Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Ziff Who Came to Dinner With Chris Cabin

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

"This guy's the one what done the thing that why you're here for! I'm talking malfeasance here!" - Moe Szyslak Disgraced internet billionaire Artie Ziff returns as a rafter-sucking attic-dweller who eventually finds himself consensually living in the same home with Marge—his former flame. But when Homer ends up taking the blame for Ziff's many crimes against investors, the latter finds he only needs a little hot Bouvier loving to do the right thing. Our guest: Chris Cabin from We Hate Movies Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking Futurama, talk king of the hill, the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I hardly endorse this event or product. our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today as always, Henry Gilbert, and I would stop, but I love the sound of my voice! And who is our special guest on the line? Wild Dingleberry Chris Cabin. And this week's episode is The Ziff Who Came to Dinner. Hello, Simpsons. Artie Ziff!

None other! I've been hiding in your attic, living off the moisture I can suck from the rafters! This episode originally aired on March 14th, 2004, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby! Yeah, by Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris, tops the Billboard charts, UPN airs the horrible cartoon Game Over, and the passion of the Christ continues to stand atop the box office onto being a record setter of R-rated films. Well, first off, I do want to cover the second item because we don't have to talk much about Game Over, a very short-lived adult animated sitcom, because Henry and I

recorded an episode of RetroNauts all about that, so check out the RetroNauts feed. There's a reason you don't know about Game Over. It's basically the What If Video Games Were Real cartoon of the mid-aughts that lasted for I think like six episodes. Nobody remembers it, but we did in an episode of RetroNauts. Truly horrible. The worst of CG television and rightfully very quickly forgotten and barely aired. But technically it exists and unfortunately, Bob, covering it on RetroNauts means that we don't have to hurt the Talking Simpsons patrons with having to hear about it there.

I tainted my other podcast with talk of Game Over. But obviously I think Chris Cabin was ready to launch into the passion of the Christ with his own passion. Well yeah, I just listened to the dollop episode on Jim Caviezel, so I have had it on the brain. And like I was not aware of just how into it Caviezel went. And like I'm hearing all these things about like, it seems like he was always an asshole,

but the injuries he got without a union rep on set during the filming of that it really might be what did all this and what I mean by this is his life right now so you think it was just the brain damage it honestly sounds like it it sounds like there was apparently the cross just fell on his fucking head at one point and I'm like, well, that's it. You don't recover from that. And also, I mean, everybody knows they've seen the picture of the spikes going into his head with the crown of thorns.

And I'm just like, I'm not going to excuse him for a sound of freedom because I sat through it and I had to see all that. And now I know all about that. I have a vex against him forever for that. But maybe this wasn't all his doing. Maybe this was an all culture war bullshit. Maybe this was actually just him absolutely destroying himself for this horrible I assume you guys have seen it or have you not? Passion of the

Christ I have not seen it. Oh good for you Bob. I did my time in Catholic school Chris so I was kind of fresh out of high school when that well I was four years out of high school but I wanted to avoid movies about high school and Catholics very smart and this fell into the second category. Very smart move. I avoided seeing it in the theater. I had friends telling me, it's just an... To be clear, I don't agree with its message, but it is just such an artistic proclamation.

It is an incredible thing to see. And I watched it on DVD, and maybe that was the problem, but I don't think so. It looks like crap. It is a movie about crap. I've hated that movie since the moment I saw it. And not just because of Mel Gibson, because I'll be honest, I kind of like him as an actor.

But from that moment on, like the fact that we as a country just like went in droves and that's how we should have seen Sound of Freedom coming. It's insane, fuck it. Because that clearly paved the way for that. It's showing degeneration, isn't it not? I saw it in theaters because I worked at a movie theater.

I actually quit my movie theater job during its time playing. And I can tell you that I worked there at the Orange Park, Florida AMC theater. Still there, Henry? Is it still there? The last time I was there, it was still there. I think it has survived despite being attached to a ball. Yeah. On Ash Wednesday was its debut and literally people came straight from church with the ash on their forehead to see the movie, including like children, like there are children like, and I was just aghast at seeing children brought to it to see this thing that is like, I'm

pretty sure it was Roger Ebert in his review and he loved it because he is a Catholic big time. But he said in his review, like, this is proof the MPAA will never give an X rating for violence. They never ever will. Like this is one of the most like disgustingly violent, like bloody things he had ever seen. Well point number one, Roger Ebert is still a Catholic in heaven. I just wanted to point that out. But number two, Henry, were you spending extra time sweeping up the forehead ashes on the floor? It was packed houses. It was the churches get their tickets for it. And I have to say,

though, as somebody who had to be around a whole lot of shitty Southern Baptists, I was pissed that they all went to see this Passion of Christ movie, at least because they're supposed to hate Catholics. And this is like the extremely Catholic version of Jesus's crucifixion. It has all the stations of the cross and like Baptist should be like, Hey, fuck this papist shit. Like that's what I should be saying instead of buying their tickets. Oh, I always thought that was crazy that they all got in because they know how to like quit the bullshit when it matters, I guess. Like, you know what? I actually don't believe in this part. I have to see Mel's new movie.

I just have to do it. And I just always was so, because I had just stopped working at a movie theater when this came out. I was in college at the time. And I would work at the theater during the summers occasionally. But mostly I was working at Sienna College, which was up the road for me.

Just the thought of all these parents, like, so you want Sour Patch Kids and they're going to go see Jesus. That I remember very clearly is like the people would bring their kids to this horrifying spectacle. It was, it was for whatever else it is, it is a spectacle of this guy being destroyed and it's amazing to think of that. It's amazing to like kids chucking milk duds in their mouth while this guy's got his head cut open.

I was thinking, you're at the concession stand thinking, what would go best while watching a man being scourged? Nachos? No, too drippy. It really is like one of the most violent films I've ever seen in a movie theater. You do leave it, or I left it on that 2004 free screening I got to see as an employee, so I did not pay money for it. Just, but you just leave it feeling like I felt just destroyed by it. Like emotionally, like

just, I felt like, Oh God, this movie is on top of that too, because it is a very traditionalist view of the passion play. I would love to have seen the original cut before people told him, like, Hey, put in a couple of lines where some Jewish person says, don't do this because all of the Pharisees are like the most, like they weren't given fake noses that he wanted to. Oh man. To see his original storyboards would be a trip. I really do wish I got to see that stuff because you know, he went all out. The voices would have been insane.

He would have like double, triple up the stereotype. Get him like, not even a Mel Brooks character, worse. Yes. But, well, hey, in a happier news though, yeah, by Usher and Little John, that would be the biggest song of the year. It tops the chart for most of the year, the Billboard charts. Good song. Apparently, this America's introduction to Crunkin' B, a new genre.

I'm not making this up. I just know nothing about this song. I was reading it on Wikipedia, and I guess this is it for the, I guess, still burgeoning Crunkin' B genre. That's a little John's thing, I think. I think he owns that completely. And I'm sure he has his disciples, and I'm just not aware of them. Yeah, I remember dancing pretty hard to that song.

I mean, it was in college. I was still drinking all the time. It had a flow. you know, it made you move. I had forgotten how big this song was until seeing Usher's halftime show performance at the Super Bowl, I think last year, not this year's, but the previous year. And he, when he busted out, yeah, I was like,

oh yeah, that was a pretty big song, wasn't it? It's a recent song. I'm like, no, it's 20 years old. It's an oldie. Yes. Now, you guys would be able to... Am I crazy? Did UPN also have the PJs or was that a different... Was that Fox or somebody?

Fox had it at first, Chris, but then it got booted down to UPN status. Ah, okay, so it was both. For its last one or two seasons. It lasted a lot longer than most people assume. I think it's got four seasons, maybe three. I feel like the last season, Eddie Murphy like stopped doing the voice for it. He stopped making the time to even record his lines. It had to be like what, one day of Eddie Murphy's time

a year, really? Nothing. Well, he accepted the role pre-Donkey, so we understand what his priorities were. That does make sense. But yes, that was the very 2004 day that this episode aired. And joining us once again is Chris Cabin from the We Hate Movies podcast.

Welcome back to the show, Chris. Thanks for having me, guys. Great to be back. It's great to have you back to talk about, well, here we already got into the movies of the time. This episode begins with a bunch of movie stuff, so it's a good episode to have a movie hater and lover on this podcast.

Hey, the critic, Jay Sherman, is in this episode. It's his last appearance on The Simpsons. Oh, really? This is it. I was really happy to see it. The Lovitz joke is maybe my favorite joke in the whole episode, having all the characters there like that. That really, you should have seen me. My hands were a flutter during this first scene,

because I was like, I got to get all the names down. I got to get all the names down. And there was even one. Let me ask you guys what you think it was. There's one where you just see a kiss before, and then you see a B, and I think an O. I assume it's a kiss before boning, but I do not know. I was a little, because that was the one you can't see,

that was out of frame. And everything else is, they copy a few of them. I think that you get the unwatchable Hulk one or two, three times. Yeah, I wrote down every name, but I didn't get a kiss before blank. Although there is a Passion of the Christ joke written nine months before it releases.

I guess this is probably put in way, way later because it's just text. I'm gonna say on the DVD version on pause, the text on it looks ever so slightly digital replacements to me. I think it's a late rewrite. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Okay. But just that one. I think the rest are, I mean, they're starting to learn in digital that they can do later replacements like that that are not too obvious. The Pianist Goes Hawaiian was my favorite, I think, for sure, because that's just a wonderful image to have, really. Especially now thinking about The Brutalist. Now it's not exact, but it's similar movies. What funny timing. Yes. Well, since you mentioned that, I do think there should be, this should

be like a rule at the Oscars now of like, if you win an Oscar for a Holocaust movie once, you don't get it for a second one. Like you're just disqualified. You can be nominated again, but if it's a Holocaust movie know that you only get one I'm into that legislation I would support that in Congress I think if you're gonna do it get back with Wes you know do someone say Anderson work again I very good and he's incredible in those movies so I would like him to win for some like a supporting for some of that where he doesn't have to go on the longest speech I've ever heard in my life hey ultimately I have to root for another man with a very large nose. You have a lot

in common. I've heard the Darjeeling limited. I just rewatched it again recently. I remember everybody mentioning it's like it's three large nose brothers. Like they don't, they look like relatives in that they all have big noses. And they're different styles though too. I do appreciate that, because Schwarzman is not so long. His is more of a broad thing. I remember watching Darjeeling Limited and thinking it was his best movie when I first saw it.

I still love it very much, but I think my favorite for a long time has been the Fantastic Mr. Fox. And you know what? That's a Simpsons connection to bring it back. The hairless man in Darjeeling Limited is Wally Walidarski, Simpsons season one writer. And Otto was designed to look like how he looked in 1989. Which he is the opposite of Otto in that movie because he is playing a man with alopecia, so completely hairless. I have a tiny little preamble on how this

episode came into being. It's a sentence long, so this is an algein idea. They just brought back Artie last season, right Henry? Yeah, yeah. Or I'm pretty sure. And the way this worked out, Dan Castellana, obviously voice of Homer, and Deb LaCosta, his wife, they needed another writing credit to get into the WGA. Al Jean had this idea, so he basically gifted them this episode idea. And it seems like this time they were around for rewrites. So previously, they wrote Days of Wine and Doses, which is the Barney gets sober episode and Gump Roast.

