Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - This Little Wiggy With Cait Raft

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

It's time for Ralph's big showcase episode, and we're joined by writer/artist/comedian/Twitch host Cait Raft! We learn about Wiggle Puppy, burning things, funeral fudge, hot dog smell, and so much more in this very special episode! Plus, Cait worked in the Simpsons office for years and shares a ton of behind-the-scenes information on how the show gets made! Listen to us and not that leprechaun on your shoulder!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!

attention talking simpsons listeners we have a special mini-series just for you we're going through the entire first season of king of the hill and you can only hear it if you're a five dollar and up patron at patreon.com slash talking simpsons we're giving the talking simpsons treatment to all 13 episodes of king of the hills first season and if you want a free sample you'll find the first episode available for free in the talking simpsons feed patreon.com slash talking simpsons it's the only place you'll find the first episode available for free in the Talking Simpsons feed. Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. It's the only place you'll find the first season of Talk King of the Hill. Made you go click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

It's real easy, man. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where justice smells like hot dogs. I'm your host, LameWad, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Wiggle puppy fanboy, Henry Gilbert. And who do we have on the line?

Hi, I'm Kate Raft raft and today's episode is this little wiggy i know you my daddy took your beer today's episode aired on march 22nd 1998 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby the postman beats out batman and and Robin at the Razzies. Will Smith's Getting Jiggy With It is at the top of the Billboard charts, or Jiggy Wit It. And James Cameron is king of the world at the Oscars as Titanic wins just about everything. Except for the acting awards, both those lead ones goes to Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt for the Jim Brooks film, As Good As It Gets, which spells the beginning of the end

for the Hankins area, Helen Hunt relationship. Ha ha ha ha. So sad. They're so happy together. So yes, the Razzies, they've lost all relevance at this point, correct? You know, they still give,

well, everybody just hates our movies so much now. It's not as special, I guess. I think everyone wrote them off when Whatever Your Transformers came out. They made a lot of transphobic jokes so much now. It's not as special. I think everyone wrote them off when whatever your Transformers came out. They made a lot of transphobic jokes while talking about

Transformers. And people were like, what are you doing, Razzies? We thought you were fun. Razzies are canceled. I didn't know that. I did see it the most recent Razzies.

It was one of those rare times where the actor or actress shows up. And it was, though, for one of their rare positive awards, which was like most improved kind of award for Melissa McCarthy for getting nominated.

Most improved odor. Well, it's because she did get nominated for an Oscar the same year as Happy Time Murders. Yeah. Those felt like the biggest Oscars ever, where it was everything was Titanic, just Titanic, Titanic, Titanic over and over. Oh, yeah.

What a great year. Titanic is my favorite movie. Oh, yeah. What a great year. Titanic is my favorite movie. Really? Okay. That was a great Oscars for me as an eight-year-old. Bob has never seen Titanic. It's true. And I heard it's too late. I heard it's too late to watch now. Are you kidding me? No, it's not.

It's one of those movies where I feel like I've seen it all through parody. I could stitch the movie together based on all the parodies I've seen so far. You know what? You gotta see Titanic. Alright, alright. I'm getting around to it, through parody. I could stitch the movie together based on all the parodies I've seen so far. You know what? You gotta see Titanic. You gotta. I'm getting around to it, I swear. And Will Smith getting jiggy with it. That was like his return. That was his final real

run at rapping, it felt like. I think so, yeah. Well, I guess there is. Men in Black was 97. Yeah, great rap song for the end credits of Men in Black. It gave comedy writers of the time a new funny word to put in the mouths of old people or rich people. Like, am I jiggy with it, sir? I do believe Simpsons did a jiggy joke.

Well, yeah, they definitely did a joke about Kevin Costner apologizing for The Postman in an audio commentary. It was like the first joke about an audio commentary I saw. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. That's season 10, I think it is. And that's one of my stepdad's favorite movies, The Postman. Really? Yeah. Really, huh?

One winter we were snowed in and he watched it twice in one day. That's a whole day of watching The Postman. I got to think Batman is a worse bad movie than Postman. Batman and Robin. Yeah, yeah. It's more fun to watch, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But anyway, enough history. Kate's. Yes. It's more fun to watch, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But anyway, enough history. Kate's. Yes, today's special guest is Kate Raft. I think it's our first guest that's worked on The Simpsons in some capacity. Woo! You were assistant to the producers, correct, Kate? Yeah, that's what they say in the credits. I was the writer's production assistant.

So you worked on the show. Today's writer for this episode is Dan Graney. He still works at the Simpsons. I want to know what is his lunch order like? Oh God, he's super healthy. Dan is super healthy. He probably gets like whatever the fish special is over at the Fox commissary cafeteria. Maybe a poached salmon. Definitely likes a fruit plate with, let's see, grapefruit, berries. Yeah. I'm not even joking.

Like, this is really what I, it's all still ingrained in my brain. I really want the Simpsons. Three years of lunch orders. I really want the Simpsons Wiki to be updated with all of the writers' lunch orders. We need that information. It's been a long time since I worked there,

but I could fully do it from memory. I swear I can. We've heard many stories about that writer's room being broken down and ugly. Is it that way? Oh, yeah. The physical room? No, not the writer's. No, not about the writer's.

