Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase With Mike Drucker

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

This week's episode of The Simpsons is all about television history, so it's the perfect time to welcome Mike Drucker, the professional comedian and TV comedy writer! We chat all about spinoffs through the decades, sweet lady gumbo, All Quiet On The Western Front, sweet sweet candy, and a tiny green alien named Ozmodiar that only Homer can see. Come along and join the fun with this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get hundreds of bonus ad-free episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!

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

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

sfsketchfest.com right now, right now, and get your tickets soon. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where we're like this all the time. I'm your host, Cork Gator, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Look out, Bob.

It's Hank's turn now. My shorts don't have a cow. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert. And who do we have on the line? Me, Mike Drucker. I forgot to think of a line, but it's Mike Drucker. Hi. Hello. Hello, Mike. And today's episode is The may 11th 1997 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby supercomputer deep blue defeated gary kasparovboys in Outer Space airs its final episode. And the fifth element tops the box office. Was that like the ending of M.A.S.H.?

Were we all there? I don't know if they at least gave a conclusion to the story of the Homeboys in Outer Space. I don't know. So I think we went over this before. They're not from Outer Space, but they're in Outer Space. They're in Outer Space. They're in Outer Space. They're Delivery Boys in Outer Space.

Okay, so did the Homeboys make it back home? Was it the cliffhanger? I hope they got to get home in their final episode at least. We'll figure it out in the movie. I hope it's like Quantum Leap where it just has a title card that says the homeboys in outer space never made it back home. Oh, what a bring down. That was kind of a bummer at the end of Quantum Leap,

I have to say, too. And that supercomputer, the deep blue gary kasparov thing i watched the uh there's a very good documentary on it too and kasparov's feeling at the time was that he was cheated when the computer beat him because he thought no chess computer could beat him and he was playing in the way that he felt a computer would play against him and when the computer made a move that he did not expect he contended that off stage somewhere a human took over for the computer and did an input that a human would make that a computer would not to throw him off his game that was kasparov's defense for his first there yes he sounds like a sore loser to me i think so he was he was a little

pissed in fifth element what a good movie. Yeah, yeah. Let's not talk about the director, but great movie. Great movie. It was definitely the first film I saw Chris Tucker in because I was a suburban white child and had not seen Friday yet. Okay. But he was very good in Fifth Element.

What a haircut on that guy. Such a great movie. So today our special guest is Mike Drucker. Mike Drucker writes for the TV, but he and I crossed paths when we both worked at IGN. And actually, Mike, I was only a lowly internet comedy writer at the time. So I never talked to you because I thought you would be too intimidating. But I always wanted to when we worked in the same office, but I never did. So I apologize in retrospect. I will also say I think that like at that time, it was at that time when IGN still had sort of like three or four sub sites and I was just on video. So I think that you and I were also like assigned to different areas. And

it's not that we weren't encouraged to hang out, but I just feel like it was, it was, it was at a clicky moment, I think in IGN's history. Yeah. There was a sort of Stanford prison experiment happening within the office. I also came in, like, I feel like I was like, it was almost like a sitcom where I was added in like the seventh season. And everyone already had a backstory and people who didn't like each other didn't like each other and who liked each other liked each other. And I'm like, hi, I'm here now. Quiet, Roy. Right, exactly. Yeah.

Well, Mike, you're an accomplished comedian and comedy writer. You've written for so many television shows, Late Night. And so I'm curious, like what, you know, what impact did The Simpsons have on you as a comedian and writer? It's so hard to say because The Simpsons is so ubiquitous. Like it's so, it's such a big umbrella over American comedy, especially people of my generation who like, you know, the first season of The Simpsons when it was, when I was, I think five. So it's sort of like, you know, as far back as I can remember, there was like, like I lived through Bart mania. Like I remember remember like having a doll that said eat my shorts.

And, you know, before it was a cliche when it was like, it was the catchphrase. So it's hard to say like, it's such a big, important thing. I think, you know, like, there's that internet meme, The Simpsons did it. That's a real thing people struggle with in TV writers rooms, you know, and now other shows did it, you know, like, especially when writing in late night, where it's like Colbert did it, or The Daily Show did it, or we did it two years ago, and no one remembers that we already did it. But every comedy job I've had, it's like, we should someone will be like, we should do this. And so it's like, no, wait, The Simpsons did it. So that's a real thing. That's a real concept in writers rooms. I would say that for my generation, it really it taught us joke writing, it taught us situational joke

writing, it taught, you know, it taught us joke writing, it taught us situational joke writing, it taught, you know, it taught us character games, you know, like certain characters have very dedicated games that wasn't necessarily new to the Simpsons, but the Simpsons elevated that, you know, to know that like, this character is always going to respond this way, because his game is to be dumb and boorish, or, you know, Lisa's game is to be smarter than everyone in the room, but sort of stubborn, you know, again, other sitcoms have that. But when you grow up with a cartoon, and that cartoon lasts your whole life, and you become a comedy writer, you start to stubborn. You know, again, other sitcoms have that. But when you grow up with a cartoon and that cartoon lasts your whole life and you become a comedy writer, you start to be like, oh, I understand

what this means when I'm writing my own things or when I'm writing for other people is they have a certain personality that has to always match the joke. Wow, the game thing. I never heard of that terminology. That totally makes sense. Is that, I guess you're a viewer from day one then, eh?

Yeah, like, I mean, my earliest, I remember that first Simpsons Christmas episode. Like, to me, that's like one of my favorite episodes just because I remember being like a little kid and watching it and how sort of, I mean, I referenced, you know, all the Christmas Simpsons stuff, but I remember that feeling more real as a kid than other Christmas stuff, especially coming from a family that at that time was struggling financially. Like to see that like on TV and to see it in a funny way that it's not just like a lot of Christmas specials before the Simpsons,

the idea of being poor was sort of a joke. Like if you're too poor for gifts, you're an alcoholic Santa, or, you know, you're like some orphan that Santa gives a gift as a function of being good. Or like Scrooge deals with all these poor people, but his redemption is the big story, not the poor people.

They don't really matter that much. And the Simpsons, like as a kid was like, I was like, yeah, that's what it feels like to be a broke-ass family. That's what it feels like to desperately want something and to know that because one of us messed up or because things just didn't pan out in our favor, we might not have a good year. That's a great point because I guess when it was new, things like The Simpsons and Roseanne, when it wasn't what Roseanne is now. They were a reaction to the perfect families. Like this is how working class families and, you know, struggling families, this is what they're actually like. And this is what life is like for them. And people were really

happy to see that, which is why these shows were so big. Absolutely. And that had a huge impact on me as a kid, again, because, you know, when I was a kid, my family went through a really shitty time. And just to be like, you know, I think later day Simpsons sort of lost that thread, but early Simpsons really was about their family really struggling. Yeah. I think at a certain point they realized that they, if they wanted to tell a story and their, the means of the family would get in the way of that, they would just steamroll that to tell the story. They'd be like, well, we want to tell the story. It doesn't matter if they couldn't afford it. Yeah. I think after a certain point, there were four scenes of them discussing their sacrifices, each of their personal sacrifices they had to make for something.

And after that, just like, we can't write this scene again. We've already done it. And in your career, Mike, have you worked with any folks who worked on The Simpsons? I wonder if I have. I don't. I'm sure that I have. Like, I'm sure that I have, but I don't know if we've ever talked about it. Like, I have a few friends.

Like, I'm friends with Megan Amram, who's written stuff for the simpsons recently but i don't like i i'm sure i have it's just there's so many people that i can't think of it like i definitely like have like one or two friends who've done like voices here or there on there just by virtue of the fact that i know a lot of comedians but i don't know if i've ever been in a writer's room with another simpsons writer interesting megan rules i cannot wait to see her episodes. The Good Place is one of my favorite shows, like, period, right now. And she rules. And Megan, how fucking dare the Emmys

not give her an Emmy? I'm mad just thinking about that now. It was the greatest joke. It should have been rewarded. I agree. Yeah. I'm mad about that. I'm more mad that we didn't win an Emmy.

Yes. I'm also mad that Megan didn't. an Emmy. I'm also mad that Megan did. Emmys for all. Emmys for all. Everyone should have an Emmy just for being there, which is not true. This episode is a very TV writerly episode as well. On the commentary, Matt Gratening talks about being very worried about it, that it was too extreme and too weird.

This is the most genre-breaking episode of the series ever, I think, to this point. This is the first non-Halloween, three-story, non-canon thing. And there would be a lot of good ones of these and a lot of bad ones of these. But this is the first non-Halloween, triple-story episode. It's kind of a jumble of Treehouse of Horrors, the 138th episode of Spectacular, and 22 short films because it covers people who aren't the simpsons it is introduced by troy outside of the universe who knows that simpsons is a tv show and it's three separate stories across three acts well i mean

also i wonder like in 1997 how aware the modern like that contemporary viewing audience was of the concept of a spinoff like they knew that shows had been part of other shows, but that what I rewatching, what I found so interesting is how much work they put in at the beginning to explain what a spinoff is. Yeah. For this episode, you really have to be super savvy about the history of TV in a way that not everyone was ready for because of, you know, just not a whole lot of internet in 97. And I think it was, I think it might've been Bill Oakley on the commentary. commentary you said like some of this is just us doing the same material but ironically there's no real joke especially like that i don't really care for the third segment that much because it just is like you know can believe can you believe we're doing this like isn't this so lame and corny

but they don't really if you grew up in the 70s i guess but yes i did watch an episode we'll talk about it more when we get to it but i did watch an episode of the'll talk about it more when we get to it. But I did watch an episode of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, and it's striking how much they took from it. Yeah. The mockery here. And I think now that we have instant access to everything they're parodying, you can appreciate it on a much deeper level, especially all the variety shows that were happening in the 70s. Absolutely. I kind of agree with you. I feel like rewatching it again, the third segment was the one where I was like, this one doesn't have a lot of this one doesn't really have an angle on it

outside of Lisa being replaced. I think the replacing Lisa thing is super funny. Oh yeah, that is a great joke. And referencing, you know, Jan Brady not wanting to come back for a very, again, watch I mean, I feel like just watching an episode of that variety show might be more interesting than watching the parody It's hard. It's hard, man.

It's really long. It's a horror show. I mean mean and that's why the same reason i love the star wars holiday special it's it's so it's so long but it's just so weird it's also a type of comedy that really doesn't exist that much anymore like i feel like every few years like i think a couple years maya rudolph kind of tried to do a turn on doing like a variety special type show like i know that talk shows are called variety shows. And a lot of shows, including Fallon, which I worked on, have a little more like musical song and dance numbery stuff.

But the idea of like a straightforward middle America family fun song and dance show with sketches just doesn't exist. And I can't even imagine how it would exist. I guess it's been a while since we've just had a family on TV that wasn't in a reality show. Rosie O'Donnell did try to bring back a variety hour type show too. I guess it's been a while since we've just had a family on TV that wasn't in a reality show. Rosie O'Donnell did try to bring back a variety hour type show too. I think it's also why like the Muppets never really work when they try to bring it back because the Muppets show was very successful being a variety show when it debuted in the 70s. It was one of the first big ones, but it also like that isn't television now, know that's not how people i think american idol

or those judging shows present the same bunch of stuff in the same way yeah but it's just packaged as a contest and somehow it works differently it's it's it's interesting how much television has changed in the 40 years since those shows ruled television and also just the concept of spinoffs like when this premiered i was in love with the idea with spinoffs i was a tv maniac of this this episode was made for because over the summers like i would just go to like e or nick at night and see what reruns of 70s and 60s sitcoms were on there and i'd watch every episode i could i watched mary tyler moore rhoda one day at a time soap benson i knew a lot of these spinoffs and just the idea that there were more

alice as well and and the idea that there would be a spinoff with more episodes starring just this one character really interests me and then as i got older and got into the idea of like failure and these spinoffs then just kind of crashed and burned, it was fun in a sad way too, to look at them. Oh, absolutely. And it's also weird to think that like, you know, as much as we talk about spinoffs now and how we're much more aware of the media landscape, even people who are just like, you know, not like in media, but sort of like, you're just aware of it. I feel like there used to be more spinoffs. Like we talk about spinoffs and reboots now, like they're a new thing.

But when I was watching that episode, he walks by a whole hallway of posters of real, Troy McClure walks by a whole hallway of real posters of real spinoffs. And I was like, oh, there used to be, like Frasier's a spinoff. Like there used to be so many spinoffs. And now like when there's one spinoff, we're like, oh, that's so weird that media's doing that.

You know what I mean? Like, we treat it like it's a very new thing. I have a theory about that, actually, that I think spinoffs – I did some research into this and looked at what, like, spinoffs have come out in the last decade. Oh, cool. And there are a lot. But I think why we think spinoffs are dead or gone away is because of the absolute total failure of Joey. I think it is. Oh, God, you're so right.

Joey was pushed hard as the biggest spinoff of all time. Friends is over, but hey, Joey's sticking around and Joey's going to have some fun. And it ended in two seasons. It was a big flop. It was, I mean, Matt LeBlanc's career is fine, but, and I feel like that made people think spinoffs are this horny old trope that we don't need anymore. And yeah, but spinoffs that are very popular today include the blackish spinoff Grown-ish. Oh.