Are there any other ones, Henry? Or is this their third? This is their third. Yeah. Okay, got it. It's a wonderfully pragmatic story they tell on there. Like, well, we wanted to officially join the WGA, but we needed to write another script and we asked to have one assigned and they did though. They did mention they had another pitch and then Al was like, that's similar to the thing we already are planning on. So how about my idea of the Artie Ziff sequel? Because they definitely, when they did that episode where he hits on Marge and recreates their prom, he is an internet billionaire, and I think their easy, obvious idea when the episode was finished were like,

well wait, there are no internet billionaires anymore. The dot com bubble burst, let's go to the next step. So I would think Al Jean had that idea immediately after they finished the last Artie Zip episode. That's amazing, because this does have the feeling of a quickie. This feels like dashed off in a quick. Because I don't think I've

seen this episode before period. I definitely think this was well into the point when I wasn't watching every week and I wasn't even interested in like getting back to it. Like if it's on TV, I'll see it or I have my DVDs of the stuff I like. But the one thing I noticed was like there's like very little story to this. Like the story itself is everything kind of feels like we're just trying to get the jokes out here. And like, I'm not necessarily against that because some of the jokes are pretty funny, but I just noticed there's like the beating heart of it,

which is what I used to go to the Simpsons for. Didn't really feel like it was there with this one. Ultimately, I do like this episode because I like hearing John Lovitz's voice. We just covered the first episode of The Critic again on the Talking Simpsons feed. It was so much fun to go back to that. Of course, Jay Sherman's in this episode.

I like the opening set piece with the horror movie. That's fun, but I feel like it takes too long to get to Artie Ziff, and then once we're there, he's not really in the show enough, and I just want to hear Lovitz more and more because his appearances on the show are pretty rare. So if anything, it's a lack of Lovitz that is my main issue with this episode. It's a humbled love-its too. Like he's not in his many

movies. I mean he's still doing fine in 2004 but like... He's got his comedy club or maybe that's on the way. He had it at the time of the commentary recording. That's right. Yeah and it's funny too. We're hearing him from in this episode when he recorded it when he did the Simpsons commentaries on season four like this is I'm almost certain he would not have come in for that commentary only for that it would have been why you're here recording this episode so let's get you on the commentary. It feels like one of those things that if he was really in the dumps he would be asking

for a price to come on to the and do the commentary. Like it does seem like this was still because I feel like his real end was like whenever he did that Kevin Spacey movie about Casino Jack, I think it was like 2009 or something like that. That was to me, I was like, that's really that's the end of it for love it. He's off into the wild lands and maybe he'll show up on Fox News every once in a while. Yeah, I think Al Jean has said in a loving way that when Lovitz was on the critic he hated doing it because I'm John Lovitz, I'm a big star, I'm gonna be on

television and movies. So that was his idea, that was his attitude and now Jean says whenever he talks to Lovitz he always pitches a reboot of the critic. He just wants to be on the critic again. So I think that's how he wants to go out and I think it could still happen. We got to find a place for John Lovitz on TV and in our hearts. One other preamble thing, Dan Castellan and his wife, Debra Costa, are on the commentary. They do mention they're writing a musical. And this commentary is from like 2011. I could not find anything about that.

I'm sure it did not come into being. But I'm just curious as to what that was and why it didn't make it. But if anyone out there has any information, if you're tapped into the musical theater community, let me know. Is Danny Kast still a tough interview to get? You would think you could just call him up and be like, hey, Dan, what was this musical

you were working on? You know, it's weird. It doesn't seem like him. I've been seeing Hank Azaria everywhere. He is doing a full court press for everything, and Yardley Smith and Nancy Cartwright, they do tons of social media posts on their own personal stuff, which is what his area is doing.

But it does seem like Dan doesn't do that. Like he do what Nancy does of like, Hey, I just went through my garage and found this thing and this has a funny story. At the same time, he's not a jerk like Harry Shearer and he will make himself available. If there is a Homer doll, he will voice it. If there's a video game, he'll be there. If there's a short, he'll be one of two characters speaking in it. So he's always game to be in Simpsons things.

I just don't know if he wants to be as online as the other cast members. I was just wondering, because I don't keep up with him, and maybe you guys don't either, and this is just a lost cause, but has he done a WTF? Has he done a Mark Maron or a big interview? If anybody was gonna get a guy like him, it would be Mark, it would have to be. Man, I think Bob's looking up here. I remember Shearer and Desaria both did WTFs

over a decade ago. I remember the Desaria one. Yeah, that's not coming up when I just searched for a day pass on a WTF, so maybe it hasn't happened yet. He's serious about it then. That's honestly pretty impressive. Well, also that is interesting because Dan, this was at least a season ago, but I remember hearing from newer Simpsons writers in an interview. I want to say it was Christine Dangle, but it was one of the newer Simpsons writers talking about how like Dan is

there every day and he's like, is in the writer's room. Like he is like a writing producer on the show currently. Like I think he has an EP or co-EP credit now beyond just being a voice actor on it. So Dan is very involved in Simpsons still. Yeah, it seems like guy keeps busy, good for him. I did like hearing Dan and Deb on it, the commentary discuss how like they got to write a sketch on Tracy Oldman simply because they had built a kitchen and then cut the sketch that was going to be set in the kitchen and they were like, can you write a sketch in a kitchen?

Yeah. And that is his only other writing credit outside of I believe nine episodes of The Simpsons he wrote, I assume with his wife. So I did want to shout out Nancy Cruz, the director of this, just because like, again, she's one of the, she's an underrated director in The Simpsons and she's a big deal now at Disney. She was head of story on Encanto, which did win the Oscar. And she is still there working on the sequels. So big deal. That's a big deal.

Encanto was one of the, I don't keep up with Disney like I used to, but that is one of the ones I've seen recently and that was as far as that like animated movies mostly for kids it's pretty good and I'm hoping the sequel is not a bunch of TV episodes mashed together with commercial breaks that would be great if it wasn't frozen to that would be fantastic or Moana to that'd be great that'd be really nice oh and it's funny too on the commentary that Matt Warburton they're like, it's his last day there.

And as Bob laid out his whole career in Three Gays of the Condo, but it's funny, like, I was like, oh, right. He leaves for like one season of community and then basically works on Mindy Kaling things for the next like 12 years up to now. Yeah. He's part of the vast Mindy Kaling enterprise that's happening right now in Hollywood. Is he on Sex Lives of college students? Yes, anything that she has made from Mindy Project onwards,

he is like right next to her. I think they went to school together, I'm pretty sure. Go back to that episode, did the whole bio on him. Yeah. So we begin first with a very, very involved couch gag, which it really feels like a Silverman rough draft deal to me, but I couldn't find credit out there. Maybe I needed to dig harder, but I could not find who, rarely do you get credit of who did the couch gags. Right, but it's an easy thing for a writer to pitch out. Let's do a powers of ten couch gag based on this

documentary that I think most people now are not familiar with, but it's another thing to actually animate that. Although now with their digital tools, it's way easier to do, but still very difficult. Yeah, the powers of 10, I had not heard of it before, but it was a staple of museum short films. It's about 10 minutes long. There was a 60s version, but the 77 one is the one that's on YouTube, easy to watch, it's 10 minutes. And I mean, it is really amazing to look at especially I imagine seeing it like before Star Wars came out

But it's like oh, here's a guy laying down now Let's go out 10 meters now 10 times 10 100 meters now a thousand meters up to a hundred million light years away to show You the shape of the stars and then zoom in all the way to 0.00001 angstroms into the cell of his hand. Though I prefer the Eric Idle comedy version of this, the Galaxy Song, from Monty Python. Well that one's more fun. I was going to say the first thing I thought of was the end of Men in Black. That was where my brain went to, and I don't get this clearly. I was kind of amazed the power of just the cells. It's pretty engaging watching it like that. It didn't even have that much movement to it.

And here's a funny thing about it that it appeared they used it because it's so involved rightly so they used it multiple times in multiple episodes more than across seasons, which they don't do with all their couch gags. But they change it slightly each time. So in this one Homer says, wow. When they play it in on a clear day, I can't see my sister, he says, cool. And in eternal moonshine of the Simpsons mind, he says, weird. Unnecessary, but sure. Dress it up a little bit with a new line. Why not? But yeah, on the commentary they say,

oh, Matt Selman came up with the idea of doing this incredibly complicated thing. Don't say who directed it. Don't say who animated it. But yes, it's time to go to the movies. And our first clip here as the family arrives at the Googleplex. The Wild Dingleberries. It's a movie version of a cartoon family as the family arrives at the Googleplex. are used to disappointment. How about Diet Coke, the movie? Sold out. President Air Bud, Tale to the Chief?

Sorry. My Big Fat Greek Salad? Not a movie. The only movies starting now are The Rededining and Teenage Sex Wager. Ooh, well, I am curious to see if those teens lose their virginity and the wager only sweetens the deal. Mr. Simpson, that movie is condemned

by our church's movie guide. What would Jesus view? I think that headline is funny. Homer didn't need to read it to make the joke clear. Normally they don't do that with a side gag. They're ahead of the curve here. Now whenever you watch something on Netflix, if someone is reading a text, it'll be narrated. Actually, this is not Netflix.

I was watching the show Yellow Jackets on Showtime. And now when you talk to someone in a TV show, of course you're texting, and normally they would trust you to read the text, but now the characters are narrating their entire text chain, and you'll hear the other person's voice in the replies. Well, because you don't,

there have been so many attempts at visualizing texts that just have gone nowhere. Like everybody has very strong feelings on how you visualize text on a screen. There have been a couple of movies I've done at the one I think about most recently is Tar does some interesting stuff with that idea. I'm a big fan of the yellow jacket. So I know exactly what you're talking about, Bob.

The thing that's funny here to me is that Michael Medved getting a stray of all the people to be thinking about right now, this guy who who is like I think he was one of the great never Trumpers of the 2016. Yeah, that was the last time I heard about him. I haven't heard about him since thank God I was just like real man. Sometimes they'd really do pull one out on you. You're just like wow, where where did that come? He's a Jewish fellow. So I don't know if he'd care what Jesus would want you to view or what Jesus would view personally I did look up he was a defender of passion of the Christ, I mean, as a conservative, yes. That's the one note I pulled out,

is he was one of the most vocal defenders of the film. Saying it was not anti-Semitic. I mean, I did go to his website, he is still added in his 70s, he's still, which hey, that should give us inspiration. You know what, he gave Inora three out of four stars which is not, that's kind of what I gave it. So you know what, maybe he's a good reviewer. Strong opinion I think.

Now who else is catching strays? The Wild Thornberrys. Which was a fairly popular show at the time. It got kind of two movies if you want to count the Rugrats Wild Thornberrys crossover. But the Wild Thornberrys movie released in 2002, it was 85 minutes long, not 47 minutes long as this parody poster details. And it was kind of a hit. It was kind of a hit.

Seems like at this point they are gearing up towards making the Simpsons movie, so they're already making fun of themselves for doing this half-ass thing adaptation of a TV show for the silver screen. I'm glad you mentioned that, Bob, because I did. That joke there made me think, why is this just being mean to their former animation partners, Classy Chupo? And yeah, as I was looking into the timeline and listeners someday we're doing that 10

hour Simpsons movie podcast, but the timeline of events is that yes, they're spending all of 2003 writing the script for the movie. So while they're writing this episode, they're writing the movie or the first of their 900 drafts of the movie. And I don't think that's a joke. That's like how many they did. They are making fun of themselves for making a Simpsons movie that won't come out for three

more years after this air. I had long abandoned the Nickelodeon lineup by the time the Thornberries came around. Were you guys watchers of this? Cause I honestly, besides it being kind of like a more kid friendly version of Kippendorf's tribe, I haven't, I really didn't know what it was about. No, I tapped out around Hey Arnold,

and then I moved on to, well, I watched watched the funny rude adult cartoons like Beavis and Butthead in South Park and you know the adult animated sitcoms like that So but I would occasionally peek over Nickelodeon and see rocket power and wild thorn berries Although I will say someone put a lot of work into Simpsonizing the already hideous wild thorn berry designs just for that one tiny poster you can barely see. So good job whoever did that. I have seen younger millennials really like the Tim Curry dad for some reason. He gets a lot of like internet play I saw when that character was added to the Smash Brothers Nickelodeon game. Everybody I saw people celebrating Nigel's appearance in it.