They're eating all that fish. They've got to be healthy. Yes. No, I mean. Yeah, they eat very healthy over there until it's time for snacks, and then they go to town on some chocolates. But no, building itself uh the building is yeah it's like it's a piece of shit it's like falling apart all the time like fox does not give a fuck about that building it's uh you know building 42 over there was where i worked and then god i think 203 i it's sad that

i still know the building numbers. They're falling apart. The bungalow is like super old. There's spider webs, things falling apart. I wonder if they're going to stay there in the post Disney world. I'd read before in general that Disney is licensing Fox property for the stuff that still has to happen there. But I got to think that's not going to last forever. Yeah, I can't even imagine The Simpsons being anywhere else. It hasn't moved. That's where it's always been. You feel the history in the walls of all the islands.

You really can. You can feel all the chips in the carpet. It's weird that David Merkin's shows turned out so well because he moved them out of that office for two years and into his office. That's true, yeah. Not to make this all about The Simpsons lunch, but your friend Mike Mitchell has also worked on there. for two years and into his office. That's true, yeah. Not to make this all about the Simpsons lunch,

but your friend Mike Mitchell was also worked on there. We had the exact same job, me and Mitch, and his name was still on some of the phone directories. And I used to find his old pay stubs in different nooks and crannies. Once you work there,

you just leave little pieces of you. Because no one's there to, like, really do anything or throw anything away. Well, so then Mike talked about there was a day when they couldn't do as opulent of lunch orders as they did. Were you on a more strict budget of getting lunch? You know, I heard that it was, like, even more opulent than it was when I was there. Which may be what he's talking about. But I mean, people would go crazy.

Like, I feel like if anything with the Disney merger, they're going to realize how much this show spends on food. It's a lot of producers that got to eat a lot of lobster stuff with tacos for lunch. It's yeah, that's it's, it's like just,

it's more like people order. Like, I mean, I used to do it all the time it's like, just, it's more like people order, like, I mean, I used to do it all the time because like I was broke. So I would buy, like, I would order like three different entrees and then like save two for like other meals. That's smart. Oh yeah. When I worked for a Fox owned websites, uh, you couldn't expense anything on a trip, but food and the food budgets were set for like executives all the way down the line. So it's like, well, I'm eating sushi three times a day when I'm in LA now. You gotta steal from Fox whenever you can.

Well, so Kate, did it feel good to work for the Simpsons? Were you a Simpsons fan growing up? Oh yeah, I mean, it was like great. It's still one of the cushiest, easiest, best jobs I've ever had. Like you don't have to do that much. It's it was a total dream because I mean, the Simpsons were why I wanted to like write TV or be a writer in general. So it was like cool to actually be there.

Yeah, I loved the Simpsons growing up. It was like my favorite TV show. You're slightly younger than that. So did you get into it in like the syndicated reruns? I would say i i watched it live every sunday um and i also watched the reruns every day so yeah i think like the answer would be yes i think i'm trying to think of the sea like this season like season nine that we just watched would be around like the peak of me watching it as a kid like i was seven years old when this

episode came out so like that would have been when I like was getting mega into the Simpsons. When you're a comedy writer, television writer, improviser, podcaster, Twitch host, I mean, did it, you know, creatively inspire you too? Oh, totally. Because I've spent some time in the writer's room filling in for writer's assistance and just like seeing how they do the scripts seeing how they pitch like even just writing for like visual gags and stuff like and getting to see that like super broken down in the writer's room like has made me like definitely a better writer and i mostly only write for animation these days so that's incredibly useful yeah what's what's one tip you would share that you learned from The Simpsons? That I learned from

working at The Simpsons. I mean, it's an intera bang, not bang intera. One of the writers said that to one of the writer's assistants once because they did an exclamation point question mark in a script and the writer

was like, it's intera bang, not bang intera. I never took a part in intera bang like that, but it makes sense. Wow. I did learn something. That's the kind writer was like it's in tarabang not banging tara i never took a part in tarabang like that but it makes sense wow wow i did learn something that's the kind of stuff it's like just all these weird like phd guys like harvard guys like who could be like chemists if they wanted to they all have like chemistry degrees and like physics degrees and like it's very strange but they're all they're all very they were all very very nice to me it was it was a pleasure to work there yeah today's writer is a graduate of harvard law school just like obama yeah probably the same class grainy is just like obama

i i diplomat i swear mike reese's book he said that they were roommates yeah something like that or they worked at the same time yeah oh my god well oh last thing actually i wanted to compliment kate right up front on the the jack am show or kate am kate am is such a fun twitch show i bought you at most mornings unless i uh it makes me too sad then i'm like oh this is too but but uh thank you thanks for watching your your megan m Meghan McCain impersonation is the best I've ever heard, honestly. Wow, thank you. Thank you so much. My father.

My father. Oh, nice. My blood turned cold. I have an anger in you that only comes from never having to ever do anything hard in your life ever. Well, so this episode is a Ralph-centric episode. Oh, yeah. The first real Ralph episode since I Love Lisa, really. And he's a much different character here.