Young Sheldon technically is a spinoff. There's all the shows in the Arrowverse, off of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl. There's all the shows in the Arrowverse, Off of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl. There's all of the Dick Wolf Chicago shows, Fear of the Walking Dead, and what many critics call the best show on TV right now, Better Call Saul, is also a spinoff. Oh, you're right. I don't even think of the term spinoff anymore when I think of shows like that. But yeah, Better Call Saul is awesome. And The Simpsons has a good history of spinoffs that never happened. In fact, the critic came out of a failed Krusty the Clown spinoff, right? Yeah. That's how it worked out.

Matt Grading thought he could do it, and then he wanted to do it as a live action thing, while Gene and Reese decided they'd just take their idea and make a new thing with it. Same with last year's 22 short films about Springfield. They thought that could be a kind of a backdoor pilot to just a Simpsons spinoff called Springfield. It's just about everybody who isn't the Simpsons. I think Granny even talked about like what the Young Homer Chronicles, what is Young Homer doing? But I guess I turned to Futurama because Fry is Young Homer. Yeah, pretty much. It's kind of shocking there's never really been a Simpsons spinoff in all these years. What we think of as spinoffs I think has changed a lot thanks to the idea of like, maybe also the Marvel Cinematic Universe has just changed, has added more prestige to the idea of spinoffs that now

they're just like, it's a universe of properties. It's not something hacky like a Rhoda spinoff. It's a major event, like Fear of the Walking Dead, even though that's just as much a spinoff as Rhoda was. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I think it doesn't have the real desperation to it anymore, where with a lot of spinoffs, it's like, okay, these actors still need work. Two or three of them have movies now, or they're done with this, but hey, watch The Golden Palace, you know? It's also kind of funny that they're doing this because James L. Brooks, the executive producer of the show, was involved in a lot of spinoffs. That's true.

And he especially, this was kind of Mike Reese's defense of doing the Critic-Simpsons crossover, which I think is a very good episode, but a controversial one internally. But his defense was that on old James L. Brooks shows, like the Mary Tyler Moore show, they had characters crossover all the time to boost the ratings of them. Like the first episode of Rhoda has one of the worst examples of it, where Mary first episode of Rhoda has one of the worst examples of it where Mary Tyler Moore, she just calls her on the phone. So you can clearly tell Mary Tyler Moore filmed a scene on her set and they've been just cut to it while Rhoda was on the phone with her. How does Maude fit into that universe? Is she part of the...

Oh, no. Maude is Archie. That's Archie Bunker. Sorry about Archie. Yeah. So Archie Bunker is like the Jeffersons and Maude, and that's all wrapped up in that world. And Archie's place, and I think there's one more in there. But so James L. Brooks, this feels like kind of a tribute to James L. Brooks as well. Also, on the commentary, there's some funny moments where they are very afraid of James L. Brooks and pissing him off. I guess this episode begins with some perfect Troy McClure of him very slowly walking down the hallway and talking about how much this lets you know how bad they think spinoffs are, that Troy McClure loves a spinoff, like that he, the most artless human in the world, loves spinoffs so much.

I love that he's at the Museum of TV and Television. Yes. Spinoff. Is there any word more thrilling to the human soul? Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such TV spinoffs as Son of Sanford and Son and After Manics. I'm here at the Museum of TV and Television with a real treat for Simpsons fans, if any, because tonight we present the Simpsons spinoff showcase

that's a great cold open which is so rare in the show too uh after manix that's a parody of after mash the uh the very very failed and hated mash spinoff and hated mash spinoff what if we had mash without the three most popular people wouldn't you love that just as much? That also lets you know how bad Troy is that he's been on these only these spinoffs, not on a good show either. When I was a kid on First Viewing, I was dying to see if they'd do a

Rhoda reference. I was like, wait, Simpsons spinoff, Rhoda, that had Julie Kavner on it, and then boom, there she is right there when they come back for the commercial break behind him. I think that's the first time they've drawn in one of the actors as themselves into the show. It's a real cool little wink. And apparently that was like her first job. She was just discovered by James L. Brooks and hired to the show. I watched Rhoda all the time on E! It was... I've never seen an episode of Rhoda. Only clips of Julie Kavner. It's like she had that voice when she was in her 20s.

It was a fun show. The Rhoda show, what's interesting about it is she has a meet cute with a guy. And then in season two, they just go through like a bitter divorce. And the world wanted them to get back together. And they stayed divorced. And it kind of killed the show. People were very mad. They didn't stay together.

Nice life, you guys. But people in the 70s, they didn't want real life. They wanted Rhoda to have a happy ending with Joe. They hated the president because he said, you know what? Life sucks. Put on a sweater. When Troy McClure talks about the holes in this Fox lineup, he's not wrong about where Fox stood in the ratings back then. When I looked at this season's top 30 shows across the four networks, the only two that were on the list were X-Files and Simpsons, not even Melrose Place.

By the next year, two new shows would break into that list of top 30. It would be King of the Hill and Ally McBeal. Okay, yeah. I mean, we were ending the era of the must-see TV domination. Seinfeld would be over around this time next year, 98. But this was still though

x files it's easy to forget what a huge deal x files was even even in 97 five years into the show yeah but uh troy introduces us to our first of the three clips here not long ago the fox network approached the producers of the simpsons with a simple request 35 new shows to fill a few holes in their programming lineup. That's a pretty daunting task, and the producers weren't up to it. Instead, they churned out three Simpsons spinoffs, transplanting already popular characters into new locales and situations. First up, a gritty crime drama starring Springfield's beloved police chief Wiggum. Keep at least one eye open, because his best friends, the Simpsons,

just might pop in to wish him luck. Let's us wish him luck, too. Good luck, Wiggum! I do like the very sweaty appearances of the Simpsons in these. Yeah. When they're showing up, it's sort of like the reverse of the backdoor pilot,

where it's like, hey, who are these new characters that we've always known? Let's follow them for an episode, and then you really don't care about what's happening. It's a contractual obligation on the Simpsons parts to appear in the first episode. It also reminds me of comic books where the second issue of just about every Marvel comic book

will have Spider-Man appear in it. So kids who like Spider-Man will also buy that book and hopefully stick around for it. Which, by the way, mentioning Spider-Man, Mike, you have fulfilled a childhood dream of mine. You have written official in-canon Spider-Man, have you not? I have written like a handful of pages of official in-canon Spider-Man, yeah. That's amazing.

Thank you. Man, congratulations. He told Spider-Man what to do. I told Spider-Man what to do. It was so weird. I had done a Deadpool, like a short Deadpool comic a couple of years ago and Marvel seemed pretty happy with it. But you know, there's a lot of people who want to write Marvel comics and 90% of them

look like me and have the same background as me. So I sort of respect their decision to like have people who don't. So I think it was kind of like one of those issues where like there was just so many people at the door, so many people more qualified than me, so many people who are better than me and so i did it they liked it and then like just a couple years later they were kind of like hey do you want to do another one of these for our spider-man annual and i was like yeah and they were super cool about it it was it was as much as much drama as the comic book industry goes through and is currently going through the people behind the scenes were super cool and it was super nice. That's awesome. That's great to hear. Yeah.

That was on Peter Parker, right? Yeah. That was Chip Zdarsky's run on that is so funny. Getting a comedian to write that book too, it's something a lot of people don't, some writers don't get about Spider-Man that Chip really gets is like, Spider-Man's funny. He says funny things. He's a comedian at heart. Yeah. And when I did that comic, the whole thing I wanted to do with my story was I did a story about Spider-Man wanting to be sad. And he keeps getting interrupted as he's trying to be that sort of dark 90s Spider-Man that people thought that they wanted. Just because to me, the whole thing

of sulking the Spider-Man or the Batman sort of like that, like really dour. I've heard everyone I've ever loved thing. You're still Spider-Man or Batman. So you're fine. And so for me, I just wanted that moment where people are like, no, no,

no, no, no, no, I need you right now. I need you to not be sad about uncle Ben for 10 minutes. And I need you to do something for me. This first segment here,

the Magnum PI kind of Miami vice thing. I was curious to Mike, what you thought about you thought about like how difficult have you ever written a satire like this that has to imitate bad writing while also being entertaining like that? It seems like a real challenge for this episode that they pull off very well. But how hard can that be? It could be super hard. Just like you're saying with Matt Groening being worried that people wouldn't get that

it was a joke. If you do the satire a little too dumb, everyone's going to be like, we don't get it. Are you, are the jokes just falling flat? And this is like you trying something that doesn't work. And if you do it too accurately, it's sort of like, okay, well, you just did an homage to a police show, but I don't get why it's part of this comedy show. It's a really thin line you have to walk. It's super frustrating because like as much as I've done this professionally for like years, there's still moments where I'm like, I don't know how to walk that line. Like I get so mad at myself. I'll like start over,

I'll throw something out. Or you think you've walked it, then you show it to everyone else in the writer's room. And everyone's like, we really don't get what you're going for here. It is much harder than it seems to layer a joke on top of a parody. I think this first segment is the most successful, at least that's just my opinion. I feel like they do the best job of communicating what they're making fun of while also being funny on top of that too. Yeah.

The music really meets it too. Like Alf Clausen and his team do a really good job on the soundtrack to it. And David X. Cohen, the writer of this segment, he is a master at very arched silly dialogue that comes off so great like yeah it's something that defines futurama and it's always in his like poochie as well just has all these these lines that make no sense that a human would say but works so great in the moment hyper stylized dialogue yeah just uh real unrealistic but so fun so fun and the opening is a real it's

my it's magnum pi it's miami vice and then a ton of other action shows it's got a real like sultry matlocky uh kind of swing to it i think though and the opening is a great parody two of those this is how i felt as a kid i'd see those openings to shows like this or like say knight rider or the a team and think wow what a big fancy action, action-y opening. And then you watch the show and you're like, this is just a ton of talking. Nothing happens.

43 minutes of dialogue. What I didn't appreciate as a kid, but I appreciate on a rewatch, is those openings are so violent, but you never really see any consequences of it. And in that little space of the opening with Wiggum, I was struck by how funny it is that he's just shooting a gun and breaking windows. Yeah.

Usually to be an action shot of a character shooting a a gun you don't see what he's shooting at or who or what he's shooting at yeah and instead he's just insanely blasting two shotguns at once at an hopefully empty storefront yeah he is quite insane in that shot actually kind of like in the lie that those openings tell you skinner is wearing an outfit he does not wear in the episode and do being much more of a street hustler than he is in the episode too it's all just a big lie and that they still have time for comedy with ralph which that's what those shows had too they're like well who's the funny guy of this show and having the that music there would be an annoying kid, you know, just to sweeten things up a bit, too.

That's always why I'd turn off those shows. I'd be like, God, I don't... Or same with just waiting for the Incredible Hulk to show up. I just got tired of all the investigation or, like, him being sad. After the opening, we get their arrival with a very, very stilted explanation

of the setup of the show. I love how sweaty all of this is, especially Skinner. Ah, New Orleans. The big easy. Sweet lady gumbo. Old swampy. I still don't understand, Clancy. Why give up your job as a small town police chief to set up a detective shop in New Orleans?

Oh, lots of reasons, I suppose. Got kicked off the force, for one thing. For massive corruption. For massive, exactly. As for me, I was born and bred here on the mean streets of New Orleans. Oh, sure, I left briefly to take that principal's job in Springfield, but in my heart, I've always been a small-time hustler. I know.

That's precisely why I hired you as my leg man, Skinny Boy. I want you to put the word out. Chief Wiggum is here to clean up this crime dump. Skinner is a really fun choice. It could be anybody. It could have been, like, Flanders. It could have been any other male character, but I like that they chose Skinner because

Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, they love Skinner. And it's great to see him in this role, too. Internally, it's very bad casting. Yeah, yeah. In the world of the show, it was very poor casting to put Skinner, the least interesting person in the world, to be his, like, side character who's supposed to be the fun one who gets in adventures. Though he is one of the few that could be physically active enough to do the things that Wiggum can't do as an actor. I do think he's also a great choice because he sort of has that same lack of understanding that Chief Wiggum does. So both of their characters have a tendency to completely overshoot the point.

Whereas someone like Flanders walks through the point. He's kind of like, no, no, I get your point, but my point's so different that I'm going to ignore your point. Whereas both of them are like, the greatest example being like, no, no, I get your point, but my point's so different that I'm going to ignore your point. Whereas both of them are like, the greatest example being like, no, the children must be wrong. Just sort of like the idea that you're going to be the smart hustler on the street,

but you're a man who has never understood what's happening. That's a good point. I can see why Skinner is the perfect one. And it's a pairing much like Mo and Grandpa.

This is a pairing you never get on the show before this. So they get to mix it up too. That is true. Yeah, we never get a lot of Wiggum and Skinner scenes. I also just love how Skinner is supposed to deliver lines about Nolans. And he's never sounded more weird saying it. Which is funny because Harry Shearer loves New Orleans.

He lives there. He's a big booster of that area. And also the stuff with Wiggum and his skull, it reminded me of the Jebediah Springfield stuff, him with Bonesy. Wiggum plus skull is always fun. He loves desecrating corpses. The Sentence will be right back. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you.

Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part visit dejauden.com care and get insurance that's really big on care did i mention that we care thanks again to mike drucker for being our special guest instead of our special ghost tonight because we had such a good time on this week's talking simpsons and boy what a 2018 we had this was the best year ever for talking simpsons i'm gonna go right there and say it and we thank everybody who has supported this show whether you told your friends about it, whether you shared it on social media, or if you supported us at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. If you're not yet a member of the Talking Simpsons network,

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Hey Marge, have you ever considered what it'd be like to have a live podcast at SF Sketch Fest? Yes! It would be something like me, Bob, and two guests doing a second year at the San Francisco Sketch Festival. January 16th, that's a Wednesday night at 8pm at the Gateway Theater. Me and Bob will be joined by Allie Gertz and Julia Prescott, the two hosts of everything's coming up simpsons why are we doing such a giant live simpsons crossover rent for one of the biggest episodes ever of the simpsons principal and the pauper that's right the armin tamzerian episode has arrived and we'll be doing a live podcast all about it there'll be surprises there'll be tons of fun you need to get your

tickets right now they could be selling out as we speak. So come to San Francisco for the Sketch Fest Show of a Lifetime, January 16th at 8 p.m. at the Gateway Theater. You can find your tickets if you go to the sfsketchfest.com. You can check out the schedule and find us on there on January 16th and get your tickets. Do it now. Now! Now! Do it now. Now. Now. Now. And I guess we have to understand that Wiggum's wife, Sarah, left him after the corruption.

Or died. Or died. As part of the corruption. Who knows? Behind the scenes, she just didn't want to come to the new show, I guess. But we get some fun Ralph gross kid moments here. Oh, man. What a day. There's no cakewalk being a single parent juggling a career and a family like so many juggling balls.

Two, I suppose. Daddy, these rubber pants are hot. You wear them until you learn, son. Just him speaking out loud of like, this is also an aspect of this show, people, that I'm a single father. I think, I mean, it's part of the joke, but I think they spend like half of this segment justifying the premise, you know? That's why I really like it. It's so arch, it's so great. They head to a restaurant on Bourbon Street and we get to see another Paul Prudhomme joke. They bring back the gags from King Size Homer about his little hat.

The fat guy hat? Yes, his fat guy hat. With three kinds of softness. And they are sick of hearing him say, I guarantee. And in this next line, remember that in grade school confidentials, Skinner was described as a 44-year-old virgin. So keep that in mind with this next

line he's about to say. I guarantee. Will you stop saying that? So Skinner, how do you figure through that skull through my window? What's the word on the street? Well be honest chief i haven't lived in new orleans for 42 years although according to an article i read in parade magazine a criminal by the name of big daddy runs this town big daddy eh well he won't feel so big if he messes with Chief Wiggum P.I. again, which I sincerely doubt he will. I love any jokes about Parade Magazine.

Yes. They're so great. Let's talk about Parade Magazine. On Sunday mornings, if I finished off the Sunday comics and I still wanted to kill some time, I would be tempted to flip through Parade Magazine. But after two or three pages, I'd be like, this is just ads for Precious Moments figurines. This is not even a magazine. You couldn't even get to Howard Huge? No.

He was a poor man's Marmaduke, Howard Huge. Were you a reader of Parade Magazine, Mike? No. As a kid, I was mostly like, it was video game magazines and boys' life. And I think only boys' life because my dad really wanted me to be more traditionally masculine. So he would sign me up for like he signed me up for sports illustrated which didn't take and uh he signed me up for like all these different very like macho dude magazines definitely didn't take then boy's life i was like hey there's fun like arts and crafts projects and he was like

fine fine fine fine fine you can fine you can keep that one yeah um my parents knew the ship had sailed on that so it was all video game magazines for me i would go straight to the comic strip pages in all those magazines and i like same with i actually still do that with new yorker it's like i flip through the comics first and then if i still have time in whatever waiting room i'm in i'm like i guess i'll read an article here i think the one thing i did read in parade was the the Ask the Mensa Lady column. The Marilyn Voss savant. I mean, isn't Mensa a bunch of weird creeps now? Didn't that come out?

Oh, did that? I did not see that. They're like a weird cult. Yeah, I feel like probably. I believe it. It's probably the worst sex parties. And that Skinner would learn about it from Parade Magazine, which Big Daddy somehow, I guess, paid for a thing to be seen in

parade magazine feature and yeah so skinner is 44 he moved away from new orleans when he was two meeting so he is not a born and bred nolans guy he has nothing there and i also love the acting on wiggum with his crawdad that's so far the way justops back and forth. Also, him not knowing he's kind of making a fat joke about himself. It's not going to seem so big when he messes with me. I got to give credit in general to director Neil Affleck and his animation team.

This is one of his first Simpsons episodes. Oh, it is his first. I was going to mention that. He worked on the show until 2007. Before that, he's from Canada and he was a struggling actor. He's in a lot of like 80s movies yeah just like playing bit parts it's shocking like he would have he's been in movies that would have been made fun of on like a riff tracks or mystery science theater but he and then he went into animation of all things and yeah he's worked on family guy after

the simpsons i believe and he worked on rocko's modern life for a bit too he's been all over the place real great job by neil like to be handed a high concept one like this that none of it well i guess the mo one takes place in springfield but depends a lot on execution and getting these parodies very correct which he does he really does him and his team really do and the gator stuff is so funny because it also reminds me of a team of how impossibly non-lethal it can be because of the sensors. Yeah. And when Wiggum is firing at the gator, just not hitting it at all. Yeah.

Well, no bullet can land. You're not allowed to. If a bullet actually shot somebody, they need to get in trouble on these cop shows. And yeah, that it was somehow a corked gator, which makes no sense. I just love how slowly the gator puts its jaws around his head, too. The idea of a corked gator is such a good gag. Which it would still break. Yeah. It would still crush

your head. It wouldn't really make much of a difference if his teeth weren't sharp or not. It would also break through the corks and eat you. Yeah, it's awesome. But it's a fun idea. They corked it. Take a listen to that warning gator. Lucky for you, this was just a warning gator. The next one won't be corked.

Listen up, Big Daddy. You don't scare me. I'm three steps ahead of you. Oh, Chief, your boy has been kidnapped. Oh, God! Big Daddy's trademark calling card. See, it's right here inside the skull. Looks like we've got our first case ever, Skinny-Mai.

And this time, it's personal. Chief William, P.I., will return right now. Goddamn. This one does have the best jokes. I'm just thinking about he left his calling card. It's right inside his skull. And the way it just flops out of his skull. Also, I love a good fake commercial break joke.

That's so funny. Harry Shearer does a great job on the voice actor of the acting of, we'll return right now. I will say one thing. Did any of you guys feel like the alligator for a second was in the bed seductively yes there's a weird shot after he gets out of the bed where the alligator is weirdly like invitingly post i agree i in the same thing i wasn't i'm glad you mentioned that first i didn't want to be the first one to say that i don't know if that was in the

script or just animators having fun it could be either one it's funny just the way he's looking at well and then skinner is an action star when he dives on that gator and like especially though it starts in a somewhat realistic way of like oh this is how i've seen alligator wrestling of like putting his arm under his neck but then he's just punching it on the ground like that's ridiculous it's like green beret training he had. And he had, too, that is just his reaction of like, oh, God! Right after saying, I'm three steps ahead of you, your boy's been taken. That read of, oh, God, is so good. Yeah. Because it's not like fully horrified.

It's more like both frustrated and upset. Yeah, he's like not expecting it at all. Right. Like, it's not like, oh, God! Or even like, oh, God. It's sort of right in all right like it's not like oh god or even like oh god it's sort of right in between and it's a perfect read and he's kind of it's like he's mad that skinner saying that ruined his good line too right and also just this time it's personal it is your first case and now personal right oh god it's just a million great lines in a row here uh and then they get a call

from big daddy which the actor playing big daddy is gillard sartain who would if they were doing this in live action he would have also played big daddy in live action he's uh i think our listeners probably would know him best as the heavyset gentleman from earnest movies oh okay yeah yeah like me and my boy bobby that guy he was also on hee haw that's him okay wow yeah and shockingly still with us 74 cool and uh apparently he has transitioned he hasn't appeared in a movie since elizabethtown he was in that movie uh and since then he's just become like a painter and he's done professional paintings for Parade Magazine. Ernest stopped going places. What's he going to do?

Yeah, it's true. Who? R.I.P. Bobby, probably. But yes, yeah, Gaylord Sartain. It's an interesting guy. But here's Big Daddy over the phone. How is this? It's me, Chief.

I'm on the other extension. Now you listen up, mon ami, and you listen good, you know? The name is Daddy. Charles Daddy. Big Daddy. What are you doing with my boy, Daddy you know? The name is Daddy. Charles Daddy. Big Daddy. What do you do with my boy, Daddy? Ah, the boy is fine so far. I taught him to play the spoon.

If you ever want to see that boy again, I suggest you leave town today, you know? Ah, sounded like some sort of party going on in the background. Are there any parties today, Skinner? Nah, it's not really a party town. If I remember correctly, they occasionally hold a function called Marty's something. Their windows being closed somehow muted all of it. And then they could go to their office and not see Mardi Gras preparing. It's so ridiculous, and I love it. I love every part of it and then they could go to their office and not see marty groff preparing it's so ridiculous and i love it i love every part of it yeah it's not really a party town is the best joke

in the episode yeah it's not really a party town let's give that line of the episode jingle yeah that's the joke i also what i also like and this comes back later when ralph is sort of on big daddy's shoulders is big daddy is kind of a better parent than Chief Wiggum is. Yeah, it's true. He's like, I taught him the spoons. He takes him to the parade. He's spending a lot of time with Ralph. He's a good, yeah.

Ralph only has fun with him. I think Ralph has fun anywhere. It's true. He's not in distress, though. And the line of Charles Daddy reveals that his name really, his last name really is Daddy. It's not in distress, though. And the line of Charles Daddy reveals that his last name really is Daddy. It's not a nickname. It's like so many great Futurama lines of just an aside that adds so many more questions to the person's life. Like, so wait, your given name is Charles Daddy.

And then people started calling you Big Daddy at some point in time. Obviously, Skinner would be the one to think that this is not a party town because no one would ever invite him anywhere. It's okay. He's got lots of Parade Magazine to read at home. He doesn't need parades. He has Parade Magazine. Yes, here's where the Simpsons make their

contractually obligated appearance in the episode. And the commentary on this episode is really funny, too, because they have Yardley on, even though she just says one line in this episode oh right yeah if it isn't my old friends from springfield the simpsons what brings you folks to new orleans mardi gras man when the big easy calls you gotta accept the charges chief wiggum i can't wait to hear about all the exciting sexy adventures you're sure to have against this colorful backdrop. Well, golly, I'd love to chat, but my son's been kidnapped.

You haven't seen him, have you? Caucasian male, between the ages of six and ten, thinning hair. Over there. Look, Big Daddy, it's regular Daddy. The Chief! I suppose I best run. Lord have mercy, I wish

I weren't so fat. That's right, Yardley only has wish I weren't so fat. That's right. Yardley only has one line in this whole episode. Yeah. It's like the most on the nose line. Everybody should watch your show. It's great. You know, now I wonder if the meanness in this episode is kind of payback for Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein not liking that the critic crossover happened.

It could be. I happened. It could be. I wonder. It could be just the end of their tenure. They're getting really punchy, you know, because they're kind of, you know, finishing up their last season, too. This episode, by the end, really shits on the idea of season nine, I gotta say. Yeah, it's sort of like slamming the door on the way out. I also like that Clancy knows, like, Ralph's hair is thinning.

Yeah, it's not just the character design. He actually has thinning hair. Yeah. And that Neil, you know, I feel like in his team on this whole chase scene makes it so funny the way the them running through the town. It kind of reminds me of when I see like Magnum PI in Hawaii Five-0 or in Miami Vice, where they'd go through landmarks of the city where they're filming. That's kind of like what they're doing here too, just a checkmark of, well, where can we film? Where would the city let us film this stuff?

Or it reminds me of the very bad Hulk Hogan TV show Thunder in Paradise as well, which also imitated this before Orlando, Florida. And if you live in one of those cities, you can definitely tell, like, oh, they're not going the right direction or they're warping. Or like especially coming from South Florida, you'd be like, that's in Miami. That's definitely in California.

All right, that's in Miami. That's in California. I was just in Vancouver for two weeks and I was walking around going, wow, New York City. Here I am. So many aliens have destroyed the wrong city i i felt that too in the uh in the recent ant-man and wasp movie which was really good but like i'd say five minutes of it looks filmed actually in san francisco and the rest is on a green screen in georgia like that's yeah and uh meanwhile the i have to say the venom movie has a lot of scenes that feel like, wow, you're really walking down Mission Street here.

I'm honestly kind of impressed. Have you seen Venom yet, Mike? You know what? I haven't. And I probably will at some point. And I know it's like first people were like, it's bad. Then people were like, actually, it's good. Then people were like, well, it's bad, but it's good.

And so I'll have to see it. I'm sure it'll be something like I'm sure it's not as bad as Suicide Squad or Batman or Superman where I have to be like very have to see it. I'm sure it'll be something like, I'm sure it's not as bad as Suicide Squad or Batman versus Superman, where I have to be like very drunk to watch it. But I also don't think like going in me straightforward, I would have enjoyed it. Probably not. It's mostly bad though. It has one of the funniest like,

hey, it's not gay scene ever where Venom kisses Eddie Brock, but they have to make sure that when that happens, that the Venom looks like a girl when it kisses Eddie. Yeah, finally. Forget that it's an alien. It has to be a girl alien. He looks like a girl.

