Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons With Shivam Bhatt

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

Our funny friend Shivam Bhatt (co-host of the Commanderin' podcast) returns, and he's here to share his knowledge of Hindu weddings and religion in this week's podcast! Apu is the focus of another episode, where he lies to his mother to avoid an arranged marriage. Will the lie set him free or will Homer's many schemes hurt the hotblooded bachelor? Listen now for laughs and knowledge! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

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Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that always involves a horrible web of lies. I'm your host, kidney mush lover, Bob Mackie. This is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert or a big, thirsty teddy bear. And who is on the line with us? Uh, sheevan putt. I'm just a Ganesh statue hoping to destroy marriage. Aren't we all? And today's episode is the two Mrs. Nahasapima Petalans. Hey, has she not pooed lately? He looks terrible. Aren't we all? And today's episode is The Two Mrs. Nehasa Pimapetalons. Today's episode aired on November 23rd, 1997, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby william shatner

marries his third wife noreen kid it doesn't end well oh that's the one that's the one yes celine dion's let's talk about love is released in record stores which features the song my heart will go on and tomb raider 2 is released on the PlayStation. Also, septuplets are born for the first time in America, where the entire group lives past infancy, which I think is interesting based on where the Apu and Manjula characters from this episode will be going in their next major episode. But they'd all be defeated by Octomom, correct? Yes. Yeah. Boy, this is a more innocent pre-Octomom.

The good old days but yes now william shatner's uh this this is the wife who um passed away and was found uh dead in his pool in their pool and yeah it's uh it's weird it's weird the police found no wrongdoing it's just an accident as they called it and yes my heart will go on could not escape that song for from that near or far wherever you are but we are in the the fall of titanic right the autumn it is just about to begin okay yes yeah and oh gosh and the tomb raider games i still i never really played them they just looked ugly to me i was too busy i was too busy being a nintendo fanboy thinking the tomb raider looked like european trash i think uh i think two was the last one i actually played seriously until the 2013 reboot which is fine it's okay i don't want to i don't want to sound like an anti-british developer guy

but i only got all their games are bad i only got into tomb raider when crystal dynamics took it over so like i remember when tomb raider 2 came out and it was like oh my god look at the graphics and then you look at them you're like oh no oh no but vehicles and more people to shoot not a lot of tombs though they got rid of the tombs yeah so shivam is back he is our i i think i'll call him our cultural correspondent uh for some that's fair for some topics uh i don't know if that's a good way to put it but i'm gonna put it that way anyways but yes shivam you uh were last on our much about nothing episode talk about your that was quite the trip that was a heck of an episode right in the middle of apu fever when the great uh harry

kondabolu put out his documentary and apu was the most hotly discussed guy on Twitter for like two weeks. I think it flares up every now and then usually when a Simpson producer says something stupid. Yeah. And by producer, you mean Al Jean. I mean, let's not name names here. Let's call him A-Jean. No, no, no. Al J.

But yes, so this episode is also about Apu. It's his next big episode since then. Yes. And it's also about an Indian wedding. And I believe you have a lot of experience with marrying people. Is that correct? Well, I mean, on the weekend, I'm a Hindu priest, and I do Hindu religious ceremonies and rituals and cultural things.

And I have done something like, let's just say, a hundred-something Indian weddings in the past five or six years. Wow. I had no idea there were that many. You know, this is the Bay Area. There are quite a few of us just hanging around. Wow, that is really impressive. That's way more than Reverend Lovejoy does.

Yeah, I have a lot to say about that when we get there. I want a lot of fact-checking in this episode. Oh, there's fact-checking. There will be facts that have been checked. By the way, in case anyone is wondering, this episode's title is based off of the 1947 Humphrey Bogart movie called The Two Mrs. Carols, and the plot has nothing to do with faking being a wife. So don't worry about it. It's fine. But Shivam, this is in case people didn't hear much about nothing. I mean, just quickly what what's your background with the simpsons and also uh your personal background sure so uh with the simpsons i watched it i actually remember seeing this episode live for instance uh i definitely watched it for the first decade or so

with everybody i had a barkman t-shirt and i had a fanny pack that was bright purple that said something like don't have a cow man i definitely watched the heck out of the simpsons when i watched network tv and then once once I kind of went away to college, I stopped watching TV. And so I kind of missed the second half of The Simpsons or like this, I guess, the second two thirds of The Simpsons. That's true, the middle decade. Yeah, but no, so I was fond of it

and I'm still fond of it. It's good. It's just challenged and it's a product of its time. But me personally, let's see, I work in Silicon Valley. I know you guys because we both, we all work together in the games industry for a while. And I currently work in the movie and films industry. So I'm very familiar with TV shows and The Simpsons, having just put out like all 30 seasons onto our service or whatever it is. On the weekends, like I said, I'm a Hindu priest.

And that gives me a little bit of insight into watching the producers mangle my culture over and over again. That's a good time. I feel like Indian weddings were, like, entering pop culture, American pop culture at this time, because there was an episode of Seinfeld about an Indian wedding. Was there some sort of, there was like a flashpoint, some sort of

movie or some sort of thing that we all saw, us white people, that that's a good idea for a plot in a sitcom or a movie or something like of thing that we all saw, us white people, that that's a good idea for a plot in a sitcom or a movie or something like that. There were quite, I mean, the thing is like Indian stuff and Bollywood had finally started bleeding over to America in the late 90s. So people were starting to be aware that there's this such thing as a gigantic Indian film industry. And the film industry there was all about like, you know, flowers and dancing and big weddings. Like the 90s were full of huge, huge Indian wedding based movies like hamapke haikon or whatever so a lot of those started

to bleed into pop culture i mean in 2001 is when we got a monsoon wedding which is still a few years away from uh this one and that was the big one that broke it but before that we definitely had um i mean we were starting to get things like bennett bennett like beckham i think was still in like 2000 yeah so i guess was like 2003, I think. So I guess it would have been, 97 would have been like the beginning of people starting to understand Indian culture and seeing them all over the place.

This episode is difficult at times in a modern view. Yeah, I mean, oh, sorry, Henry. I want to think in a lot of cases and jokes in this episode that the producers' hearts were in the right place i i want to think that dude um it's good to want things yeah yeah that's also true yeah i mean i feel like they did make some baby steps forward in that season seven episode that you were the guest on uh here i feel like they're making some baby steps backwards oh my god they're they're parts of this episode like this episode is just

about all the tropes I could possibly imagine wrapped up in one of like negative ideas of Indian culture. Okay, I'm not going to lie. I definitely laughed, but there were a lot of parts where I was like pausing and I had to just like walk away and come back in like 10 minutes because I'm like I can't skip it because I have to talk

about it. So I have to watch this. Darn it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. to talk about it. I have to watch this. Darn it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This was kind of a bummer to watch now in retrospect, too, because the two guest actresses in this are two of my favorites. They're two legends of sketch comedy, Andrea Martin and the late Jan Hooks. They are on equal footing with their male co-stars from SNL and CTV. Oh, for sure even though they didn't have the huge exposure that a lot of their male co-stars had and like andrea martin especially these days she's still doing amazing stuff and it's just it's a bummer i think they do all right

with what they're given but yeah they shouldn't they there's other times they could have been cast in roles on the simpsons and not be this. I mean, I think the intent with this was, you know, let's flesh out Apu more like that last episode did. But at the expense of some very broad jokes and a lot of whitewashing, that's what we get in this episode. Now, to be fair to this episode, it did get a few things very right. Like the relationship between Apu and his mom, that kind of fear that he has is so relatable that I definitely, so I'm in a mixed race marriage and I definitely understood when Apu picks up the phone and is talking to his mom and is like, I don't want to have this conversation right now. It definitely, it definitely was too real.

Let me say. It's, this was an interesting place for them to take Apu too, to not only, so we talked about in previous episodes sometimes he's cast as like a kind of an innocent almost virginal type guy or like a guy who is excited that marge kissed him in a play for instance uh but then other times he's he's sleeping with princess cashmere and so this is kind of like rediscovering his ladies man character right before they get rid of it and just marry him off at the end of the episode and then then make the character be a receptacle for like newlywed stories into new father type stories sure but it also those are two of like the biggest tropes of like just indian men

in pop culture which is like look at this sexless nerd right like this guy who's got no idea how to touch a woman or like like talk to a woman oh my god because there's some oppressed culture and they've never seen a woman that their mother wasn't you know holding on to and behind a veil and three walls or whatever i mean it's just so frustrating that like and emasculating that's the word i was looking for it just feels like his character in this episode vacillates between super emasculated and the other indian stereotype of the really gross sleazy kind of like indian guy who just like won't take no for an answer you know it's like come on man but that's kind of just american pop culture in the 90s with indian or forever really with indian people and

there's not a lot you can do about that one thing i do like about this episode it's something they it's it's a recurring theme i like in simpson's episode is one that homer especially tries to do sitcom style schemes yeah but there's more real things happen to it i i really like those types of jokes i have a theory about this episode in homer it's a dumb theory but i'll say it anyways it's that homer is kind of like a sitcom trickster god in this episode where he's like you gotta have a sitcom story happening i'm not invested in any way there's no reason for homer to care about any of this but he just does it anyway to make things more interesting the puck character or uh like you know loki or something in fact he seems kind of bored by everything halfway through yeah yeah he's mad they're going through the moment especially the flashback he's like

here we go yeah and then he just leaves to have his own story for five minutes and it just comes back in march head's reaction like well i'm glad you had fun but i had my other story going on it definitely felt like an old greek play where they're like we needed somebody to kick this story off and then you need to leave we'll get back to you when we need you but bye the commentary is an interesting one it's just uh the writer richard pell director steven dean moore and showrunner mike scully and one bit they say about their research in this episode is that they they said they did uh they as they called it they said they did a lot of research on hindu did they this is what they said uh but they also said that a lot of it wasn't funny so they didn't use it that was

huh who would imagine that one of the most important ceremonies in a person's life might not be very funny so they just threw they threw it away though uh stephen e moore says that background artist lance wilder worked he did a lot of research on just drawing the wedding but uh but i i will refer to uh shivam on how accurate or not it was uh we'll we'll get to that i guess but all right well i mean this episode begins i first want to have a shout out to the couch gag just because it has an albarto reference like that is so season one you never see albarto stuff on the show so that that's always nice i like that it that feels like one of the artists working on it worked on season one it was like hey guys remember albarto remember i mean this episode and previous ones in the season they're really leaning into the

amount of historical baggage the show has like yeah like in this episode they're like you had an elephant remember i feel like that made a lot I feel like every season nine episode we've done so far and recorded that come out after this, they all have like a scene where they're just like, oh, this is a lot of baggage we got in this show. Here's the reference closet. They're very tired. I think they're starting to get a little tired

of feeling like they can't tell a story because they told it before, which will come through very... Which is hilarious for being season 9 of 30 yes they just did the table read for season 31 today as of this recording wow wow coming up on what 33 what's happening now or 32 for the next years yes yeah it will we'll have simpsons episodes into 2022 we'll see if it goes even beyond that or if the human race does too we'll make it first the episode has another typical thing of the scully seasons which is a first act that kind of isn't immediately related to the story but is a really funny idea of just a bachelor auction i've i've never been to a bachelor auction of ladies bidding on guys

for charity or whatever. I don't know if either of you guys know. Those were actually things that used to happen a lot in the 70s and 80s. Not a lot, but at church functions or whatever. I thought that scene was just hilarious. Personally, it was maybe the most laughing

I did the episode. We did our first live show. It was about the biggest loser in springfield the biggest loser adult male and this really makes you realize how every male is a loser in the show except for apu like they do a good job saying no apu has a phd he runs a business he's very industrious he's got a cool car well that's that's one of the things i gotta say that when you sit there and listen to apu reading off his like resume in that sec in that scene and you're like look at this where's where's one of the things I got to say that when you sit there and listen to Apu reading off his like resume in that in that scene and you're like, look at this. Where's where's the story of him actually saying, hey, you know what? I made it.