Very different. Yes. Yeah. You know, Ralph is an interesting character. He was a real start for the popularization of short bus humor, I'd call it. Oh, yeah. That's true. Which I'm not the biggest fan of. But this episode is funny, so i don't want to be don't call me an

sjw listeners for parts where i'd be like yeah that's kind of mean but i mean homer's the og of like is this guy like mentally disabled or is he just incredibly stupid this episode it feels like they're making him more of a realistically slow. Yeah. It feels like a little more like intentionally bad. Yeah. The burning stuff. Well, I mean, we'll get to it in order,

but the burning stuff especially feels like a mean shot to like, Oh, children, slow children also are planning to kill people. They're all pyromaniacs. That being said, it's very funny to have a leprechaun on your shoulder telling you to burn. I love this ending.

Yeah, this is such a funny episode. But part of it is laughing at the mean-spiritedness of it, too. Yeah, that's true. It was 1998, you know? Yeah, no, it was a pretty different time. I mean, the jokes about the mentally disabled back in 1998 were way worse on other things that weren't the same. Oh, yeah, for sure. So even were, like, I'd say four years ago. mentally disabled back in 1998 were way worse on other things that weren't the same oh yeah for sure so and even were like i'd say four years ago it was still i think oh yeah like it only feels

like it was recently became you'd be judged if you said the word quote retarded unquote i mean that's new i feel like that's new within the past three or four years so like six six years ago fox was having the character Handyman have adventures. Oh, yeah, that's right. On In Living Color. On In Living Color. A very sympathetic portrayal of the intellectually disabled. Oh, Handyman.

Yeah. That was a very different time. It was. It's a different time. I don't endorse different times. I only endorse the most, you know, progressive of times. Yeah. So not now.

I don't endorse any time. I endorse the fictional future where things are better. And also, listeners, it's time to strap in because this episode will have, I promise, the most Henry Tales of the Tape ever.

There are four Henry Tales of the Tape. In case you're a new listener here, a Henry Tale of the Tape is when I say something that only I would know because it was on my VHS recording of the episodes. You missed out on all those Triscuit commercials. These are actually interesting, I promise. Okay, all right, well, hold them to it, everybody. So the episode begins with a rare full intro.

I don't remember in the Scully years they really used that. Must have have been a shorter episode or maybe they cut a lot more than they usually do it seems like there is a few cuts in this but there's a couple bits in here that almost feel elongated to fit a shorter episode in a shorter script and and grady on the commentary is pretty funny he's usually one of the funnier guys on there and he mike scully asked him like how'd you come up with this episode and he said you mike scully came to me and told me to write a ralph episode so i did and this episode begins with a with a quick edna krabappel joke which it feels almost like a waste to get marcia wales in there for like two lines yeah she's barely in this i always like seeing edna though yeah yeah and and it is a really funny moment of millhouse's proud reaction of

low battery being whatever. Anytime you can get some eyebrow acting on Milhouse is worth it. But then we have our first clip where we meet Robbie the Automaton. Attention, children. Over here. Oh, for the love of... The doorway. We have a very special visitor today.

But he's no ordinary visitor. In fact, you might say... He's a robot. We saw him on the way in. Thank you, Bart. All right, come in. They know. Kids, this is Robbie the Automaton.

Greetings, Earth children. Where are you from? Earth. Anyway, have you ever wondered what it feels like to touch a star? Cool. So very different from Investo the robot from Opportuniac. They're very similar robots. Well, he's more murderous.

That's true. Yeah. Well, Robbie the robot will be murderous. Oh, it's true. He just isn't. He's being suppressed on more murderous that's true yeah well robbie the robot will be murderous oh it's true he's he just isn't he's being suppressed on his murderous rage that's uh that's a reference to robbie the robot from forbidden planet the class so not the lost in space one i get those confused all the time you know lost in space episode he fights robbie oh okay the lost in space robot and uh dan grady mentions that the robot is kind of a reference to a usa today robot that like was a promotional tool and he worked at usa today which i could not find any proof of that usa

today robot i like millhouse's reaction to his arm exploding that's very funny uh and then there's a joke about the uh the weight of the brains of three stooges the three stooges yeah yeah i looked this up the average brain weight is 1.28 kilograms, which Larry's is almost more than twice that. So he's got a pretty big brain. Hey, good for Larry. Though, according to the Wikipedia page, which is all the research I did, brain to mass ratio denoting intelligence is a controversial topic. And having a bigger brain doesn't exactly mean you're smarter though sometimes it can mean you have a wider cortex which could make you it turns out larry fine died from having a large brain so it's very tragic yeah took him down uh and i also love the

line to answer to these and similar questions uh but yes uh before we head off to the Nologium, Skinner has to be strangled in this next clip. The answers to these and similar questions can be found at the Springfield Nologium, a hands-on learning environment opening this Saturday. No, kid, don't! Ah! Command link severed. Default setting. Crush. Kill. Destroy. don't command link severed default setting crush kill destroy don't children help he's killing me i do love the yay in response to anything inappropriate i like especially from children there's no cleverness to him just saying he's killing me it's like he's killing he's just pleading for his life also Bart kind of kills that guy like

falling from a tree at that height can't be good Bart's like he had just an apple on his desk he feels very Dennis the Menace in that moment throwing that apple but the uh yeah also the gag on that Robbie the default setting is killing yeah I, destroy. Yeah, I like that a lot. So head to the Knowledge EM together. And did you guys go to these fun museums in your childhood? A few times, yeah. I did, yeah. Me too, me too. But this one has a very Discovery Zone vibe to it.