The only time ever that Venom looks like not a buff giant man, but a girl with boobs and a butt. That ain't going to play in the flyover states. But here's the thing is, we've all worked in media long enough to know that that wasn boobs and a butt. That ain't going to play in the flyover states. But here's the thing is, we've all worked in media long enough to know that that wasn't just a choice. That was probably a series of choices where there might have been a kiss with Venom and someone was like, hey, does this come off gay?

And someone was like, I don't know. So let's talk to the graphics person. Could you make Venom a woman? And the person's like, sure. Like it was a series of conversations that had to happen. An all hands meeting happened about that kiss many meetings there was an email thread there was someone who's like are there any updates about the venom kiss scene there was a lot there were free bagels at one point right there was a

there was a set of apology bagels sorry you got some late nights here to redo the girl venom we're sorry uh but yeah this the chase scene's really funny i feel so much pain when i see that tongue yeah tongue in the the fan is i'm glad i'm glad it was a cartoon tongue otherwise just be a mist of blood uh it's so painful i've never ridden in a fan boat though they seem very loud seems very dangerous they're loud they're well i mean i've ridden in fan boats but never in a police chase so they're loud but they're fine that's right you guys are usually very slow so both mike and henry are from florida i assume you just took a fan boat

to school i took a fan boat to school that's what i did yeah why was it more northern florida so we it wasn't as swampy in my neck of the woods though i mean there were gators they're actually well they would appear from time to time but the i though i mean there were gators they're actually well they would appear from time to time but the i also you know there's an actual real internal logic to their chase because when he turns the fan up to blow that dude away that would slow down their boat and allow big daddy to get away from i like it i didn't think of that also the idea that the governor's mansion has been missing stolen stolen is great that's a great joke just plucked out of the ground and put in the middle of a swamp and no one found it also the joke of big daddy running into the

mansion sitting in the chair and turning it around just so he could turn it back around it's it's i feel like that gag has been done since then but like seeing it so like in such an innocent form is so good it's executed really well And I kind of want to watch a show like this just of the idea of two very obese good guys and bad guy, like a big rivalry between them. There's never been a TV show like that. You'd have one side of that might be overweight, but both of them just chasing each other

and fighting each other. If it's like a large detective, the villain is usually skinny and the other way around too. Like on Monk, his Moriarty was a largely obese man. Weirdly, like I know that it was clearly at the time a parody of over-the-top police shows,

but we were saying how this is probably the best segment. It's also the one that could actually work the best as a cartoon spinoff. I think so. I can see it as a 30-minute show. Like as a comedy show, it could work with the you know all the character games like everything everyone's set up how over the top it is like

could feasibly work as a show yeah there's still so many things that could parody in this genre they only have like six minutes to play with maybe five that they also wigum even says they it leaves them in a more interesting place too than the other two because wigum's is like yeah we're gonna face this guy every week big daddy gets away and he'll have a new crime that I'll have to stop and it'll just be a game of cat and mouse for four to eight years what a fun show at the end of Love Mad at Grandpa for instance you're like well so is the show gonna be about Moe and this girl dating or is he gonna get a new girlfriend every episode and I guess every episode of Simpsons Variety Hour will be a new

guest star and just new songs and dances but this does sell the concept of itself more than any other of the pilots it's true i'd watch more oh yes here's the here's the end to wig and pig you welcome to my maison chief i've been expecting you. Is that so, Big Daddy? Well, expect this. The arrest of you by me. New Orleans is my town. Won't nobody gonna mess with me. I got interests, and I ain't

talking about stamp collecting. Though I do find that extremely interesting. Oh, yeah? Well, that makes two of us. You know, boys, there's an old saying down on the bayou that uh... BLEEEE! He's gradually getting away, Chief. Ah, let him go. I have a feeling we'll meet again each and every week.

Always in more sexy and exciting ways. Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be just like you. Better start eating, kid. Start eating? I didn't mean it that way. We were talking about David X. Cohen dialogue. I love that. The arrest of you by me.

It's a great piece of dialogue. Also, that line Skinner has is very similar to a line he has in Bart's Inner Child. It was like, they're gradually getting away when they're driving away in the float at the end. Yes, he says they're very slowly getting away. Sorry, gradually was this one, right? Okay, yeah. On the commentary, Cohen at least recognizes that line. He's like, yeah, I did accidentally rip off ourselves with this line but i like that that's just an observation skinner routinely makes in his life i like that joke yes yeah this had been kind of parodied

before i'm not saying the simpsons said now it feels very played out but i still do like a good bad joke hold on a laugh kind of line too yeah i mean that's the end of every harvey birdman episode too yes yeah though if you want to say who mocked this before, I mean, the Naked Gun movies and Police Squad did do it before this, yeah. And then they hold on long enough for Ralph to go like, I didn't mean it that way. Yeah.

I don't really watch a lot of TV anymore. When did the character's freezing thing and the credits popping up stop happening? Or do things like the Big Bang Theory and modern traditional sitcoms, do they still do the freeze after a big joke and executive producers or blah, blah, blah? Even though shows will be a little self-aware about it

where they'll do a freeze, but everyone's just standing still naked gun style. I feel like it stopped being a thing in probably the late 80s, early 90s. I don't know exactly because I'm not an expert on TV dramas, but I think it was kind of TV dramas or TV comedies that did this move. But I think that sort of shows that we were talking about the X-Files. Sorry, I'm rambling, but we were talking about the X-Files.

And I feel like the X-Files kind of ended for a short time, jokey drama endings. Okay. Like it became, you know what I mean? Like it's sort of like, if you notice, like the X-Files kind of divides up like flashy Miami vice type shows and procedurals, like law and order was kind of contemporaneous,

but like, it also didn't have that sort of like, well, guess it's for next week. You know what I mean? I didn't have that as much. I feel like, like the X-Files and law and order were like,

no, we don't have to use that. And comedy shows were kind of like, oh, that's cliche. Sort of like the Simpsons is saying with that ending. So I feel like late 80s, early 90s. Yeah, I'm trying to think.

I'm remembering the ends of episodes of X-Files or Law & Order especially. And those would end with them saying, like, the person got away. They were killed on the way to jail or whatever. And then they just stay with a glum character for five seconds and then show executive producer. Yeah, I just wonder. What if it would be a joke that would be so dour that it was supposed to be a depressing joke? Where it'd be like, you know what I mean? Where it'd be like, I guess that's why he had a hole in his chest.

You know what I mean? You'd be like, okay, I'm supposed to like, it's Lenny Briscoe trying to like make the best of the situation. Yeah, I just wonder if modern, like your modern age children would understand what that, this is a parody of, you know, these sort of tropes, like the freezing at the end of a situation. Yeah, I just wonder if modern, like your modern age children would understand what that this is a parody of, you know, these sort of tropes, like the freezing at the end of a scene, you know, things like that. I think they don't. And also, like, it reminds me of my biggest pet peeve in comedy is when people write 50s instructional video parodies, because I'm like, any of you who are writing this never had an instructional, an instructional video from the 50s. None of you growing up had a black and white video talking about hygiene.

You've just seen so many parodies of this that you now think it's a thing to parody, but you've never seen the original. So you're just hanging comedy on a thing that was funny because you saw it on The Simpsons or on another show 20 years ago. That is true. And I feel like this joke is like that. In those cases, you're parodying other parodies you've seen like and it it doesn't speak to young people anymore because no one's grown up with that right yeah i i mean i love

those but when i would see it on say mr show i i felt pretty secure in knowing they're like well at least bob odenkirk did grow up yeah to watch sure and i do watch a lot of them but now they're all via the lens of riff tracks. So it's like there are people making jokes during it. And like, I would never have seen this in the 80s in school. Sure.

Oh, and I'm totally good with making fun of them. But in my head, it's always like when I see like someone who's like 25, who's like, I'm doing it's like a 1950s instructional video. I'm like, OK, you saw this in Fallout

and you saw this in The Simpsons. You have this is not a thing that and it's not that you have to have that authenticity, but it feels very much like you just know it from parodies so why do you think that you have a parody of it and anyway yeah no I that was really I I'm I'm loving hearing all this behind the scenes stuff on being a professional comedy writer uh when we come back from the commercial break Troy is probably at his real lowest point ever of staring at the cleavage of a statue. Does he miss Selma?

I guess. No, yeah. Actually, he shouldn't be attracted to the body of a woman. Maybe that's his other sexual thing. He's not into women, but a statue of a woman. Could be. He's into that and fish. Those are the two things he's into.

So then we get the love-matic grandpa, which is kind of a mashup of a ton of high concept. I feel like it's a mashup of high concept 60s sitcoms like My Mother, the Car, and Bewitched, but also has a bit of the DNA of the sexier 70s sitcoms like Three's Company. Yeah. And even some 90s, woo, kind of sitcoms too. I really like this because as a kid, we were talking about watching Nick and Knight and everything, Henry. I watched the full run of so many 60 shows. And the higher the concept, the better. Like Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies and Gomer Pyle and I Dream of

Jeannie and Bewitched and every one of those, I watched them all through multiple times. And a friend of mine was asking, she's around the same age as me, and she was asking, how did you see all of these? Why did you all of these and my answer was because i was a loser not that i was going to be like the coolest nine-year-old on the block but there was nothing better to do so yeah i mean that's why i i have seen all of uh andy griffith show i've seen all of i love lucy i i can tell you about certain episodes of, God, let me think, Hogan's Heroes even. Oh, man. No, my mom worked super late at a grocery store when I was a kid, and I would wait up for her, and I'd see Donna Reed or Dobie Gillis.

These shows that were even old for her generation, but just being like, oh, I know that Scooby-Doo stole from Dobie Gillis. And it's weird that I know that just from watching them. And even Nick at Night would have promosos and the promos would be like, can you believe this shit? Can you believe My Three Sons? Isn't it corny as hell? But then they would still show it. The Donna Reed show, how corny, but yet they have it.

Yeah, well, I think that's something, you talk about writing parody for now, like in the 90s, there were so many jokes about 70s TV shows, especially so many Brady Bunch things. He did the Brady Bunch movie, which is just an extended, very long parody of Brady Bunch

with the accepted idea that we all watch Brady Bunch. We all remember that. Right. That can't really work now, I don't think. I think it's a very obvious idea. I want to hear if you agree with me, Mike, too, or Henry,

that I think we need a full house movie akin to the Brady Bunch movie. And I think this is the time for it. to the Brady Bunch movie. And I think this is the time for it. Or Saved by the Bell. Or Saved by the Bell. Saved by the Bell feels better just because you don't have, you know, Candace Cameron Bure, who's like, I don't think she would ever play ball with that. But I feel like the Saved by the Bell people would. I want like all new actors playing those characters like in the Brady Bunch movie. And it to be like a hyper satire of these characters like in a different era. So I think either Full House or Saved by the Bell could work.

Full House isn't down for that. I think Saved by the Bell would be. Yeah. So I think, I mean, if you ask Mario Lopez to do something, he'll do it. I have a feeling. Guys, my high concept idea is all the actors are different. No Mario Lopez, no Elizabeth Berkley.

It's going to be like Gary Cole. But they would have to appear at some point. Yes, yes. Like Mario Lopez could be like Principal Belding's pool boy or something. Right, exactly. I'm writing this now. I would love that. I would love to see that. It's strange that we don't have that sense. We have nostalgia for the 90s, but it's this weird, we don't have a divide the way that we did like between the 70s and the 90s that we do in the 90s and the 20 teens. Like it feels like there's more of a continuity of culture than there was before we had sort of digital recording of everything and i think also you have a great point and i

think also it's that uh in the 90s if you watch that brady bunch movie it is so smug about like can you the 70s yeah right whatever whatever 70s and now our stance on the 90s is like i miss that i want that again yes yeah well i feel like the 90s thought it was this super cynical era like the 90s were like we know what's going on man things couldn't get worse yeah now we look back and we're like no you guys were you guys were cute you had fun it reminds me of bill oakley said about all the people who were like grungy and sad in the 90s like you should just been having fun yeah quit being sad all the mopey gen xers i think about if i was a kid today versus when i was a kid then i watched all those episodes of rhoda because they were what we're on but if i could have streamed my favorite cartoon all day

and just watched every episode that i wouldn't have spent one second watching old shit i would have just watched all the new shit that was also there wasn't as much content as there is now. Not even a tenth as much as it feels like. I wouldn't have spent summers watching David Letterman reruns from the 80s if I could stream Tiny Toons all day. But what are you going to do? Yeah, and even just, you know, like, obviously, like, financially, the fact that, like, there's no longer an incentive

for networks to have Saturday morning cartoons means that, like, that whole thing just doesn't exist. And so everything is it's, it's, it's culturally, it's so weird to think how nostalgia is different the way that nostalgia used to be. Like that's a weird meta nostalgia concept. We're sort of going through now what our parents' generation did when happy days came on, but like our happy days is fuller house and just everything coming back. I think it might be closer to like the wonder years actually yeah yeah yes i agree uh i think the 90s are our 50s but so the love medic grandpa you know you mentioned bewitched that did make me want to just say real quick a lot

of people know how cool elizabeth montgomery is the star bewitched but she was i think she's hot she she was also a very pretty lady but not just that but she was awesome she was a really... I think she's hot. She was also a very pretty lady. But not just that, but she was awesome. She was very creatively involved in the show, executive producer with a creator. She took on many challenging roles and also was a big-time lefty in the 60s despite being a huge star and, in fact, was one of the first major stars

to talk out about AIDS and gay rights in a time when it was very dangerous to do shows. Wow, okay, awesome. Just shout out to Elizabeth Montgomery there. But anyway, yes, let's Troy introduce us into the love manic grandpa. Oh, hi! Welcome back to our spinoff showcase.