I mean if it's just being a fan of Tim Curry I'm right there with you, but I never even went back to it. I was I mean at the time I was a little miffed and now of course you know how many years later like two decades later I can at least look back and be like you idiot you had no idea. I was like well why isn't there a Ren and Stimpy cartoon. Why can't I get my Doug movie. Why can't I get my big like Ren Stimpy the movie. Why can't I get that stuff. Now you know't I get my Ren Stimpy the movie? Why can't I get that stuff? Now you know. Well, yes.

Doug did have a first movie. We're waiting for the second. Fingers crossed. Yes. Like you guys said, there are so many titles on there. There were two I wanted to point out. One was from Justin to Kelly 4, which is joking that huge flop. And I wanted to check, oh, has WeAteMovies done that?

And you guys normally avoid such obvious, like famously bad turkeys. But I didn't want to say when I Googled that, Google AI first told me that you did. And then I was like, wait, what? So. God damn it. And then it created a podcast with all of you on it.

So the always informative and correct Google AI answer. It's great that that's just there. And like, can you, I mean, this is the most old man question I've ever said in my life. Can you take that thing off of your Google thing, or is that just there for good? That's just on your splash, no matter what. I think it is.

There must be a widget out there, right? There must be somebody there who's coded it so I don't have to look at that fucking thing every time. But there must be some kind of Chrome app or something. I hope. to eliminate that. The unwatchable Hulk. Everybody was hating on Anli's Hulk, man. I feel like the tide has turned on that now, don't you think?

Oh, yeah. Huge. We just did an episode on it not too long ago. And it's so expressive. Like you forget like, yeah, you were being handled by an actual filmmaker who was not like being corralled the way that like Khloe Xa or other directors have clearly been corralled and what their vision is for any kind of superhero movie.

Like it's more of an Ang Lee movie than a superhero movie which you never get anymore, which alone to me makes it a special thing that like, and it's really, it's touching. It's like, if you take what it's giving you seriously, which I'm not saying is easy, but if you do, I think it's very rewarding. The stuff with Eric Bana, his father and his family life and how that goes down over the generations and working that into a Hulk movie. It knocked me out the second time when I revisited it.

It really, it gave me chills. Also it's where the Hulk fucking beats up the army, which instead now the Hulk is the army and teams up with the army and he's the president now, of course, too. Oh yes, I know the red Hulk is not the green Hulk guys. Don't you fucking tell me this commenters I know, but trust me, Henry, the green Hulk is a presidential advisor at the very least. He's absolutely in there and he was, I'm sure that's the thing. Red Hulk, clearly a conservative. Green Hulk was in Biden's ear for sure. And I imagine that's why he got marble mouthed so much. I'm trying to be nice to the man here is that he just

had Hulk be like, uh, foreign policy. Good. Yeah. That's all. Like you didn't get any detail whatsoever. It's just him grunting this shit. Missed the days when Hulk beat up an American tank. Yes. It used to be fun. You swing that shit. I'm just glad we no longer have film crit Hulk. Oh.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everybody. Oh, you brought him back. And teens losing their virginity movies. Do those happen anymore? Because their kids are always losing their virginities now. It's boring to them to see an American Pie. Well, now they would get definitely you would be ostracized at the school for the wager. You wouldn't just go right back to things the way that Freddie Prinze does. And they also do commit a crime, at least one crime in the movie of revenge porn, I guess you would call it.

Yes. American Pie, a hundred percent. That's grotesque, but she's all that. I think it's mostly just, it's insane that Freddie Prinze is allowed to go right back to school because they'd be like, Hey, you're a crazy person. Why did you do that? They just allow him to be popular again. And to date, Rachel Lee cook, which is nice for him.

And also in the world of air and flame and hot, there's no diet Coke, the movie yet. How's that not happened? We need Coke 2 the movie, I think. Oh man. Well, the problem is that, you know, Barbie, I know it's a very contentious movie for reasons I'll never understand. Barbie, for all of its faults, it's a fun movie.

I enjoyed myself at that movie. And then every brand movie since, every attempt to go back to that, has been a flaming Disaster in my with the I guess possible exception of that Nike Air movie people like that one Like the what's it called the Kellogg's one with Jerry Seinfeld? Unfrosted yes. Oh my god in heaven. How do you come back from that? You're correct to not remember the title? It's stupid. It does not really make you think of Pop Tarts. It's horrible.

You would just like, oh, Barbie figured it out, let's take some lessons from that and try to do our own thing with it. And like it's just been nothing thus far. There've been other ones that I've immediately forgotten, such as the flaming hot one. But like Diet Coke, the problem now is that the Diet Coke would be a very controversial picture. Right. Because you have Donald Trump with the Diet Coke button that he shows off to everybody who goes into his damn office.

So then you would have to include that in some way, and that would just depress everybody. It is the source of, I think, the best Donald Trump quote, and that is, quote, I'll still keep drinking that garbage. The guy's got it away with words, I got to say. Also a Matrix Christmas, how little they could expect that revolutions would just stand in an entire that's the passion of neo that movie He is literally crucified at the end of the movie crazy I was much more taken with you're in the matrix Charlie Brown that really tickles me And also out of all of the airbud and buddies film none of them became president yet They went into space they hunted treasure, but they became superheroes, but no president

I was just made aware of there was a Sydney Sweeney I think it's an SNL sketch where she is Like she's a cheerleader and she wants to be with whoever the best player on the team is and that happens to be air bud And I'm like this is I am shocked I'm not hearing about this every day on like whatever social media hell I decide I'm gonna look at that day. And just being like, see,

they're putting it right in your face. See, they have sex with dogs. Don't you know it folks? Oh, and also the Michael Medved thing, in the same year he would also make headlines because he was one of the Michael Medved thing in this same year, he would also make headlines because he was one of the guys who spoiled million dollar baby in this. Try to remember this folks in 2004, some people were accusing were mad at Clint Eastwood from the right, like right wing people like noted Hollywood left is Clint Eastwood with a million dollar baby. Like

that was a crazy time. They went for anything. Clint Eastwood, the guy who has been your face for years now, like I just, you gotta let him go. Whatever he says, go or ignore him. If that's your other option, just ignore the guy. The man spoke to an empty chair for 45 minutes. He's your friend. Yes. He did that. He went up there. He took that bullet. I saw Million Dollar Baby in theater and I will not spoil this 20 year old movie for listeners that Michael Madavitz will. But when people were saying it's a left wing argument, the end of the movie, I was like, do you, when the parents of the main character appear

in the movie, they basically should just be holding up signs and say like welfare queens They're like the worst like parasites on society ever. I was like, no, this is such a conservative movie What the fuck are you talking? You are supposed to hate that family You were supposed to like think the absolute worst of them. They have nothing good at all like again I'm not gonna spoil it either But like what they do in that movie. But like, also like nobody in my life has made it more clear that they want to die as soon as humanly possible as older conservative men that I've known in my life.

All of them are very clear. If I could take my own life now and have it be not a big issue, I would. And like to then argue about this movie. And I'm just like, get out of here. You're just looking for a win. Hey, speaking of old people, we find out that that's why Homer's babysitting the Flanders boys who don't want to see a teenage sex wager because Matt is taking all the old folks out to Phineas Q Butterfats for a birthday party for

old Jasper. Now this is where we get the return of MC birthday in the good time gang. I call it a return because it was MC safety and the caution crew before. Yeah, eagle-eyed listeners will remember this man from Bart versus Lisa versus the third grade. In a funnier scene. Look, parodying rapper's delight is so old in 2004 even.

But I do like the shooting of what appeared to be AK-47s at old people. Yeah, it's like a mass shooting theme dance. Abe starts chanting, never leave the day room, which I believe is a reference to Apocalypse Now's never get out of the boat. I mean, this scene is fine, but I feel like my main complaint about this episode is not enough Lovitz, and you're just making more road before we get to the love its factory. They were too in love with all these movie references you can really it's such a fun

time capsule if you look at their first visit to the Googleplex in Colonel Homer and all the jokes they have about early 90s movies of like you know that hunt for an October parody and like basic instinct kind of title and then honk of your horny. And now we're in the early aughts movies and it's like teenage sex wagers and scary period films. Yeah. And we should remind our listeners, if you don't know this, the Googleplex was named before the company Google because Google is a, I believe a number with a hundred digits. Oh, okay. I was a little confused there because for a moment there I was like, are you referencing the author Guggo?

Or what's going on here? Yeah, Dave wrote the joke back in the early 90s with their fancy Harvard words before it became a brand. Yeah, the 1991 joke was, can you believe how many screens there are at these damn movie theaters? We learned that much like we hate movies in screen six, Lenny has a cameo in a horror film. Sorry, I love to bring that.

That was one of my favorite things at the start of that movie. I love seeing the representation for we hate movies. Well, I would just be terrified to exist in that universe. I hope you guys are okay. As of right now, we think we're, our friends at Dead Meat are also okay. We had to check on them. It was so much fun because we talked to writer Guy bussic and he was like, yeah

He showed us the script and like the script literally says there is a we hate movies poster on the wall. This is not negotiable Someone's not negotiable about me. That's great that rules Someone's non-negotiable about me. That's great. That rules. Well, here Lenny gets to be a cameo because they found his photo in a science manual, right? Well, a medical journal. There was something horribly wrong with him. You think he's going to say, oh, they saw me in a newspaper or they saw me at a diner, but no, they saw his picture in a medical journal. While Carl was banned from the set. And so this is when Homer is going to take children

to see a very scary movie. Now the commentary, they say Rosemary's baby, but I'm thinking this is pulling much more from it because of the period piece in a spooky house. I feel like it's coming for 2001's the others. That was my thought. The others, I mean, like any of the disciples of like the haunting and the innocence really, like, it just feels like one of the, yeah, Rosemary's Baby, it's not an apartment building, what are you talking about? It's goth, it's in the middle of country, come on.

Yeah, and I guess they licensed the music from Rosemary's Baby, that's the one connection. But now we have a lot of evil doll movies, not just Chucky, but Annabelle, I believe, is a big one. Annabelle, which is an offshoot, I believe, of the Insidious. Yes. The James Wan universe is connected with a lot of these, like I think it started with Dead Silence, which I'm not sure if I think he produced or something. And that was like an evil ventriloquist dummy, which is the famous, I mean, a take off of

Magic from Anthony Hopkins is a weirdo ventriloquist dummy, which is the famous, I mean, the takeoff of magic from Anthony Hopkins is a weirdo ventriloquist movie. But yeah, dolls have always been, the best of the bunch is Stuart Gordon's dolls. Great, really fun, actually feels like just an extended Twilight Zone bit, but done really, really well. You know what, you will find the Evil Doll franchise, not only is it doing great in the movie theaters,

it's doing fantastic at Lifetime. A lot of their horror picks tend to be about dolls. If it's not about, you know, the grad school assistant professor who's been sleeping with your husband trying to kill your whole family, it is almost always about dolls. Well, it does sound cheap. Yes, it is. A doll is not an actor. And you can make them look crappy. They'll just be like, oh, that's because they're haunted. Don't it is. A doll is not an actor. And you can make them look crappy. So they'll just be like, oh, that's because they're haunted.