Yeah, there weren't as many play spaces in the children's museums I went to. Mine had a few. I actually looked up what my childhood museum was and it's sadly closed now. The one I went to was in ages eight to 10 when I lived in a suburb of Atlanta from 1990 to 92. And there the place was called Cytrek. It had things of like, oh, learn how water moves

by like making your own dams in this fake river. And you, your brother stands over here and you stand over there far away from each other. But if you talk into this tube, he'll hear it over there, just from how sound induction works. The one I went to had the first IMAX movie I saw. And it's funny, because I went there twice. The first IMAX movie I saw was about the ocean,

and the second one was about sharks. So they were both about the ocean. Nice. Mine is still open. I'm looking it up right now. The California Science Center right next to USC. Oh, nice. That was my childhood science museum.

I think it's like, it was also my first IMAX experience. Well, this definitely feels like it comes from Mike Scully taking his kids to these types of places. Maybe even that exact one since he lives in Los Angeles. It did feel a lot like the the california science center were your parents cars broken into repeatedly there or um probably it's like not in the greatest i mean especially in the 90s like not in the greatest area and and now san francisco where b and Bob live, well, the Bay Area, San Francisco has their own knowledge in the Exploratorium, where we did a podcast last year, I think, didn't we? Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

That was fun. It's for adults and children. Yeah, it is. And for stand-up comedy you can't listen to because it's inaudible. That was the weird, okay, that was so weird that we, they were doing stand-up. So it was part of SF Sketch Fest, this fun thing they do of like SF Sketch Fest at the museum. So they had like a, just, you know, a standup showcase, but it was in this room with an incredibly high ceiling. So you could barely hear anything.

It was very strange. And we were just in the corner somewhere. Everyone knows comedy works the best in a large place with a high ceiling. It just gets funnier. Yeah. It just gets funnier. Yeah, it just gets funnier. But this is another Henry was wrong about Troy McClure moment again. I said he wasn't coming back until season 10. Here he is again.

They're using him so much. Since the countdown clock is ticking on an old Phil Hartman, so it's nice to enjoy him one another time here yeah sorry sorry to bring you down there no it's all good uh but yes here's here's a brief clip of troy welcome to the knowledge i'm troy mcclure you may remember me from such automated information kiosk as welcome to springfield airport and where's nordstrom while you're enjoying our hall of wonders your car will unfortunately be subject to repeated braking. What did he say?

What about my car? That's so funny. That also feels like it's the knowledge of doing a legal disclaimer as a pretend welcome video. I like that a lot. And it also felt very familiar to people who, just if you go to Disney or Universal or whatever, and you're having to keep the line moving, but seemingly an important thing is being

said in the cycling video, but you're pulled away from it and you can't hear it. I love Troy McClure and specifically that gag with him. It's funny too that it's about a quick gag and he still, they're able to fit in with the characters moving as he speaks. I want more movies i love that i've said it before but like just imagine if phil hartman was alive now he'd be doing troy bits all the time like he'd be starring oh totally totally it's so sad i mean did we ever get like a full troy episode only one in season seven where he married selma yeah

oh right right right we should have got more we should have there should have been more there could have been more and uh yeah there's they they arrive at the knowledge em and it's a bunch of fun little visual gags of uh the double helix slide i think is my favorite is like a two a clever gag and the kids always crash into each other yes yeah and then though they they have like a mooning joke there i was like this seems slightly dirtier for the show it was the macroscope that's a i mean that's macroscope is a very funny futurama it feels like david s cohen did that one yes yeah yeah and uh and also the kid i love how long they make you wait for wendell to fall off

the ceiling oh yeah he's just like, uh, uh, uh. And then he bounces exactly back up, which that seems dangerous. That does seem dangerous. I want to do it, though. Me too. He didn't vomit, though. That's his characteristic. Yeah, wait a minute.

Well, they could never. Maybe that's why they used him less, because I think Fox would have a rule until Family Guy would break it of no on-screen vomit. You couldn't do that. Now Family Guy kind of revels in how much vomit-screen vomit. Like, you couldn't do that. Now Family Guy kind of revels in how much vomit it can show. But again, different time. Different time. There's a lot of jokes in here that I'm like, this is

dirtier than I remember. Yeah, like the sort of boner gun that like rises when he sits down in the seat. Burn gun. And also the Bart's line, toss the virtual salad. I feel like they knew what that meant. Had we reached that point in our timeline where Chris Rock told us all what it meant?

I think Chris Rock had been joking about it by 90 years. Yeah. Probably. That's how the world learned about that. Or from Oz. You'd see it in Oz, too. In the first season of Oz, which I was pre-9-11, so that's that's where it opened our eyes okay henry's tale the tape number one okay here we go until the dvds i never heard what homer said when he bounced away to say his line because

they're a tracking issue henry no no this was my local broadcaster it blacked out for just a second as he jumped away and so always on my vhs tape which was the only broadcaster. It blacked out for just a second as he jumped away. And so always on my VHS tape, which was the only way I rewatched that episode, could never tell what Homer said. It just starts with him saying, I'm going to, and then he bounces away. And, you know, maybe it was a conservative broadcaster

in Northern Florida wanting to get rid of the word sex education. Oh, I would believe that. But I think just the word education, Henry, not even sex. the word sex education. Oh. Don't let the kids know they can be. I would believe that. I think just the word education, Henry, not even sex. It's like education. And no, I feel there's a slight missed opportunity that Lisa doesn't get to do anything at the Science Museum because it's made for her. Is she even there? She's going to read a giant book.