I'm rich now. I have a billion kids and a wife. I can use some of this stuff and maybe, you know, be something other than the quickie mark guy. That's different. But it's just gosh, there's so much promise with this character that they could have had. And there's so much place they could go for funny and they just keep you know going for the cheap hit and it's like yeah i guess i they just i i don't think they see yapu is as that and now i feel like they just they we won't see you again on tv yeah i have a feeling that's the future but but okay so this

bit begins here though with kent brockman i. I think Kent Brockman could have just hosted this, but instead he's just the MC for Krusty the Clown. Good evening. I'm Kent Brockman. Our top story punks and lots of them and all to raise money for the Springfield Fire Department to buy a fire engine so they can get to fires. Lazy bums. Yeah. Why don't we buy a mink stoles while we're at it? Yeah, good one.

And now, let's hear it for our celebrity auctioneer, Krusty. Who's that? The clown! They don't know who Krusty is. I can hear all the crowd murmuring in this clip now that it's isolated. Who's that?

I don't understand. It's also interesting in there, they pulled every single woman out of the packet they've got. And so, like, the creator of Malibu Stacy is sitting behind the Simpsons very prominently. She's there and looks a lot younger, too. Yes, yeah. And I guess Kr crusty can read now at least he can read hey hey uh yeah no actually he's like not doing that not doing that nope nope back i mean back in talk to in his classic talk to the audience he had learned to read by then

but yeah before he can read it's true not great not well but he can do it and also yeah i like i like when bart and homer share a laugh together right it's it's a it's a nice moment like a good one dad even though homer's homer's sentiment has been said by real people all the time about uh hating charity basically and also just hunks and plenty of them crusty gets quick to work here hey hey i hey! I ain't mean that. No, not that either. Okay, let's bring on our first bachelor. All right, ladies.

This sexy fellow describes himself as a big, thirsty teddy bear. Say hello to Barney Gumbel. Okay, now, what am I bid? Hey, now, I got zero. I got zero. I got no bid here. I got zero.

I'm standing at zero. Anybody want to go higher than zero? I got zero right now. Okay, over there? No, zero. I got not. I got silch. I got bupkis.

I got zero. Nothing. Hey. Poor Barney. The slot is withdrawn. He's walked away offstage. I love just his blank expression doesn't change other than him just shifting. Stumbling, yeah.

And I also, I do love that Krusty refuses. He's like, you know, I'm not even doing a monologue. I'm not reading jokes. This is get to it. Yeah, he has seen the good and he knows what he's up to. It's just like's just like you know what man let's just get out of here as fast as we can so he already did the little miss springfield pageant five years ago that's true i god i just love he's like i read that not that either that that felt like a very real people who have written for say david letterman and johnny carson type vibe of them saying i'm already in that now not doing it and

yeah of course barney is like completely drunk when he arrives it looks like he was just shoved onto the stage too and dan as crusty the auctioneer just calling zero is so funny too it's it's really good after barney we get to see uh captain mccallister which you know what captain mccallister look he might be old and he's married to the sea, and he has two glass eyes, but he owns his own restaurant. He's a positive guy. I think he should not have gotten zero. But he lost his Game Boy.

He's irresponsible. But yes, we do hear from Captain McAllister here. Come on! He likes sunsets! What more do you want? Yarr! I'm not attractive. Yar. God, that is the saddest Yar I've ever heard.

He's so sad. It's a defeated Yar. Yes, yeah. It just is a very outright statement of like, I'm not attractive. Just like the descent of that Yar just makes me laugh so much. But there's an even more eligible bachelor coming on stage now. Our last bachelor

likes women who take their clothes off for money. Let's hear it for Mo. Why do we have to stand here? This is so humiliating. Aren't there any good bachelors in this town? Uh, we're never going to get that fire engine. That was their royalty-free version of staying alive.

Yes, yes. But I love how he doesn't even stop. He just walks right off stage like, nope, nope. All the women are glaring at him, too. They're glaring so hard like he knows he knows to not even stop walking they really are leaning into mo being single and lonely in these seasons so desperately yeah but those glares felt like they could light his polyester jacket on fire and i was like oh god it was going melt to his skin well he's just smile

it's one of the funniest moments of the scully era i think is the mo grin as he walks across high elbows yeah high elbows and just walking to the and walking to the pen where all the other guys are who else is there there's like otto and kirk van houten hans mole man comic book guys and disco stew and and of course barney and mccallister who have already been on stage. And that he's right. He wanted to be advertised that he likes women who take their clothes off for money.

Get to the point. And as I said in the commentary, his walk across the stage was inspired by a story of Red Fox. I don't know if you've heard this one, Bob. Yeah, actually, it's more directly referenced in Trash of the Titans, the two-and-a-half episode. But yeah, it was like a Las Vegas show, I believe, and Red Fox came out to the Sanford and Son theme. And then he saw a few people were in the crowd. He's like, I'm not fucking doing this.

And he turns around, he leaves, and they play him off with the same theme because they didn't know, like, what do we do? I'll just play the same theme. And actually, Mike Scully wrote on the sitcom where he died. Man, this is grim yeah so they references that real life thing twice and also this episode is going to have the death jingle and the anti-death jingle oh yeah yeah it's true uh they're ready for both yeah sorry also the the the cut to the hunky fireman who just right yeah that's so great they're perfectly hunky yeah i i think that they

they just don't understand they could be selling themselves to buy a fire truck they were the magic mics of the 90s i believe that's the actual joke right yeah oh yeah yeah like hey look at the firefighters auction oh look at barney yeah the women should be mad that they didn't get the they probably thought okay okay, firefighters. And no, no. I wonder why Apu is in the audience for this. What brings him to this Bachelor auction just to watch it for fun? Who's minding the quickie barks?

Exactly. Why should we be asking Apu that? He's just kind of sitting in his chair glumly. I feel like there really is no reason for Apu to be there. But we get to the the real plot of the episode begins with apu here and i also do love uh in this next clip crusty's reaction to i i almost fell out of my chair but but here here this is uh one of our longer clips the episode but but all good well i guess that's it folks folks. Had some laughs, killed some time.

Apu, you're a bachelor. Get up there. No, no, no, please. I am nothing special. Don't be shy. Excuse me. Excuse me. We have one more bachelor.

It's the chick. Just tell them about yourself. Well, I have a doctorate in computer science. Sounds pretty good to me. I run my own business, of course. I do like to cook. I'm not much of a talker, but I love to listen. And in my leisure time, I like to build furniture

and then to have a discussion about where it could be placed in a room. $50. $75. You better have enough left to pay my alimony, Luanne. $300. $350. $926. Sold to the five desperate chicks.

All right, we got him. Holy moly. Wow, look who's the ladies' man. Come on. got him holy moly wow look who's the ladies man come on so ruth powers is one of the uh lonely chicks yes yeah that's not found love yet after i guess her stint in prison uh oh yeah that was well also miss penny candy is there which would be a real you're right in the butt for crusty Krusty. He's left her dangling too long. That laugh, just like Apu's little tickle laugh.

I was like, oh, God, that's real. That sound is just super creepy. I like how uncomfortable it makes Marge and Lisa. Too much tittering for them. Good foreshadowing. And also, it's a great sad joke that Kirkirk van houten he gets alimony from the way he's unemployed i'm guessing still the cracker factory that severance ran out though what family court judge is going to give him the alimony like i guess there's some real

favorable divorce judges in in springfield i suppose uh well the way apu explains himself the joke is too that he's supposed to sound like the perfect man for what they the writers imagine women want which includes like i only listen i don't talk i build furniture and move it around the apartment for you that's and i have a business and support my family he does sound like a real catch i agree which again it's weird though that he doesn't have like uh like he said he should be moving on from being the cashier at the quickie mart and he's skilled in the deadly arts too yes yeah and he's got a cool firebird like it's the return of his firebird you're right yeah last seen in two bad neighbors which i don't know if he really keeps that around in his

i can't recall if he's driving around in that in eight Misbehavin' episodes. I want to say it sticks around. Okay. Looks hard to draw, though. It's such a cool design. And it's the perfect size to keep Wubbzy the bear in, too. All right. I like his date with Miss Hoover. Who's next door neighbors with Lou Anne Van Houten. Yeah, that's actually weird a little bit.

They're both Maggie Roswell characters, so it makes sense. I like how Hoover, she even kind of sexily closes the door with her butt. It's a good little animation move. They pointed out on the commentary that that's her old haircuts. Oh, yes, for Luanne, yeah. I guess she styled her hair differently for this clog dancing. No more capri pants and whatever else she was wearing. I laughed a lot at that scene. The fact that he had his own shoes.

Just try and stop me. Yeah, also Luanne, though, at the end of this episode, she's with Pyro at it. So I'm wondering if they're having kind of a more casual relationship. They could have been on a break or whatever. Maybe he was away on American Gladiators trips. And they just have a deal. Yeah. Okay, no, we're not exclusive.

You can't expect Pyro to be monogamous when he's on the road with all of the american gladiators we we see that uh apu is getting getting a lot of dates he reads homer part of the notes which i have to think what comes next rhymes with the word alone missing bone it's got to be something about a bone yeah i spent like way too much time trying to figure out what the second the final line of that poem would be but i think it's probably like bone or something like that but or moan maybe oh yeah yeah i can see that what i was trying to figure out is what crusty was singing underneath that dialogue and i put headphones on i could not make it out there's one line about having some drinks or pouring some drinks i don't know what it is

no one has like transcribed it online it sounds like they cast another just like ad-libbing a song i love the line cash the check like he's bragging about like this this was meaningless to him he's like look i i killed some time i cashed a check i drank whatever i you got you got mid-range crusty everything seems to be going well for Apu until he gets a letter. This is just a note to say I think about you every day. And when I get you all alone, well, it gets a little bit personal here. I understand. Yoink!

Wow! I know. Whoa! Tell me about it. Oh, here's one from my mother. Wow! I know. Tell me about it. Oh, here's one from my mother. Ooh, let's see what she wrote. Oh!

You hate lotus flowers, too? Don't get me started on lotus flowers. No, no, it is the sign that it is time for my arranged marriage. Oh, well, congratulations. No, no, no, don't the sign that it is time for my arranged marriage. Oh, well, congratulations. No, no, no, don't you know what it means? Not really. It all happened shortly after my eighth birthday. Okay, here we go.

I just, Homer is so weirdly low energy. He's there to hang out with Apu, which he never did before. And he doesn't really care about the situation, but he still wants to intervene. It's just, it's a weird. This whole episode felt so weird for Homer. Yeah. It just felt like out of character for him or just like, I don't know, he's like on drugs or something. He's just kind of lethargic and there, right?

Like he's just there because he's contractually obligated to show up, but he't seem like engaged in anything no no i love his not really not really yeah not really a very uncharacteristic homer delivery too but but this uh this arranged marriage scene is sort of like uh a reflection of what we saw much about nothing i think they make the joke uh better by making a poo the same age as manjula i was definitely going to note that that the the joke on manjula's first appearance is that uh he is at least 10 years older than her she is much she is clearly a child and he is going off to college and it's kind of a child bride joke that uh i really don't like i mean i assume the joke was that he was not going to marry her as like an eight-year-old or whatever but that she did not have any agency and as a

child she was meeting her future husband so there's there's layers here right okay let's figure it out in india for a long time and even now to a certain extent there's a lot of these things like this scene definitely read real to me right like this has definitely happened my grandparents were like this like my grandmother was something like 30 years younger than my grandfather was or something absurd like that given that she's still alive and he died like a million years ago and it's just like you see this a lot where there's like these kind of contracts and these families like being sworn to each other at very young age like mahatma gandhi him and his wife got arranged to be married at the age of like eight or something he was eight and she was like six or something maybe he was 10 and she was eight what

they do they do the contract and then they went home they literally just went back to their parents house went through schooling and stuff and then there's like when you're old enough to actually get married then we will get you married it's just a done deal for now and then we can move on to other things so like in the manjula case for instance like when apu's going off to college and she's still a child or you know some amount of years younger than them that's not unrealistic i mean it is a child bride joke and it's kind of weird and skeezy in america but it is definitely like to certain extent for certain parts of the culture culturally kind of how it was in the 70s and before okay i see okay but i'm glad i mean it makes it better them it makes it better

since they're going to meet at the end of this episode that they're the same age now in this in this telling of it i agree i think this one i actually i liked the fact that there was parody between them because that definitely makes it less super pedophilic creepy yeah and they do hide her face when you first see her you just see the top of her head well that's another joke too right like that's the joke too, right? Like that's the other Indians like, oh, you don't get to see your wife until the day you're married, which is the way it was in the olden days. So let me tell you a story that I like to tell when I'm talking to new couples or when I'm doing my wedding ceremonies, for instance. One of the things is, in the beginning of a Hindu wedding ceremony, the bride's family brings a groom up to the stage and they do a little bit of a small ceremony to welcome him because they're welcoming him as if

he has come from a long distance far far away so like they offer him water they wash the dust off his feet they do a little bit of a prayer thing and the idea is that in the ancient days when you were getting married the groom was coming from somewhere else like his village or his house or something walking up to the wedding and it may well have been like you know their uncles might have gotten together because they were family friends or college roommates or whatever it was and set up this wedding. And so the kid doesn't know who he's getting married to. And then when he's sitting on stage, he's got a veil in front of him, a shawl or a cloth or something blocking his sight. And he doesn't see his bride until literally they pull the thing down

and on the other side, he's like, surprise, this is who you're marrying. I mean, the joke is that like, look, we know you guys came here in the same car but pretend you've never seen each other i think for the viewer also they want to hide what she looks like because it's a big reveal that's the other joke right like aha he's gonna get married to some cow it's literally gonna be a cow moo they didn't do that joke i yeah i glad they thought about it there is a cow joke in this. Don't worry. They didn't miss that target. 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 Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Hope everybody is learning as much as we did this week on Talking Simpsons podcast. And we want to thank so much for all for our informative guests Shivam all the things he taught us this week it was very helpful and uh and also fun so thank you so much for doing