Don't worry about it. It's not production value. There's a great laid out gag of Homer reaching his arm, impossibly over the rod and Todd to get the popcorn. But you know, I agree. If I'm babysitting some kids and I pay for that popcorn, I'm eating it. I don't care. It's not your popcorn kids.

Homer's right. No, no, he's he's absolutely right I like how they animate his arms almost going like when the puppies are taking the chip out of his hand In the my vest see my vest two dozen one great. Yeah, it's that one. Yeah, that's immediately what I thought about The Simpsons will be right back. It had to happen. Another celebrity is exposed on trial. This place has become like a prison to me. When John Lovitz frames Homer for insider trading.

If you stand on the grounds that I what? Insominate myself? I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe Hello, just clearing my throat guys, it's Henry Gilbert and a big thank you this week to our guest on Talking Simpsons, Chris Cabin from the We Hate Movies podcast. We always love having Chris on in any of the We Hate Movies guys and just know that they are about to go on a little tour of merry old England and to check out all of their cool live show dates along with all the other great stuff that they do on the We Hate Movies, both free feeds and Patreon and thanks again to Chris Cabin for coming back on we always love talking about the Simpsons with you And if you're a fan of this podcast

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missing out on Also this bit about bad bit actors and movies I mean It's always fun to see a movie and think like, oh, this bad actor is a friend of a producer or something. The best example I could come up with in my nerdiness is in Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman Robin. There's a very bad actress in scenes who goes like, oh, Bruce Wayne, it's nice to see you here.

And then you look her up. That's Elizabeth Sanders Kane, the wife of Bob Kane. That's why the creator in quotes of Batman. So that's why she's so good. Oh my God. Oh my. I like him Batman forever because it's just matches the tone but like in any other version of it, I'm like, and she's even worse. Like that character is a named character in forever. And then Batman and Robin, it gets to an even bigger scene, that character. But here, Lenny gets to show off his own acting chops. Baby button eyes, what are you doing possessed at this hour?

I'd better tell the governess. Beg- Oh God, the prophecy has been fulfilled! Ah! Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah! Ah! The buttons look like they're sewn to my eyes, has been fulfilled! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Ah! The buttons look like they're sewn to my eyes, but they're really held on with hot wax. Dad, I don't like this movie. Can we go home? Oh, honey, don't be scared. Look, they killed the evil doll. Ah!

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

What do you know? It's unkillable. Oh! Honey, can Daddy rest his soda on your head? Mm-hmm. That's my girl. You took little children to the Rededining? This is a rare lapse in judgment for you.

But scaring kids is good for them. It hardens them against future terrors, like roofing and driveway scams. La la like Homer. This is a rare lapse in judgment for you. And Lenny's comment about the special effects, it's one in a long line of jokes about Lenny's eye trauma because so far we've had a spring, a puzzle piece, pudding. Well, he got a coin in his forehead, which is not the eye, and now hot wax. They remembered the eye injuries to Lenny this season. They take it like a year or two off from him, but that, once he said, oh, it was just hot wax in his eyes, I was like, oh, that's why Lenny's the cameo with the movie,

to do something horrible to his eyes. Re-listening to this, I immediately thought that like, around this time you were also dealing with, not only was the others, there was like really bad offshoots, like the Skeleton Key, if anybody remembers that, that's Kate Hudson, I think. And then Cold Creek Manor, which is horrible. And it's like Dennis Quaid. And I think right at the end of, before she got, had her resurgence,

Sharon Stone did these haunted house movies where it's like, the country is now the issue. Like we had all the suburban panic of like, city is evil. The city is evil. I feel like right around then is when we started being like, actually it's in these like high grassed areas in Louisiana that you find the real evil. And then it took us forever to get the true detective to really knock that one out of the park. Well back then, the scary house movies, it felt like those were the only horror movies you got that weren't just a remake of like, this is deep remake season.

I was looking up 2004 horror films and it's like Texas Chainsaw Massacre was like right around when this episode aired. Yeah. Amityville Horror, the remake was not long from around here, I think. And they all did pretty well. The Texas Chainsaw one did like gangbusters, but they all did pretty well. The Texas Chainsaw One did like gangbusters, but they all did pretty well. The only one that didn't do well was Friday the 13th, weirdly.

Like, it did okay, but like, you would think that thing'd sail out of the park. Yeah, I guess the end of the decade, we had Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street reboots? Yeah, all of them were reboots. And I mean, the Halloween ones I really appreciate just because I think zombie has a voice, has a very distinct look. And you

know, if you don't like it, I'm that's whatever. But like, I think he actually took his assignment seriously. Whereas like that Friday, the 13th movie is just like, well, what if we took Jason and just made a normal horror movie from the odds with him in it. How about that? Wouldn't that be nice? Speaking of scream scream for funniest scene in it is where During like the evil quiz the horror movie expert in the movie Kirby She's asked like name a horror film the remake and she lists like 20 in a row Just to make it so clear like we've done too many remakes in a row just to make it so clear like we've done too many remakes Hollywood we recently rewatched that movie for the show and it really does hold up that is

I think maybe my second favorite of the screen movies yeah I think so too this had to be a very scary movie because Bart is scared and Bart is normally never scared of these things like he's the one who's desensitized in the initial trip to the Googleplex when they go to see some Space Mutants movies. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. He's the one who had seen the first Friday the 13th and thought it was pretty tame by today's standards in the original Treehouse episode.

You know what it is? I've watched it recently. It's a pretty tame movie. You know what? They play Strip Monopoly in that and nobody even takes their clothes off. They play that game for 40 minutes in that movie. They're stuck on underwear. They're just terminally at pajama underwear. And I felt betrayed in that as a youngster watching that movie. But this bit about that

being scared is good. Like now the kids are very scared that Bart has his red night light on, which yes, I had a night light into Bart's age and slightly older. I can't judge Bart here. Well, we have a good joke about Bobstown. Bobstown? Vancouver? Oh yes, yes, it was just a horror movie filmed in Vancouver. Yes. With Donald Sutherland as the priest who lost his way. I was looking up where Sutherland was at at that time,

the late guest, one time guest on Simpsons. He was in a mix of stuff. He was in Oscar Sheen things, like he was in Cold Mountain and he was in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. But he was also in that remake of The Italian Job and a big piece of crap or well, I never watched it, but it's called Big Shots Funeral. Oh no, Big Shots Funeral. I've never heard of. I just know it from a cover of stocking it on shelves at a video store. He did some weird movie with Ralph Fiennes around this. I gotta look up the title. It was like some arty project where like, it's funny, it was essentially his character from

The Hunger Games, but like how it's like, you can do that from the left too, like how easy it is to become like a tyrant if you're leftist Huh, and I'm like I guess man and like it's not good. It was that try Beck and I don't think it made it out of The festival I'm gonna look this up. Well while you look this up Let's hear a bit of the kids are very scared. They're hearing noises and this is where we lead to Oh such a timely reference in 2004. Mm-hmm where we lead to, oh, such a timely reference in 2004. Mm-hmm. Both of us heard mysterious noises

coming from this very spot. Bart and I will explore the attic until we find their source. Yeah! Must be the pipes. What do you think, Bart? I think you're on your own, Toots. Ah!

Okay, I'll just stay calm and approach this scientifically. Ah! Okay. I'll just stay calm and approach this scientifically. Ah! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, no! If I don't make it out alive, I love you, Mom and Dad. Maggie, you can have my books and Bart. I'll see you in hell, you booger-eating wuss! That's right! We all know! Ah!

Pums! Copyright Pink Pony Productions. Visit us on the web at lisathemovie.com. Ah! So, the Blair Witch Project, 1999. A little late for that one. Yeah. It's four or five years out.

This may confuse modern viewers because I don't think anyone can really recognize a Blair Witch reference currently in 2025, but also the Cats film has now the most famous snot drip in cinema, right? True, true. It had been parodied so much. I felt like the scary movie did that joke of like an exploding mega snot bubble out of the nose like three or four years before this. This is just so now I want to be nice and compliment this is a I think Yarlie Smith does a good job acting bit here. But this reminds me of how Dan and Deb wrote Gump Roast. And in that one, they at least made a joke of how are you doing a Forrest Gump parody these many years after Forrest Gump? But here, it's just done straight of like,

oh, Blair Witch, wow novel. It's like, God, this is so, it's just musty, musty. And if they're going to go this far for Blair Witch, I wish they would just immediately show Artie Ziff facing the corner of the attic instead of going to get mom and dad, looking in other rooms, then going back upstairs. We're taking too long. I want to hear John Lovitz. I was like, why don't we get to the fireworks factory here, folks? We're still on this thing. I always perk up whenever I hear the booger eating thing because I'll take the hit. When I was much younger, I was one. And I remember it so clearly and I remember how I stopped because the last thing, the last communication between me and my grandmother on my mom's side, I was in

her hospital room and she was on the bed and she would stay on that until she passed. And like, I'm not kidding you, like maybe a week or two before she passed, she like, my mom went out of the room for a minute and she just looked over at me and she like put her finger by her nose and was like, no, no, no. And like did the hex thing at me and was like, don't do that. No, no, no. The last thing my grandmother said to me. Wow. So stop picking your nose. And I was like, you know what? Fair. That's fair. I'll stop. Those weren't her final words. Thank God. But they guess they were her final words to

you. Her final final miming. That's how we closed out. Yeah, and her you know what? That's fair words to live by Exactly Lisa also promoting it as visits on the web at least the movie calm That was all ads back then like I was doing research for Looney Tunes back in action and watched an old trailer of that and it of course ends with not just Looney Tunes back in action.com, but also AOL keyword Looney Tunes. Yes. I miss those keywords. And there's a joke coming up about a bunch of 70s

detectives that I really like because Marge is combining all the homeliest men together to form Homer because Barnaby Jones is Buddy Epson, Judd Clampett. Cannon is William Conrad and Kojak is Telly Savalas. All, let's say, their skills are not in their looks. They're great actors. But especially William Conrad and Telly Savalas, they're larger balding gentlemen.

I feel like the height of Homer's attractiveness is Kojak, like that's as attractive as he's going to get. He's got the most masculine energy, I'll say, Kojak. Oh, are you kidding me? Terry Savalas, Kojak. Oh, oh, 100 percent. Are you kidding me? Terry Savalas, I mean, he just carried it with him. This also just feels like the writers really live in their 70s childhoods now up there. They're just bringing up three 70s detective shows that nobody remembers anymore.

Every time we look these up and they say these things, I'm like, well, that must have not been on long. And it's like Barnaby Jones, eight seasons, eight seasons. Even Canon, the one I really hadn't heard of was on for a very long time. And I think we just covered an Ironside reference not too long ago, Henry. And that's another nearly 10 year show with the guy who played Perry Mason. Raymond Burr. There we go. Oh yeah, I remember.

They have, I'm not sure if it's on max or maybe it's paramount. And one of the streaming services has old Perry Mason's now. And I went through it and I'm not sure if it's on max or maybe it's paramount and one of the streaming services has old Perry-Mason's now and I went through it and I'm like, maybe I was wrong. These are so boring Like I was like always of the mind like old TV is better I like the episodic nature of things like one of my favorite shows of all time is the Jerry Orbach years of original Law and order like because it's just so here's your case of the week, case of the week. And I'm like, that is my shit, I love that. These overarching narratives drive me insane,

because I'm like, you're just aping movies and you're doing a bad job at it. So anytime I can just get myself a nice little episodic thing, oh man. I end up watching like way more X-Files than I should because of that. I'm just like, just give me what I want. That's not to say like, I love Breaking Bad

and I love Mad Men, but like, it's just, it's not the same. I've only really gotten to Star Wars over the past five years, well, A, because of your sideshow, The Nexus on We Hate Movies, but also it's so calming, and it feels good to just sit down with something, it's over in 44 minutes, hit the reset button, let's go on to the next adventure.