Oh, yeah. That's a one joke. That's so boring. I do like that joke. Read the giant book. And I love the That's a one joke. That's so boring. I do like that joke. Read the giant book. And I love the animation of Marge getting hit by the pendulum. That's a very funny little gag. Though the pendulum was holding back the entire time until it was going to hit her.

Actually, speaking of David Cohen, I got some real Cohen vibes in this next clip here of Bart checking out the computer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hey, I'm going to go toss the virtual salad. I want to read the giant book. I'm going to try the sex salad I wanna read the giant book I'm gonna try the sex education computer Come on, Maggie Let's try and find the anonymous pendulum Right there

The section now illuminated Is the floating point unit One of my personal favorite units Oh, yeah, that's great, Maggie Oh, well. Hey, how do you get this thing to play back, Jack? Stop that. You're hurting it.

So how's it supposed to work? Well. Boring. Am I on the internet? No, you can only access. Boring. What's that fire for? The hard drive is crashing at an alarming speed.

No more pictures. Was that a callback to Bart's comment? I think it was. Yeah, it's approaching an alarming speed and a fantastic rate. Oh, fantastic rate, yeah. Database comments on the speed of things quite a lot. Yeah, Matt Groening hates him. That's why they keep bringing it back.

They said it out loud on commentaries. It's because Matt Groening doesn't like him. He's off working on Futurama now. I mean, the guy explaining computer bits there, that definitely felt... Every Frink joke when Cohen works on the show feels like a comment on Cohen. I think that they... I don't know.

This could be my guessing there, but him... Like, Frank didn't used to explain the specific... He made crazy computers in the pre-Cohen years. Yeah. But now, once Cohen started, he describes computers accurately and specifically in a very nerdy way and cohen has a phd in computer science let's not forget i want to read his thesis i want to see how boring it is it's got to be public record somewhere yeah you

can look it up i can go to berkeley yeah he went to berkeley let's do that at lunch yeah yeah over lunch we're going to our cal u and checking it out. Floating point unit, according to Wikipedia, is used primarily for mathematical functions in your computer. So that's what the FPU is for. I want my points tethered. I'm shocked they didn't do a gag about FPU. That's just a funny word. The Simpsons will be right back. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener.

At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our NetZero Hub at electricireland.ie If you've got a leprechaun in your ear telling you to subscribe to our patreon i say listen to them hey it's henry in the break here and first off i want to thank our wonderful guest this week kate raft we really appreciate all the insight she shared with us in how simpsons is made behind

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ten dollar a month bonuses that are a bunch of video features including me and bob going through the entire original simpsons shorts one at a time for pure Simpsons history completeness. Check all of that out at the premium $10 a month level at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. speaking of shocking things i'm really shocked they got let's make a baby onto the show like yeah dirty as hell like it's funny it's really funny but like they're sitting in the star wars gun like yeah yeah millennium falcon turret gun that uh han Han and Luke are in in episode four. That's the penis. You get a boner joke, you get ejaculation jokes, you get premature

ejaculation jokes. Homer's sadness. Homer's sadness after being told you were out of sperm. But then that it gets back up again for Krusty. That line is so creepy. A childless man is at this children's museum.

Yeah, boy. I bet he rides that gun a lot. And it also asks you a question of like, what are they looking at? What are they seeing when they're shooting? I never thought of that. Wow. Okay. That's funny.

I feel like at these children's museums, there are a lot of stuff about like reproductive systems and like birth and stuff like that like that's my memory of going to the california science center is there was like something like that okay there was like some like whole exhibit on like the reproductive system i yeah i remember like stages of growth in the womb or something just like pictures Yeah, like maybe like It was like There was like a womb you could go into or something I do not recall that myself But I mean, again

I grew up in the South That stuff was illegal Like my In my sex education at middle school was You can't talk about condoms It was abstinence only, so Oh, yeah Wait, where did you grow up again?

Jacksonville, Florida, northern Florida, which is actually the more southern culturally part of Florida. Okay. The redder part. You see, Henry, when two people of the same race have sex after marriage, the pelican comes. The pelican. It's not a stork. Oh, my gosh. Pelican.

So it's also funny they have the Star Wars gun. Like, they just, they get to say, you're out of sperm and they get lasers to represent sperm.

That's quite, and again, like a penis lifting up through a gun cocking. What kind of filth are we watching here? I'm writing to my congressman about this.

I like it. I did want to note this Mars rover scene coming up. This is a new rover. This is the rover of the minute, the Sojourner, which landed on July 4th

and stopped operating in September of that year. The newest one that's up there, it lasted a lot longer. Okay. Yeah. I do remember when that rover landed because in my gifted studies class, you were supposed to start each day the teacher

challenged you like tell me about a news story today like tell me about news and i remember i told a couple a couple of my news stories were the mars rover one of them was because they named rocks after scooby-doo okay and then and then studies class studies class. That's what made me what I am today, a podcaster. Wow. We've not done a Scooby-Doo podcast yet. It's coming. That day shall come. It's coming.