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1999 comes in multiple different sizes ships somewhat internationally and i they're really really cool i really enjoy both of them they are some great quality t-shirts at shirt sickle so please check it out at tiny.cc slash talking shirt this was the first time i wanted to know about apu's father because he only appears in flashbacks they never talk about him i double checked this on the wiki he's never made an appearance since either he was on the cat fancy magazine right yes yeah so make us proud son yeah that was his only even dialogue like yeah you know make us proud son only thing he's ever said in it and the mom said never forget who you are yeah and he's just mr nahasa pima petalon that's his name just

like a poo's mother is a poo's mother she doesn't have a name yeah well based on this flashback too so i have to think if they're doing a dowry of like a textile factory these are are very well-off families here too well did you see the pavilion that they're sitting in like you don't have a pavilion like that if you're poor yeah the thing that made me laugh though was the mafia style way the lotus just kind of flopped onto the table like a horse head it's just like yeah coming for you you evaded it long enough but here we are it's very sinister for being a flower i loved it that was just like super creepy um that's not common practice no first off a lotus flower would not last that long yeah but also no nobody had married you lotus blossoms and being like

your time has come my son i do like a little bit homer's friendship with apu just that it's not completely uncharacteristic because in the skull, like we've seen in multiple episodes we've done now, where Homer just hangs out at Apu's and buys junk food and then has a scene. He'll go there to buy a hot dog and he'll think of robbing the Quickie Mart. He'll go there looking for Skittle Brow and then reconnect with Bart. Or he'll go to Apu's and then leave and find like the the automatic dialing machine so he they do like scenes where homer hangs out with apu at least of like time to have a conversation while i buy garbage and i guess he is buying things at the same time and homer likes homer likes junk food so he's always that that also

feels like more of a call back to like season one or two homer just having conversations with before he befriended apu and moved in and like apu lived with them for a time he was just the guy at the quickie mart he'd talk to briefly before buying something apu is he has a problem because he's enjoying being the spatula he's not even he doesn't even seem that against the idea of just an arranged marriage just that he doesn't want to be married right now so much him and homer uh figure out a plan oh i cannot get married i'm just beginning to enjoy my bachelorhood what am i going to do tell her the truth you're not ready to get married no no no no you do not know mother She will never quit until I am married. Then just tell her you're already married.

No, I cannot lie to my mother. Then get married. What the hell do you want from me? Yes, that is right, mother. I already got married. Why did not I bother to tell you? Well, the reason is... Well, I guess I didn't think you'd understand. Oh, got to go. Bye-bye-bye.

Love you, love you. It worked. It worked. Their lie has set me free. Homer offering very realistic solutions to that problem. I did feel his frustration when you're trying to help someone and they just reject every piece of advice. You're like, what do you want? Just do whatever you want. I don't care. Well, okay. So first off, this scene to me is like the most real scene I've ever seen in a Simpsons episode as relates directly to me.

Because of course, I'm the egocentric one I'm talking. So first, I got to tell you that like that like 30 seconds just encapsulated my entire life. Because the idea here is that first off, Apu is living in America, right? He's at this point, he's been there long enough to consider himself somewhat culturally American, right? He's enjoying a bachelor life. He's living the life. He's free from his family, which in Indianian culture your family has like i mean the idea of family and stuff to us is very different than the idea that you get in the west because the fact

that like when i got married and moved out my mom was like crying for three days because she couldn't believe that i would want to leave the house and because the way it works is you get married and then your parents move in with you and then your grandparents move in with you and then there's like a whole notion of united kind of family you never ever argue with your mom like that or well i mean you're gonna argue but you never disagree or like disobey them in that kind of way and marriage is like the most important sacrament in like a hindu life and if you're sitting there and you like your mom's like okay dude we we set this up you're gonna get married and you're like yo i already got married i didn't tell you and uh bye that might as well be like lighting your parents on fire right like that is maybe the most offensive possible thing you could do because a it's your most important ceremony in your life if you ran away and got married didn't tell your

parents like when i was getting married to my wife, who is white. And I was like, I was sitting and I was trying to figure out how I could tell them that I proposed to her. That nearly gave me like an anxiety attack just because the idea of how am I going to tell them? I didn't ask them first. I didn't, you know, bring this up that we were going to do this. Oh my God, what am I going to do? And a bunch of my friends were doing exactly what Homer was doing, which is like, yo, just, just tell him you already got married or like you know tell him to fuck off whatever because like in the like the american attitude is like look we're independent we have left the family we're like over 18 i live on my own i can do what i want but that's not how it

flies in india you don't like i could be 48 years old not 18 and my parents are still going to be telling me what to do just because that's a cultural thing to do. So when Homer is coming up with like, well, what do you want me to do? And I'm like, I want you to shut up, man, because you're going to get me killed. That is very American advice. You're right. Tell him that. I can't tell you how many people are like, your mom wants to do what at your wedding?

Just, you know, cut them off and tell them never to come back. And I'm like, are you high? Like, no, that's that's and tell them never to come back. And I'm like, are you high? Like, no, that's, that's not how this is going to work. Like, like I will have to find a solution that involves not cutting off my family forever.

I, I got married and didn't even tell my dad about it. And I, I don't even feel slightly bad about that. But, uh, so it's a very, a very different,

uh, different situation for both of us. Oh yeah, man. It took like two years of working them to get used to the idea. I love Homer's sticky buns thing, too. That's another great... That's such a great misdirect.

More weird low energy. He's not even invested anymore in what's happening. He's like, whatever, man. Tell her that you're a pigeon now. Bye. But yeah, more of Apu's love of classic rock. I assume that's playing in the scene. It's not just music that we're hearing as the viewers well because homer's jumping up and down or he's right he's actually it's very low energy again from homer he's just

going up on his tiptoes every now yeah yeah and there's a great joke that took me a long time to get of the hair montage where instead of uh shaking his head no at every hairstyle but the last one he gives a thumbs up to everyone i I love that, how long it goes on. They're going to have three more hairstyles, I think. It's the same exact camera move every time. So zoom in, zoom out. Homer, thumbs up. Zoom in, zoom out.

And his haircuts included the George Clooney Caesar. You've got Coolio's hair. And, of course, the Rachel. And the Rachel as well. I also couldn't believe that it took until season nine for them to do hairy shearers oh you're right yeah it's a sign gag for a barbershop it's very funny but now it's time for talk about my culture everybody a yodel is is basically a ho-ho for the east coast yeah i could not figure it out that is

not a ding dong it's a ho-ho it's the rolled chocolate cake with could not figure it out. That is not a ding-dong. It's a ho-ho. It's the rolled chocolate cake with cream in it. Yeah, and then chocolate syrup on top or chocolate coating on top. It's all coated in chocolate, but I've not had a ho-ho in a long time. See, in my area, we didn't have Drake's. In the South, it was Hostess County. Yeah, Hostess for me, too.

And Dolly Madison was dead. Hostess cakes cakes those were the ones also advertised by marvel superheroes in 70s and 80s so when i would read old comic books i'd they did more fruit pies but they'd also do ho-hos as well man uh those ironically i used to eat ho-hos at my uncle's quickie mart that he literally owned in philadelphia wow well it was like a corner store more than a quickie mart so i guess a bodega more but it was definitely a place where i would go and sneak and steal his inventory of candies and hostess products oh nice i have to say hostess apple pies i think i ate them for lunch in high school for maybe two solid years wow and i'm my mouth is watering thinking

of it now and i know it's wrong yeah because that's like diabetes in a book yeah i survived the pie epidemic come on it on, it's fruit. It's fruit. It can't be unhealthy. You call that fruit? In quotations. How many calories is in that? There's probably about four flecks of dried apple among sugar syrup of apple, apple-flavored sugar syrup.

It's fruit the way it's milk, right? It was a hostess apple pie and a can of coke wow for lunch oh god god 150 gets through the day um my teeth are fine by the way uh well i did find an old yodels commercial i again i i'd never heard of these yodels or other things i for some reason in my uh summer viewing i'd watch the rosie o'donnell talk show a lot and she was super into drake's cakes and other of those so she'd throw those into the audience i would be like a yodel a drake's cake what the hell are these things yes it's a classic 60s commercial for yodels which i'm just cutting to the end here uh the commercial itself is two kids saying like

i know how to yodel and then they eat a yodel and then like yeah see that's that's how a yodeling is and then i'm getting the drake's mascot which i'm guessing is a duck of some kind uh tells us all about how cool yodels are and go to the store and sound off for drake's chocolatey yodels are. And go to the store and sound off for Drake's Chocolatey Yodels. Have fun! Yodel-a-do! Yodel-a-do! That's a terrible yodel for that. He does not get a yodel.

I looked it up. The Hostess Apple Pie calorie count is 470. That seems wrong to me. Whoa. I think that was 20 years ago. It had to be double that before they were rated by the FDA. There's no way that was 470 calories. Yes, exactly. That was like 1 before they were raided by the FDA. There's no way that was 470 calories. Yes, exactly.

That was like 1,200 calories I was eating for lunch. There could be two servings in that. I think it was the whole pie, but you might be right. It is probably like one serving of a pie you get in a little bag. The foreigner hot-blooded segment, I just love. I do love Apu's dance. He moves his hands up and down. He's river dancing, too.

Yeah, that was weird. River dancing at the disco. That was an odd visual. They joke on the commentary. They're like, whoa, he's got some even more bodacious babes than Luanne and Miss Hoover there in his car at the end. He's having some fun. I bet they didn't get any free yodels for that yodel joke.

Bill Oakley always complained. they make all these specific food references and the food companies would never send them anything well we learned from talking to the writer so much that they were just surrounded by junk food so i don't think they need it anymore yeah that's true that's true all you do is just put on weight you're just surrounded by it but yeah but the yodel thing comes from homer wanting to i just love his childish way of saying i've got this much when he's trying to buy the yodel and the winning ticket. Just dumping all the coins on the counter. And he's smart enough to know how to find the winning ticket, but too stupid to know that he could buy yodels with $500.

He could buy many yodels. Explain how. But Apu is just too sleepy, but he has quite a rude awakening. She's going to be here any second. Oh, yes. That will buy me some time. Homer, you've got to help me. Okay.

Seems to me what you ought to do is What what what what what Well You can always move into my house And tell your mom that Marge is your wife Is it me or do your plans Always involve some horrible web of lies It's you

Welcome to the cookie mart May I help Mother What are you doing here I have come to meet This wife of yours Admit her you shall It is a very reasonable request

That can easily be granted In a timely and efficient Let's go And we shall Because it is in the going That we Again weird energy from Homer. Just like, tell them that Marge is your wife.

You, uh... Yeah. He's sleeping from that yodel. The yodel's more important. He's not even into this plan that gets Apu into his house again for the second time in the series. It just felt so... Like, I just don't understand the writing of Homer this episode. He just...