Bob said Star Wars instead of Star Trek. Damn it, I always do that. That just shows everybody what a masculine jock I am. I shouldn't be here. You can just hear him now clawing at your door. Nyeh! I can hear the typing of comments. Thank you.

Can listeners hear me push up my glasses in a comical fashion, as I said that? Star Trek, to your point, they at least still try to do it. Strange New World still has mostly a Adventure of the Week feeling to it. Whereas discovery was the one where they really went for huge arcs and we're like here's all these big stories. I'm like no no no no no no no stop that. TNG had it. TNG had the right shit right there.

As Homer and Marge get all revved up from watching 70s private investigator shows I was going to call them cop shows but they're all PIs. As we learned from Homer and Apu, he always keeps a lollipop there. It's so he can imitate Kojak to get Marge excited and have a sex interrogation. The reading the sexual Miranda rights was a good joke too. Yeah. The foreplay is taking way too long. There's too many formalities. Good play with him half an hour.

Marge says, I think that's overestimating Homer's abilities. I don't know I don't know. You know what this has no place in it, but I do like at least a little joke of like Oh, yeah, Saddam Hussein used to be our friend. Is that weird? We always invade the guys who used to be the guys we propped up Yeah, finding the old Newsweek that says why America loves Saddam Hussein. It's a nice joke, especially in this era They used to you know, they were invited to all the CIA summer picnics, and then all of a sudden the invites don't come no more. They don't get to have the ribs.

They don't get to have the, you know, the burnt ends, which they love so much. I love any one of these. I'm sure, I don't have a memory for this show like you guys do, but like, I assume there's one, like a Noriega one somewhere in the piles of episodes. They did that one in the 90s. We just covered that one semi-recently

where they're playing the game in the arcade called Panamanian Strongman. Ha! It is a game in which you are Manuel Noriega and you're kind of like King Kong climbing a big building. Yes. Very good. Oh my god.

When you're defeated, HW Bush kicks you when you're down. Yes. And then everybody watches the Panama Deception and you're like, well, fuck him. You know what? Donald Rumsfeld, a fair weather friend. It turns out I was surprised as much as anybody else. God, I love on our previous guest, Brendan James, on his podcast blowback, they did a

whole many of that was an entire season of it, but they had that, I think of that great clip that he has in there of like Donald Rumsfeld on some interview being so like, hey, here's a picture of you shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in the eighties. And he's like, is that weird? Huh? Anyway. Of course, demon from hell. But also, yeah, again, just away with words, that one. He just, him and Donnie have that, the Donalds, both of them, they have that in common. I will say one of the last Aeros Morse's movies that I really love is his Donald Rumsfeld movie.

You watch that machine go. You get like two full hours of Rumsfeld having to answer all these questions like that. And it's just it piles up on you. You're just like, oh, it's just a mechanism. Like he just has like question goes in ear, sort it to this. Then it goes to that and then give them this answer. There's no person there. It's just this machine that spits out these answers

that make no sense whatsoever 90% of the time. And he was really only there to talk about a Solitaire app. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh. It's like, today we're talking about the app, not my career in politics. No, no, it's not important.

We've already talked about my career, haven't we? After hearing Homer's Thurman being played, and earlier we heard a telltale Ahakam, which Artie Ziff did do on the show before they invented Jay Sherman, so. Yeah, that's true. It's a John Lovett staple, and by the way, a real Thurman not fun to play.

A friend of mine got one in college and we were excited and it kinda sucks. Oh really? I guess you need a higher grade theremin than what two stoners could get from the internet in the early 2000s. They've sent you two sticks. No one got electrocuted though, thank God.

Oh that's good. And to explore the attic, Homer takes his flashlight and by lighting it on fire, it becomes both the United States and the United Kingdom definition of a torch. Nice, yeah. Lighting the flashlight on fire is a very Schwarzwaldery joke and I do like it. Yeah, I like that. And this is where they come upon Artie Ziff in the clip we played and Homer's, I thought

we killed him is a good gag of it feeling like this is basically almost like his audition to be a side show Bob recurring villain in the show This is where we also find out that Homer is one of those guys who sent the monkey peeing into his own mouth gift to Friends regularly back in the early aughts which that monkey got America through some tough times We're on the brink of social media now. so the most annoying thing currently is bulk email lists. Oh man don't even oh that sends me to a dark place I'd rather oh my god that monkey definitely until I guess Harambe I guess that was the top of internet monkeys was the guy who was pissing in his mouth. I feel like that was it. That monkey's having a good time but now we you know everybody

can share monkey videos all day, and all the other animals too. Homer takes us into the commercial break by blowing out his torch, which that's smart. We come back from the commercial, and as he's about to make his explanation, Bart is the audience who goes like, wait, no, no, no, no need.

Yeah, internet billionaire, well, we all know how that ended. This starts going into the Enron comparisons. Now, I credit Henry for watching The Smartest Guys in the Room, the Enron documentary. But personally, I feel like there are some very, like two very broad strokes painted for the comparison. A, it's Ziff's logo, and B, it's the fact

that he has to talk to the Senate. And that's kind of it. I don't know if you saw any other comparisons, Henry, because you watched the documentary I have not seen it the bit about scamming and leaving people poor like leaving the stockholders poor like that's a section of the movie too and going to jail because This is shocking to think about now when everything Enron does is legal now or pretty much No one is punished for it

But two guys who were rich in charge of Enron actually did serve time. So I'd say this has like 20% Enron in here, though none of the broad strokes of like, you know, what the actual crimes were. They barely even define what this crimes were honestly. Oh yeah. Cause that I feel would slow things down unless you like you've just packed it with jokes, but I think it's fun or at least it keeps things moving to be like, oh no, he's just, you know, he's one of these criminals who did. Like you said, I mean, it's been a while since I saw the documentary, but I thought it was a pretty good doc. Leaving people poor, that really does seem to be the key to all of these. Like Jordan Bell for these guys, all of them. That seems to really be the highlight.

Sgt. Chris McCormick The documentary is a great rundown of all the things that happened. And I needed to be reminded of that. I lived through it though. I didn't like follow it every day in the news, but it's 2005. So that's where the snapshot is taken, but it has egregious musical choices when they're talking about California. They do three different songs with California in the title. California Cation, California by Phantom Planet and California Sun by Lo Strait Jackets. That's just it won't montage. There's 20 songs like that in the movie. It was driving me crazy. I was enjoying the story and the journalism, but oh, the music. It was so awful. Honestly, at that point you should find a reason to put the Joni Mitchell song in there

too just to round it out. Just to say you did the research. We're getting all the Californias into this one. The Enron stuff now seems just so innocent and naive because currently the only industry in America that's profitable is scams and podcasting. That's it. Growth industry. Which is a kind of scam.

You guys are in on the ground floor, by the way. That's kind of what I really love about Martin Scorsese movies is that he's all like, no, this is all criminal behavior. I'm getting money from people to get something they're probably not going to like that much or as much as they want to like, you know, it's a way of scheming. It's a kind of a grip. The Enron's smartest guys in the room, Doc, it does come from a liberal position, which is good. I mean, it's bad.

Like it lays out how they got away with this at first because Ronald Reagan's rampant deregulation, which is totally true. And then they also do frame it like, Oh yeah, the Schwarzenegger became governor on Gray Davis taking the fall for the Enron stuff when it's like, but they were friends with the Bush family. Why couldn't you blame the Bush family? But the last thing I'll say about it is that they frame it in 2005. It's like, well, they were friends with George W. Bush and HW Bush. The Bush family loved all the Enron guys, but some of the interviewees joked like, Oh yeah, they're going to make Ken Lay secretary of energy. Haha. That would never happen. And like that's the joke. Like let alone they didn't get pardoned. Like, Oh, they'd never

be in the cabinet or actually serving the White House Like that sucked to see well. Yeah, cuz Bush was essentially a warm-up for Trump he just he had shame it sucks to say but like little Bush had some shame to him He actually kind of thought you know didn't move him to do anything or to stop doing the bad shit He was doing but like he cared about what he looked like, whereas like Trump doesn't. So like that's, he gets to be like, again, like degeneration. We're just going to see it constantly, as much with the Simpson as anything else. Yeah, with George W. Bush, there was the idea, even though I am, you know, pure evil, after I retire, I want to be viewed

as the nice painting man who's very, a cute cuddly grandpa. Of course, Trump post presidency, first one, he had no concerns about, I want to be remembered with dignity. It's like, no, I want to be a screaming crybaby until I claw my way back. Yes, that's it. That's the mentality. And your grandkids, you know what you can do? You can just turn them into little versions of yourself, and that's better than being the old nice grampy who paints pictures.

Everything Enron did is like, well, that's every, oh, we traded on future money making, that's literally every business now is like, everything loses money for eight years and $8 billion, but eventually it looked bad. I mean, speaking of things that lost money, it was this one of the last of big book of the time, doing a joke about the corrections. We can't do that anymore because not enough people read whatever the big book of the time is. Readership

has just plummeted. But like, when did that happen? Was that like, I feel like by 2016 that had already happened fully and it's just gotten worse since then. But like what was this one of the last ones? Was Franzen the last of the big bunch? Now Chris, I'm glad you brought this up because we recently covered an episode of Futurama that parodied the Da Vinci Code and we realized that it is basically the last book that every adult kind of read on their own. And the reason is because by 2010, 2011, everybody has a smartphone and that's it.

That's it for there being a book that everyone has read. Now I know there are still bestsellers, et cetera, et cetera, but there are not the Touchstone books, even garbage like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, every adult and teenager, they were reading those. But it kind of ends at the Da Vinci Code. And even The Corrections was a bestseller, but it was more, not quite necessarily like pop lid

but it was more for like the English major crowd. Yeah. You were saying something by reading, if you saw somebody on the subway with The Corrections, they were trying to tell you something about themselves by reading The Corrections. It's a good book, I think it's a really good book but I was struck by it, I'm like,

we just wouldn't do that anymore. Like I even think about like some of the books I've liked as of recently Like that just it wouldn't happen like this You would never say like the luminaries are fucking blanking like the fire starters or anything like that You just wouldn't do that before we get to that though I did want to play Artie's explanation of the gogo 90s Just so listeners appreciate the orchestration

of two versions of mambo number five in here let me explain I was an internet billionaire but say no more I would stop But I love my voice. It was the go-go 90s. Ah! And I was partying with Newt Gingrich, Janine Garofalo, and Scotty Pippen. Everyone loved my corporation. And then the bubble bird. Wait! Don't go! My stock will have a slight rebound in 2003. I had nothing.

They even took my repo vans. Like there, thumbs up to Alf Klosser. That was sad Mambo number five there. I like that. Down tempo version, I do enjoy that. Also like, I mean I guess I still laugh at him, but it's usually when I just see him. When I could laugh at a cartoon of Newt Gingrich. That's nice.