Also, when they go to the Mars section, I don't get exactly what the joke is, but Mars is written as in the Star Wars font. I think it's a reveal where it's the end of Mars. So you're panning over and you're realizing it's not Star Wars. It's actually just Mars. Okay. It's not a great joke, but that's what they're trying's the end of Mars. So you're panning over and you're realizing it's not Star Wars. It's actually just Mars. So it's not a great joke, but that's what they're trying to do, I think. It is funny they go from the Star Wars penis gun to the Star Wars font. That's funny in the edit there.

I love the gag about a character who is just not reacting at all to impending danger like Ralph is when Bart's about to smash into him. And then instead of Ralph getting hurt, Bart injures himself avoiding Ralph. it all to impending danger like ralph is when bart's about to smash into him and then bart instead of ralph getting hurt bart injures himself avoiding ralph i that's a really funny gag to me less funny is uh houston we have a problem joke in 1998 i'm not it it felt old even then yeah that i thought that one bumped me as well well i am that it was about a booger which just like i don't know that also feels too scatological for well and that it was about a booger which just like I don't know that also feels too

scatological for the show too and to see a booger come on yeah and to see it yuck that's just like one of those jokes to put a joke in you know

yeah it's like we need a joke we need to go home or like one of those jokes that got rewritten like 17 times and like nothing seems funny anymore

yeah let's just go with the Apollo 13 reference come on yeah calling a booger a moon rock felt very Rugrats to me actually to think nothing seems funny anymore. Yeah. Let's just go with the Apollo 13 reference. Come on. Yeah. Calling a booger a moon rock felt very Rugrats to me, actually. Which that's always my insult to a joke

when I say, that's Rugrats. That's apt. And then we get a nice introduction to the bullies for this episode, which this comes up several times in it, but in those scenes with the bullies, Ralph and Bart, that's when you realize how many people Nancyancy plays on the show yeah so many so she's having to be nelson kearney

ralph and bart all at the same time and i think until this episode ralph and bart never really i'm not saying they never shared a scene together but it was pretty rare because she he's in lisa's class true yeah they're really paired up together so you never really think about how nancy uh and uh you know she's she's an amazing voice actress but there's only so many variations on little boy voice you can do so i do kind of like ralph's writing here where he just says like i am not a baby like there's no real there's not a clever joke to that it's just how a slower kid repeats something or just says uh a plain statement yeah yeah again it's very observational as to what a realistic ralph would act like he's not he is a uh one-liner machine sort of in this episode but he's also a

realistically observed slower kid yeah and in the more uh in the more sad moments of this episode and also throwing him into the ear. That was funny. That was cute. It's a good bully move if they're going to do something. There's a lot of blank the virtual blank jokes. Like kiss the virtual ass. Yeah, we already were tossing the virtual salad.

But kiss the virtual ass. Wait a minute. Do you toss the virtual salad in the virtual ass? Oh, I guess they are at the same place. Okay, we just connected the jokes. It's fine now. After that, Marge saves Ralph, and this is kind of a sweet scene here.

I especially like that it's one of those rare moments where Marge gets to have kind of an interior life or a history, I think. Yeah. You poor little boy. Oh, no, he'll be fine. He's always getting himself stuffed in this or that. Is that normal?

Yeah, he's just playing wiggle puppy. That's a dog he made up who flies by wagging his tail. I tell you, that dog has had some amazing adventures. Ralph certainly has a lot of imagination. Oh, yeah, the kid's incredible. I mean, the special schools are all over him. Maybe he needs some real friends. Sure, we'd all love some real friends, Marge, but what are the odds of that happening? Hello, Ralph. When I was little, I used to play by myself, too. Your hair is tall and pretty. Well, thank you, Ralph.

You're such a fine young gentleman. Help! She's touching my special area! I do like when Wiggum is supportive of Ralph. He's so loving. He's a great dad. He's a great dad. I love, yeah, that he's, Wiggum is stupid and dangerous to everybody.

And there's been a number of police brutality jokes with him. Yeah, there's one in this episode. But with his own son, who you would fear in real life, a conservative cop would probably treat his slower son poorly. He's so, so supportive ralph very proud the special schools are all over him and it also just is he's invested in the life of wiggle puppy too he's like he's it it feels like he's been told about many of wiggle puppy's adventures by ralph he's really bought into wiggle puppy which that feels like it that is something that portrays

ralph is not a too slow of a kid because he's being creative. He imagines these adventures as character Wiggle Puppy. He just has to act them out. I love Wiggle Puppy. When we see Wiggle Puppy later, I'm glad we got his drawings of it. All right, callbacks. Now, it's so cute and just is that he just sometimes starts running in circles. And it's also just a very adorable idea that a dog flies by wagging its tail by being happy.

Isn't that nice? It's cute. I really like the little, it's like I used to play by myself all the time too, that like it tells you that Marge, maybe she was, you know, a lonely kid.

