G. Robinson movies, but my wife and I have just watched like three of them. So, and he's great. Like, I forgot how great he is. He's not just an impression. So I recommend

The Stranger, which is an Orson Welles directed film. And also two lesser known black and white crime movies. One is a comedy. It is called The Whole Towns Talking. The other one was just released on Blu-ray in 2025 after being kind of lost due to music rights. It's called The Glass Web and get this folks. It is a crime movie that is presented in glorious 3D. So last night my wife and I were watching it with our 3D glasses on. Do they do any of the cheap 3D like move toward the camera stuff in it? Yes. Okay. For one scene, the character walks down a street where various things are like sprayed and thrown at the camera and it's great. One of those I'll put on my list is the stranger Orson

Wells thing. Is it adapting the Camus book or is it just? No, it is a crime story about an escaped war criminal from Nazi Germany, and it's also great. All right. I like this sound. That sounds good. And hey, Kino Lorber, it is Criterion for people with tattoos. That's what I'll call it. Take that, you Criterion nerds.

I am on the dork side of Criterion there. It's true. We're going to stuff you in that closet. I'll die happily in that closet. But hey, the Whole Towns Talking, or sorry, Whole Towns Talking is a John Ford movie. So there's some prestige there, Henry. Okay, all right.

If you want to increase your clout meter. You know, now I'm working. my way through the Powell and Pressburger filmography. We've both seen the red shoes, and now I've just watched for the first time, I know where I'm going. The er-text of romantic comedies. It is exactly like

a Hallmark Rom-com, except it's made in 1945 in England. It sounds like a James L. Brooks film title, by the way. I am certain he was heavily influenced by I know where I'm going. I am very certain of that. Well, I think, too, the CSI shows could be knocked on a bit because, I mean, they were

very empty calories, television, a lot of flash. And on top of that, they were Michael Bay produced, or Jerry Brookheimer, if not Michael Bay. And so those are, Jerry Brookheimer is known for flash and little substance as well. Yeah. And these things still linger on, don't they? Aren't there many, many spinoffs of CDS?

I miss this entire wave of television where CBS suddenly just became the most dominant broadcasting network. Now they're kind of a laughing stock again, thanks to Barry Weiss and all that business. Yes, yeah, though it still is like a. a television channel people watch and their paramount plus shows are things but yeah no I think it's a joke yeah it was like NCIS and CSI

and then like it's not related well it aired around the same time that criminal mind show I know is still continuing and I only or a spin off of it and I know this because Padgett Brewster is a major part on it and she is able to get Paul F. Tompkins

guest appearance well like I don't Paul F Tompkins appears on it they're friends I'm not saying she gets him parts, but it's just funny. Paula Tompkins appears on criminal minds sometimes. Yeah, I'm looking at all the CSIs out there, and we have CSI, of course, then CSI Miami, and then CSI, New York. CSI Cyber, CSI Vegas, and the real CSI Miami. Oh, I see. So an unscripted show about-

Yeah, this is a crime documentary series. Wow. I think, too, CSI pioneered the goth girl, punk girl type character who works with the team. in the case on CSI, it's a girl with tattoos and dyed hair who is their coroner, I think. Then you realize, like, all the coroners modern day look like this. Yes, my mom mentioned that when my grandmother passed away in the Seattle area, that one of the coroners that she interacted with was a very goth woman. It was a funny moment.

And, you know, some fun levity in a sad day for us. Yeah, all of the coroners today either have a fangorius subscription or they were a suicide girl at one point. They were suicide girls to pay for their education to become out. Or maybe they all saw how cool Scully looked on X-Files cutting up corpses. And they're like, I want to do that. I want to be as cool and sexy as Jillian Anderson. And I pass no judgment because I'm glad coroner is no longer creepy. Yes.

It used to be the coroner part was just the creep in movies. Or they would lie about how a shark killed somebody. That would also be their jobs. Okay, back to the episode. We want to be distracted. I don't mind some of these jokes because Homer is already getting hosed down in prison and Homer says, I'm supposed to have your job. This is what he tells Krakney.

And Kragne says, I'm sick of you positing an alternate reality. Yes, it's good. And we're getting to like 70s. Well, I mean, this happens in like, I feel like this was in 70s exploitation films and prisons where they like hosed down the new person. But I would assume they still hosed down new people at current day prisons, right? Probably. behind the scenes.

And Snake, you know, Snake's escape attempt, it's really on the guards here. And Lenny and Carl are bad guards. They don't notice him. Snake is basically like Spider-Man climbing up the wacky walls to escape the Frank Gehry Design Prison. And sliding down all the natural slopes of the building.

And this is when Homer unwittingly becomes a snitch by thinking, oh, that man could be hurt in his escape attempt and not realizing that he is riding them out. But I wish anything led to this. Like maybe in act one, Homer is a problem being a tattletail or being too honest and ruining things for people. And I know ultimately what brings Homer

to this role is vice. Like he is being rewarded with things and that will always appeal to Homer. But I wish there was some element built in that would lead naturally to this. It would be much more satisfying than now Homer has a shaved head and a weird little hat and he rats on people. Let's hear

Homer gets sold on his new lifestyle. I snap, Simpson. You did the right thing. squealing on that guy. Squealing? No, I just wanted to help him. Hmm, whatever. How'd you like to be a full-time rat? Really? You mean eat cheese, nor through electrical cords, things like that? Mm-hmm-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-tch-tk... Not exactly. Mr. Burns, I've thought about it, and I don't want to be a snitch.