Could The Simpsons ever have maintained its popularity without Moe the bartender? Let's hope so, because Moe's leaving to do his own sitcom. But don't panic. He's taking a familiar sidekick with him, and his best friend Homer might just pop in to wish him luck. Let's take a peek. Well, I better go. I got a date with that lady in front of the drugstore who's always yelling things.

She told me she was washing her hair tonight. I'm so desperately lonely. Quit your bellyaching, you big loser. Who said that? I did. It's me, Abe Simpson. But you're dead. I was, but I've come back as your love testing machine.

I'm the love medic grandpa. Ah! A horrible front-facing Mo. One of the most hideous he's ever been. Looking like Large Marge in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Made extra ugly, but yeah, I feel like they're also drawing upon a lot of My Mother the Car for this.

And that was the biggest bring down in my life because as a TV maniac like Henry, I would read Entertainment Weekly or TV Guy. What are the worst shows ever? Oh, this is so much fun. Oh, My Mother the Car, that sounds so bad. It's always number one. Then you watch it, it's just boring. It just got a really dumb concept it always reminds me of i when i was um

in college i was in i worked for i was an intern for a book agent and we once got this book and it was a book agent that specialized in sort of romance you could sort of disparagingly say chick lit but sort of like more female leaning books and we got a book that was a pitch like in our slush pile which was my job to read that was a woman who her vagina talked and it just had nothing to say like the whole book like it's a concept that's not a terrible concept but like her vagina was just boring like such a disappointment to be like you have this high concept and your vagina has no personality that's what a waste of such a high concept god it's also a great use of the previously established love tester

first seen in Flaming Moes. And it's written by Dan Graney, who we interviewed. Yes, that's right. Yeah. And one of my favorite things in this sketch. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you

home and auto insurance personalized to your needs weird i don't remember saying that part visit dejaden.com care and get insurance that's really big on care did i mention that we care? Is, or this segment, is how they use the laugh track. Because the meta joke is that the producers of The Love Manic Grandpa, where they add laugh tracks is where they think are the good jokes. And where they don't add a laugh track is very telling too. It's just like, so is this supposed to be seen as an ad lib and not a joke written by a writer? So when he says, I'm so desperately lonely, and they put in a laugh track, you feel like a producer saying, that's the great joke.

Put it in right there. I also like how it is just a blunt statement by Moe. It's not even clever. Just like, I'm so desperately lonely. Oh, and the animation on the Love, Medic, Grandpa theme is great, bad animation to look like I Dream of Jeannie or Bewitched, those cartoony openings. It's so good. I love that touch so much that they broke the animation style. Also love the backstory of how Grandpa dies.

Yeah. Shopping for some cans. Your beloved character from the show that you've come to love, he got just crushed by cans. That's it. He just fell on him. Also, just the joke of it being like, don't worry, Mo's got a familiar friend. And then Barney leaves. Oh, yeah.

And he hits Grandpa. I never thought of that angle. Okay. Yeah, that's great. Oh, man. That is so funny. Yeah, that Barney just exits. If I were the woman who yells in front of the drugstore,

I would go with Barney over Moe, I'd have to say. A lot more in common. Yes, yeah. I mean, Moe is the dirt worst of men in Springfield, as will be established later in the show. You know what? I'm just going to cut in here the whole theme song. I'm shopping for some cans in here the whole theme song. Freddy Grandpa. Why, so Freddy Grandpa. He'll fill our hearts with love.

And just that Grandpa, the reason he doesn't get to go to heaven is that his wings got clipped off. And now he's just stuck in eternal death. Why can't I die? Why can't I die? I think he says like three or four times, I got lost along the way, because he's got to restate the theme song. That's right. They restate the premise so many times in this. That also feels like a meta commentary executive note of

like explain it again people might not understand this is too weird we need to explain it every time he shows up this segment has some of my favorite stuff because it has bad jokes like poorly written jokes like him saying i wrote the book on love that's right all quiet on the western front that doesn't really work like the west western is not the direction you would think of. Like you, you want to point South or something about your genitals. All quiet on the Western front really doesn't imply that you're, it's all quiet in the bedroom.

Yeah. Okay. Wow. I didn't think of it like that. If I remember the, the audience reaction to it is almost like weird. Like all of the audience reactions are so tonally wrong. Yes. Yeah.'s kind of muted to that joke the reaction well it's really just to set up his rejoinder of his catchphrase kiss my dish rat oh right kiss my dish which they hit on very hard

to make it i mean it's just kiss my grits yeah it's it's flows kiss my grits which i watched every episode of Alice, did not get to see Flo. That was not syndicated by E. So I just got to the episode where Flo leaves. And she got stuck in that situation where you leave for your spinoff, and then your show gets canceled while the other show is still going. And you're just out of a job, like how Norman Fell got replaced on Three's company by mr furley but his show got canceled very quickly the ropers had their own show right yeah boy i could go for some sweet jewish wine about now now i know what manischewitz wine is i like that joke and uh

here they get homer out of the way real quick here don't be afraid mo i'm here to help you with your romantic problems hey i don't need no advice from no pinball machine. I'll have you know I wrote the book on love. Yeah, all quiet on the Western Front. Ah, kiss my dishwag. See, that's your problem, you red crab. Ladies like sweet talkers. Hey, I'm sweet.

I'm sweeter than Jewish wine. Then prove it. I want you to charm the next pretty young thing that walks through that door. Greetings. John, it's me. I floated up toward heaven but got lost along the way dad is that really you darn tootin you lousy fink you buried me naked and sold my suit to buy a ping pong table what kind of a son call me when you get a karaoke machine

that's the second time he pulled the plug on me god that's just dark it really is and uh we we listen to the clips we don't watch them for the show i mean watch the we watch the thing before we do the show i'm over explaining this but when we're listening to the clips during the recording we are only hearing the clips no no video um and when i'm listening to the audience they're like all different audiences every time and it's and it does just sound so weird and jarring i think they're doing that on purpose it's something i don't notice when i'm listening to the audience, they're like all different audiences every time. And it does just sound so weird and jarring. I think they're doing that on purpose. It's something I don't notice when I'm watching the segment, but when I'm listening to it, you can definitely hear like, these are all different audiences.

And it's such a campy, like Lenny and Squiggy cliche of like, the first person to walk in that door, yellow. Yeah. And that's Homer's catchphrase. I also take it, this is maybe overthinking this, but I take it as when Homer knows that Abe is now at Moe's, within the show, that explains why Homer will never go back to Moe's because he doesn't want to see his dad.

So if the show continues, you won't see Homer, and that's why. This is the place to overthink the show, and I have to say I'm on board with this. And I also love that homer holds for applause he looks at what must be a live studio audience as he's waiting for them to stop clapping for him it's so good that reminds me of uh like i love seinfeld i love stories about seinfeld in the production i remember uh they would talk about how at a certain point when the show was taking off, they had to tell the audience, when Kramer shows up, you have to eventually stop clapping. We need to get on with this episode. So they were trying to like, you can be excited, but the scene has to keep continuing. You know, like that old story about Stalin,

where people were afraid to stop clapping because the first person who stopped would be executed. I like the idea of that applying to Seinfeld. Larry David is in the stage lights with a sniper rifle. Well, Mike, do you have any secrets to controlling a live studio audience from the world of late night television? Man, I wish I did. I wish I did. Live studio audiences are so mercurial. First of all, I have not worked on a live studio audience sitcom. So I've worked on scripted shows that had no audience. And I've worked on late night shows that do have an audience. And I've worked on award shows that have an audience.

And all are different. But I've never worked on like a Big Bang Theory type sitcom where it's like a comedy play where people are watching. That said. First of all, when audiences are warmed up, they are told to laugh hard. And it's not like, it's very, it's a weird line line because warm up guys and I've done warm up a handful of times. Not a lot, but I've done it a handful of times. It's always like laugh a lot. Laugh at anything you think is funny.

Don't fake it because it's very clear when it's fake. And a lot of those sitcoms from the 80s and early 90s and 70s, you can really tell how fake it is. It's also there is a thing called sweetening laughter. So on shows, it's not as big as people think it's more prominent than it is. It's also there is a thing like called sweetening laughter. So on shows, it's not as big as people think it's more prominent than it is. Usually sweetening is like audience because audiences are mic'd obviously, they'll maybe raise the volume on a laugh to make it sound louder than it necessarily was. But definitely an older practice and will still happen occasionally, although not very often, is people will layer in laugh tracks.

It's not as artificial as people think it is. Like if you watch Colbert or Fallon or Corden, it's not a dead audience and they're not layering it all in as like waves of recorded people. However, it definitely used to be a little more like that where you would have your ooh sound, or at least at the very least, you'd prompt an audience where you'd be like, okay, when this hot person walks in,

we want you to go, woo! And an audience will fucking do what you say because they're excited to be there and they're fans of the show. To ramble a little bit, it's very easy for you or I to be like, oh, that's so lame that people are clapping and laughing at this shit. I don't get it.

Well, people who wait in line to see a show are usually huge fans of the show. So they're super psyched to be there. So not only are they prompt to laugh and prompt to applaud, but usually they're the most hardcore people who really want to show appreciation. So that's why sometimes it feels so artificial. Sometimes it is artificial. Sometimes people feel compelled to do it. Sometimes they're prompted to do it. It's a weird, complicated human dynamic that should be studied by some PhD student. Well, I had to recently edit up one of our live shows that we did in Portland. And I had a different track for like every element of the live show was super well done by the venue, Kelly's Olympian. And one of those tracks was

the audience. And I had the option to just delete that track. But I was like, we could have a cleaner sound file without the audience there. But it added so much like warmth and life just to hear the audience and of course i turned up all the laughs when i made a joke oh turn down my name i made a joke no no i added crickets uh it's time for bob's pet peeve but i'm gonna bring up wrestling oh it doesn't mean the tape stories no no but on pro wrestling shows uh specifically wwe they're very guilty of sweetening or changing things because when they want a specific audience reaction, but they don't get it live in the moment, whenever they recut the video together, like everyone was supposed to boo this thing or everybody was supposed to cheer this

thing. So when we recut this, we're just going to put in boos. And usually it's the same boo that they have for everything. And it's so funny boo that they have for everything and it's it's so funny how bad they they are at faking it i'll also say that a lot of these shows will reshoot scenes and you know the flip side of it is if you're in an audience and you've seen a scene two or three times and then you know the producers or the world guys like laugh like you've never seen it before just go crazy it's so overperformed because the audience is like, we've seen this joke, but we know we're supposed to laugh.

So I'm really going to push out a laugh. Oh yeah, I hadn't considered that. One of my favorite shows about the behind the scenes of TV was Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback. And just the way they produce the show within the show there, you get a real feel of how

there's a great moment in the first season of the show where she has to give a horrible line that she does not want to say and knows won't get over. And the audience just hates it. And they have to redo the scene where she says a new line again in front of the audience. And it's a really good but uncomfortable moment in the show. I love that show. Can't praise the comeback enough. It's great. Well, speaking of friends, the arrival of this actress within this show,

I feel like she is drawn to look exactly like the type of actress who gets cast as a one-time, one-episode girlfriend of a character on Friends or Seinfeld or Single Guy or all the other imitated shows of this. Just like sort of a model type that walks on. Yeah, with a very like a pixie cut that was popular at the time. Conventionally attractive, can be kind of funny. Basically like the role,

Padgett Brewster was one of those actresses, but she was so good at it. Yeah, she's amazing. I just love Padgett Brewster. She's awesome. But she was that, though for multiple episodes with as Matthew Perry's girlfriend for I think like six or seven episodes. she had a nice little arc on Friends.

But this actress, and the reactions to her too, it's very like, you were saying Kelly from Married with Children. Kelly Bundy, yeah. Yeah, kind of reaction she gets here. I was just in a car accident. Can I use your phone? Using a phone's a four drink minimum. What's the matter?

I'm making as nice as I can. Test lady. Test lady. Dad, give it a try. It goes by how clammy your hands are. What's the matter? I'm making as nice as I can test lady test lady Dad give it a try it goes by how clammy your hands are well I suppose I could use a laugh after that accident Love Lauren you need man moan here now Go near moan what go near moe. What? Go near Moe. I'd say that's a pretty strong endorsement.

So how about you and me go out sometime? You know, out back. I mean, out to dinner at a fancy French restaurant. Sounds great. And if this love test is as accurate as it looks, maybe we'll be having breakfast, too. I really like how rough Mo's language is. They would explore that later in episodes with him having like romantic

pairings. I just love, in a future episode, he says he's going to buy his date a stick the size of a toilet seat. I will say, my favorite joke in that scene is Grandpa sang Bing when he makes his own machine go bing. Bing!

That is great. that is even more ridiculous uh and he's not used to being a machine he's still figuring it out and her reaction is completely unnatural only to set up a date in a show like no woman unless she had a car accident and a horrible brain injury would ever go on a date with mo after he said let's fuck out back immediately promise him sex if it goes well yes that too like no but she needed a good exit line to get a woo yeah it's like maybe we'll have breakfast too which really she should just be like um okay cool bye i'll see you then out Outback is a great line. That is great. He kind of motions to Outback like, has this worked before for him?