Like, it seems to me like what the hell are you doing man like he just didn't feel homer-esque at all right maybe maybe you're just saying like homer is homer doesn't want to be involved in a plot line with apu and so yeah the maybe it's almost like a meta commentary that the the actor of homer in this episode is like i don't care you're getting You're getting half energy from me in this one. I really do love how painful it looks when Apu's mother falls over there. It's so horrible.

Not concerned about her well-being at all. He's just like, yes. Not even slightly. The idea of seeing, if I saw my mother take that kind of fall, I would not go like, yes, that bought me some time. Okay, let's talk. Yeah, like, first off, if your mom is that old, and then, like, she just crumbles on the street, and obviously something must have snapped.

And I'm just like, oh, God. She's pretty tough, though. Yes. But she also has a cane, too, but only for that moment. Yes, there is Andrea Martin, who, you know what? She seems in very good health, but I still, just for safety's sake, I'm going to play the anti-death jingle here. James Pudgert, I ain't dead yet. She's still hanging in there in her 70s?

Yes, yeah. SCTV's Andrea Martin. Yeah, she's in great shape. She still acts and appears and stuff. I mean, maybe to some, she's most famous for being like my big fat Greek wedding. She's also had an amazing turn in Difficult People. The best Hulu original,

I know that's not the biggest part across, at least best Hulu original comedy. It's my favorite Hulu show. And she also even has like small roles in films I really love, like Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She makes a lot of interesting choices. She has jokes when she worked on Difficult People. They'd write all these jokes for her with these references

to things she's never heard of. And she's like, I'm just going to trust that this is funny. I'll do it. She did a great job. Is she the mom yeah she is julie clausner's mother on it who is a an incredibly like domineering aggressive like mean woman who's who's a psychiatrist so she is constantly playing head games with julie all the time she is she is very good as a as a mean, in the, though of a very different type than,

uh, Apu's mother, which is all she goes by in this episode. Yeah. It's unfortunate that she is not named because as we talked about in past shows, sometimes they forget to name female characters. Yeah.

Which seems like a, a, an odd oversight, especially with a character this important in the, in the show. Like Manjula has like two minutes of screen time and Apu's mom is in like every act. Yeah, it's weird.

But it's not something that's exclusive to women of color characters they make up. They did it. I mean, in Critic, there's like two different women who have no name in the show. Yeah. And I think Manjula only has a name because she was named previously in season seven. In Muchapu Bad Nothing. But she'll go on to become a major character. only has a name because she was named previously yes season seven and in much poop had nothing but she'll go on to become a major character i believe uh who's mom comes back a few times but not as much as manjula does yes yeah manjula is almost right at least drawn into the background kind of

regular yeah she feels like second tier type of character that shows up enough right andrea martin is uh apparently they they talked about how that she did a a lot of work for the role or they say that she was when when they were recording with her mike scully said that she he went to new york to record with her and that she was listening to while they were recording she was listening to tapes of azaria doing a poo so she could have an accent to match his authentically fake yes yeah but fake in the specific way that Hank Azaria's accent is fake. So, I mean, at least she's... It sounded awful.

The Peter Sellers accents. It's just like, it doesn't sound... It doesn't even sound fake Indian. It sounds fake generically ethnic. Hearing it isolated, she sounds like Transylvanian or something. She's a vampire lady she sounds like she's trying to pretend to be andrea martin from my big fat greek wedding ah

okay this uh this pre this predates that movie by just a couple years so maybe yeah by like five years or something but it's still it feels like if she was listening to herself do that movie and then tried to do a pastiche of that that's kind of what this comes out to be uh yeah it's it is a a general foreign accent it's it's it's a jack-of-all-trades this accent yeah the clothes may in any country go a long way to making this uh work greek indian whatever whatever you need for uh olive skin it'll work itself out uh this was also in this episode it really made me notice it's always been there but that nuke arcade machine is just so it's just so like bright and colored because it's always looked the same since season one it really stands out

it's kind of distracting i mean what's distracting is the giant yodel display like uh scenes before homer points it out he wants a yodel. Oh, yes. Yeah, that too. And then when Homer gets home, all he can think about is that yodel. Like, he's not even helping with the scheme. And he's wearing oddly different socks for some reason. Yes. I don't know why.

As Homer reflects on the yodel, he has to make a very extreme request of Marge in this next clip. Oh, that yodel was so good. I wish I was eating it right now. Oh, crap, I forgot! Marge, I need a small favor. For the next few days, will you pretend to be Apu's wife? What? Please!

It's just for as long as his mother's living here. What? Honey, I am in my home. How was your day, sweetheart? Can you feel the love? We are overthinking the Homerer stuff i think but that's our job by the way that's what we do i do like the idea now i'm i'm taking it apart in my head it's funny that the the wackiest character on this wacky sitcom is instigating the wackiest plot

he doesn't care about it he doesn't want to stick around for the wackiness to happen i do like that part of it it. It is weird how oddly invested and then disinvested Homer is in all of this. But I do like it. Captain Wacky is not even on board for the wackiness. Yeah, it's just kind of like he sets a fuse and he's like, I don't care about the fireworks. Bye.

This is less wacky than I thought it would be. It's like, this is not fun. I'm going to go get a yodel. I do like Marge's handshake with apu too that's their name greeting her husband and apu's like uh come on come on hand motions and smiling i like that that trepidation though man i felt that aura of his mom walking in that door and i'm just like oh god i know this feeling i also like homer just shoving them together to make it look worse. He knows

he needs to say a funny thing to end the scene. Everyone catches on very quickly with his plan. I love how Marge too goes like, what? What? It's just so much to dump on Marge immediately. We come back from the break and Apu is introducing his mom

to the rest of his family. I have come to from the break and Apu is introducing his mom to the rest of his family. I have come to see the woman for whom Apu was willing to disgrace his family and spit on his culture. Here I am. Okay, gotta run. Apu, I'm sure you want to get upstairs and fix that broken toilet before Marge yells at you again. I'm just so honored to have you here in our home. Thank you. And having met you, let me say how deeply,

deeply disappointed I am. Apu, your arranged bride Manjula is a sweet, refined, chaste woman. Are you nuts? Mother, come on. You know that one out of every 25 arranged marriages ends in divorce. Oh, Bart and Lisa, you remember your father, Apu? This is your father, Apu's mother.

Oh! Hi. Oh, my God. Oh, God. Yes, she is definitely Transylvanian. You are 100% correct. She's a vampire lady. The right to be afraid of You are 100% correct. Yeah, she's a vampire lady. The right to be afraid of her.

I would bet at some point she played a vampire in a Count Floyd scene. I bet you. I bet you. Vampire parody. I like how savage she is. I do like how mean. Deeply, deeply. Oh, that was the realest stuff, though. That is how deeply disappointed I am.

First off, let me just frame this from Apu's mother's perspective for just a second. You call your son because his time to get married has come. He is in America, and he says, by the way, Mom, I'm already married by. Okay, first off, what the hell? Right? Like, are you kidding me? So she gets on the next plane to fly out there and figure out what the hell is going on. She lands and sees that her son is married to some random white chick who already has two kids.

He has two kids. Three kids. Maggie stumbles out. Where was Maggie? Three kids. Three. Are you kidding me? Like, I'm surprised that she didn't literally just kill him on the spot.

She has the right to be furious yeah like i i mean let's be real for a second it doesn't matter your culture if your son goes off gets married has three kids that means he hasn't talked to you about literally his life for 20 something years yeah it's uh well and i I wonder if she has to take it that Bart and Lisa come from a previous marriage, perhaps. So they're not his biological children. Yeah, probably. She does not investigate that, but clearly. Which that's a whole other thing for her to take on.

It's just like, oh, so you're raising someone else's kids? You married a widow? You married a divorcee? What are you talking? Like, what kind of insanity is this? I do like that Bart and Lisa just dive right into the improv. I do like that. Oh!

You remember your father? Your father? It's a funny statistical joke about how few arranged marriages end in divorce versus the, you know, half, 50% of all marriages end in divorce versus the you know half 50 of all marriages end in half now it's in the it's in the 40s apparently i mean it was half then definitely yeah yeah i i think uh well so i did look i wanted to look up the veracity of this joke at least now the the closest i could find is an nbc news story from 2012 that said it was and this is for across cultures arranged marriages so this is not just indian it's you know china japan many

other cultures they said that arranged marriages it was only four percent in divorce i mean i think those stats talk more about the um the culture's perception of divorce more than the health of a marriage in general it's like does this culture more accepting of divorce and there will be more divorces so india actually has one of the lowest divorce rates period in the world like it's something like less than one percent uh i read a stat somewhere that something like 13 out of every 1000 marriages end in divorce in india Whoa. Yeah, I know. It's so high, right? But the problem is that a lot of that is because there's so much cultural pressure on daughter-in-laws, on families that have marriages and stuff. There's a lot of spousal, I mean, I'm not going to say a lot of spousal abuse or domestic abuse or know kind of psychological trauma and stuff but there are definitely couples that would have in other cultures gotten divorced but didn't for a myriad of reasons so like officially the rate is really low and even like in the past week uh india banned

the uh islamic way of divorce the triple talaq which is where you can just say i divorce you three times and uh you're done for muslim people and but even then it just divorce is such a huge cultural stigma that the idea like one of my aunts got divorced and she got cut off by the family for like years wow and like when she got remarried it was like people talked about it and still talk about it and it's been like 30 years man i guess like growing up in the freewheeling american 80s and 90s it felt like well my parents were divorced all my friends parents were divorced everyone was divorced oh yeah dude when my parents got divorced in the mid in like the early 2000s or something even now in 2019 we still get like we're still dealing with residual trauma of the cultural fallout from that.

It's insane. So Homer runs off. He leaves also the toilet to be fixed by Apu, which is a nice little extra. That should be the B-plot, Apu fixing the toilet. But instead, after Homer tries to stay with Moe and Moe's leaving for, as they point out in the commentary, a weekend trip to Easter Island because he's back very quick. He really is back quickly. With the what now? And so then Homer goes off to visit Abe. And this was another like Richard Pell jokes on the commentary that The Simpsons is a show that just eats plots and devours them so quickly. The thought, when he pitched the idea before this episode,

Homer moves into the retirement castle. He thinks that could be an entire episode. And here he is watching. He's like, this is over in three minutes. It didn't last that long at all. I think it's literally three scenes. Yes, yeah. I think this one, this has my line of the show in it, though.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Well, so this is Homer moving in with Abe. Hey, Dad. I've come to spend some time with my favorite father. Baloney! You came here to put me in a home! You're already in a home.

Oh, how could you? Abraham Simpson. Poor Nelius Talmadge. Oh, no, I'm not. Oh, let's see what you got here. Abraham Simpson or Aeneas Talmadge Oh no I'm not The pink ones keep you from screaming That's it Alright folks it's supper time

Supper at 4 o'clock What a sweet deal Hey They got chairs with wheels And here I am using my legs like a sucker. I love the pink ones keep you from screaming. It underlines the bleakness of their life. It's like these will stop you from screaming.

All right, let's make that official with the jingle. Yay, let's do it. Thank you. That's the joke. It's like a word to the wise or something he's telling Homer. It's like, take these. And then Homer will take any random pills handed to him too and again just like that really could have been a full episode by itself man it

would have been hilarious i think so and there's a again a weird energy like everyone at this this rest home accepts homer that homer is an old man yeah he needs to be turned over they treat him as just an old old man it's i it kind of reminds me of how when homer went into the soup kitchen just looking at him they're just like oh you're a homeless person so here please here's some free soup and clothes cornelius talmadge is that's a bill and josh really i so i forgot it came from a scully area i wonder if bill and josh pitched that one they've basically said they're credited as like consulting producers or whatever they just say like yeah we sat in the room to make sure everything was fine they didn't or they didn't really have much

creative i bet they pitched that name though it sounds like from their era really does yeah it's uh it feels like a langdon auger type name and also yeah like a sucker i just love what was like like a sucker uh just it's a great it's a great little catchphrase for him in this taking his uh his ableness for granted at all at every turn uh we cut back to the home wife i like that apu is clearly sleeping in bart's sleeping bag like it's not just a nondescript sleeping bag it's a crusty one which i think is a little extra flavor on the gag there and that he's he's just saying to mars like you're being a real sport about this like yeah okay he should be in maggie's room or something being in the same bedroom with barge he's gotta go into the bed if he doesn't go into the bedroom with her then it really looks fake the mom is there yeah staying there see it's not that he wants to sleep in the same room as marge

he's not getting much out of this either i mean mean, he's sleeping on the floor in a children's sleeping bag. But yes, then we get to the dot sequence, which, Dev, if we'll shove them to you. I have the full clip. Would you want to say something beforehand? No, let's do the clip, and then I'll talk about it. Okay. Can I ask you about your dot? What would you like to know?