It's not an honorable life. No, no, there are perks, a private-sale extra dessert, and this adorable little hat. Well, I am a sucker for a little hat. So, we have an agreement? Well, I don't know. But it's the only way you'll survive in here. Well, I would like to survive long enough to see the effects of global warming. I've got an inside tip that it's all a bunch of crap.

Okay, you've found your snitch. Excellent. Now what have you got for me? Homer Simpson has become a snitch. Tell me something I don't know. Sometimes I go to the movies alone. And yes, as we hit Act 3, we found the plot. Yes, right at the end of the episode, or at the end of the second act.

This bit, by the way, I've mostly gotten over my shame of going to the movies alone. You know, sometimes, sometimes my husband is busy, or I have a free afternoon, and I want to see. Or he says, I'm too scared to watch back rooms, watch it without me. so I get to enjoy a film by myself and not feel ashamed. You know what? I still think I've never done it. Really? I don't think I've ever been to.

I mean, I'm not against doing it, but there's always usually someone who will go with me. Well, see, now you're making me feel like a loser again, Bob. Oh, wait. I think there were a few times. I'm thinking when I saw Suspira for like its restoration in 2017. So there were a few times, yeah. But it's something I rarely ever do because I'm just so fucking popular, guys.

I will say a recent solo movie venture, because it was a 4 p.m. screening. The Maddie's Secret, which again, I say a very great movie, written, directed, and starring John Erle. Very funny movie. It was sold out at 7 p.m. 1. My husband said, you can see it without me at 4 p.m. I go to see it for his audience Q&A. And I was feeling a little, like, sad about being there by myself because it was like gay couples there

or girls and their gay best friends or, you know, there were groups of lesbians, too. I'm just saying it was a very chummy atmosphere. and I was feeling kind of lonely. You could have stood up and be like, my husband wishes he could make it. This isn't a straight wedding ring. Well, my wife and I, one of our love languages,

is sharing letterbox reviews with each other. It's very sweet. My husband just, he is not into the letterbox culture. I tried to sell them on it. Well, I mean, it is part of our ritual. We'll watch a movie, and then we'll go off to our little corners.

Often I'll wait till the next day to review it. And then our thoughts differ too much on a movie. Our followers think something is wrong. Like, are you guys in trouble? Oh, no, they're fighting. Yes. But I'm surprised by how often, like without even consulting each other,

my wife and I walk away with the exact same scores. That means we're meant to be. Letterbox does decide the fate of all couples. Meanwhile, occasionally, when a movie is over, well, actually, when we do see a movie together, like The Odyssey,

when we saw that, he is now used to, okay, I'm going to go to the bathroom, write your immediate letterbox right now while I'm doing that. And I like doing it while my thoughts are still fresh. Otherwise, I'm going to just tell him, like, no, wait, we have to sit here,

And I have to finish my letter box before we can, like, go to the, do, like, eat in the food court or whatever after the movie. Whenever you go to one of these gay films, these gay events, you need to wear a shirt that says my husband wishes he could make it and have a picture of him on the front. He is on my lock screen. I can show that off. Or the I'm not gay, but my husband is dot, dot, dot, and he wishes he was here. So, yeah, hey, let's talk about Oz. I was a big Ozhead, the HBO television series. I watched it all when it was.

Well, I came in on season three when it was airing, but I watched the rest of the series, when it was new. It was a big show for them before Sopranos. I did not have HBO at any point during my adult life. When I live with my grandma for a time, she had it, but I missed everything on HBO, like, after the mid-90s. So when the prestige started happening, I missed all the shows. Oz is famous for being a show that kept losing actors to the Sopranos,

like multiple seasons. A character would have to be, like, written off in episode one, because they got cast on the Sopranos or Law and Order. often they'd lose people the law and order. E.D. Falco is in the first two seasons of Oz, and then she gets cast as co-lead and the Sopranos and multiple criminals

who were in Oz. Now, what was appealing about Oz was one, it was a very well-written show with lots of fun monologues performed by great actors, but also it was very violent. It was a very violent soap opera, and it was gay. An actual, like, loving relationship

between two men, the story of gay, not just that sexual assault happens in prison. I see. And Homer's little hat comes from a character on Oz, which that was lost on me completely. In fact, I think the little hat is a stupid addition to his character design, and I wish it wouldn't have been a recurring thing throughout all of Act 3. But I looked up the actual guy, and I have the same question that a lot of people have. How did that hat stay on his head? Yes. I have an answer. I have an answer. Okay, thank you. I always wonder this too. Yes, the character is Simon Adabisi, one of the best like villains of the show,

He is such a cool villain. I could tell you his coolest scenes, like straight off the top of my head. He taught me the prison secret of making people eat glass kind of stories. If you secretly feed them glass that kills them over time. And Atabisi is played by Adawale Akinue Agabaji. I believe that is how it is pronounced. I have watched multiple interviewers of him struggle with that. and then he laughs it off.

He's a British actor of African descent, and we have problems. It's our fault, but we have problems pronouncing his name. It's a difficult name. So does he hide a tiny gun under that hat is what I want to know. If I was writing Oz,

I would have like a little gun he pulls out from under the head. Man, did he ever, I don't think he hit anything under there. But yeah, he's most famous for Lost, but when he was on Lost, which a show I didn't watch, when I would see it,

I'd be like, oh, Adabees he's on Lost. He's also, if you watch the first Suicide Squad movie, which he shouldn't. He's Killer Crock in that, and he had to wear a lot of makeup to play Killer Crock in that movie. Way ahead of you on not watching that.