That's what it sounds like. It's again, these little moments of Marge's life you don't normally get to see. She is projecting a bit, because I don't think Ralph is lonely. He's got his own inner life. Well, I think that's a danger of a lot of adults,

even if you don't have kids, of when you see a kid, you just think of your own childhood, and if it was sad, you're like, oh, I bet that kid's sad and alone, just like I was. Maybe they're a happy kid. I love being isolated and weird as a kid that also though okay i definitely uh let me just say i was on the receiving end of the pity of a parent making

somebody be friends with me and it's no fun yeah everyone knows what's going on. Yeah. I'm not mad. I'm not really mad at the mom anymore for being pitying me because she's like she wanted to help. It only came from a positive place. But this was in elementary school. There were some parents who would like be playground guardians or whatever. And this like everybody was worried about stranger danger back then. Right, right. Yeah. So you'd have extra people watching this like playground. And so anyway anyway she was there and the kids kind of shunned me i was not a popular kid

and then uh she felt bad for me and one of her kids was in my class and i wanted to be her friend but she didn't and then the mom was like you should make him go to your birthday party invite him and the i i get the nice feelings for it but uh i get i get where they were coming from but when you're there the the kid is not there they don't know to not tell you you were forced to be invited they tell them they told me immediately like i don't want you here my mom is making you be here no one likes you here i'm like well great i i felt it made me feel very good for the whole day i'm sorry it's hey i'm over it i i don't remember it vividly no um i get again marge is coming from a good place she's doing it but i didn't that uh we did not have a bart and ralph style adventure

that eventually made us real friends in the end and unfortunately. And Ralph is not aware of the situation. The episode is not about Ralph becoming aware that Bart is not his friend because of this whole setup here. Yeah. Maybe it works better on less self-aware children, this kind of plan. That special area joke, too. It's fine. It's Ralph not really interpreting whatever he learned correctly. When he was told about his real special area.

Yeah. Yeah. So then they're all leaving the place. We then get a cute little scene where Homer is acting more childish than the children. I do love it. Especially how he says, like, my friend did this and then my other friend. What's funny, extra funny about that to me is that he's, that's a very kid thing of like, you need a kid one day and you're like, this is my friend.

Like, yeah, I like that. But then he also wants to're like this is my friend like yeah i like that and that but then he also wants to be you can't wait to get full of beer and go to bed and uh and yeah they but again lisa didn't do anything uh in that place it felt like if you're looking for more jokes have actually i forgot lisa was watching the computer demonstration with oh okay well she was there she said nothing she was hilarious bart is planning a fun afternoon, and then Marge has some news for him in this next clip. Firecrackers, stink bombs, maps to teachers' homes. You know who's nice? Know who?

That Ralph Wiggum boy. He's a real winner. You would know. Bart, you don't have to go anywhere today. I've got a surprise for you. What? I scheduled a play date. A what? With who?

Hi, Bart. We're gonna be friends. I have a finger trap. Whoa. Get him off. Get him off. Fighting only makes it tighter. That's great. Is he holding the popsicle at this point, too? off, get him off. Fighting only makes it tighter. That's great. Is he holding the popsicle at this point too? Yes, the popsicle's melting in every scene from this point.

It's pretty much brand new right there. I like on the commentary, they actually are kind of critical of the writing in this episode in a funny way where they're just like, why do we treat it like it's a crazy reveal that Ralph's behind the door? We all know Ralph's behind the door. That's true. It was like the previous scene. But I really, I could identify too with being a kid and knowing that your mom is trying to lead you into a conversation you don't want.

You're like, yeah, yeah. So anyway, just like, yeah, you know. A few steps ahead of her, yeah. Yeah. And this, it felt like a new thing to call something a playdate back then. I think it's a pretty normal term. I was grown up by the time the term playdate was invented. I was not put on any playdates. Oh, really? Oh, were you, Kate?

Oh, yeah. A number of like, it just feels like parents, it definitely feels like the helicopter parenting, like over planning of things. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I think like, I remember being on play dates, but I don't think I was like, I had two brothers my age. So it was like, I had a built in, I had a built in play date. It feels like the professional class turning everything into a meeting. Like, you got a four o'clock play date.

That's true. It does feel a little managerial. Yeah. That's a commercial break. We come back, and I love that when we come right back, Ralph has put his tongue through the other side of the finger trap. I also, I definitely probably tried that after seeing it on the show. Like, I guess you could do that, but I don't think I got my finger stuck.

Did you have a finger trap handy? Probably. Well, okay, the next time I got one, I think every time I went to the county fair, I'd end up with one of those things, which those are fun. Those are fun. But Bart's getting outsmarted. This is really great here, too, because in this next clip, Bart's first, and he's smarter than her, but then she outsmarts him into hanging out with Ralph. It's a cool, like cool dynamic switching of stakes there. You want me to hang out with Ralph Wiggum?

Not hang out. Play date. Stop saying that. Now why don't you show off your new friend around the neighborhood? You two make an adorable pair. Someone will be right with you. Mom, school has changed a lot since you were a kid popularity is very important now but don't talk listen the social order of elementary school is densely layered the coolest kids are at the top oh you mean like the a students

well i don't want to play with ralph he's just a misunderstood little boy who needs a friend. And if he hangs around with you, well, everyone will think he's cool. Well, I don't know about that. Might help him a little. Okay, great. You kids have fun. Hey, wait. I didn't agree to... Mom, I am not...

Flattery got her everywhere. Marge is using her favorite weapon from the Simpsons arcade game. Oh, that's right. Wow. It's really something that they're like, well, what's Marge's weapon? Vacuum cleaner. She's a mother. She loves cleaning.