Is this... Oh, it's disgusting. It's so gross. And just her way of saying like, too, I could use a laugh after my car accident. And when they cut to the end of the scene and Grandpa's just talking about Inventi kissing,

I really love how Mo just mugs for the camera like, it's so bad. This is a very bad sitcom. On the commentary, they're really afraid to say that James L. Brooks wrote for My Mother the Car. They are scared that it will piss him off, I guess. Should be like something he wears with pride and honor right yeah by the historically the greatest bad shows ever but just kind of boring ken keeler had nothing but nice things to say about his episodes of my mother

the car that it was very much showing off what james l brooks is good at which is a you know familiar relationship between the son and mother so he drops off abe to the bathroom this is probably my favorite line of the episode just for how dark and sad it is sorry grandpa but i gotta stash you in the bathroom so betty won't get wise to us this is not the evening i envisioned well we just got here. Give me some advice, quick. You know, just be sweet, pour on the honey, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, romantic. Ain't sunshine pretty, ain't flowers stupid. I got you. I've suffered so long. Why can't I die? That's kind of tied for line of the show for me. It's's very blunt it comes out of nowhere

there's no laugh it sits there and I also noticed that Mo calls him grandpa and then he puts him in a suit you were about to say he puts him in a tuxedo for no reason just to hide him in the bathroom it doesn't make him look more like a person

it's a fancy restaurant you have to wear a suit it's inferred that somebody will probably piss on him or in him too he's set up like a person yeah and it's a fancy restaurant you have to wear a suit it's inferred that somebody will probably piss on him or in him too yeah set up like a urinal he's just set in the toilet god i mean this is hell like this is the worst hell for abe he i would also be saying like why can't i die yeah i think it's it's a very like clever thing that dan graney's doing he's looking at the reality of some one of these high concept things just Just like, well, I Dream of Jeannie is fun, but she's also kind of a slave. Yes.

You know, like something like that. A slave forced to fall in love with her master, who eventually will marry him in the show, too. I didn't like I Dream of Jeannie as much as Bewitched. Bewitched had a, I think it was a more of like smarter show. Like I Dream of Jeannie was a lot stupider. Bewitched really was about like minority or being a minority in america like it did i'm like it's also a dumb sitcom but it was the adams family to i dream of genie's monsters yes exactly yeah i mean there's definitely also

i think we're we're talking about the star of i dream of genie and the show itself is much more like they're two equals in fact she is more than he is and saves him, whereas I Dream of Jeannie is much more or Bewitched is like that, where I Dream of Jeannie is much more like she's more conventionally attractive. She's less useful despite technically being more magic. Yes. Like, I feel like she's much more wish fulfillment. She's like, what if there's like, Bewitched is like, what if you were a woman who had

all the power in the world? And Dream of Jeannie is like, what if you had a woman who had all the power in the world? And Dream of Jeannie's like, what if you had a woman who has all the power in the world? Yeah. And she's always trying to fix his problems, but in ways that make them worse. Yes. Oh no. I remember watching I Dream of Jeannie reruns

and seeing that there was eventually like three seasons and they decided, you know what? His best friend needs to know Jeannie exists too. So they just had an episode where he discovers her as well, just so he could get in on the shenanigans that's how they they're like oh shit we at the bottom of the barrel on story ideas okay this guy has to make wishes too meanwhile they're having kind of a meet cute and just shows how mo this is why mo has no love life he is a horrible person who can't even talk you know

what's great about you betty is you're letting your looks go gracefully you're not all hung up even talk. I got the runs. Hey, get away from that. Leave him alone. It said I was gay. You're right, Grandpa. Oh, Daisy. Daisy. Give me your answer.

Will you quit your clowning? I need help here. Oh, tell her her rump's as big as the queen's and twice as fragrant. Okay. You are absolutely positive. The dumbest haunted love test that I have ever met. That scene with them at dinner really makes me think of it being just a really good parody of sitcom dialogue in that if you watch a family sitcom like Saved by the Bell or Full House like I mentioned before, characters will say the most insulting things to each other and the other person won't acknowledge them

because the person said an insulting thing, they got the laugh, and the conversation continues. The other person's like, wait a minute, that was messed up up why did you say that to me yeah how dare you like especially on um full house when they make fun of a growing woman's looks like kimmy gimler you're an ugly bitch and the scene continues wow yeah or how cruel they are to screech it's like you know like give screech a fucking break yeah but it's just like for for the scene to continue the character cannot acknowledge what was just said just like well you said your joke and now it's time to move on and though her reaction of just like so mo yeah it is such a great the flip screen to cut to him coming and covered in trash like that is john ritter did that scene 800 times in his life it is such a perfect

recreation of it and uh though it was always i mean like fraser i just re-watched a ton of fraser for oh really for for that episode we just did about the fraser episode of simpsons and there's lots of people coming into kitchens david hyde pierce was perfect at that it's like i'm going to now walk into this room covered in stuff and i will not react while the audience laughs uproariously at how silly i look and then i'll finally say my line like that's and that's kind of what they staged pretty well there in animation faking that kind of live rhythm i really like it though what was abe doing telling kearney he was gay like he was just asking he was just trying to piss off

those kids and why were they in the fancy French restaurant? In the bathroom. Yeah, wait a minute. There's some holes in this pot. I just like how it is the bullies. It's not anyone else. It's the bullies. There's also like a little bit of body horror to the fact that damaging the machine brain damages grandpa. Yeah.

And he can be plugged and unplugged. Like there's horror. Yeah, does smashing the machine destroy him though his brain seems okay at the end of this even though he's still as smashed up as before yeah i feel like his being just enters a void when he's unplugged it must be just hell oh god yeah the and uh the daisy of course they have to do a 2001 reference oh yeah singing daisy it was cute it's cute yeah and finally again the the the end of this has the type of sitcom ending that makes no sense that she instead falls in love

with you instead of just saying like you're insane i'm out of here i think by this point on actual sitcoms they realize that this is not when a woman actually they realized it wouldn't be bought that a woman would say you did all this for me? I love you more than ever. Yeah. This is exactly how the movie Weird Science ends. And I couldn't believe it. Oh, that movie.

She says like, I know you lied to me, but it shows how much you love me. And I love you too. I was like, Jesus Christ. You worked hard on that lie. Yeah. And I respect you for that. So bad. What is going on in here?

Um, uh, I might as well come clean with you. I ain't too good at talking to women, and I really wanted to do you. So I brought along the love tester to help me. As you may have guessed, it's inhabited by the ghost of my friend's dead father. Why, you conniving, devious, monstrous, despicable, sweet little angel. Betty, if you'd just give me a chance.

What? I can't believe you went to all that trouble for me. Woo! Thanks, Grandpa. Yeah, yeah. Now, how's about introducing me to that cute little payphone out front? He did say bing, bing, bing again. Yeah, that's right.

I think after this episode, they just really fell in love with Mo going, what? Yeah, it's kind of like wiggum's yeah very similar both very similar noises made by hank is here i also like the little line he's horny oh yeah throwaway line he's horny i really wanted to do yeah oh god and at the uh and just like in wiggum they hold on it too long and and they reprise the song. And even the ghost of Grandpa is like, why are you still on me? Like, he looks away, like, please end this. That song actually reminds me a little of Love American style, too.

Oh, yeah. You know what? I think that's what they were going for in terms of just the style of it. This wholesome tribute to love yeah and just their laughter for a long time is is so great it really pads out the scene so when we come back troy introduces us to the final segment i like this uh intro welcome back i'm talking with the curator of the museum of tv and television mr Mr. John Winslow. In our final spin-off tonight, the Simpson family finally gets the chance

to show off the full range of their talents. Unfortunately, one family member didn't want that chance and refused to participate. But thanks to some creative casting, you won't even notice. Show us what you got, TV. Live from Radio City Music Room in downtown Springfield, it's the Simpson Family Smile Time Variety Hour.

Featuring the Waylon Smithers dancers and the Springfield Baggy Pants players. And now, a family that doesn't know the meaning of the word cancelled, the Simpsons. I really love that intro with the person he's talking to it reminds me of that joke

we'll return right now where it's like I've been talking to this person and he gets up well now he's done like he was talking to him now you've interrupted it yeah

it's just a great parody of oh hi just all those things Troy is so good at that I god I miss Phil Hartman it's it really sucks he's not here.

I really agree. And I love that they tried to work him in whenever they could in their seasons. But yeah, this definitely a parody of the Brady Bunch, you know, post-show variety specials. Also things like Laugh-In and the Carol Burnett Show and things like that. It's all of that same-

Sunny and Cher, yeah. I mean, Carol Burnett Show, from what I heard, was a really good show. And I'm sure comedy writers of this era were in love with it as kids. That's why they're not. They include Tim Conway, but he's honestly too good for it. Like, this is.

Yeah, I agree. The Carol Burnett Show was better than those shows. Like, I mean, it was still broad and campy in the same way, too. But, like, Sonny and Cher, even I, as a kid who would watch anything that was on TV, when Nick and I started getting these variety shows, I just couldn't stand to watch them. They were so bad. They were so long.

Yeah. I also had not yet learned to appreciate bad 70s music like I have now. So when they would have the musical guests on, I'd be like, God, this is worse than the musical guests on Saturday Night Live. It is also funny to think that Saturday Night Live is from this same genre in the same time frame. And if you watch old Saturday Night Lives, are much more like that. Yes, yeah. We got a little movie for you. We got a magician. Yeah. They're so separate now from what all those

shows were. This also reminds me of, you remember in Kids in the Hall, they had that sketch where they were forced, internally it was called that they were forced to write a sketch like a Sonny and Cher sketch to impress somebody at CBS. Oh yeah, that's right. Or like a gorilla runs through the office. And that's what I think of when I think of like, oh, these are bad sketches on a bad sketch show. But yeah, this is very much the Brady Bunch hour that they are parenting more than any other because it's a crazy thing to think about the Brady Bunch hour as a one season idea that you had this show called the Brady Bunch, which starred people, the Bradys, who are these

people that those characters continue on to star in a variety show that knows that they were famous, but they're still the Bradys, not the actors who played them, but the Bradys. And they're like, well, now we're on a TV show. Instead of living in our home, we moved to LA. And in the show, the kids did have bands and records and stuff like that. They were musicians. I don't know if they came before the Partridge family or there's an arms race between the Partridge family and the brady bunch partridge family definitely came after brady bunch but they also they started singing in the brady bunch show just because they knew it would sell albums and they could do it so they the brady's singing happened on the brady bunch before brady bunch

hour and the only way they could get back some of the actors was to tell them well this will help you with your new music career you're gonna be on this and i haven't seen in a long time probably 20 years but i love that movie because when i watched it in theaters i'm like i'm being rewarded for watching tv finally all these reruns i've watched are paying off there's also a lot of the osmonds i have to say oh yeah just to throw in a third family like that that's the other thing about this is we've so lost this threat as a culture that it almost seems alien but it was an entire genre of a family whether fictional or real has a variety show yeah the only the only real reason i know about the osmonds are all of the like incest jokes people would make in the 90s like they're fucking the easy the easy joke there

but the actually yeah the osmonds thing especially with their kind of simpsons red white and blue costume also feels like the very americanan-ness of the osmonds i think yeah and and yes the replacement of lisa by another actress that is in a reference to how the original jan eve plum was replaced by jerry reichel known as fake jan a which she is fully embraced she's like yeah i'm fake jan i did i did one season of the show and it apparently wasn't just that eve plum didn't want to do the show she was up for doing the show with a low level commitment she's like look i'll do five episodes of the 13 you want but they wanted her to commit to not just a 13 episode season but also an option to do five whole seasons oh my god she just got free of

brady bunch and here they're trying to lock her in for five more years of her life if the as variety shows as her adulthood begins too yes i want to figure out what being an adult is like and not a brady though eve plum would come back for other brady reunions yeah the brady brides it's also interesting that robert reed uh the father, Michael Brady, the dad, he doesn't appear in the final episode of the Brady Bunch because he was having a contract dispute with the creators of the show. But by this time, he had made up with them and come back. He was also a closeted gay man. That's true. He's also in the Mystery Science Theater movie Bloodlust.

Oh, my gosh. It's a great episode and a great old Most Dangerous Game parody. I forgot that was him in that. Yeah, he's awesome in the mystery science theater movie Bloodlust. Oh, my God. It's a great old most dangerous game parody. I forgot that was him in that. He's the star. Oh, that's good. But yeah, so you can watch the Brady Bunch hour on YouTube, an episode of it. See how much of it you can stand. But they have bad songs like this.

And also that's something they really capture great in this, that the Simpsons aren't performers like no other than the mom on the show none of the rest were trained in singing and dancing when they got hired on the brady bunch so they're doing their best to be like okay time to do choreographed dance numbers and all sing at the same time in harmony which you can't just do like the partridge family had an edge on the brady bunch in that way because the Partridge family was hired to be a band first and actors second in most cases not Danny Bonaduce he didn't play anything he just did drugs boy did he I'll also say probably the reason that this segment

feels like the weakest of the three is because those shows were designed they weren't designed to be ironically cheesy but they't designed to be ironically cheesy, but they were designed to be cheesy and like super family clean friendly, even for the time. Like, you know, if you compare them even to the Smothers Brothers, you know, the Smothers Brothers

to us now is nothing, but it was much edgier and they talked about Vietnam, whereas these shows were almost like they were designed to be like, yeah, grandma could watch this. So whereas the first two, the jokes are good

because the genres try to elevate above that. This one feels weaker because they're hitting the same level of jokes because it's hard to go cheesier than the level that they intentionally hit. You talk about Smothers Brothers or also even Laugh-In, which definitely is very like stunted and silly. Now it doesn't seem at all edgy, but at the time it did and how it like laughing really poked at the at the sensors on the channel or nbc they would say like good night dick they know what they were saying they were saying they had goldie hawn dance around covered in body paints yeah it was it was at least you wouldn't get that from sunny and share but yeah so they their their big intro song here is pretty great. Yeah. Come along and bring the family.