And so, yes, he always had a little hat on his head, which apparently was a cultural reference to gangs in his area that he grew up in, England, I believe. And I found an Oz interview, Oz fan interview, with the show's costumer. And he just directly asked her, you know, and she's like, oh, this was a great show to come. costume for because most of our guys just wore like white undershirts and jeans.

Like that was the costuming for guys. Okay. I guess the actor is from London. Yes, yes, yeah. Though she's asked, how the hell did he keep that on his head? Was a Velcro? What was it? She swore, no, it just was. The fabric that it was made out of worked with the stubble on his head.

The actor shaved his head every season, every time for it. And the stubble from his head was like Velcro. and would hold the fabric in place, like, magically. We're not seeing a little halo of stubble that he kept on his head, just to stick that thing in place. Yeah, you know, I didn't see any of it in HD. I was watching it on SD television. Maybe the stubble's more pronounced in HD.

I need to rewatch it on HBO Max, perhaps. Is it one of those things that was retained in HD or shot in HD? I think so. It definitely looked like it was shot on film. I think it was, it's really weird. You watch The Sopranos first season when I rewatched, The first season of Pranos for my husband to see it for the first time. It was one of those shows where it was always filmed on film in HD.

And it was made widescreen safe, but it was framed with 4-3 aspect ratio as its original. It just feels weird watching it. It's very empty sides of the frames. So maybe Oz suffers from that, too. I have not rewatched Oz much. If you love J.K. Simmons, like I love J.K. Simmons, One of his greatest roles is the Aryan nation leader on Oz. Like, he is so good in that.

Yes, yeah. Bob, you watched, like me too, you also watched the USA Weird Science TV show. The actor who played the Bill Paxton role on that show, he plays Tobias Beecher, the new meat in the prison, who things don't go good for him in the Oz. So the guy who played Chet, whoever that is. Yes, Chet's actor, yeah. We need that on DVD.

Come on, guys. Where's Weird Science? There's no way that they would pay for the rights to that song to release it. Oh, just shove in some sound alike. It's strange technology. Strange technology. So Homer agrees to this. So, though this is where the longest deleted scene in the episode is,

if both of us feel not enough of the Snowball 2 plot, well, they cut like about 30 seconds of a Snowball 2 scene from the episode. Honestly, there's not enough and also too much. Well, so here's a little bit more of it. Though first in this deleted scene, there was a little bit more of Homer acting out what he thinks being a rat is. You'll hear in this clip, Homer literally chews on cables when he thinks that's what the warden wants. How'd you like to be a full-time rat? Really? You mean eat cheese, nor through electrical cords, things like that?

Not exactly. Oh, can I at least finish this? one. Okay, here she comes. Time to win her back. I got you. Squeaky fish. You love squeaky fish. It'll squeak. Come on, squeak. Look how much fun I'm having. The dead air in those scenes is the squeak, not squeaking. Yeah, ultimately, this is not a plot about winning Snowball 2 back because they don't. Yeah, that's how the episode ends. is continuing her journey to eat herself to death. The animation in this scene of Lisa trying and failing to entice Snowball

with the squeaky fish that doesn't squeak. It's fun animation of her like stomping on, she's like stomping on the fish, like come on, squeak, squeak. And Yardley Smith is doing a good job with it. But it ultimately is just another scene that leads them to the same place with Lisa and snowball. It has no forward momentum in it. You can tell they, Must have given up on it a little early because they didn't even bother to get a good comedy squeak.

They weren't so focused on the sound effect there. They'd even bother with a temp sound effect. So we come back from the break and this is where Homer's in the shower with Drederick Tatum who I guess I don't think Mike Tyson yet had his face tattoo. But this feels a little bit of like a joke about Mike Tyson coming out of prison with new tattoos, I think. Yeah, perhaps. Yeah, I'm wondering when he actually got. got his tattoo, and thankfully, we have the Mike Tyson tattoo wiki. Oh.

He did have this tattoo, actually. Oh, okay. The face tattoo, he got it before his 2003 fight with Clifford Etienne. I see. Okay, so he was already at the face tattoo by 05. All right. They haven't fully updated. Drederick Tatum eventually gets a face tattoo to mirror Tyson's.

Though in this case, he just has his one for the Galactic Mystery Squad. Yeah, Galactic Mystery Solver. So apparently he was part of some. like Scooby-Doo style team. And this is before the adult swim show the Mike Tyson Mysteries. Hey, you're right. They ripped off this joke.

I guess it's an okay joke of like, oh, this is a gang tattoo. The gang being a Scooby-Doo type child mystery squad. Yeah, the only mystery we couldn't solve was how not to grow up. So Homer runs to Mr. Burns, fully nude and dripping wet. And this is where, you know, watching it,

I was like, huh, Homer's just nude in this scene and they didn't really make a joke about it. Well, don't worry. There's a deleted scene where They did make it into a joke. Okay. That's right. An unauthorized tattoo.

I came here right away. Very good. I didn't know you're a natural redhead. That's ketchup. Homer has ketchup and his pubes. Yes. Or Homer is like as smooth as his upper half is body hair wise. And he just dripped ketchup on his mons pubis.

We're learning terms today. That's great. Yeah, so there. If you worry there wasn't a joke about Homer's pubs, they almost had one, guys. They almost did. And our imagination was so limited 21 years ago. A 42-inch TV was considered big.