What's the deal with that dot? Yeah, can you see out of it? Does it change colors when you're ticked off? You tell me. Nothing yet. Surely you children are aware of your Brahman heritage. As long as you have absolutely no follow-up questions, yes. Yes, we are.

Fully. We have to go now. That, by the way, was my personal line of the show. As long as you have no follow-up questions. As long as you have no follow-up questions. I love that. That is a very useful phrase in life. As long as you have absolutely no follow-up questions, yes. But that sentence, man, that two sentences or whatever right there is so loaded and just so painful.

It's like, what about that dot? Really? Like that is every second grader who ever like looked at my mom when I was a kid. You know, like that is like just one of those super hurtful kind of like stereotype things that we just got hit with a lot. Because like for one thing, when was a kid and i people would be like oh so uh what ethnicity or like what are you what are you is what they say not what what are you oh you know i'm indian dots or feathers uh right right and i'm like dots or feathers what and then of course you know in the 90s after like you know 9 11 or maybe in the 2000 whatever it's

like hey look the dot it's a target holy shit i've not heard the 2000s or whatever, it's like, hey, look, the dot. It's a target. Holy shit. I've not heard that one before. Oh, yeah, dude. It's just like, look, you even give us a nice place to aim. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? That's gross. So when I'm sitting there, I seriously cringe this entire way.

It's like, what's the deal with that dot? I don't know. It felt almost callous the way that they delivered those lines would you say it's too real because little kids little white kids would be oh yeah dude it's like just and even not even little white kids like kids who should know better yeah that too which i do feel like lisa should know what a bindi is yeah yeah she would have context or something and then like does it change color can you like see through it that's obviously making fun of the fact that it's like oh you know when you put a

bindi on or when you put like a channel or whatever that dot up there it represents like you know you're illuminating your third eye and kind of like the yogic tantric sense or whatever it's like yeah can you see through it does it change color the way like you know the weirdo hindu pictures that have people with the third eyes open. And I'm like, come on, really? You're just going deep for the insult. And then she like, when, when, when like mom just stares at them, it's like that made me laugh. Cause she's like, yeah. Uh-huh. You're going to give me more crap about this. Okay.

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He's just like, nothing yet. She doesn't more than just absorb the insults. But the one that got me, though, was like, what did your dad not tell you anything about your brahmanical like your brahman heritage and i'm like holy shit up who's a brahman when was that i didn't know that like suddenly that makes this even more of a big fall right like okay so in the hindu caste system in the olden days which has been totally mangled when translated to america There's like four classes and then a whole bunch of subclasses and things like that. But these four broader classes, the Brahmins are the priest class at the top. Then there's the Kshatriyas who are the warriors and

the kind of the merchants and laborers and then the like servants and the untouchables and things like that. So when I was like, of course, he's a Brahmin. He came to America he had a degree. Because in the 70s, if you're educated and wealthy, obviously you must be from an upper class family. And if you're able to immigrate at all, it's because of caste tradition or weird cultural bias that would let upper class people immigrate out, but lower class people have to stay. You didn't really see an influx of non non-broman people in america until like the 90s and later because of just the way immigration worked and so he's like a high class educated dude from a family of like upper caste people who good or bad are people who've had a significant amount of privilege and like you know kind of are like the uh cishet white guys of India. And then he's here, he's running a store that like is just whatever store.

He can't use any of his education. And then he married some random mom with three kids that came with her. Apu's mom is probably having a heart attack every 10 minutes. I assume that they have money if she could just fly to America at the drop of a hat. Yeah, quite easily. They must be filthy rich. He came to America at the drop of a hat. Yeah, quite easily. They must be filthy rich. He came to America at all. It's hard to read what his relationship with them is because when she called him, it doesn't seem like he dodges her calls too much.

Or he's like, oh, I haven't talked to her since I moved here. He's not alarmed by a letter. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I was kind of like, well, look, in the 80s and 90s, calling from India was like an adventure unto itself. Because the phone lines in India were like two rubber bands tied to an orange that you would pray to to get any kind of feedback at all. And you'd be like, when we would be yelling at each other, we would say we're calling India because that's how loud you have to be to actually call home. Right. Like you'd have to go to a public phone booth to call and it would cost a billion dollars per minute. So calling is like a big deal. Writing a letter is kind of how they communicated up until like the early days

of the internet and what got me though is just this idea that she is here she speaks fluent english she is super rich and she's watching her son having thrown all this away for what exactly that does give a lot more you know, context to how the mother is feeling. I think she's played more like the kind of in-law Badlax, more of a cartoonish figure. But I like having more reason for why she's so upset. Like she has many reasons to be upset. I guess the context is there if you know where to find it. But I mean, it's also just like your mother-in-law is disappointed in you.

It's kind of a universal, universal feeling. But I mean, did you ever see the movie Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy? So in that scene, when Eddie Murphy is working at McDowell's and living in a rat hotel in middle of New York and his parents come and they're like, what the hell? You left a palace where people are like massaging you every three seconds to come here. That's kind of exactly the same vibe I got from Mama Apu over there. The Brahmin thing makes it much, does make it more clear. I think it's just for, I think it's mainly played for the kids that it's just it's another word they don't understand yeah totally in the middle of just like the most offensive oh god yeah lisa lisa's not as uh as informed or open-minded as she usually is

they do make her more of a regular little kid yes yeah and she that's the thing that got me like it was funny because i watched this episode right after I listened to the interview that Yardley Smith did with Marc Maron. And I was just like, wow, this is the Lisa that they gave us? Just completely cold and just deeply uncool. I feel like Lisa would be more

curious and more inquisitive than just like, what's the deal with that guy? Or she'd lecture Bart about not saying that yeah yeah actually her disconnect in this it doesn't really fit with her friendship with apu or her her uh feelings for apu empathy for him in much apu about nothing was one of the better moments in that episode when she's walking with him to his test and she's the one who figures out the grandfather clause and everything.

Her being so disconnected from Mapu and his problems in this episode is very different from that one. She feels almost more like the bully than like Lisa. Yeah, yeah. The lines could have all been Bart's. In this scene, the dot scene,

they could have all just been Bart. Yes. I guess it works better as a comedy that they both leave together so it's both of them but it it sells out lisa's character a bit yeah uh so we go back to the retirement castle homer is is loving his life as cornelius talmadge he's uh he says hi to everybody in there the weirdest one to me is I double checked this on the wiki and the closed caption and on Frankie Yak. The guy he says hi to right next to Abe is called Increase. Yes.

Jasper. Gladys. Beatrice. Looking good, Hattie. Asa. Hazel. Hazel. Hazel!

I don't know what her. Hester. Emile. Prudence. Lemuel. Increase. Dad. Hazel! I don't know what they're... Hester. Lemuel. Prudence. Lemuel. Increase. Dad. Cornelius.

I can tell you what all this means, Henry. Okay, please. I'm so confused. Homer's going through all of the old folks, shouting them out, saying their names, and they're all really old-timey names that no child has named, or no person has named, unless you were 90, 20 years ago. And the last two names are Lemuel and Increase, which are names that are so biblical, they're no longer used.

So that is how old-timey these two guys are. Their names are archaic biblical names that nobody is named in America, at least. Okay. So there you have it. I mean, it's a really just weird joke that takes a long time to get to but kill some time yeah but yes increase some time i believe it is the direct translation for joseph

or something like that from aramaic i don't know i don't know it's online look it up but there you have it i've learned so much and uh as they go to get their kidney mush steven dean moore tells a very good story on the commentary about how the wheelchair race was so hard for them to animate because it's supposed to look super fast in some shots, but the payoff of the joke is it's faster for Homer to run than being in a wheelchair. So then you have to change the pacing on a dime of like, now it's not fast anymore. Homer just walks fast, really, not run it's it's a really funny payoff though because homer is mad that he doesn't have a wheelchair and then he's mad that jasper has an electric wheelchair and then ultimately he gets out of the electric wheelchair to run to the kidney

mush you can eat it before yeah they they treat jasper in this episode like he's always in a wheelchair there's a scene later where with jasper in it in the hot tub with them and his wheelchair is next to the hot tub implying he came there in it he does have one leg remember yeah but normally he's walking around pretty fine he's even though there's a little snow on the roof i forget how the rest goes but yeah the kidney mush also quite quite a funny little gag i think old people should not be drinking liquid potato chips i think that's probably just the idea of homer also it's supposed to be a saline drip like shouldn't that be dripping you shouldn't you're not supposed to suck a saline drip it's more effective

uh but yes this homer homer's enjoying it uh up to a point here who knew that lays made liquid potato chips i can't suck just one another bag of chips mr talmadge please also i think i'm getting a bed sore what do you have to do to get turned around here hey what's lucky hooked up to a respirator it breathes for him here i am using my own lungs like a sucker. And how come everyone gets a bedpan and I have to walk all the way over there? You mean there? Yeah!

Hello, I'm Cornelius Talmadge. My family brought me here on Monday, but I broke free and went on a bit of a bender. Wait a minute. If you're Cornelius Talmadge, then who's... And Homer is running away in silence. I do love the brief appearance of Cornelius. This is where I learned the word bender before Futurama. I do like that reading. I went on a bit of a bender.

I like that he escaped. He broke free. Went on a drinking spree, apparently. I want to hear that story of Cornelius and why he, when his bender ended, why he wanted to come back to the old folks home after his family committed him but god homer homer is such an asshole to that nurse it's it's so funny like he's just though he's indignant like yeah and the dead-eyed look on his face as he's rolled over by a completely able-bodied man forcing her to roll him over when he's like 320. Well, he's 239, but no, he's not.

It's a great reveal of Lucky with the respirator. Yes. As they pull back to see the guy breathing in the machine. Lucky, like his name is Lucky. Yeah, they say on the commentary too, like, it cuts short any time of explaining away sitcom plots when you just have a character run away and then to see all that was missing was the sound of a car driving away

homer runs out of windows quite a lot he'll be actually speaking of kidneys and running out of windows we'll be seeing that in about a year or so much beloved episode kidney trouble yeah yeah so homer goes straight back home and just gets in bed with Marge. And this is another great misdirect where you think that Homer, that the story's over and that Homer would only have moved back in if Apu had moved out. But that is not the case in this next clip. Well, I'm glad you were having fun because I've had my hands full with Apu's mother. Oh, right. Right. The fake marriage thing. How's that going?

Okay, Apu. I am packed and ready to go to the airport. Oh, good. Marge, how could you? Oh, Apu, give it up. Mother, I am so sorry. I lied to you about being married. Lied to his mother. But the fact that I would stage this ridiculous farce surely proves to you how much I do not want to go through with this arranged marriage.

I had no idea how strongly you felt, Appu. Now wipe that smile off your face. We have a wedding to plan. You know what you could do, Apu? Shut up. Thank you. Or would you shut up? All you need is a car bomb. I can't believe you don't shut up.

Apu was wrong to listen to Homer in the first place. Yes, yes. He's mad at himself. In every way. I love Homer's, like, all you need is a car bomb. Like, oh, that's all you need. Yeah, because that's what an Indian in like all you need is a car bomb like oh that's all you need yeah because that's what an indian in the 90s needed a car bomb oh god homer did try to fake his own death before and it worked yeah he's the master of it pretty good honestly i'd listen to his uh i'd listen to his advice on faking your own death oh but yeah i i do love the sitcom turn the fake sitcom turn of her say like the music going up

and like i had no idea you felt this way anyway get that smile on your face yeah i don't care that's also what's so weird about the third act and i actually like lisa dead panningly saying like why are we still doing what's going on the simpson should not be part of this so who should be doing his own thing go back to ind India, perhaps, and do it there. What kind of weird meta-commentary is it, by the way, that half of the episode is just like, I don't understand why we're doing this episode. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that infects the show a bit in these years.