He's still out there. I mainly just see funny pictures of him with his current wife. Yeah, the face tuning on her turned up to a thousand. Him, you just see him in all his glory. He's a hideous gentleman. Well Bob, it's all natural on her. What to a thousand. Him, you just see him in all his glory. He's a hideous gentleman. Well Bob, it's all natural on her. What are you talking about? The glorious bird woman. Yeah. The face tuning. I don't even know what face tuning is. And I was like, oh God, ew. Though the animators, they gave themselves extra work. They had a perfectly good

Janine Garofalo from The Last Temptation of Crust, but they drew a different Janine Garofalo than that one. Really throwing Hunter under the bus because I guess she's pretty unpopular thanks to her stance on the war currently in this era. Oh yeah. That's true. This is the time.

This is when that's happening. I wanna say it wasn't Bob Odenkirk's memoir, but he made a big case of like the Janine Garofalo is really underrated as like her influence in indie comedy and alt comedy of the 90s. And everybody kind of overlooks her for all of the, and also maybe she doesn't take enough credit, but I definitely remember Bob Odenkirk and other guys who were working then talking about how Raffalo is a bigger deal than she's treated.

I believe it after getting so much shit for having the correct stance on the war. Like, I think it was mostly like, she just, comedy wasn't her thing as much anymore. Like, I've seen her do stand-up at a bar in Brooklyn that I love going to. Her and Eugene Merman did a set a couple years ago that I saw, and she's still great, still doing it. But like, I feel like I started knowing her more as, you know, the political commentator, as the actress. Like, I saw her in a lot of stuff. Just the comedy stuff didn't come as much. But it's right when I remember the 90s comedy scene, she is one of the people I remember. So Artie pitches himself living there until he gets back on his feet.

Marge is basically talking about the end of Back to the Future here, of he's going to live with them now, evil prom dates. He's kind of like a neutered Biff. Yes. I guess it's more like if the Biff and George McFly swap positions story-wise in Back to the Future. They then treat Artie like a dog and the kids want him to stay so they let him stay. Levitz is having fun with his crazy sounds here. This is where they briefly show why the kids would like him. They could have done more with this. I feel like they so quickly get away from Ziff lives with them. But everyone kind of gets one scene with him, it feels like.

Even the Bart one barely even is a scene. They talk about how they were playing until the ice cream truck came and they like, so you don't even see that. Well, because I don't know if they really like thought through, like, are they supposed to like find the good in Artie? Like, is that the idea here is that they would like if these scenes were longer, because it does feel like again, like there's a dash off nature to it. It's very efficient. It's like, here, we got the scene, we got the scene, we got the scene, don't gotta let it sit here for too long, or let people sink into it. Let's just get these things over with and get on to, of course, him still being horny for Marge. But I watched it and I'm just like,

oh, these just were pitched jokes that they went in. There was no idea, I think, who do we think Artie Ziff is at this point? It's more like, no, Artie is still Artie from way back when we're just doing this upfront to make this episode work. Yeah, and once we get to the poker game, it's about something else. Yes, then all of a sudden it switches. Yeah, there is something they could do with like,

oh, Lisa likes having a nerd in the house who actually reads books and doesn't think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is real. Yeah, are they like, maybe they think this guy's got to be just pure evil? Like it can't be a thing where like he can get close to like for a show that is notorious for doing that. There are many sides to people. You might like a version of a person that otherwise does not so great things. I think that's something that this show has constantly come back to. I feel like they were just like, well, we don't want him to get too close because of what he's going to do to Homer.

And I'm like, well, Homer's Homer. Like, this is what he does. He gets into these situations. It's fine. You could play with the character a little bit. Yeah, it should have been more about him redeeming himself than him getting Homer to take the fall for his crimes. And then again, like we said, third act is not about what is Artie doing with the family?

It's more about like, will he do the right thing and say that Homer is not guilty of these crimes? You were waiting for something like that. And to go really quickly, to go back to what we were talking about a little bit ago with TV stuff, the book stuff, what I realized is, why have a joke in the biggest show on network television

when you can just sell the rights and have your book be the biggest show. I feel like all the big ones now just immediately get turned into a limited series or an actual series. Like I think of like made for love went to series Lovecraft country went to series, the sympathizer went to series. Like, I just think that that's what happened. This is just like, well, we'll make them. Yeah, they feel pretty fast-tracked. And I feel like whenever I watch a movie or a TV show, half the time I'll be surprised by based on the book written by so-and-so instead of a book comes out, it's the bestseller, three years later you hear,

oh, Steven Spielberg's directing or Sir Sezzi's directing. Now it's just like, it's ready for the machine to process it into entertainment. Oh yeah, there's no time to find a passion project Ceci's directing. Now it's just like, it's ready for the machine to process it into entertainment. Oh yeah, there's no time to find a passion project. There's no passion about it. It's like, just, this is time to do this one. I read that for over a decade, they tried to make the corrections,

first into a movie and then into an HBO show. Like, Noah Baumbach directed the pilot that then didn't get picked up. If the internet sleuths out there know where this thing is, I would die to see this. I was like, oh my God, is the perfect choice for Franson. I cannot think of a better choice for Franson than him. I mean, hell, I would have even sat through his version of Freedom if I could.

But like the idea of him doing corrections like a tingle up my spine, I would have loved to see that. Then we also get a comedic cut to Artie Zip hanging himself, which I wonder if it's a retake his thumbs up in it. I feel like the joke as executed would have just been he is dead in his news, but the thumbs up is I feel like is to soften the blow of the self-harm. Yeah, we don't do these anymore, but they give me a chuckle. How casually they treat someone hanging themselves in your kitchen. Yeah. Oh boy, that's how they react to that. Like, uh oh. This leads to how we're carrying him off and this is where we meet some old pals at Moe's Tavern.

Guys, I'd like you to meet Artie Ziff. Hello, handsome. Hello, losers. Coming up, can yodeling cure cancer? Of course not, but first, where is Artie Ziff? The SEC wants to know. cure cancer? Of course not. But first, where is Artie Ziff? The SEC wants to know. It seems Ziff Corp. spent stockholders' money

on everything from marble toothbrushes to solid gold underpants. Small investors have been wiped out. They lost all of me. Screw you, money. I'm very sorry to hear that, Willie. Screw you! Authorities are currently operating under the theory

that Ziff is living in a cave somewhere. He's not in here, Chief. That's some good spelunking, Lou. Mighty fine spelunking. I noted that the shot to Skinner and Willy at first seems like it's part of the news report, but it loses the TV banner around it. So it's more of a cutaway.

It's a cutaway. Weird. That's awkward then. I got to look at it again, I guess. Yeah, it is weird to cut away from a broadcast to other characters after you establish who's watching it, but it's a funny enough joke. But yeah, the Mohs Bar are full of all the John Lovett's characters.

It's funny. I like that they're all there. Again, it is the last time you will ever see Jay Sherman on television, at least on The Simpsons. And LaMarche noted John Lovett's impersonator is doing a few of them because it does sound weird when it's one person's voice like layered over itself multiple times. So I think he's doing two of the characters. One of them is Jay Sherman. And it's why Maurice LaMarche is on the commentary halfway pretending to be

Lovett's foritz for some of it. He does a very, very good Lovitz, because he's one of the best voice actors alive. Yeah, it's funny to see, we got Llewellyn Sinclair, we got Professor Lombardo, we got Aristotle on Anopolis, and then Jay Sherman there. You would think they'd have brought back Jay Sherman, Artie Ziff has appeared on the show more recently

than Jay Sherman has. Well, Well yeah that's what contract hell the critic is under because you would think that like you would bring that care like the critic has never been more popular than it is now. People the two it was like two seasons right. What did he get a third two seasons in the bad web shorts we won't talk about although we did talk about them. No, no, thank you. No, but like those two seasons, people still bring up, honestly, one of the best openings to a cartoon ever,

I still think. It's funny too that actually those webisodes, that was Al Jean and John Lovett being hurt by the dot com bubble bursting. Yeah, yeah. They were victims too. Yeah. Yes, we hear They were victims too. Yeah. Yes, we hear all about how he's in hiding.

And this is making me think of White Lotus Season 3 is mainly about hiding out in Thailand as an evil businessman. So I was thinking like, that's where Artie should have gone. Get out of America, a place with no extradition. Oh, yeah. Southeast Asia is just awash with those types, I would think.

I mean, it's a joke in the show, of course, but like, yeah, Artie, all of them should head there. Mike White, his casting of guys who look like rich losers who moved to Thailand, like some of the best extra casting I've seen. They all are great. Not to get too into 2025, but Artie Ziff today, as a disgraced CEO, could just go online saying,

"'The woke mind virus is trying to destroy me, "'and I will not let it happen and you'll Get a million sycophants running to your defense pumping money into any go fund me you want Just do the rounds baby. You gotta go to Rogan You got to go to Theo and you got to go do a couple more people and like people I don't even know about in that well It would scare me to find out what their listenership is. You make those rounds, you've got yourself an army already.

You made a million dollars at some point in your life. People will listen to what the hell you have to say. Absolutely. Yeah, Ziff. Hey, there's a new plot for returning Artie Ziff. He's gone right wing podcast guy. That's totally any minute now. You could do that after Marge learns that Ziff isn't hiding. This is where we go to the backroom poker game.

And this is another plot turn where it's like, well wait, isn't this kind of what they did in Insane Clown Poppy where it's Krusty is playing the card game with Homer back in the back room and then that causes a problem as well? They're kind of even taking from a season 12 plot here. A little bit. Although I forget, Artie is not doing this purposefully to set Homer up, is he? Man, no. Yeah, not sure. I feel like they would underline it more if he not doing this purposefully to set Homer up, is he? It just, yeah, not sure. I feel like they would underline it more if he was doing this maliciously.

Yeah, you would get like a shot of like the eyebrow going up when he says it or something. You would get a little notation and it does, it just moves so quickly. I didn't feel it as a plan. Because the joke is he's bad at bluffing, but if he is intentionally badly bluffing to lose to Homer to then give him the stock, then he wouldn't be bad at bluffing and he'd want to lose to Homer. So then why would, and it's not explained. I mean, also to like, does he look into Homer getting arrested or does he do it entirely intentionally? Like that is not explained in this episode. No, not at all. I mean, there's no time for it. They gotta give at least a minute to a

Blair Witch parody. Homer, he raises, Artie can't match it. He then bets 98% of his stocks and also the peanuts in his mouth and the ackums on those peanuts are very gross and good. Mm hmm. I'd say. Any chance to work in an ackum. I have now played enough Ballet Row to know how that Homer defeats him, his flush is defeated by four jacks. This is where Homer achieves a dream, but only so briefly in our next clip. I always knew someday I'd be a COD. Freeze! Securities and Exchange Commission! I always knew someday I'd be a COD.

Freeze! Securities and Exchange Commission! Artie Ziff, you're wanted for stock manipulation and securities fraud. It's scum like you that undermine investor confidence. Investor confidence? Perhaps this affects me. I own 230 million shares of Ziff Corp stock. You're the majority shareholder? I sure am, with all the inherent legal liabilities. What is this? You're under arrest.

Wait a minute, how can you arrest Homer? This guy's the one what done the thing that why you're here for. I'm talking malfeasance here. All right, I admit it. I did run Zipcorp into the ground. And this man took me into his home when no one else would and now as a result of his brilliant card playing he's the one you want tape his mouth so he can't deny it don't tell my kids I'm going to jail tell them

I joined the blue man group I'm the fat one well yeah I guess at that point Artie is doing it intentionally but it feels like he knows he lucked into something he didn't plan, and he's taking advantage of it. Yeah, like I guess he's supposed to be working through it while he's giving that, like, the beginning of the confession, and he's like, well, no, I gotta take it with the run with it. He's the guy. I do like the comedic idea that the SEC would ever bust into where a rich guy is and point

guns in his face to arrest him. They're doing this as a joke then of like, that is not how rich guys get arrested, is not like guns in their faces. If I can give a small compliment to the Biden administration, they actually, the SEC tried to do stuff on monopolies then. They actually did. They could only get so far, but they at least tried. That was one of the better parts of Biden's disappointing administration.