Yes. I mean, a plasma TV, this had to be like, one of the Simpsons writers must have just bought one of those now. I've heard that about, there's a lot of talk about how charts say we're better off now than 20 years ago and everybody feels poor. But the example I've heard explained recently is like, oh, yeah, that you can buy the cheapest TV you've ever had.

You just can't own a home. Like, these are the tradeoffs that are happening now. technology, I guess now technology is getting more expensive because of the RAMP shortage. Oh, yes, yeah. All of this could be coming to an end, this era of cheap electronics. Yeah, that's true. You don't know how good you got it until it's over, I said. But yes, Homer's being really paid off here and not very good at hiding it either. While, meanwhile, poor Dradrick Tatum put in solitary confinement without his canasta,

which will drive him crazy, which this also feels like a light commentary on the real horrors of military confinement is truly torture, like horrible, horrible torture that should not be done to the worst person in prison. Like, nobody deserves this. Every, you can read articles and documentaries about it. It breaks people in horrible ways. Yeah, it's bad. But hey, you know what's not bad?

Cute kitty jokes. I can't stand. I'm getting angry. I'm usually willing to take these episodes with a grain of salt if I don't like them. But man, this goes nowhere. When we meet the family, this is Lisa confronting the family. There is nothing interesting about. the new family.

There's no new extra twist with them. They just have a different name for the cat. The family needs a little more juice. We need a better idea for how Snowball 2 is getting fat or something. I mean, if you're going to go this crazy with Homer, go crazy with the cat story because it's so uninteresting compared to anything else that's surrounding it. This is where Lisa tries to win back Smokey.

Ew, Smokey. You've got that awful smell on you again. Hey, that's the smell of her real family, the Simpsons. And for your information, our walls have a bunch of dead raccoons in them, but we are saving up the money to find them. Well, whatever. Smokie's our cat. Smokey, steaks. Sure. Come on, Smokey. Do your Smokey shuffle. Don't you say? She still loves us more. Don't you snowball?

With my heart? Like, it was a toy heart. I really can't believe there's another scene with this story afterwards. That settles it. She chose. We know it's because they feed him a lot. That's it. Did they just really like the joke that The Simpsons House smells really bad? I don't get it.

I don't know. But my next note in my notes is, quote, Now Al Jean adds fat Tony to this troubled act three. Yep. Period. Yes. We get cut back to the prison. Everybody is trying to find out who the snitch is.

I also notice here that Harry Shearer must have, like he does with Eddie, he says, I don't do legs anymore, which is why Johnny Tight Lips really comes to the forefront in this era of the Simpsons. Here's the thing. I pegged this time, this is Harry Shearer as legs. Oh, legs doesn't say anything here, right? He does say, I thought you was the mole. That's what he says in this scene. All right, I take that back.

We just covered Homey the Clown. We just recorded that one. That one is like, I'm seeing double here. Full Costies. That's Hank Azaria. But Legs is Harry Shearer in the beginning. He is Hank Azaria for a long time, I think, inconsistently. And in this episode, he is back to being hairy because I think they just forget who

was supposed to play legs. Dan Castellanette has always been Louis though, right? I feel like... Yes, yes, because he is just doing a bad Joe Peschi, which is charming. This is when Johnny Type Lips and Frankie the squealer, who are used for a one-off joke, are now just

regular members of the gang, but that also, like you say, Bob, Al Jean loves Fat Tony so much that legs and Louie aren't enough. They have to expand the crew to, like, now it needs to be at least a five-person unit for jokes. Yeah,

And weirdly enough, Johnny Tightlips is squealing, but on himself. Oh, yeah, wait. He's forgot his game, didn't he? He's like, I'm not the rat. I'm the pigeon, but he's still saying stuff, which is not what he does. He should just tell them to suck a lemon. Why do we hear fat Tony as well as Homer accidentally outing himself? Gentlemen, we must determine which of our fellow inmates has become the Rodentis incarcererium.

You hurt the boss. Find a rat. I found a rat, and he's right here. I ain't the rat. I'm the pigeon. I thought you was the mole. No, you're thinking of that guy who was the canary. But we can all agree. We work in a business with a very rich lexicon.

Rich lexicon, very rich, Johnny. Ooh, a Tiffany's box. And the thing inside is from Tiffany's. Only, you've never done this before. How'd you afford it? Well, if you really must know, I'm a prison snitch. Haven't you seen what happens to people who rat in prison movies? Sure, they're on top of the world, and there's a big riot scene.

Then I don't know. I usually doze off. The prison snitch is killed. And that could be you, because you're the prison snitch. What are you jobs looking at? You never seen bling, bling before? Okay. Yes, so Jimmy the squealer is the guy who says, I'm the pigeon.

But still, Johnny Tightlips gives too much information about things he knows. And yes, that is Harry Shearer as legs, which... Yes. Again, very inconsistent, but the voices are so similar, it's often hard to tell. And then Marge basically gives away the end of the episode and says, you know what happens in prison movies? And it's like, yeah, it is what's going to happen in this episode. March seems to have no real opinion about Homer being in prison, not even like county jail, like in a Supermax prison, until she realizes that he is going to be killed. He's like, oh, how nice, Homer, you got me a gift.

Wow, you know what? That's a very good point. In the episode where Artie Ziff frames Homer, they really focus on, oh, how this affects, well, not really, but they do focus on how this affects the family, visiting Daddy in prison. Marge is sad that she misses him. Nothing that Marge does until this moment even acknowledges, nor Bart and Lisa's story, even acknowledges that their husband is in prison for this whole episode. Someone should tell Bart and Lisa what's going on. I mean, why is March crying in the library? Her husband's in prison for the fifth time.