People are very tired. People are tired. Characters don't know why they're doing things. I do really like the delivery of mother apu saying like i'm ready to go to the airport like a lot of fun surprise screams this episode crusty and apu's mom and also i i can't believe you don't shut up sort of became a runner for apu he'll say it one other time in eight misbehaving that's true it was sort of like his uh have mercy that skinner had for a while yeah that's right i thought sorry i thought

you're talking about uncle jesse no no no different have mercy better have mercy have mercy um so when we come back when we come back from break they are planning the wedding they do talk on the commentary that they try to get accurate Hindi to be spoken in some of these lines. I'd like to know. Your sigh tells a story already there. I think it sounds accurate based on that sigh. Okay, well, it is accurate, right? The first line is definitely like, dum ganesh.

It's weird. It feels like somebody Google translated. Or I guess in that time used babelfish to figure out how to say, no, you're not Ganesh. The problem is the second sentence he said where he's like, I could not figure out what that word was because that word was not the word that they subtitled. Okay. Like a Pusbal on the phone is speaking Hindi, right? It sounds like for a few words in here. Well, here, I'll play the clip.

Yes, yes, Manjula. I will take care of all the wedding plans. You just get on a plane and come to America. I have to go. Believe me, I'd like to. Goodbye. I've been looking over this list of things for the ceremony. I've got the extra wine glasses, but I'm still short a tandoori oven, an elephant, and four kastrati.

What's a kastrati? I don't know, but I'm sure it's spicy. Why is that woman still living here? Bart doesn't know either. Before she says, believe believe me i'd like to that sounds like it's supposed to be hindi yeah it's kind of like it's it's like i totally missed that the first time when you guys uh said it because i was thinking about the hindi that they used in the yeah in the wedding part but yeah it's like um it means bitch oh okay it basically she's basically like saying like

this is i mean she's basically swearing at about march okay i see i see man they got something real dirty on them oh yeah like like when i was just listening to the second my eyes popped and i was like that can't be what she said on TV. Like, holy shit. But I, but I do like Andrea Martin's, uh,

believe me, I'd like to. Right for the Marge. Yeah. She knows what, like Marge knows what that means. Like she's, no,

then again, Marge is too stupid to know what a cast. I feel like, you know what a cast Roddy is. Marge is too innocent to know what a castrati is. I guess I don't know did she listen to a lot of opera? Yeah I suppose not but that

she implies it must be spicy food that's all she knows about Indian culture is the food is spicy basically. I mean Apu did make them food so spicy Lisa could see through time as we recall from another very culturally informed episode of The Simpsons. Now I know what tandoori is.

I don't think I had tandoori chicken until years after. Oh, same here. Probably like 20 years. There is it, you know, to, I was 15 when this episode came out. I was just a very, like, sheltered suburban kid. There weren't many indian restaurants in my area that that i knew of and and they my family like it just seemed too out there to to beans different yeah a different type of bread with this food what a different type of rice this

yeah i didn't eat indian food until i was like 25 because there's just nowhere to eat it where I grew up. Me neither. But so meanwhile, while Marge is planning the ceremony, which the things she's describing also have to be thousands of dollars. Yeah. Like an entire tandoori. How big is a tandoori oven? I guess they're saving space on a location rental. Sure. By having it in the Simpsons' backyard.

Also, all these people were coming over to go to the stranger's backyard for the ceremony. You'd think she'd want it in the Simpsons' backyard. Also, all these people who are coming over to go to the stranger's backyard for the ceremony. You'd think she'd want it in a better place. They're having it around a treehouse. It seems like they can afford it in a better place. Man, I have a lot of thoughts about that. First off, a tandoori oven, right? It's a big, gigantic square

that's, let's say, about maybe four to five feet tall, about two to three feet in diameter with a big cylinder in the middle. Nobody gets a tandoor at home. When you're cooking outside, you will get a propane tank and a griddle the way that Americans do because nobody's lugging around a 4,000-pound oven. Elephants, I've seen a few weddings where people insist on elephants and they're really stupid. Most of the time, people will take a horse or they will just use a car because this is america we don't need to have elephants and horses i don't know about the castrati i think that's just funny yeah after while they're planning stuff homer is i guess taking apu out to like a bachelor party of sorts

i mean he's taking him drinking it's not so much a bachelor party but they they talk about celebrating his last night of uh of freedom and then there's just some like random mo jokes i i uh i do like uh nothing like a depressant to chase the blues so it's a great quote i do like that and then like another bachelor party at uh the retirement castle oh yes you're seeing a joke from the critic. Holy shit, yeah, you're right. It's an easy joke to make about farting in a jacuzzi. It's been made many times.

But yes, let's hear about Apu's last night of freedom. What do you recommend for severe depression? Booze, booze, and more booze. Huh. Nothing like a depressant to chase the blues away. Yeah, you got that. Manjula and I have not seen each other in 20 years. Two people cannot fall in love sight unseen.

Hold on there. I'm counting on that. Well, just 24 hours of freedom left. Actually, it's more like 12. Nope, I'm so stupid. Seven. It's seven hours. You have seven hours. See? Seven. Oh.

Well, I'm hot-blooded. Check it and see. I got a fever of 103. Very sad rendition of Hot-Blooded. So what I like about bringing back hot blooded there is that it shows their forethought that they knew they were going to use hot blood it wasn't just chosen in the edit they wanted hot blooded from the beginning because they knew they were going to reprise it with his song later so i that's what i really like about the use of hot blooded there

and i think it's funny too that like uh like we love to joke about the continuity on here. But I think it's funny that Homer and Barney are there. But Skinner should really be there, too. It should be a full B-Sharps reunion for his bachelor party. Though that does explain why Skinner is at the wedding. Him and Edna are together at it. He should be invited. They were in a gold record Grammymy winning music music group before they were

superstars boy there's some uh there's some really dark information out there about the realities of being a mail-order bride it's sad you don't want to look it up it's it's depressing i don't think we get these jokes anymore or the term mail-order bride doesn't ever come up anymore when i was a kid it just seemed like i took it literally two in the morning yeah like a woman shows up in a box and she's your wife yes yeah which i guess figuratively it sort of is like that yeah it's yes that's a lot more sad yes yeah i did my college thesis on like immigration fraud and fake marriages in male or brides and stuff in indian culture so i'm not going to talk about that because that's a great way to kill a mood. Let me tell you. Yes, yeah. Let's have fun elephant jokes instead.

Let's have fun elephant jokes, yes. I do also like that Homer just like, see, seven, and he just shoves the watch in his face. Well, he gets some returning characters. Oh, yeah. For the first time since season five. Since their debut,

it's Gunther and Ernst. Oh, yes, yes. I'll make you disappear. It's great to see them again i i oh but wait on the seven hours thing though okay so does he mean they have to wake up in seven hours and it's like midnight on the commentary they're asking the same question like it's presumably four in the morning right yeah they've they've been on they had that on a real cornelius talmadge like bender tonight and yeah if it's four in the morning they're like okay at 11 a.m

i mean if i was up on that wedding night i probably wouldn't be able to sleep either so why not go out and drink i suppose well because there's like ceremonies and things that you're doing okay so the traditional joke is like oh an indian wedding is three days long because the day before the wedding there's a puja that you do and then the day before that is the day before the wedding, there's a puja that you do. And then the day before that is the day that you would have like the big party and the song and dance and like all of that stuff.

It's like a pre-reception and then like a pre-ceremony and then the ceremony. So the night before his wedding, I would be very surprised. And he's a Brahmin. He would probably be at home, you know, fasting and praying.

Not like off bendering. I'm learning so much. Well, I mean, dude, you brought a wedding officiant on. I'm waiting for that. No, thank you. My apologies to the audience. I do love how Homer explains the retirement home is a place where people live like there's no tomorrow because they'll die tomorrow. Oh, wow.

Yeah. That's dark. But I do love Gunonturn Ernst. Yes, yeah. They pick out their white tiger? Yes, yeah. Actually, let's hear from Goonturn Ernst here. Which Bombay to Springfield flight is she on?

The 10 o'clock, the 10.15, or the 10.30? Oh, I am so terribly sorry, sir. It appears that your tiger has been sent to St. Louis. Uh-huh. I should send you to St. Louis. No, no, he's not worth it. Can you please indicate your tiger type on this chart? Number six.

So they were last seen trying to seduce Barney. Oh, that's right, yes. After they were torn apart by that same tiger. Yes. But, I mean, Barney could have went out with them. Yeah. Who knows? Maybe he did.

Also, I was super here for any Air India jokes. Screw that airline. It really is. It exactly is the type of airline that would send your tiger to St. Louis. And I love the idea that there are, for some reason, three flights to Springfield that are 15 minutes apart. That's very popular. I guess that's where you make your transfer? All direct.

Like, direct Bombay to Springfield. No layoff or anything. I mean, think about it. San Francisco, you get like one flight a day, man. Springfield must have a hopping immigrant community to need three Air India flights. And I, it is the easy cow joke, but I do like the phrase we treat you like cattle, meaning

a different thing. Yeah. That cow's enjoying itself on the plane. It made me laugh. Not gonna lie. And I like the implication, yeah, that Gunther and Ernst have actual magical powers.

And they're dangerous. He pulls his hand back like, he's definitely going to make him go to St. Louis. It's so weird that they brought them back for this one joke. Boy, they had to be in somebody's brain, like, we need those guys back. I wonder, you know, it could have been just like they write Siegfried and Roy in there, and somebody tells them, wait, we can't do the real guys we might get in trouble somebody remembers hey we already have a zigfried and roy don't we i i the gunter and urso make as many appearances as i thought they had that's true yeah i remember them being in a lot more episodes yeah i guess i was just

wishful thinking i wanted to see so much fun but yeah so it's time to prepare for the ceremony bart is burning a hymn book to make the fire sacred which oh man this that scene i was just like no there's no way in hell no never gonna happen oh my god and she just lets him do it like originally horrifying originally it was written that bar was tearing pages out of the bible yeah oh my God. First off, somebody would have shanked me for that. They would have found the nearest Indian person and just stabbed them.

Because that's basically apostasy, right? First off, here's the deal, right? In Indian culture, in Hindu culture, books are very sacred. If you touch a book with your foot, it's about as big of a sin as kicking your mother. Because books are like learning. Saraswati, the big of a sin as kicking your mother. It's like, because books are like learning. Sarasvati, the goddess of learning, lives within your books.

You're not supposed to touch them with your feet, let alone desecrate them, let alone tear pages out of a hymn book, which is a literal liturgical book, to throw into a sacred fire. Are you goddamn kidding me? I want to think that they were Christian hymns because the original joke was Bart tearing pages out of the Bible. It doesn't even matter. I like that a lot more because it's more sacrilegious to me. Well, yeah, there's that.

But look, man, I'm a Hindu. I got 30 million gods. The Bible's in there, too. Any religious book, the idea of just watching him tear the pages was just making me cringe. Like I was like, oh my God, I cannot believe it felt blasphemous to me. Like the first off that fire, the fire is like the size of a king sized bed. Like that's not how big those things would get. If he had that many hymn books to toss in there to make that fire that big, her house burned down.

You know, I have'm space issues happening here i i think it's uh you know actually i think it's kind of ironic that mike scully changed that from a bible to a hymn book to be less like blasphemous or less you know possibly offensive when they they don't seem that worried about being offensive with other religions it's true yes right and also like how is that less offensive what other religion do you know that uses hymns yeah like that's pretty much like a christian book right there yeah i mean it's still something you'd have in church like so it's god's brain to your mouth yeah like i feel like at that point you're implying that he ran out of bibles and has now gone to tier two.

Hey, I like that reading, too, that he's burned all the Bibles already. He's now onto the hymn book. It just feels like a stack of Bible covers next to him. This line from Homer here, I believe the joke is that Homer is the jerk who is judging another society. But it's still, I'm not a fan. I'm not a big fan of this line. How's that fire ring coming? Is it sacred yet? Almost.