Come along and join the fun. Come along and join the family. Join the family. Sit tight. Roll call. Remember me? My name is Marge, TV mom whose hair is large. Step back, mom. It's Bart's turn now.

Eat my shorts, don't have a cow. I'm Lisa, peppy, blonde, and stunning. Sophomore prom queen, five years running. Go, Lisa! Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa. Stop the music. Where's Dad? Hmm.

Here he is. I'm hiding from the ghost. Ghost? What ghost? Before the show, you said we were having a special ghost tonight. I said we were having a special guest tonight. Mr. Tim Conway.

What's a Tim Conway? About 120 pounds. It's the Simpson family. Smiles have variety. There's a lot of great elements in that song. I like how inane the beginning is. It's like not creative at all.

Just join the family, join the fun, join the family. And then all of the characters are sort of just like, remember me? Here's what i do you liked my old show and then the end it winks at you with the simpsons notes like yeah remember the simpsons and the bard is fully in like hey remember i can't like he's a he's a t-shirt bard is such a sellout he's just like eat my shorts don't have a cow but that again like the tim conway joke and like the ghost joke are jokes that they would have done on those shows. Like you're not elevating above it.

Because like when I saw that joke, I was like, that's a funny joke for 1972. Yeah. Yeah, that's just how you would introduce the special g-g-g-ghost tonight. A very gentle pun that could not offend anyone. Everyone believes in ghosts. You know, this hit me this time seeing Tim Conway in here that I think it's kind of cool to have a scene with Tim Conway and Dan Castellaneta because for a time, Dan Castellaneta, I think, was the Tim Conway of his generation.

Oh, wow. That's a good point. If you think of Dan Castellaneta as an improv actor who was one of the key players on a sketch comedy show, in this case, the Tracy Ullman show, and also the bald guy who you could just count on as the straight man. He can wear any kind of wig. That's him and Tim Conway. And it's something like Dan Castellaneta is so good in live action roles, but you kind of barely see him in stuff. And he doesn't need to do, he just does what he

wants because he has no financial need in his life and uh tim conway another one of the many old man guests of bill oakley and josh weinstein seasons also gaylord sartain who's in this episode as well yes he's like two two new old men i'm gonna play our anti-death jingle here yes to protect us yeah we mentioned this on the Spongebob episode of What a Cartoon, but Tim Conway's not doing super well health-wise. So yeah, but I'm sure whenever that happens, he'll be remembered fondly, and there'll be lots of fun packages you can watch of all of his greatest moments. He'll be laughing it up in heaven with Hedy Lamarr.

When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? There is, I will say there's one joke that there's like a visual gag that I like, which is Tim Conway comes out, says a joke, they shake his hand and he walks off screen.

Yes. Which is a good parody of those things because they would be like, oh my God, it's this person. They'd be like, hey, and they would immediately exit. Often because on those shows, they were just big enough stars to make an appearance but too big to stick around yes yeah it's uh oh harvey corman was the actor i was yeah yeah no that he cracked him up corman crackups the but yeah the tim conway they they get in a lot of good jokes there i I noticed that too, especially at the end of this clip, at the end of the scene when Conway just runs away, that he is like, I agreed to be on your show and you will get as much,

you will get as little effort as I can possibly give you, but I'll do it. And he just runs off like, it's like the people who won't stick around for the next segment on a talk show. I mean, it's also, I wouldn't say this about Tim Conway, but it's also the reality of the 70s. It's like, this person will only be sober enough to walk on the stage and sort of just wave at people and see a few one-liners and that's it. For Reynolds waves and then goes back to his pussy wagon.

Which was super true for that time period. I think that you watch old variety shows, especially like old roasts they're just openly drunk so drunk yeah they're all fucked up even except for like the one actor they hire from laugh into like you have to say these lines you have to be in character here even as late as the 80s the joke was that ed mcmahon was just drunk on the night Show, and no one was like, he's not drunk. No, he was openly drunk every night. He was drunk. Yeah. He's whacked out on Wowie Sauce. The real one is quite fun.

Look it up, folks. Johnny Carson told him, are you real funny tonight? He's like, no, I introduced you to that woman. I told you about her. I did. There's also another small digression. There's also a very good Johnny Carson podcast, and of course, yeah, I'm a big dork and i listen to it even though i have never really seen the johnny carson show but it's a lot of fun stories about old show business and a lot of a lot of huge

guests and mike reese has a really good episode oh and very good animation on that the family is just a little out of sync in their dance like it's harder to animate it'd be so much easier to animate them all moving at the right time and in time. That's what animation timing is all about. So to then not only animate a big scale dance sequence, one of two in this sequence, but also to have to do it badly or not badly, but just not perfect. It's a lot of things to plan out in terms of character movements and locations and things like that.

And once the song is over, the family separates and then becomes very briefly the sunny and share show the with the sign behind them of homer and marge looking like sunny and share which is really cute i like that design and actually maybe my favorite line of the show is how marge says yes here because marge is such a bad actor in this scene that when she's set up for like, you ever think about how we, if we were beavers? Yeah. Yeah. You know,

Homer, we've all been busy as beavers preparing for our very own show. Marge, have you ever imagined what it would be like if we really were beavers? Yes. It might look something like this. Honey, I'm home. Hello, dear.

How was work at the plant? It's not a plant march. It's a tree. And I've nearly chewed through it. Now remember, my new boss is coming home for dinner tonight. I know, and I made your favorite, steaks. Hey, would you two close the damn door? Bart, that's where we live.

A dam. Look, everybody. Mackie got her first tooth. Okay, now, before my boss comes, Mackie got her first tooth Okay Now Before my boss comes There's something important You should know In a minute, homie

I have to get the door But Marge Oh Was it something I said? So props to Dan Castaneda For being the only one Who does tooth acting in that scene. He's definitely holding on to his teeth or putting something in his mouth. No one else did that.

Yeah. Bart sounds a little like he had something in his mouth. Dan is doing the best job. Yes. They hit every easy joke they could. Though, plant versus tree, that's the one that's like, this is a little too smart for this Sonny and Sheehy scene. Yeah. These are Harvard writers, fake and dumb.

There's also that moment with, I just love that Maggie has her first tooth, and the audience doesn't, like, the fake audience doesn't know how to react. So there's, like, laughs, and then awe. Like, it's sort of like, we're trying to figure out what you want from us. And they also, yeah, they hold so long looking at the audience like, hey, come on. There's a couple times where Homer holds and just looks at the audience and like, come on, I put on this stupid outfit. You better laugh. This is uncomfortable.

There's also that, and he does the same thing when Marge is supposed to come out. There's a half beat where it looks like he's nervous that she's missed her cue. It's a very subtle little animation, but his eye sort of does this nervous little look. And the way you would do in a live comedy show where it looks like he's nervous that she's missed her cue. It's a very subtle little animation, but his eye sort of does this nervous little look. And the way you would do in a live comedy show, where it's like, all right, I guess we're ready. And then you're like, oh God, are they going to come out?

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Also, the way Bart really hits his mark hard. Oh, yeah. The damn, it's a damn, like he's going hard on it bart is leaning into being a sellout really hard you're right yeah yeah he really it reminds me too of the acting in uh in bojack horseman when they show stuff from horsing around their old sitcom the redheaded kid on the show who is acting way too hard it's very similar style similar style of acting. Like, hey, come on, guys.

What's this? Super stagey. Yes. So this is executed really well. But even though I agree with Mike that it's not writing at an elevated level. It's just writing it badly intentionally. It's not quite a parody of this. It is just this.

And it's perfect. But it's also not elevated uh you know it's not elevated to the simpsons level of humor that we're used to but i will say going back to the point of character game what i do like about the segment we sort of said it with bart like bart is a character who as real bart he would be very willing to sell out in this situation and homer's character game is very homer where he's like i know i'm supposed to do this so i will do it to the best of my ability but that will be poorly and march'sge's character game is, I could do better than this, but I'm nervous, so I will lower my game to match the energy of Homer a little bit. Yeah, Marge is kind of being pulled into this scenario.

And Lisa's character game is, Lisa wouldn't do this. So they replace her. So it really, like, despite it being a fake spinoff of a fake spinoff, they're really good at nailing those character games, which I think is something The Simpsons does so much better than many shows. And then the casting of Fake Lisa, that actress, the character is so perfect. She seems like a former beauty queen. Former Miss Something. Yes. And then she can just do all that. She's just a pretty face who can sing and dance.

That's what they needed. And then she's now somehow five years older than Bart. Well, more like 10 years older actually well there's also the joke where it's like i've been sophomore prom queen five years in a row where it's like they even made her dumb oh yeah all right like they rewrote her they didn't just replace lisa but they did something that would spite lisa with her character that's true yeah and making her proudest quality being a prom queen for five years that she can't like she can't pass her grade for five years. Then the show briefly becomes Laugh-In when they comment on a sketch being bad. And then the judge, it's just, here comes the judge from Laugh-In sequence right there.

But they need that to just interconnect to the next scene. And this medley, even on the commentary, they're like, is this really what they did on these shows? And it was what the Brady Bunch did. The Muppet Show did it a million times of, here's four popular songs. We'll just sing them back to back. With costumes. And what really annoys me about this, and I agree it's irrational.

You'll say it's irrational, but they clearly couldn't clear Whip It. So it's just like they didn't do a direct parody. It just it swerves enough so it's not you'll say it's irrational but they clearly couldn't clear whip it so it's just like uh they didn't do a direct parody it just it swerves enough so it's not whip it but it annoys me because i'm just like i want this to i just want to be whip it with different lyrics yeah they could pay for i want candy peppermint twist and lollipop but not whip it yeah couldn't pay that lollipop had to be free right i don't know it's not public the 50s i guess but uh on the commentary also matt grady bemoans what sellouts devo has become which is like come on matt grady cut him a break you're you're selling out too let devo get rich they got that rugrats money

or at least mark does yeah at least at least mark mother's mom does at the time matt grady was complaining that like they were doing swiffer commercials like Swift it good. Oh yeah. That's not even, do you guys remember Devo 2.0? No. It was radio Disney repackaging of Devo songs. Though Mark Mothersbaugh was involved in producing them, but it was basically done through the Disney pop machine of them singing classic Devo song like kid singers. It's really weird. I think I'm going to live long enough to see Weezer become a children's band. They're pretty close.

They kind of are, actually, now that I brought that up. Well, they're on tour with the Pixies, though, now. So they're trying to still get more of our money, not the kid money. They Might Be Giants became a kid band pretty quickly. That's true, but I saw them...

But they also did Tiny Toons cartoons. Oh, yeah, they were a kid's band, actually, for's true, but I saw them. They also did Tiny Toons cartoons. Oh, yeah, they were a kids band actually for us as kids. I saw them live, and it was all old people and their children. Ah, good times. And their teenage children. I will say I saw Weird Al live in March, and it was basically that. It was like people, when I say old people,

I do mean like people our age and like above, and then like young children. There were very few people who were like 22. Yes, I had that same thing at the mystery science theater live i went to last month in san francisco which was a hoot and a holler i loved it great time but it was like it's either people my age or older into their 50s and then their children but just about nobody in their 20s and it felt so weird seeing these like 40-year-old nerds and then their children dressed up as like Mike or Jonah. Like, do you kids actually like this?

It just felt so weird to me. But then again, I, as a 10-year-old, technically wasn't the right age to get most of the references they did in classic MSD3K. And yet I still loved it. Partially, I was just brought in by puppets talking. And then I realized how funny it was. So yeah, we get the musical medley here.

Let's hear some of these candy covers. Inflation, trade deficit, horrible war atrocities. How are we supposed to do our big musical number with so many problems in the world? Well, I know one thing in this world that's still pure and good. Christian love? No, candy.

Sweet, sweet candy! I want candy! But don't you want to end world famine? I want candy! Or save the endangered Alaskan salmon? I want candy! Well, if you won't think of society's ills. I want candy.

At least think of our dentist bills. Got a new dance and it goes like this. And the name of the dance is the Peppermint Twist. Yeah. Now that I think about it, though, that whole Whippet thing, I mean, I wish they had Whippet, but also it's the worst one because Whippet is not about candy. And Smithers just goes, licorice whip. Yes. I'm still whipping, but it's a licorice whip.

It's more for a broad gay joke, really, about him being in Chaps. But it is the worst song for that medley. Yeah, that's true. Well, I mean, in Jasper's song of lollipop is just like a teeth falls out joke. They're both a little flat. Meanwhile, I want candy and peppermint or peppermint twists.