Maybe that's it. That could be it. Marge outs him too is the snitch. It's her fault, honestly. Yeah, it's Marge's fault. And yeah, it is 2005. So I guess we get a bling joke. Bad stuff.

Not into bling. Snitch life is what it says to instead of thug life. Very funny. It's not good. It's not good. Also, his little hat, nobody calls it a goofy hat. It looks much more like Goofy's hat, which, hey, baby stumbles how goofy keeps his

on his head too. It could be, yeah. It really is fashion to be like a goofy hat. So, yes, I hate to say it, but we still have one more Lisa clip here because we need some resolution for this. Again, we are pain pigs. You're listening to hear us whine and scream as this subplot

just fizzles out into nothing. I feel like this is out of order. I would put Lisa's confrontation should be after Bart investigates, but I don't think they edited it to be after because Bart's little dance calls back to the Smoky dance earlier.

So obviously this is written to be after. Oh, by the way, apparently Smokey is the name of, or was the name of Bill Odenkirk's cat. We're going to give it a big was on this one, 21 years later. It could be the oldest cat in the world right now, Bob. It's not impossible. If you got the cat seconds before he started writing this episode, then yes. I think that that would fly.

In this next clip, we see that Bart is bad at improvisation. What is it that they have that keep snowball coming back to their house? Only one way to find out. My baby turtle crawled into your basement window. Oh, you poor boy. What's your turtle's name? Uh, apron boob's face? Really?

Well, let's go find it. And what's your name? Uh, shoes. Butt back? Yep, he's bad at thinking up things. Yeah, Lisa's asking the writer, room. What could be inside that house? And they're like, we don't know, Lisa, sorry.

We're not going to show it. And it's not that interesting, really. It's exactly what you're thinking. By the way, Lisa, you're smart. You should know this. Yeah, it's like, oh, the cat is fat because it's being fed too much and a cat keeps coming in a much better thing. Whisper of the heart, the jibbley film we've covered.

There is a plot line of this of the cat moon is followed to all of the houses that lives at with a different name and gets fed by multiple owners. It's how it's a big fat kitty cat because of that. Like that, it's actually a fun plot line in Whisper of the Heart. Here, it's nothing.

It's nothing. You know, also, too, there's something unsettling about Bart referring to an adult woman's boobs and butt. I don't know. I don't like that either. Well, too sexualized with Bart here. We cut to Homer then reading from Montgomery Warden, a parody of the Montgomery Ward catalog, which was definitely out of print by then because all the stores closed in 2001. Mm-hmm.

And he is tricked by Snake into hearing about a fake prison riot or a breakout that's supposed to be happening tonight. This is about early E-E etiquette then of responding to Evites. Yeah, he uses the term netiquet, which is that's not exist anymore. We don't care about this. I think we all expect people to mostly flake on half the things you invite them to either. And hey, I've been guilty on both sides. I think I've gotten good at at least, if I'm not going to go to something, I do tell people. I don't hit the maybe anymore of local invites.

It's best to be honest, especially when you have to see their faces or actually say a response. Yeah, it's much easier too. I have been much better at going to things and doing, my husband has been pushing me more to like, come on, our friends are going to want to hang out with us. Or this is like some are new parents, our friends in the area. And it's like, if they invited us to do something, it's the one time in three months they haven't had to like stay at home with their child. They're looking for an escape.

They want to hear. reports from the childless world again. And God help you, you better be entertaining. And I get to hear their takes on movies by the time they come to digital formats. They didn't have thoughts on obsession until they could watch it at home. But then we can both.

Spider-Man tonight. I don't even think the movie's done being edited yet. To keep it safe from spoilers, Bob. They'll be uploading Act 3 to the server while you're getting your popcorn. I would bet DLC. Well, actually, movies really do have DLC now. I saw I waited long enough to watch Back

that I actually did watch the back rooms with its 10 minutes of DLC tagged on to the end of the movie. Bonus level. It is a video game-ass movie. I mean, in a good way. It feels like a good video game. So Homer is reporting this back to the warden. And this is where we have a cute little joke about how things are categorized in libraries. I want biographies arranged by subject, not by author.

Yeah, actually, I'm always confused by this when I do look at the biography section in the library. the bookstore. How does this work? And then I eventually just kind of look at the spines and try to find what I'm looking for. I think it should just be, it's by subject of like, or even at a bookstore, there's a bookstore that also is a charity. It's books to prisoners charity that I, sometimes I have both given my time and some money to and folks out there. It is a worthy charity. At that, their biography section is actually classified even more. It's like, well, this is the political biography section and then within that it's by subject of like

president or congressperson or whatever by name and then author within that. So then we cut back to Bart and guess what? Bart likes being there too because he's fed a bunch of treats and that's it. And that's it at the end. Bart now has his own

little dance and then we just can forget about this forever until the final scene of the show. There was no twist to it. There wasn't like Bart being held captive. They stayed away from a darker twist for just the point of being dark, which I probably, if they did that, of like, oh, actually, the mother is fattening up the cat to eat it or something.

Sure, fine, that would be lame. But this is nothing. This is just the predictable. Give me something, please. Bart says, thanks, Mother Dexter. Dexter, also a cat, Bill Odenkirk had. Or I think his wife's cat, right? Yeah.