Can you believe it? Tradition forbids me even to speak to the woman I'm about to spend my life with. Has the whole world gone crazy? Nah, just your screwy country. Your old friend Apu is a lamb being led to the slaughter don't worry apu someday you'll meet someone you really love i am really doomed only the gods could stop this wedding now god say god god homer is again so so checked out of this story

he's just very i mean that's again being kind of racist but also being so dismissive like i don't care but then when the chance for more mischief arrives he's like oh i could dress up like ganesh with his ganesh costume he keeps on hand possibly like what i assume that's not part of the the ritual or the ceremony and no yeah no it is very much not i didn't think so uh but just yeah homer's not just your screwy country is uh the joke is i think supposed to be on homer being that way but it does almost feel like a judgment that the writers might agree with yeah yeah i feel like that's one of those things where the writers like man we tried to we spent hours studying this goddamn stuff and you gave us nothing screw you people but i do like homer's reactions to god's a because his his scheme is it reminds me of homer goes to college a little bit where he

seems to think that he is in a tv show or movie and so he's gonna do what a movie scheme would have been and just like how in going to college he thinks that you have to fight the dean and the dean is a stupid head. When he hears gods, he basically has a Gilligan Island style theme that also includes very racially thinking that people would believe he is the god just because he dressed up as them, which is very horrible of Homer. I think it was more effective in Homer Goes to College because he was watching the thing that gives him the ideas. And this is just like, we have to assume that Homer has seen things like this before. He's just assuming that these people are so gullible

that they'll believe anything. And he does know the God because he tried to feed it a peanut in Homer the Heretic. Yes. It's also a plot point in Much About Nothing. Yes. Yeah. I was real, real disappointed and frustrated.

And that one just sucked. Okay. Like Homer is just being a dick and like, not just like the Homer style dick, but like that actually felt more. I mean, I think Bob, what you've been saying this whole episode is correct. Homer is not like a real part of this. It doesn't feel like his character. It feels like the writers are basically just making judgment on a homework

assignment that they were given and didn't want to do i see and because of that they're just writing insults wherever they can yeah yeah that's i i can i see that reading there i well so uh more guests arrive mo uh mo doesn't want flowers but then decides it can hide his gravy stain better i like that bark gets a quick kick in on Mo and just says it's tradition. He can no longer prank Mo, so he's got to hurt him in some way. That made me laugh too. Because that's exactly the kind of joke

that I pull on white people when we do weddings. It's just, I'm like, so like when I was getting married and my mother-in-law was super earnest and just super like wanting to do everything right. And she'd be like, okay, so what do we need to get? And I'm like, well, did you guys get the three camels we need?

And she's like, where am I going to find camels? And my wife just slaps me. She's like, there's no camels. He's just making fun of you. But they were seriously going to go and try to find camels. That's so all meaning of them.

It's lovely. Lovejoy is, unlike you, who are very informed of fishy and lovejoy is, you who very informed officiant Lovejoy is also working

on it thanks for helping us out reverend I know you've never performed a Hindu ceremony

well Christ is Christ bless the Hindu website hello everyone what a happy Hello, everyone. What a happy, happy day.

Wow, I wish I had an elephant. You did. His name was Stampy. You loved him. Oh, yeah. Whoa! Lucky mouse. Bart is like, I think he's like one of the writers at this point.

Like, oh, that could have been a good idea for a story, but we did it. Yeah, then some other nerd tells him, like, you already did that story. Like, oh, yeah. Okay, so I have, like, things to say about this one. Go for it. First off, so when you're doing a wedding, the idea that you would grab a Christian minister who's in town to do this is almost like breaking the suspension of disbelief. Because if you're flying these people from India to come here to do a wedding and you're getting all this stuff, you think that they're not also just going to grab a priest and fly him too, assuming they don't get one from the next county over to drive over. I have been asked to do weddings like that are four hour drive, five hour

drives away from me. Wow. Just because like, that's just what you do. You will find the closest guy in your time zone, let alone your zip code. And it just seemed totally unbelievable to me that they have to get love joy. Like that's almost like the, the kick in the pants on top of the rest of the episode where it's like, yeah, we're not even gonna bother. We're just going to use our token religious guy to, to do the thing. Cause he read it on a website.

Are you kidding? Apu's mom is letting a lot of things slide. That's exactly it. Like she's firing brimstone in the beginning of the episode. And by the end, she's just like, just get the damn thing done. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener.

At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new net zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips green greener your home cozier and your world brighter find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie uh if this is stands of like christ is christ i was like yeah i was like oh and then so the other thing that you guys might not have noticed so there's so i put writing in on the elephant which congratulations to marge for finding an elephant in springfield and put decking it out with the right thing and putting him on there here's a bunch of things that can struck me immediately

first off apu's got no friends he's got no like other indian friends other indian relations other males or women or anybody like in his community at all We don't see his brother either, Sanjay. Yeah, no Sanjay in this. Yeah, because in an Indian wedding, when the groom is coming, in front of him would be all of his friends and all of his family and everybody just dancing and partying

and leading the elephant in because they're supposed to represent the ghouls and goblins that are bringing Shiva to his wedding that are just going to be having a great party in time. And it's supposed to be chaos and merriment, and there's nobody. There's no family. There's nothing.

He's just stuck by himself. And then the elephant steps on a mouse. Now, we've been having Ganesh references all episode long. Ganesh's mount is a mouse. So that's part of the big Hindu iconography is that you've always got Ganesh there and you got his little mouse next to him to represent kind of the quick wittedness of this God and like this whole kind of relationship. So having this elephant kind of just come and stomp on a mouse and just like kill it in the middle of like the wedding ceremony, which is a the most bad luck you can possibly imagine. Like it's just it's just like like are you for real with this like you're gonna have a random mouse in the middle of nowhere show up and just get crunched for real

well apu did later cheat on manjula so it could be like a premonition maybe sure but i'm just like somebody spent their time did their homework and was like well we got this stuff and we're gonna use it somewhere damn it i had always read the mouse thing just as a misdirect on the classic thing. Like the elephant is scared of the mouse and runs away. And then, so then it, I don't love jokes on animal cruelty, but it is a very, the harshness is a funny turn on like, the elephant is not afraid of it. It instantly kills him. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. That's a funny turn on like the the the elephant is not afraid of it it instantly kills yeah right yeah i mean don't get me wrong that's a funny joke and like in another context i think

it would be like perfectly fine because it makes sense within the context of the simpsons it's funny it's again i'm not with you on squishing mice either but i do like the the western idea of like oh the elephant is like it feels like an old hannah barbarian or like bugs bunny cartoon yeah where you know the elephant is just like oh no there's a mouse and he squinches up but instead just great crunches that totally fits i mean this is itchy and scratchy land right but in an indian context episode where you're looking at everything with this kind of apu lens things read differently yeah yeah right so like a joke that might be fine totally in a random other episode suddenly takes a bit of a more i mean and this is where i know that like the comments are you going to just excoriate me but it's like this is where it kind of feels a little bit more like

okay that's a darker edge and there's like a less well-meaning uh feeling behind it like that was a deliberate choice somebody made well especially they if they said they did all this research then then they should be aware of that if they if they were doing it they've got ganesh for god's sake yeah yeah well so this next clip i'm gonna have to first play the death jingle because we do have a a late guest on the simpsons here that's you at every turn. Ah! There it is! Dad! That'd be Jan Hooks. Yes. Died in October of 2014 in The Voice of Manjula

for quite a few episodes. Has it been five years? Almost five years already. Almost five years, yeah. I can't believe it. And I will tell you, if you want to cry a lot or get really sad,

look up one sketch she did. It's actually a short film she did on SNL with Phil Hartman, by the way. It's called Love is a Dream. It's an oddly sentimental and joke-free short film where she just dances with phil hartman like dances a waltz with phil hartman and they're both dead now it's so sad but uh it's a beautiful it's a beautiful sketch question mark it's just oddly sentimental with no jokes but

it's a very beautiful piece especially now that they're both doing that in heaven right now i'd like to believe that. Well, in casting her, this was an interesting time for her because I think she had professionally moved to L.A. from New York and she obviously had left SNL at this time, but around this time she was appearing in sitcoms that were filmed in L.A. Most prominently, she had a recurring role in Third Rock from the Sun. You're right.

Her first episode appearance was with Phil Hartman, and they had to rewrite that part too when they came back. More sadness. Don't want to bum everybody out with all this Hartman talk. But it does also make me sad too that Jan Hooks, because of the timing,

even though Mandrula would come back several times, she never got to share a scene with Phil Hartman on the show. Yeah. Because he's gone by the time she makes her second appearance. Speaking, second appearance. Right, right. Yeah. And she was very underrated. She had tons of great appearances and stuff.

But then she also kind of softly retired or barely appeared in things in the in the 2000s and when she passed away a lot of people like oh yeah jan hugs what happened that was my reaction sadly yeah well and then the story was like yeah she just she didn't want to work she or she was getting less work too as an actress of a certain age that's just kind of what happens especially when you're funny and not uh not seen as attractive the interesting thing i found out too is i thought she had played all main jula but after six episodes she stopped voicing main jula it was trust mcneil i bet after 2002 trust mcneil took over that is correct yes yeah so uh i mean that also feels like a money thing too right i think so too yeah but uh how about her accents what is the judgment compared to

andrea martin's accents i would have to listen to it again okay oh i didn't want to hear my head okay let's let's give a listen to her her first lines here uh also as uh homer arrives with his new scheme god damn it Manjula? Apu, remember me? Obviously not. I am the god Ganesh. This wedding angers me. All will die unless it is stopped. Please, listen to me.

You are not Ganesh. Ganesh is not Bedanga. Stop chasing Ganesh. So there you have it. What I didn't like is how they didn't put the effect on his voice for those last two lines. His head is inside of a giant elephant mask, people. That's lazy there. Which is the most offensive thing about that scene, by far. First off, Ganesh is not a wrathful god, not even remotely. ask people that's lazy there which is the most offensive thing about that scene by far first off ganesh is not a wrathful god not even remotely like he's a happy-go-lucky good luck god ganesh is at your wedding to remove the obstacles not be like this angers me like what the hell kind

of indiana jones bullshit is that i think uh henry had to write that he's seen gilgan's island yes yeah i think and he thinks of like angry island gods or whatever. He's going to make a volcano explode or something. I was just like, what are you doing, dude? And then when the Indian guy's like, you're not Ganesh. I'm like, duh. Even they're not that stupid. Come on.

His arms are bright yellow for one thing, right? But the bedanga, I don't know what that word means i don't know where they got it from like that's not like the word sundar might be more for like graceful but the point is still like no they're not gonna get up and try to beat him up like he's a pinata that shaped like ganesh or something like that it just seems so i guess uh tone deaf you know like i mean it's very Homeric, right? To be like, aha, I'm just going to come up with a scheme and do a thing and be a bumbling dunderhead.

But I'm like, oh man, this is where I go. Homer's scheme is fitting for Homer. Yeah. But maybe the Indian people's reaction to it is a little like they should be more just like, I am just disgusted at you we can see the disgust on their faces but i think homer should have bowed out of the plot after this point it's like we didn't need another homer scene yeah yeah i think they just felt like

we need more captain wacky we need more captain wacky especially because he didn't care he left the plot now he's like god zay like no no homer you're done you're done with this plot the hindi being off i think it i i remember like when they've spoken say like uh japanese or mandarin in previous ones too and it's it's the actors on the show it's it's just phonetically yeah no i mean that i'm not gonna hold against them i know how that works i'm sure somebody just gave him a script and said here's a bunch of words this is kind of what they're vaguely supposed to sound like good luck bye and like that totally makes sense that's just kind of that's how tv works right i get it like i was impressed that

they had it in there at all and i was like okay it fits fine it's just in such a weird scene that it's like totally over like overshadowed by the fact that there's a giant plaster of Paris, Ganesh kind of rumble bumbling around. Like he's an Indiana Jones. Homer made extra arms too. Like he really went all out in the five minutes it took to prepare that costume. Yeah.

I'm like, where did you get those extra arms, buddy? I, I, I really liked the animation on it that the, the top arms never move because they're not real arms. Like if one falls off as he's running away from the like, I feel like they've never reused that guy again.

The like, there is a, there's a real hunk among them. The one that chased him down is a big guy. I mean, look, I give them credit for, for committing to this. Like if we're going to be in this, we're going to do this all the way. As Homer's being beaten in the background, Apu and Manjula have their kind of a meet-cute, I guess you'd say, in rom-com terms. I'm afraid this is all my fault, Manjula.

To be perfectly honest with you, I have not exactly been looking forward to this arranged marriage. Nor have I. Marrying a complete stranger? It is crazy. All right. Ganesh has been subdued. All will die. Resume the ceremony. Quickly tell me, what is your favorite movie, book, and food?

The answer to all three is fried green tomatoes. That is good. Double part. I am so torn. You are clearly so quick-witted and beautiful. And when I look in your eyes, I see that sweet little boy who sold me my very first kiss. And I liked it.