Yeah. But still, they never pointed a gun. Microsoft, they tried to prevent Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard. They didn't point guns in their faces, though they should have with Bobby Kottek, I would say. Yeah, sure. No argument here. I like Homer saying like, with all the inherent legal liability, just offering it up. And that Blue Man joke, that is done months before it becomes a plot point in Arrested Development Season 2 in the premiere episode where Tobias Bluth blues himself.

Yeah. Yes. Oh man. Oh wait, Tobias Fugate, what am I saying? He's not blue no no few gay but hey hot popular topic the blue man group well I saw the blue man group all different heights but same level of fitness and you got to be to perform at that level multiple shows a day in Las Vegas Homer is taken away he

is arrested we then cut to Congress and this is like 15% of that Enron doc is just free public access c-span footage and it is fun to watch lying assholes be told on the record, well why did you yell at this reporter who pointed out you were a liar? I wish I could go back and say it differently but you know. Well somehow for this trial they could afford the blue-haired lawyer and not Gil who is now the Lionel Hutz's for the Simpsons For the most part it seems if they're not representing themselves in court My my guess is here that blue-haired lawyer was kept on retainer by Zipcore

And this is when he quit having to work with Homer. I'm gonna guess that's it. Yeah, I guess the Gill would never quit Even if Homer was this stupid. There's multiple guys pleading the fifth in the documentary too. Though again, I should say I'm making it sound like they're basing this on the documentary. The documentary is oh five. They're just basing this on news stories from up to 2003 of these congressional hearings, which having watched a bunch of it, I think Tress McNeil's character could be a little bit of then Senator Hillary Clinton, but I think it's more Barbara Boxer, I'm going to say. Based on the hairstyle.

This is all running off of, I assume, episodes of The Daily Show that I Forget. Yeah. Yes. I've also seen and forgotten them as well. It was funny to watch all this footage. You're like, oh, here's the elderly Congress people who frustrated me 20 years ago I forgot most of these names if they didn't have their names on screen. I'll be like, all right. Yeah that old asshole Oh, man, it was fantastic when hypocrisy mattered. Oh my god. It was so good. You know what matters here continuity

Krusty the clown is still a congressman in this episode. Yeah, yeah, I forgot. I was like, well, why is he here? Then I remembered, well, I guess they never solved that issue. The fact that he got elected to Congress in this season, last season. Season 14, Mr. Spritz goes to Washington. Yes, the episode does not end with him not being a congressman anymore. So busy guy. We've had a lot of episodes with a lot of crusty in it where he is not in Washington DC and is doing his job

Apparently that's in between his times in Congress Which I we all know congressmen are far too busy and could never host a clown show in between there. They're voting I don't know. It seems like they don't even have to show up to vote for most things It's not that bad of a commute as far as I like I I know guys who made the commute from Albany to D.C. on a weekly basis. So I guess he could pull it off. Especially if he's got a driver. You assume it's Krusty. He's got a driver.

Krusty is not, you know, I think usually written to be in his 60s. So pretty young by Senate standards. Good go-getter. So Homer is on trial here. There's also a very dark joke about like, who would want her now to describe like, the ruined America? I'm like, ooh, Jesus.

Yes. I did like, America was hot once. I did like that. And then Lovitz is asked why everybody hates him, and not Lovitz, Artie Ziff, but it's a very Lovitz-y, the way he goes, anti-Semitism? It's a very funny deliver. He's funny.

John Lovitz. Yeah, so they're turning up the zip in this I like his little flash not flashback but fantasy sequence when he's accused of only thinking of himself and he imagined himself as the line of dancers doing the can-can and also the audience singing his name yeah I chuckled pretty hard at that one and you know what the way he says oh my god that is exactly listen back to your commentaries, folks, pull it out. The one for the crossover episode on the commentary for that, love it says he accuses Phil Hartman of stealing his impression of Charlton Heston, which is saying, Oh my God, that way.

And then he does it on this episode. That's in the Sarsburn's commentary. Okay. All right. on this episode. That's in the Sarsburn's commentary? Yes. Okay. Okay. So Homer fails to plead the Fifth Amendment and local bully to Homer, "'Ha ha,' says the headline as he's taken to jail. And this then becomes a story of like,

they get more into, forget about Ziff, what if Homer's in jail? What happens when daddy goes to jail? Yeah, and I guess a lot of this was based, well, the book that Marge is reading, or giving the kids, is based on a real pop-up book of the time, although the pop-up book that I found was published in 2011, it could have been a reissue

of that book, but yes, there's an entire genre of literature, how fun this is. A parent's going to prison, you're a little kid, how do you process this? And some of them are pop-up books, so this is not that far into the land of parody. I think it's a sign of a developing and really blooming culture that we have more of those

as we've gone on. That industry has been built around that. Probably a good thing. These are the books that should be made into movies. Kids need to know, your father will go to prison at some point. What are you gonna do? They turned an adult version of that book

into an unpopular film directed by Bob Odenkirk. Let's go to prison. Oh my God. Oh boy. Yeah. That one's tough to get through even today. I know. Hey, Bob Odenkirk in that same memoir I mentioned, he is the meanest critic of it all to that movie. It's no the Brothers Solomon. Did I get that right? That's right. Okay.

Yeah. Oh, do you do that too? Yeah. That's one of the other ones, but this is the pre-Sol era, let's call it, for Bob Odenkirk. Sure. I remember Melvin goes to dinner, of course, because of the Sundance stuff. But I forgot that he did all the comedies too. Oh my God. As Odenkirk explains in his memoir, he was in a lot of debt accidentally, and he needed

to...he took some jobs quickly. This Homer in Jail stuff, I go back to our recent guest, The Real Jims, who has the great YouTube channel. He pointed out in his season 15 review that every member of the Simpsons goes to jail twice this season. Homer actually three times. This is the second of three times. If we're counting Bart's mangled banner where they all get sent to basically Guantanamo. Does Maggie go to jail? I did not know about this. Oh, yeah. She goes to Guantanamo. That's why she gets to be once to see Lisa and Maggie. They're only once this season. Yeah. So after meeting up with Homer, we then see like Maggie is sad at the pop

up book won't show daddy on fire. We see Homer sobbing and not seeing the family, which is just like, well, we've seen Homer in jail a lot, though, this doesn't feel different from the other times. I don't know. He should be used to it by now. Yeah, it feels like a job. The establishing shot seems to imply that it's rich guy prison, so do good jokes

of Homer loving rich guy prison, how about that? Yeah, yeah, that's right, the establishing shot is not of a typical prison building, right? Yeah, it looks like the fancy rich guy prison that Sideshow Bob goes to at the end of Sideshow Bob Roberts. Yeah, come on. Like you got Paul Servino probably making you pasta in that prison. You know, you're probably doing okay. One of my favorite moments in Wolf of Wall Street is when he, Jordan Belfort's talking about how he's like, oh, I'm not gonna lie. I was really scared about going to prison, I was really scared, then I remembered, wait, I'm rich. It just cuts to tennis being played in prison

and everything's great. I feel like this third act though is saved by Patty and Salma because I love them and there's a connection between Artie Ziff and Patty and Salma, if you don't remember, folks out there. In The Way We Was, where Artie Ziff is first introduced, they are immediately infatuated with Artie and they're wondering why, if Marge is going to choose Homer or Artie in the end, and they

vastly prefer Artie. Well, hello. Well, hello, hello. Oh, and Homer does reference a 1950s Kodak ad of Turn Around, it's about a child growing up through pictures, so a very old reference there Homer's doing as he sings Turnaround. Ziff is thrown out by Marge. He heads back to Moe's, and this is where he runs in to his buddies.

Are you still living with Marge? No. She kicked me out for sending her husband to prison. You put Homer in jail? Oh. The hair is standing up on the back of my knees. Keep your odor eaters on, Selma. I've seen you get hurt too many times.

I'm not going to let him into my heart or my bedroom. Just 10 minutes on the bean bag. Come on, short round. We're going back to my temple of doom. Be gentle. You know, they say that the love of a good woman can save any man. Except you, freak! Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am.

In my nightmares! I'm gonna stop now. There's some dirty jokes in the end of this episode. One of them is Selma referring to her vagina as the Temple of Doom. That was pretty hot. That one really struck me. I love that. Just to call him short-round as well as a descriptor of his body. And at this point, the writers know that Patty is gay.

So they're going into this scene with that reading. Yeah, because Selma jokes that, like, didn't we pitch in the writers' room that this would be a three-way? Maybe in season five it would have been, but you can see it in the body acting of Patty. While she likes Artie Ziv, she does not want to have sex with him. Right. It's a friendship. Friendship born of their hatred of Homer and you know it's beautiful on its own. I think she just likes being flattered as well. Oh yeah and Artie is king of that stuff. He knows how to sell a line. I also do love this feels to

me like one of those classic Hankazeria has very good improv and this to me after two comebacks on his lines just mogul like I'm gonna stop now he's not gonna set her up for a third gotcha yeah speaking of filthy jokes with that Temple of Doom one this must be heard here to hear what they got away with in the theater of the mind of John Lovitz's sound effects. John Lovitz's Sound Effects What the hell are you doing? I can't get my socks off. I'll leave them on. I like a man with a little mystery. I'm done.

My kind of man. Wonderful. Glorious. Magnificent. And you were pretty good, too. Selma, you've made a new man of me. Thanks to your angry love, I can no longer sit by selfishly while another suffers for my book cooking. What are you gonna do? First, I'm gonna read the paper, have a little nosh, and then I'm gonna rinse out a few things.

And then, finally, I will get an innocent man out of jail. Well, he can't break my heart, because he kind of makes me sick. This could work. He won't be back for a while. Sorry Selma. It is too bad, cause they are actually, that's why he has to be in jail at the end of the episode because they actually are too perfect together.

Selma and Hardy Zip should be a permanent couple on the show. I'm surprised that we don't see her like sending jailbird letters to him at some point. There was a previous ending that got into that. We'll get into that later. But yeah, the angry love changed his mind. That has to go so quick. Like they could go through a whole like, Oh, they date for a couple of weeks and then that changes his mind. But it's like, no, they don't have time. One screw and he's changed his mind and he's going to

go to prison forever instead. Though yes, this sound, they got away with having Lovitz making like bedroom noises. I couldn't believe it the first time I watched it. That's a good mislead. Imagine them asking like, Crimps Hemsworth, can you make your orgasm sound? Ray Fiennes, how do you sound while you're having sex? Let's get that down. Lovitz said, can I? He gave them too much actually.

This is an unrealistic number of pump sound effects here, Lovett. So yes, Artie Ziff, it entirely happens off screen. That also shows you the bad writing here, at least as far as plot detail. I'm just like, oh, the news just tells you everything that happened. You don't need to see it. Yeah, they're leaning too much on Kent Brockman to kind of fill the gaps here. Both with telling us about Artie

and then telling us how things resolve. Ew. Also, despite what Selma said, she had sex with him in her bed, not the beanbag chair. I wanted to see the extra uncomfortable sex they would have had on the beanbag chair. Is her bed a beanbag? That would be maybe, I don't know if they did that yet.