Now dead. We got to find something to say about it. Okay, here, I'll compliment it. When Smokey Snowball does the Smokey Dance, I like when they have to animate Snowball doing something because you said it about Lucy on Disenchantment. It's fun to see a very mat-graining simple design have to be animated in the current image.

And the cat barely gets any stories. The last story the cat had is when it was killed. Yes. This actually, this fat version of Snowball 2 is actually Snowball 9 or is it 7? I forget how that really. resolved. That also was a sucky ending. At least that sucky ending had the confidence to give you the middle finger to your face instead of just being just deflating. So that's all settled.

We head back to the prison and much like Bain's plot in The Dark Night Rises, somehow he has tricked every officer to be in one place and to leave the area with no cops anywhere else. And yeah, the prison guards are ready to mow everybody down with this chain gun. They've got set up. They're going to murder. A lot of people are going to die tonight. And Lenny gets a hit because he doesn't have his poetic an analogy about the electricity in the air before a prison breakout. But nothing's happening. What's going on here? And we then cut back to the inside and we're hearing chance of kill the rat. Again, compliments to the animators. They are told to do a gigantic riot inside the prison and also the prison is designed really crazy. So they can't even

reuse old designs for prisons. And Homer is watching Boobarela with a wireless headphone which is pretty fancy for 2005. Man, those had to cost like 200 bucks back then or something, right? Like, what even had Bluetooth back then? Barely anything.

I've got bad news, Henry. A good headset does cost $200 today. Okay, sure. You're right. You're right. Okay. Well, then $500 back then. Yes. Probably. And it must be very good in noise canceling too, because Homer doesn't hear the chanting until he removes them. There's got to be some noise cancelling there.

So, yes, Homer realizes everybody's turning on him. He even has a cell phone in prison that he can call Marge for. And he has a segue. We get a segue joke. It's 2005. At this exact same time as season two of Arrested Development, which is, I'd say, 30% segue jokes. Yeah, especially with, there's a little, like, understated joke where the inmates are able to escape because the open cell door switch is right outside one of their cells.

we don't see who throws it, but it's just within arm's reach. That's an all right joke. That's all right. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, this is before the new owner of the Segway company accidentally drove himself off a cliff in 2010. So they're predicting the Simpsons predicted. Right.

Right. Oh, shit. Okay. The Homer survives this. So we don't even get to see his landing, actually. Yeah. I denied that too. On the commentary, Selman is like going like, Matt Grading mentions he talked to somebody who was like,

worked in the Segway company. And then Matt Selman's like, oh, and then he does. falling off a segue, right? And then back reading goes, no. Yeah, he sounded annoyed. Hey, that was recent news as of this commentary recording, like within the past couple of years. Again, this is back when Matt Selman was the bad boy of the commentaries.

He was always looking for the fun little needling there. And now he's the boss. He's the boss. The bad boy's the boss. Then, hey, in another bit of, wow, 10 years repeating a joke, they do the thermo camera that they did 10 years earlier in Homer Batman. While reporting that it is new technology they can finally use,

and I mean, I know it is Homer Badman, but that joke is better. This joke is just Kent following the blobs of heat signatures and identifying Homer as being the biggest one and saying, Good luck, blobby. And yes, not only is it a thermal camera joke, but it's Kent Brockman commenting on it too. So it's another similarity to it.

We see Homer running through the cheap prison cafeteria food and see again, for it to be the turn of, the episode, this is the first joke that they have, it's bad there and that they're fed cheap food and that it's terrible conditions because they have a library full of books. Again, I can tell you, from doing small amounts of work for a charity, libraries are empty in prisons. They are denied books. Many states make it illegal to even send a free book to a prisoner.

I've done some time and the Bibles there are in horrible condition. You would think they'd at least, the churches would want to get Bibles in there to get to those guys. But here we see that the cafeteria is full of shrimp casings, pickled eyelids, and tendon loaf. Bob, do you have an opinion on shrimp tails, the eating of them or not? No, absolutely. You leave those behind. Oh, okay, see, I'm a shrimp tail eater.

You're a shrimp tail eater? I like eating shrimp tail. I'm talking about a fully cooked or fried shrimp. I've had them both ways, pan fried or breaded fried. I like the tails. My husband hates them. And I'm like, okay, more tails for me. I mean, okay, listeners, this is going to dominate our comment section.

It's Henry going to be okay. Okay, I look this up. Multiple websites say it's totally fine to eat the shrimp tails. It's totally safe. And in fact, in some cultures, it's seen as like, oh, this is like the best part of the tail. According to, and this was from the shrimp tail advisory board, so I think it's true. Okay, so I guess we're split on this, but I'm still confused. But listeners, you have to let us know who is the tail eater, who leaves the tail behind when you're eating on that shrimp?

Shrimp casings is not the tail of the shrimp. is the thing you're supposed to clean off and remove them. Yeah, usually when you're served shrimp, that's already done for you. But if you order like prawn at something at a restaurant, you often have to do the work yourself. Well, this is also why when I get shrimp for cooking, I have now, I just buy the fully devained, pre-devane, pre-tail removed, tails off shrimp when I make it for dinner for me and my husband. So just to take tails out of the equation. When I saute it in the pan and yes, this is unbredded. This is one of the healthier nights of just unbredded shrimp.

But the tails are so delicious. I know. It felt wasteful at a point. And honestly, it's cheaper to get them without the tails sometimes. Or at least in this one pack, it's tail on, tail off next to each other, dollar difference on them. But enough about shrimp tails, this is where Marge comes in in this wacky plot because she somehow has a key to the building. I have the same question. Thankfully, it's answered very quickly.