Do you think this marriage could really work? Who knows? We can always get divorced. Of course. God bless America. There are immediately no stakes now. I love that. It's like, oh, of course, we can get divorced.

Yeah, like, why was I ever worried about this? Her accent definitely works better, but it's still, I mean, it's what it is. It feels much closer than Andrea Martin's, for sure. I think it's a better performance. It felt more like fake India than fake Transylvania. That's true. She's from a different fake country.

The fried green tomatoes thing, that's a cute little first date kind of joke i like i felt like a writer kept that in their pocket for like 20 years like i gotta use her sorry 10 years i gotta use this joke somewhere but in terms of appear like i think she could be like the most attractive female simpsons character like they really worked hard on making a woman attractive with that style it rarely works she has to because you have to get uh you have to feel it has to feel legitimate alpoo's reaction of like oh wow just that he has to be attracted to her first physically even before

getting to know her i i think they pulled it off in character design yeah because i mean that's also a traditional like american joke right like where you go to the wedding and the bride's got her white dress and a veil on and she lifts it and there's a goblin underneath or something and i mean you've heard of those old jokes where it's like oh yeah my daughter is so ugly and stuff and then they lift the veil it's like she's beautiful yeah that's like i mean it's a cliche but it works and it fit here because he's been paranoid and terrified about what he's going to end up with and uh i think that's fine it's fine well it is uh there's an interesting line though there where she says the boy who sold me my first kiss i i as far for my looking up i don't think there's a deleted scene on the dvd of him if there could have been a scene where they were kids together

i think it's just about the arranged marriage in general she's just being cute about it well okay or the fact that he's like a merchant see that's okay this was the fantasy scene i was creating there i'm like when in that them is eight year old scene in the cut in the flashback that you have apu pretending to be a shopkeeper even then as a kid like it had always been his dream and then he sells her a kiss and she's like what's that and then he like kisses her cheek in some cute way like that's that's uh that's what i imagine yeah that that would have been a cute deleted scene to set up more uh but i think it's meant to imply a story that we don't see then i guess or just refer to the arrangement i like your idea better it's a little cute scene kids. It felt a little out of place to me

because of the, again, the Brumman line from earlier where he wouldn't have been a merchant back home. Yeah. I don't know. I just thought they were just trying to tie it back to him being a Quickie Mart owner. Maybe it's a Hershey kiss that he sold her.

I don't know. So they decide they're going to go through with it. They walk around the fire once, which I believe is less times than you're supposed to. It's supposed to be four, yeah. But I figured that they cut away and then cut back. So I was like, they probably just did the whole ceremony and then just kind of like hand wave it. Okay, they're back. Yay.

They only have so much time left. 20 seconds left. They've got to speed this wedding up. And it's not exactly like, I mean, what are you going to do animate a whole hindu wedding scene not it's not particularly funny but okay they're they're holding they're holding a uh ribbon or something together is that is that part of it too uh yeah they would be their their hands would have been tied together it's like a hindu wedding when you're doing it a lot of it is first they would be sitting facing each other a bunch of rituals and stuff were performed while their hands are touching fingertip to fingertip and then they

would put their hands on top of each other so their right hand on top of the right hand and then they would be wrapped together with this kind of special uh cloth and it kind of represents like you know the idea of fusing the two families together, tying the knot, that whole sort of thing. And then it represents that they're no longer two separate people. They're now one couple. They would get up, take their first steps together around the fire to celebrate their vows.

Like the first vow for Dharma, which is your duty. And then Artha, your money and your financial security calm your love and then finally the fourth one she would be leading instead of him for moksha or liberation you know nirvana so that's kind of how it would go like them being tied together that was the one detail here that's legitimate and fit okay all right well it was like they did the research we had to do something use the one piece that we could put in. Think of some of the more iconic elements. Busting over a lot of the details.

I thought that was, I liked that. I was like, okay, thank you. Even though the fire is still like the size of a car. And yet they have Homer and Marge's song as their wedding song. Yeah, so that's interesting. They're having the reception and they're playing a Hindi cover of the Carpenters, or really Burp Bacharach's interesting. Yeah, they're having the reception, and they're playing a Hindi cover of the Carpenters, or really, Burp Bacharach's song, Close to You. I loved it.

It's a beautiful, I love that song. You have to think Marge gave him that suggestion. Like, here's a romantic song. And it's also super not unusual in that era to have seen people having American hits translated into Hindi and sung like that. That is so typical. Not,

not typical, but like, I would not have felt that was out of place. Like I saw that and I was like, ah, I get it. That's cool. This,

uh, this is a sweet little wedding party scene that closes out the episode. I like it here. here dad those peanuts aren't for you they're for the elephant screw him put me down ganesh command you well so far so good don't you? I cannot wait to show you our apartment. Apartment? Oh, no, no, no. You must buy me a house. And you're getting a haircut.

Oh? Got you. Oh! Come on, benefit! Hey, everyone, upside down! It's a nice fake out where you think there's still like 10 seconds left for Apu to get out of this and for there to be no continuity, which there normally isn't. Yeah. But it sticks. Yeah. It feels much more like a Bill and Josh type thing, too.

Like a change that sticks. And he's like, in later years, they could have easily just said, like, Manjula leaves him and takes the kids, and he's single again. But they never gave into that. I also do really like how roughly Homer says, screw him! A little too on the nose line from Lisa, like, dad, those are the elephant's peanuts.

I feel like they wanted to make the gag as broad as possible. Homer could have just been sitting there eating the peanuts and then get attacked by the elephant. Who else would they be for? Yeah, we would have gotten it. I like how Homer... It's pretty much a don't eat this pie kind of joke. The way Homer just shouts to Lisa, screw him! it's uh i like how homer it's pretty much they don't eat this pie kind of joke but the way homer

just shouts to lisa screw him and uh it's cute how manjula like taps his nose and like kidding like that's cute she's a very fun and playful character yeah i felt like the the end of the episode definitely stuck the landing in a way that the middle of the episode definitely did not well that whole wedding setup apparently stays in their backyard for another two seasons uh because it will be used again for otto's uh attempted wedding oh you're right oh my god in the season 11 episode it's a mad mad mad mad marge with parker posey as the guest as the usurper, as Marge will say many times. But that's for a whole year from now.

We'll be talking about that in 2020. But that's the next time we'll be seeing it, which is a really funny gag that they never change their backyard after this. I totally forgot about that. And it's just been set up for Apu's wedding for two whole years. I like seeing everybody dancing in the background. You see, you know, Pyro. You see Edna and Skinner.

Also, a little earlier, I do like when Homer's in the tree and people are attacking him. Milhouse is getting in on it, too, and he's throwing rocks at Homer. Throwing rocks at his ass. And nobody seems to care that Homer's being killed by an elephant. No, they're enjoying it. They're pretty happy. So I guess any final thoughts on this?

I will say that I believe Muchapu About Nothing is a better treatment of this character, despite some rather poor jokes. I do think their intentions were, let's do something more with this stereotype. But at the same time, they were making him a huge stereotype. But I do like the stories that come of this and i do like manjula uh ultimately i feel like it could have been handled better it is very much of its time let's say that yeah i like that they decided to give more to apu it shows that they do like the character by giving him a wife and and all these new stories they can tell with him and uh and i i like that they found some more interior life to

him and a relationship with his mother is explored for humorous intent like that they could have honestly brought her back andrea martin is such a great guest too that it's very unfortunate they pretty much didn't afterwards and yeah there's some real regrettable stuff in here. Let's say we've gone over it. And also there's just some really funny deliveries in this one, too, of lines. How much some characters don't care in it is pretty funny, too. Sleepy, dismissive Homer just sort of making problems just because he's in a sitcom. It's weird. It's a weird Homer.

This episode's kind of like a mixed bag for me. Like, there were a few real, real, real bad parts, but there were a lot of funny laughs. I mean, there were a lot of good laugh lines. I definitely enjoyed the way it ended. I liked that last scene a lot. In terms of, like, factuality, okay, look, dude, this was not a good episode for them in terms of cultural sensitivity, but it was definitely an episode of 1990s. You get what you expect out of that. It made me angry, and it made me really, like, cringey.

Not angry, but it definitely made me cringe a whole lot. But it's just like, what? It definitely, like, it gave him depth. It gave him, like, more character than you normally get for a Pooh, who up until now was not really exactly explored. It treated him with the kind of detail of attention that they would give to other characters, which I felt was really nice. Yeah.

Excellent. Well, Shivam, you were the perfect guest for this episode. Yes, thank you so much. Please let all of our listeners know where they can find you on Twitter. I know you've got podcasts going on, and also if they need to get married, they can find you too. I mean, I definitely do weddings.

I do Western and Indian weddings. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at ElectroTal, E-L-E-K-T-R-O-T-A-L. And I'm also on a weekly podcast about Magic the Gathering called Commanderin, which has a Twitter feed at Commanderin, C-O-M-M-A-N-D-E-R-I-N

M-T-G. But you can find that link from my main Twitter feed of Elect Commander and C-O-M-M-A-N-D-E-R-I-N-M-T-G. But you can find that link from my main Twitter feed of ElectroTel. Thank you guys so much for having me on. I realize I'm a little bit of a stereotype here in that I show up for the Keyapoo episodes. That's our fault. Yes, yes, sorry. As the white writers of this podcast.

I do like The Simpsons. I've always liked The Simpsons. And so I don't want you guys to get the wrong idea that I'm just sitting here like, can you believe they trashed my people again? Because yes, they do. They do it every time. But that's okay, because it's also funny. And sometimes it's funnier than others. And sometimes it's a Transylvanian mom. And I don't know what to do with this episode man i i almost wish that the writers had done less research you know what i'm saying like yeah enough research to get themselves in trouble but not enough to actually be good well your cultural knowledge is very important but we will have you back for a non-apu episode yes promise promise thank you guys so much thank you thank you so yes thanks again to shivam he was the perfect guest doing hundreds of hindu weddings yeah i knew that he did weddings i did not know how many he did so he is definitely the authority on this and the authority on many things so we thank him for

his knowledge i hope our listeners too they learned a lot about uh the ceremonies what simpsons got right what simpsons got wrong, and we could still have fun with this episode, too. Yeah. I appreciate so much, again, that Shivam came on and informed us, the ignorant white guys on the show. Someone needs to do it. But yes, thanks for listening, folks. This has been

Talking Simpsons. If you want to support the show and get all kinds of bonus stuff on top of that, please go to patreon.com slash Talking simpsons and sign up for the talking simpsons network for the low cost of five dollars you can get every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and ad free and the same goes for our sister podcast what a cartoon at the five dollar level we also have bonus mini series like talking futurama talking critic and the upcoming very very soon talking of the hill we're going through the entire

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And it goes from there. You'll learn so much. Like in our Jeff Martin one, we learned a ton of stuff about the early years of The Simpsons. You learn about the ceiling of the writer's room with every interview. We find more about that ceiling and what was on it.'s an amazing ceiling uh it tells the story itself and if you want to go premium at the patreon at patreon.com slash talking simpsons if you go up to ten dollars a month not only will you get access to all of the premium video content that we did previously but you also get each month a brand new what a Cartoon Movie podcast where me and Bob go through a different animated film in the Talking Simpsons style.

We've done Batman, Mask of the Phantasm, Kiki's Delivery Service, Akira, and A Goofy Movie. You can hear all of those if you go up to the $10 level and you get a brand new one each month voted on by the Talking Simpsons network at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. And again, that is patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Everything you give to us helps support the shows. We live off of this. We appreciate anything you can give to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. As for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie.

Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retro Knots. Every Monday and occasionally on Friday, go to retronauts.com or look for Retro Knots in your podcast device and sign up and subscribe and like, and I think you'll like the podcast. Henry, how about you? Hey, I'm Henry Gilbert and you can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. When there's new episodes on the Patreon, when there's new events going on in the world of our podcast, or when there's news of the world I feel like commenting on, you can learn all about that if you follow me at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next week with Lisa the Skeptic.

We'll see you then. And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me be the first to present to you Mr. and Mrs. Apu Nahasapimapetulam. Ladies and gentlemen, let me be the first to present to you Mr. and Mrs. Apu Nahasabimapetulam Geez, I am no good at weddings I am no good at weddings