I think maybe Patty knew to stay away so she could use the bedroom Yes Patty has been used to this probably once a year having to give Selma her space Her tune-up so Kent presented with what the as just like oh, yeah This is kind of out of left field the guy just turns himself in and find out that Ziff is the one going To jail and Homer's gonna get out. I did like that Bart at least they got a joke in Bart promoting Previously unheard of radio DJs not Bill and Marty. No, yeah, there's no KBBL for for Bart. He's changed allegiances. Oh It's too bad. Why isn't it Bill Marty or why didn't we hear these characters since that Bart loved so much?

man, why isn't it Bill Marty? Or why didn't we hear these characters since that Bart loves so much? So we get back to the prison. We're seeing Homer leave. He's given a free kick in the crotch instead of like compensation for his wrongful imprisonment. You don't even get that these days. So Homer then thinks that everybody has aged very quickly. This is where everybody says their goodbyes to Artie. First, Marge lets Artie know that he was good eventually. She halfway forgives him for putting him over in jail. I had to have this told to me into the commentary because I did see this movie, but I totally forgot it.

You're talking about The Green Mile, Henry? Yeah, yeah. I've only seen it once, but I think they've done this reference musically a bunch of times whenever there's a prison after the year 2000 in The Simpsons. So I assumed it was that and then said it on the commentary. Oh, it's Green Mile music? Yeah, it's like a Green Mile sound-alike music. Okay, because it came first, I always think it's a Shawshank thing, but it makes more sense to be the Green Miles.

I mean, they're both King properties. I don't know, do you guys remember? The Green Mile was the first Stephen King book I ever read. They put that fucker out in installments. Yeah. Like five books, I think. And like, I was like so anticipated for the next, I got to read the next Green Mile. I was spending a lot of time in Barnes and Noble then Chris, and I was skeptical. I said, I'll wait for the book to come out in a full, complete format. It did not take very long for that to happen. No, no. As soon as the fifth one had come out, they're like, no, guess what? Here you can get the full thing. Wouldn't you believe it?

I read the first two installments, but didn't finish it. I did read those. And I just, the only thing that sticks, I remember was the character Tom Hanks would go on to play the very vivid descriptions of his problems urinating. I remember that. Yes. Yeah. His piss is really central to the whole thing. And also they give you a little bit more, of course, nobody was asking for it, but you get a little bit more of Sam Rockwell's character and what's his name? Douglas from the X-Files. I'm forgetting his name. He's a horrible person. He plays the evil guy on the staff under Tom Hanks, and he's like, torturous and all this,

and like, they put a lot more of what they are up to, all the evil crap they're up to into that book, and thankfully they took it out of the movie. Movie's not very good. I don't know if you guys have seen it. It's not a very good movie. I'm sure I liked it when I was like a teenager. I have not gone back to it, but it feels like that movie has been forgotten.

You're not getting any more Green Mile parodies in pop culture anymore. Well, thank God for it feels like that movie has been forgotten. You're not getting any more Green Mile parodies in pop culture anymore. Well, thank God for that. I think that's been swallowed. I think Frank Darabont's anger over how he was treated for The Walking Dead has swallowed all the goodness of his past work. I think it's just his pure hatred for AMC and what happened with The Walking Dead has kind of blotted out everything else in his career.

This is where we get our farewell to Artie Ziff. Artie, thank you for doing the right thing. Eventually. All I needed was the love of a good woman. And since you're not interested... I'm not! Merely checking, because I'm into that. I'll visit you in two weeks. I have to admit I'll miss having him around. I don't think we've seen the last of Artie's Ziff. You hobbit, I'm like your roommate. Oh, Smoker, eh? Well, I have ways of dealing with you.

Squirt, squirt, squirt. Your lungs will thank me. Kids, you better take your last look at Uncle Artie. Oh, look, there's a whole bunch of you. Squirt, squirt, squirt. That's it. Circle around me. Squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt. Oh, I'm going to need more water. So even though he is beaten by dozens of men after this, the credits roll.

Levitz will appear as Artie in a Back to the Future parody in 2012's Treehouse of Horror 23, but his next canonical appearance is in Season 29's Mr. Leese's Opus, which aired in 2017. But in the span of time between those appearances, he will come back to voice other characters. I know it wouldn't have added anything to the story, but it would have been nice to watch Arty get taken apart like a lobster. This felt like a Schwarzwilder joke to me. I don't know if you guys are the same way. I was like, this feels like that sting of like, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt. Oh, I love stopping you smoking.

Yeah. Anything that's anti-smoking, he would be against. And I think too, it also feels like when Lovitz did it once, they're like, oh, then it should be going like squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt, squirt. Keep saying it. Like the repetition of Lovitz did it once they're like oh then it should be going like squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt keep saying it like the repetition of Lovitz. I'm just glad it's 2004 I'm glad we did not end on a prison rape joke. I'm sure one of the versions of it has an illusion to it at least because like man we were just getting out of that. I'm gonna assume it's just a common beating and then leave it at that. Yeah let's have it that way. I feel like there have been multiple times in the last few seasons of Simpsons where we're like,

oh, this seems to be getting on a prison sexual assault joke and then it's like, no, no, it's, Snake is just horribly beating somebody. Thank God. Don't worry. Just constantly saying, pull up, pull up in your fucking mind. Oh, and that musical sting, that was the Kojak style music that played when they were watching

Kojak earlier. I was really confused by it at first because I had to go back to the Kojak scene and listen to the music on the TV. Really? I thought it was another like Mambo number five kind of riff. They must have really liked the Kojak music that Clausen wrote and they're like, play it again. I do think the Kojak theme had a tropical flair to it. It's a good theme, but this isn't exactly the kojak theme But it's their reference to it and they do mention

There was a different ending they had written instead which was much filthier where Selma visits Artie on a conjugal visit and they have sex and we see You know the classic cartoony semen and egg that you've seen in other Simpsons before except Artie semen is trying to inseminate Selma's egg and Selma's egg keeps slapping him away like no not bad I'll say I don't usually like that joke after my first time with look who's talking I was like you know what that's good enough we're fine we don't need to

see much more of this. But then I don't know. Have you? I'm sure neither of you have. What do I know? Son of the Mask? The sequel to The Mask? I believe you guys covered that on your show, Chris. That's my only experience with it. There is a cut that happened late. I'm not sure because I don't think it's on current iterations of if you were to go and find Son of the Mask, unless you went back and got the DVD, you would not find this scene. But there is a scene of masked sperms in that movie, and it is one of the most grotesque

things I've seen in my life. I've watched quite a lot of horror movies in my day, and I would take the whole of martyrs over what I was seeing in that scene. It was unbelievably grotesque. I think I've only heard about it from We Hate Movies. That's all I knew. Yeah, I'm not pulling it up now, but it is on YouTube, but I think it's on your channel, Chris.

Oh great, oh great. Yeah, it does say YouTube, We Hate Movies, five years ago. Slaughter the Mask, the infamous deleted scene. That's what We Hate Movies is great for, the archival of horrible films. Thank you for spreading that come around, Chris. I try, I try. On that note, final thoughts on the episode.

Very quickly I'll say more Lovitz. We don't get enough of Lovitz. I love him in the context of the Simpsons and critic world and I love the characters he plays here. They're just an exaggerated version of him and I like that. So not enough of that, but I guess still pretty good. I like the weird season two Artie Zipf design next to all of these then modern characters who look a bit different than the standard designs of 1991. So yeah,

it's alright. The movie theater comedy isn't even terrible I'd say, but it does if you just took that out and just started with, which also is very similar to the Treehouse of Horror with Bart's twin Hugo, but you start with, ooh, we're hearing noises in the attic. What could it be? Are we haunted? And get to Artie faster. Like that would give them more time, not just with Artie, but also you could do more stuff with Homer in prison. You'd have more space for all of that instead of just a long horror movie riffs for no real reason other than just like horror movie riffs. Like Lenny in a horror film gets more time than Homer in jail or in Congress.

Yeah. I think they were really into the parodying thing and like, I get it. It's an easy joke. You just have to have like a little post art and then a funny title. And that's your gut punch. That's your joke right there. I also think it's just all right. And I also think just like, not only are you not giving me enough of funny love. It's you're not giving me enough of the love. It's that I like the guy has got a vulnerability in his voice.

The guy's got like some, he can do some layers to these characters. And like, because you don't really know how to, or you didn't feel like going through the, what I'm sure is a chore of going into what kind of character Artie is, what he really wants and who he really is, you were just like, well, no, no, no, no, let's just make him a joke. And that's easier. And have him fill whatever quota and whatever role we need him to have for those jokes. So you just have him hitting his beat,

hitting your marks, that's what he's doing in this. And because it's John Lovitz, that's enough, and I'm still laughing, but I do wish that we had gotten one last This Is John Lovitz, a great comedian, and some of his great work was on The Simpsons. And for Jay Sherman to be his last one, and then us to not get Artie for so long,

like it bums you out a little bit. Yeah, Artie is kind of a John Lovett soundboard in this episode. Yes. But yes, thank you so much Chris Kavan for coming back to the show. Please let everyone out there know about We Hate Movies. You're going 15 years strong now, I believe,

but do you know what's happening currently with your show in May? We're a few months back in the recording schedule right now in March. I think we are getting into our Summer Spectacular that we usually do with, we try to do bigger movies around this time, so we're trying to do Summer hits. I'm not sure. We picked them early on enough, but we don't necessarily, I think we're going to end up doing probably one of the Mission Impossibles. Oh I remember we're definitely doing the Avengers Age of

Ultron at some point because we've stayed away from it for long enough. Occasionally we have to vent our spleen about Marvel and what they've done. I'm sure that's gonna be a lot of fun. In July we are going to be in Oxford doing some live shows if you want to catch us out there. It's on our tour tab on our page, whmpodcast.com. And you can also find us on Patreon. We do a bunch of stuff on Patreon, including Star Trek, Star Wars stuff, do a Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 show, called Melrose 210, that we have a lot of fun with.

There's a bunch of stuff there, patreon.com slash we hate movies. But yeah, guys, thank you for having me on. This is always a pleasure. And it was better to talk about this than actually watch it all the way. Thank you so much to Chris Cabin for being on the show. Please check out We Hate Movies. They do some great stuff over there.

But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do, get a ton of bonus episodes that are all full length and get access to all of these podcasts ad free, head on over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Sign up at the $5 level. You'll get ad free podcasts one week at a time, but also access to our vast back catalog of full length mini series episodes covering things like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, the critic, and Batman, the animated

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patrons of that level or higher. And what is that Henry? Bob is referring to our, what a cartoon and movie podcast where we go through an animated feature film with as much massive history as we do for an episode of the Simpsons. And that means it's basically like a triple length podcast because we love movies just as much as our pals on we hate movies. We go super in depth into the history of films.

Like last month, Looney Tunes back in action that had such a crazy production. It has so many fun and not so fun stories to go into there in the history of its creation. And then the month before that, we cover the Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg hit film of 1986 and American Tale. And that's just the most recent of out of over 70 what a cartoon movies we have covered in over six years of podcasts. You can see all of them in the collections tab. When you go over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, you can hear the over 200 hours for yourself. When you sign up at the $10 level and get all the $5 things once more at patreon.com

slash Talking Simpsons. And I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter and blue sky as Bob Servo. And I have another podcast. That podcast is RetroNauts. It's a classic gaming podcast about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash RetroNauts and sign up there for two full length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you? I remain h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g on Twitter, but I'm having a lot more fun on Blue Sky where I

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for season five's Lisa versus Malibu Stacy and we will see you then. I thought we killed him! No we didn't. But I did delete him from my bulk email list. No you didn't. That's right. Twice a week I get your email of the monkey peeing in his own mouth. Oh yeah.

That monkey got America through some tough times.