I'm like, why is Marge here? And she's like, oh, as part of the cultural board, I have a key to the key. to the concert hall. Okay, fine. They remember how this prison even got built. I forgot. March, how did you get in here? As president of the cultural board, I was given a key to the concert hall. There's the filthy rat we're gonna kill. And his wife,

who sometimes drives my son home from school. Oh, you must be Michael's dad. March, come on. We'll be safe in the gas chamber. I want you to look into the faces of those poor men. Each one is a life you made worse with your ratting. Marge, I'm sorry I got you into this mess. Can I snitch on my heart and say I love you?

Oh, homie. Yeah, Marge is very stupid in this episode in a not funny or charming way because it'd be funny if Marge didn't realize the entire time that they were riding. but then I think she quickly realizes they're in danger after this. Like, look into their faces. Those are all men you've hurt. And one of the least earned, oh, homies ever, that Marge is like, hey, look at these guys who are about to kill all of us. You made their lives worse with your ratting.

But the show, other than it undeservedly happening to Drederick Tatum, the show is like, well, yeah, you ran it on Snake. He sucks. Bat Tony, he would kill Homer most episodes. Like, these are not lives ruined. These are just Homer ratted on bad people for the pretty much the whole episode. Yeah, like Fat Tony was threatening Marge's pretzel business. Yes, yeah. Fat Tony has tried to kill them so many times.

And this bit here of, it's so weird that it's, I mean, Homer's saying we'll be safe in the gas chamber. Okay, that's all right. But they just fly by it so fast. They're like, but we need the reconciliation. But this is so unearned, just completely of like, oh, holy, just nuh. And then the cops come in out of. nowhere with no like reason for it. Marge doesn't even say I brought them with me. Yeah.

Total just out of your ass in here. Yeah, it's a real ass pool. Like with the snowball story, I was expecting what's the clever twist? How do they get in? Or what's the joke reason they get another? They're just there with tear gas. Yeah, they just happen to show up with the governor there. Just that's it. Like at least they explain that one for Marr. And I think they give themselves too much credit on the commentary. They say this like, oh, you must be Michael's dad. Is them setting up a future season 18 episode about that Tony's son. He's with, like Lisa's crush, that is true. But I think it's just both just come from it being a godfather reference.

And I don't think it's planning ahead. Yeah, I was looking into this. This is the future of our show. We'll be talking about Michael D'emiko, I think his last name is. Yes, Bill Odenkirk brings him back as a character in a season 18 episode, the fine character we see. And then I'm looking at the wiki. He is a mildly recurring character on The Simpsons. He comes back more than Patty's daughter or Selma's daughter, Ling.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Michael, I don't recall his ones after that, but I actually did watch that episode. Eventually, we'll talk about it in 2029, perhaps. But when I saw it, I remember thinking, this feels like a checklist of they saw every scene of the godfather they had yet to parody, and they then parodied those ones. So they could have a more complete godfather real.

What have we missed? It's been 18 years. There's got to be something left in this Godfather loaf. They finally found a reason to have the door closing on Diane Keaton shot from the movie be used in The Simpsons. So, yes, Burns is there with the governor. And hey, credit, it is Mary Bailey. Though they already, she had been in season 14. They brought her back. So it's not that fresh.

But they remember the governor is Mary Bailey. Again, I give him credit for that. And we get some fun Abu Ghraib jokes because it's 2005. Woo! Yeah. Let's just hear the clip. We'll make these riotos regret their folly. This prison will make Abu Ghraib look like the four seasons. Smithers will need electrical wire, a hood, and someone who can really point a genitalia. Done and done, sir.

Hold on a minute. Governor, I've been using my powers of snitching for evil. But now I want a tattle for good. This prison is a hellhole. They feed us horse meat. with traces of jockey meat. I'll have you no way by the finest cuts of beef. The guards are sadistic and cruel.

I can't help the way I am. When I was a boy, I saw my father murdered before my eyes. By me. Is that his last line on the show? Yep, yeah, that's it. Oh, goodbye, Charles Napier. And hey, flu, indeed, to quote Henry, because, yeah, Abu Ghraib, we're making a lot of jokes about it. But also, I think what they're laying on Smithers is kind of messed up.

It's like, oh, yes, like all gay men. Smithers enjoys a weird, homoerotic sadomasochism involving electricity and torture. Yes. And shame ritual, humiliation rituals too. And yes, it's like such a crazy implication on Smithers. But Smithers isn't sucking dick in the park. He's electrocuting men in his basement. I know. It's like, so Smithers is Jeffrey Dahmer here? Like, what is this shit? Like, Smithers, up to this point, his gay lifestyle seems pretty vanilla. Like he does not see And if he was into like kink That wouldn't be a bad thing for him either

But this is like one of the more homophobic gags in the series here, I think Yes, now do some gay men do Abu Ghraib role play? I'm sure. But they're a minority, let's say. If it's consensual in out of context, I ain't judging, fine. Well, you know what? If they told me over like coffee, I would bite my tongue on judgment. But yeah, then you ask like, okay, who gets to play Lindy England?

Who gets to play the torture victim? Do you guys swap out? Also, like, isn't it sweet to remember a time we're like, well, we had a war crime you could like say by name and Americans would remember instead of just being on a long list of them. We used to have a war where we got lies first. Yes, yeah. And where the president actually like felt like apologizing, which, yeah, I think now it's like what, 80 hospitals and 10 schools in the last three years have been exploded. As long as the president's being blackmailed by another country, the war will. continue. Yes, yeah.