Like it's just so hoary and cheap. Like it's nothing. Yeah. But it's funny. And you can see the Simpsons are really dancing their heart out they're really pushing themselves really hard there i mean i bet the director was happy that there were no more like all character dance numbers oh yeah just do one character at a time actually you don't see much of the waylon smithers dancers really just no just like different shots

of him really and the first episode of the brady hour, it starts not even with them singing. It starts with like Rockettes, a kick line. That is the opposite of the Brady Bunch. You couldn't get farther away from it. But I guess they felt like, I'd have something for daddy, as Don DeMillo would say. I love the accuracy of them being so tired at the end of the song. They're just like, they're not trained singers. Neither were the brady's either so it's uh if there's one thing that could be cut in this i think that hans molman line like it's just a weird henry gibson scene from from laughing is what it's supposed

to be it's the only one that feels kind of weird and then we get a i guess sort of a parody of the good nights on snl though most of the variety shows ended with a, the Muppets ended with this too. Yeah, I think it's like SNL sort of is the last thing that still does this, so they now own it. But I guess it was on every show. More TV shows need to say goodbye to me.

I want to wave at the TV show. They just go away. I'm going back to the Muppets real quick. I think another reason that this segment feels a little flat is the Muppets came out before I was alive, you know, like as a show and maybe before you guys were alive. I don't know how old you are,

but it itself was a parody of those shows. Like there was no live audience at the Muppets and it was all about like, we're making a show. It's a variety show. And all the jokes were like pigs in spaces, kind of intentionally cheesy. Like it's so like we referenced the Muppets as part of that movement, but the Muppets themselves were really a parody of those variety shows too. That's a very good point. Yeah. And that they, they had very arched scenes that would end with like,

isn't that a bad joke? And then they'd have Statler and Waldorf say like, boy, this joke sucks. Like that wasn't funny. Right. Yeah. It's a good point.

All right. I don't want to, I love the Muppet show. I, I love how earnest and silly and cheesy it is like i watched it a ton as a kid even though i had no clue who ben vereen was i didn't know anyone on the show was outside of kermit the frog if the star wars guy showed up i knew that oh yeah yeah when mark hamill showed up i was like yeah i get this but even like john cleese or peter sellers

who i would come to be a big fan of late a couple years later, I thought, man, I wish they'd stop singing with these people and just sing a song with just Muppets. Come on. But yes, here's their good nights on The Simpsons. Well, it's time to say good night. I wish our special guest, Tim Conway, didn't have to leave so soon. I'm still here. Fox wouldn't spring for a decent hotel room.

He's just kidding. We'm still here. Fox wouldn't spring for a decent hotel room. He's just kidding. We'd like to thank Fox and the good people at Budget Lodge. Well, that's all the time we have. So this is the Simpson family saying, as you walk down that road of life... Fitch, Ike, it's faster.

Bye! We're like this all the time. Good night, everybody! Tim Conway just runs away. That mandatory whimsy where they're just like, Bart! And Marge is going,

we're like this all the time. Yeah. Just promising more fun. That knock at Fox, they were definitely feeling, Oakley and Weinstein were definitely feeling that they were getting fucked over by Fox and not being given any of the support like they were in too cheap of a studio that Fox would give all this promotion to other shows but not to them. And partially, I think the feeling was that Fox was not allowed to give notes on the show, so it didn't feel like their show. Yeah.

An executive couldn't take ownership of the success of it didn't feel like their show yeah an executive couldn't take ownership of the success of it so they would support it less so that kind of i think led to all these jokes at fox's expense saying that they were being cheap have you got uh have you been set up in a budget lodge yourself mike by uh television stations i've definitely been set up in a budget lodge for comedy festivals and doing road comedy a little bit less when I usually at when I was working at SNL. I was I was a researcher. They would put you in a hotel because you had to work so early in the morning. But it was weird because you lived in New York.

So you could like go to your apartment in Brooklyn if you wanted to. But there was an apartment. There was like a hotel building that they would just book everyone rooms in and you would stay there. Wow. And then like usually if you were trying to impress somebody, you'd like take them to the hotel and like hook up with them you'd like get them into the show nice man that is a good plan yeah i mean like you know you were it wasn't like strangers i wouldn't like wait outside be like hey y'all you who wants to see it but you know i was definitely like right out of grad school so i was young enough to think that i had the confidence to do that i think that's

more of a thing of the past i think here's what's weird about now things where they don't give a shit again like road comedy they'll put you in a shitty hotel but because everything is now influencer culture everyone wants to like make it seem like their stars are treated great and then the stars like look at this great place I'm in it's a lot more you know there's that joke at the end where it's like thank you to Fox and thank you to Budget Lodge. Like now all three of them would be involved in that sponsorship deal. Wow. And that's I still notice it on game shows. They will do like people who stay here, stay at the blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like, yeah, they do talk that up. So they run away. We end it. And then we get Troy talking about the future of the show, which this really as a kid, I was already kind of worried about the future of the show because the end of the poochie episode ends with them basically saying this show's gonna end soon yeah and then this one is saying we've run out of ideas we have none left season nine's gonna be bad and it just filled me with a lot of discomfort this this coming this clip here that's it for our spinoff showcase but But what about the show that started it all? How do you keep The Simpsons fresh and funny after eight long years? Well, here's what's on tap for

season nine. Magic powers. Wedding after wedding after wedding. And did someone say long lost triplets? So join America's favorite TV family and a tiny green space alien named Osmodear that only Homer can see on Fox this fall. It'll be out of this world. Right, Osmodear? Damn straight, Troy the Ben. Good night, America! It's funny because on The Simpsons, Gazoo was voiced by Harvey Korman. Oh, wait, on The Flintstones. On The Flintstones, sorry. Yeah, that was Dan Castellaneta.

But I have to wonder, it's funny because, you know, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were leaving the show, and they probably knew at this point. They definitely knew at this point. And I don't think they were throwing Mike Scully under the bus, whoever they thought would be next. But I think they genuinely thought, like, well, this show is so great, it would be a mistake to have it go on for a long time. We're sort of doing everything. And I wonder if future writers were sort of angry because a lot of these jokes have been weaponized to use against the Simpsons. Well, because Selma did get married more times. She married Abe Simpson's disco stew, and she thought she married Fat Tony, but actually didn't marry him. But they went through a wedding thing. And those weren't the only wedding.

They had a lot of weddings on the show since this scene. Bart hasn't met long lost triplets, but he has met a lot of kids that are like Bart. He just has like, oh, a new friend that's like me. Osmodeo actually did make one other appearance in the show. He showed up. In season 12's Homer, which is not the crayon in the brain episode. It's true. He appears in that one

too and i think yeah mike scully in our interview he talked about how he stayed on longer than he expected because he thought well i don't want i need to stay with this show until it's over which the next season has to be the last season only when it got to 13 he's like i guess this just isn't ending anytime soon i'll go but there was definitely the feeling i think from like season 7 to 12 that this is the last season whatever we're working on now is the last season i could see future writers taking not taking it well that this show makes fun of what future writers would do with the concept of the simpsons and kind of crapping over what they could see what a badly written future Simpsons stories would be,

which this is kind of predicting in some cases. Yeah, I mean, they do a lot of jokes in that scene about, you know, all of the things that sitcoms do broadly, like weddings and long-lost relatives and things like that. But the specific reference to The Great Gazoo, if you watch The Flintstones, that's a definite signal, like this is the worst thing that could happen yeah i mean the flintstones um i i'm sure if you were alive in 1961 or whatever it was hilarious it's not so great now but like the addition of an alien to

this high concept caveman sitcom yes well just too much a magic alien that only fred and barney can see dum-dums and on the flint, they'd already done a million episodes where Homer, where Fred, not Homer, where Fred gets brain damage and becomes another character so they can write something else. They just run out of every idea they could do on Flintstones. So they added the Great Gazoo, and he is now just a joke within himself. And they even put him in Viva rock vegas the second flintstones film played by alan cumming which that is the perfect casting at the time of the great of a live action

great kazoo for sure whenever they get to the if a kazoo episode played in flintstones reruns i would turn it off i'd be like no i have some i'm six but i have standards sir call me when jabber jaw comes back on i I'll watch that. It was something that, in general, the Hanna-Barbera really loved. A kind of sassy, campy sidekick. They were really into those. Osmodyar, for the longest time, I never knew really what he said there because he's just so nasal. Damn straight, Troy.

I didn't know, was Troy my man? I thought it was Manam or McMahon. I was like, what is this this so this is when i finally went to freaky act and just saw what it's supposed to be but yeah i always misheard it like what is troy my man a good little voice by uh by dan kesslin out of there i do like it and i think i mean the joke that i think is weaponized the most is like what will happen between now and when the show is no longer profitable that's i see that all the time when people are saying, why is it still on?

And you'll see that meme everywhere. It is still profitable. Again, I have to say to everybody, it's going to be okay. Our show is going to be fine. You're going to enjoy it. I love season nine, and we're going to have lots of fun. So no more you naysayers in my menchies. We're like this every week.

I also love that line at the beginning, like, fans of The Simpsons, if any. Yeah. But Mike, I guess any final thoughts on this episode, especially as a TV comedy professional? It really is a good example of, okay, if you ever watch really old failed pilots for shows, especially pilots like, if you've ever seen a pilot called Puchinski, which is a tell, which was a pilot about a dog cop, and it was a drama. Oh, this is not far off. And I think that it's very, it's this one of those Simpsons parodies where it's very easy to be like, man, yeah, this is crazy. But it's so hot. It's so heightened. It doesn't make sense. And you're like, these aren't that far off. These are pretty accurate examples of how, not creatively bankrupt

because bad pilots have been happening for five decades. So it's not like we've just now run out of ideas, but it's such a great example of how like Hollywood's like, we'll try anything. And if it works, we don't know why it worked, but we'll keep trying. It's such good, bad joke comedy writing for I'd say 80% of it.

It's a really good example of how to, if you ever try to write bad fake comedy writing for i'd say 80 of it it's a really good example of how to if you ever try to write bad fake comedy for a sketch it's super hard because you either just seem like you're bad at comedy or you seem like you just don't get you know what i mean like it just seems like you're bad at comedy and this is such a good tutorial on like here's how you ride that line awesome mike well can you tell us what you've been working on lately and where can find you on twitter i love your uh your tweets by the way fun. They're great. You can find me on Twitter at Mike Drucker.

M I K E D R U C K E R. Right now I'm a staff writer on Full Frontal with Samantha B. We also have a Christmas special coming out on the 19th that I wrote a bunch of things

for that will either be in the special or they will be broken out into be digital pieces. We're not quite sure yet but I can't say what those things are. I also have a podcast

called How to Be a Person which is winding down but we we still have over 150 episodes online if anyone wants to check that out. I do it with Jess Dweck, who's another great comedy writer, and we talk about basically trying to learn how to not be social idiots. And yeah, just follow me online. I'll have a new podcast with Jess Dweck coming out next year, and we have not announced that yet, and that's it. I love How to be a person. It's very helpful for socially awkward people like myself as well. I'm just like, it's you're a kindred spirit here, Mike. And so it's always it's I love podcasting with you. So a fellow TV obsessed nerd. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you. You like TV so much. You married it.

I married it. I now have it's now my career and I don't know how to escape. Excellent. Thanks a lot, Mike. We really appreciate it. We want to have you back too. Please have me back anytime. So thanks again to Mike Drucker. He's a big time TV man. Watch all of his stuff. Follow him. His tweets are hilarious. But as for us, we are supported by the Talking Simpsons Network. And if you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, you can find out how to support the show and get a ton of bonus podcasts on top of that. If you give it the $5 level, you'll get every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and ad-free. And the same goes for What a Cartoon, our sister podcast, where we look at a different cartoon from a different series every week. At the $5 level, there's also things like exclusive series like Talking Critic and Talking Futurama, bonus interviews, monthly community podcasts where we talk about your questions and comments for that month.

And so much more going on at the $5 level. If you sign up immediately, you'll get access to so many podcasts you've never heard before. 18 months worth of podcasts at this point and way, way more to come. And Henry, we have a new $10 tier. What's going on there? Yes, if you want to really step it up and get even more content for your buck, at the $10 level, you'll get access to our monthly premium, a movie podcast where we do a different animated film each month voted on by our supporters. Our first one was Batman Mask of the Phantasm. That was November's. Stay tuned for what December's will be. And if you go to the $10 level, you'll also get access to all of our previous premium video content like me and Bob watching and doing commentary on the deleted scenes and all the original

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Just be in a dark room with headphones on listening to us talk about cartoons. It's the ideal way to celebrate the holidays with us in your ears so yes patreon.com talking simpsons we'd appreciate any amount you can give uh as a subscriber and as for me you can find me on twitter as bob servo my other podcast is retronauts it's a classic gaming podcast check it out guys

it's every monday and occasionally friday at retronauts.com or look for retronauts in your podcast machine if you're into video games look up a topic we've done that you like and download the corresponding episode i think you'll like it a lot we do a lot of fun stuff over at Retronauts in your podcast machine. If you're into video games, look up a topic we've done that you like and download the corresponding episode. I think you'll like it a lot. We do a lot of fun stuff over at Retronauts. And I think I said it, but I'm not sure, but you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I did say it. I'm sorry.

I apologize. Henry, how about you? My Twitter is H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. If you follow me there, you'll see updates on all the new podcasts when they go live. And sometimes I also tweet out my thoughts on the events in the world in politics, anime, video games, all that stuff. You'll see it at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G.

Thanks so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you next week for the season eight finale, The Secret War of Lisa Simpson. And they thought I stunk.