So yeah, that Albugrave joke, I just, and that's when Smithers finally says a line in the episode with the old done and done line. Yeah. And you know what? I feel like I don't hear the voice of Bill Odenkirk in this episode, but it does come out when Mary Bailey announces their new sentence. Yes, you know what? That feels like a Futurama-style proclamation. Oh, I did want to say, though, that I like on the commentary that I think they are kind of mocking Gene on it for how long. they hold on that fanfare for the obviousness of that joke. Like, it's just bad.

Yeah, do we need the fanfare for that kind of lame joke? It's like, I think we get it. It is horse meat. We get it. It says Churchill Downs, you don't need to play the fanfare. They should have went all the way and had a horse whinnying in the background, too. And like little clopping noises. If you're going to really just drive the joke home that much, just take it to the next level, I think.

They could do a whole lot better. So, yes, this is where the governor saw, things. And then they also like at breakneck speed, not only solve this, they don't even actually absolve Homer. Like Homer doesn't get an official pardon. Let's assume an app is off screen. But then it's just like Zoom, we're back in bed for the wrap up for it here. And then also in this clip, you'll hear the not actually deleted scene because it aired, but over the post credits, they showed one other scene that would have been in the episode. Governor, I think the only fair solution is to pardon all these thugs and murderers.

Well, since there's no room in the prisons you came from, I'm releasing you all to a garbage barge, where you will bear knucklebox till one of you emerges as king of your floating hill. What I missed in the joint? Just lying here watching you sleeping sweetly. Sleeping sweetly. Sleeping sweetly. Sleeping sweetly. I won't tell if you don't tell. Listen to me. This whole building is unsafe.

They cut corners everywhere. People! It's a death trap. No, Dad. You fell asleep in front of the TV, watching the Towering Inferno. How do you know the title of my prophetic vision? You know, not a bad joke,

at least the punchline of that joke, but we're keeping the boomers awake with these references to the Towering Inferno and West Side Story. That Dowering Inferno was an old thing to reference when it was the plot foundation for the third act of Monorail that was like a 20-year-old thing to reference then. But yes, that Homer fell asleep watching a movie

and then imitates the major scene in Tiring Inferno. But man, just hearing just the audio of that last scene to the wrap-up, like that is such a weak scene. Like Homer is in bed with Marge, then just sneaks off for a drink and mose. Like, that's not even a thing he didn't do. it's just a week to look like oh Homer's a bad husband and he sneaks

instead of spending time with March he goes to drink that's it yeah you expect something more again you expect there to be a better more clever resolution with many of these ideas but it just they kind of deliver you something that should have been punched up a million times into something better

and like he said too of this episode of like oh when he says there's no room for you in the prisons it's like oh is the stance that we should build more prisons like America doesn't have enough? Is that it? It's very strange. Though you have to assume that the mafia and snake

escaped this doomed barge and we're not part of this like, what's it called like the crab bucket? Is that the metaphor of like you put a bunch of crabs in the bucket and one is left alive and that's the toughest crab? Yeah, well it's like no. The crab bucket metaphor is the other crabs try to drag the other crab out

back in. It's holding you back. But here's a thing. That's a misnomer because the crabs are actually working together. They're not working against each other. I have a bad perception of Thanks to that myth. They're not all fighting in a bucket. At least they remembered Snowball 2 for this last scene, I guess. But just a real whiff of an inning.

But like you said, Bob, I can at least hold on to, I think that is a Bill Odenkirk Futurama-style line of just the pronouncement by Governor Bailey of the sentence of them fighting out on a garbage barge until everybody but one is dead. Yeah, it does feel like an uncirk touch. And this episode, though, Wolfo Rooney, it's not very good. And I just think we've said it before, a lot of ideas.

Some of them viable, but they're not working in concert with each other. And all of the resolutions are just all whiffs. It's a very undercooked episode than I expect better from Bill Odin Kirk. Frankly, I'm disappointed in him. So like I said earlier, we are your pain pigs for this episode. And if you say, Bob and Henry complain too much, well, that itself is a complaint. And I'm calling you a hypocrite. And there's nothing worse than that.

Those are my final thoughts. Yes, this just, they had to make room for a big guest star, or it sounds like they just had guest star first in this, like Frank Gary wanted to do this. So let's either tag it on to a Homer Goes to Prison episode idea we have. And then just to fill out the other eight pages, we'll have Snowball 2 gets fat. And they just either, they didn't fully realize the earlier drafts,

or they rewrote it so much that they end up with a hastily written final draft. But either way, this is full of much. moments of Simpsons can do better than this. They just, I expect better. They needed to do a second take. They needed to not play a lame fanfare over an obvious joke about horse meat. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, at least the next season 16 one is a lot more interesting conceptually. And vendors in it, very briefly. Yeah. I have now watched that episode. It is definitely a better episode than this one. Mobile Homer, isn't making me Miss Mobile Homer of which being a crumbier episode, too. This is a betterness.

Yeah, we didn't know how good we had it. But yes, those are our thoughts on the seven beer snitch, an episode. Again, what was this about? You tell us in the comments. But as for us, if you want to support the show and get a lot of ad-free episodes. In fact, all of them will be ad-free and access over 200 bonus podcasts. Go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up there at the $5 level. And when you do, you'll access ad-free podcasts one week ahead of time and also access our vast paywall nearly nine, sorry, over nine years worth of content. We've covered shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critic. And for five bucks a month, you get all that back catalog stuff.

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