That's her only characteristic. There's probably one piece of concept art with Marge holding a vacuum. That's it. We found it. I think I had a Marge toy that came with a vacuum, I think. I know Homer came with a TV. He did. Or, no, you get the couch by itself.

Anyway, I also love how Bart just shuts down. Like, I don't want to play with Ralph. Like, just a good giving up there. And also, speaking of parents and friends, I do feel bad that I didn't listen to my mom about a couple friends she said i shouldn't be friends with uh because they were bad influences and i eventually uh stopped hanging out with them when i realized like oh wait i'm you realize i realized that i was hanging out with my bullies and i thought that they were friends but they were

actually mean this is i don't mean this to be a sad henry story episode i'm very nice to henry by the way yes no well so then we get a gag of bart taking ralph around his room and i definitely i did hate sharing my toys as a kid i was not very good at 10 i was like you know you're gonna break this transformer i can't trust this is usually with my brother i was like, you know, you're going to break this transformer. I can't trust it. This is usually with my brother. I was like, I can't share this with you. I really identify with Bart being very fastidious and anxious about his toys

because I would be a quietly judgmental of other kids who would treat their toys poorly. I, uh, I was not a fan of that. I was definitely a treating everything poorly. I never lent anything to anyone. Cause I'm like, no, you'll scratch it. You'll make it dirty.

Well, now when you lend things to friends as an adult, you should really just tell yourself, I'm giving this to this person. I will never see this again. It's a secret arrangement. You're never seeing it again. I kind of don't want this anymore. I have a few things of yours still, Henry, by the way. The last time, well, the ones that bug me the most when I see a friend, I don't think you've done this. No, actually, I think you did.

Oh, no. Well, just when I see it kept on a bookshelf. Because I know that you're, I feel you're definitely doing that to keep it safe. But another friend of mine, they just put it on a bookshelf like it's theirs. It's mine now. I lent you this Marvel Comics collection four years ago, and now it's just on your bookshelf. Hey, where's the book I lent you months ago?

It's not on a bookshelf. I'll promise you that. I don't want to know where it is now. It's on my bedside table. Okay. Just in the stack of shame of, someday I'll read that Kids in the Hall book, I promise. It's so good. I know.

I know. Have you read that book, Kate? I haven't, but I did. It used to be Bruce McCullough's assistant. Wow. Oh, man. Any fun dirt? Oh, so much.

We call that play sand. Is he as powerful as he looks? That was the job I left The Simpsons for. Oh, wow. Was this just in general, or was he on a tv show at the time uh so he i was his writer's assistant he works with assistants when he writes everything so he was developing when i was working with him but he i was in like five different writer's rooms with him or something okay and then also mostly just in his house. That's nice. With his dogs.

Yeah, it was nice. I'm very jealous. Yeah, he seems like a tough guy with a heart of gold. No comment. Play dirt. Oh, but yes, here's Bart's toy time. Your toys are fun to touch. Mine are all sticky.

Ralph, I just got through sorting those. I dropped my Pupstickle in your toy chest. Ralph, would you just... Look, a rocket ship! That's not a toy. Hey, do you know how to play hide-and-seek? Shh, I've been here two hours and Bart still hasn't find it me.

These syrup stains are the worst. Bart, it's too nice a day to leave Ralph in a closet. You boys should go play outside. But people will see me paired up with a doofus. You have no idea what that's like. Uh-oh. I'm going.

That Homer gag is the best. That was really funny. The timing of it, he just looks part first, turns around, sees Marge. The perfect cartoon hole in the floor, too. When you think about it, too, he was inches away from cutting their feet. He could have sawed off their feet.

He just blindly sawed into the ceiling below the kitchen. As you do. God damn, that's so funny. Just his turnaround, like, yo. And, yeah, it's basically like a Daffy Duck hole or a Bugs Bunny hole dug into the ground. And also, we get Chekhov's rocket ship there. All right. Very important to put that in there.

They didn't really need to put that in. They clown on it on the commentary too. They say like, boy, it's good we put that there or else it would have been just too out of left field for the rocket ship later. I guess Lisa does have a big role

in this episode in that she resolves the problem. Yes, yeah. Oh, I have thoughts on that. But also, yeah, Dan Grady even jokes like, that feels like the Simpsons writers' fastidiousness with toys on their desks of cleaning them afterwards. Yeah, does each Simpsons writer have a desk?

I would assume so, right? Yes, so how it works is there's two buildings and one writer's room is in one building. And that's like the downstairs writer's room. And that's also the same building where like Jim Brooks' office is and a couple of the Gracie Films execs. And then across the parking lot is the two-story building and the upstairs writer's room. And then in that building are most of the writer's offices. And also that's

where my um pa office was okay they're all like tiny shitty room like okay but it's not an open office setting at least you get they they have private each have their own closed door like you know they take they'll take naps in there every once in a while they've got they've got couches and but it's small it's not huge but yeah you know, it's better than any office I've had, though. Yeah, the open office thing. A private office. Oh, yeah. It'd be so nice to have.

I mean, I loved having my, even the PA office, just because, like, yeah, I would fully nap in that shitty PA's office. Wow, private. Now all these Homer napping jokes makes a lot more sense. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know if, like like i'm sure this is public someone's talked about this on some podcasts but david merkin like definitely naps every time he's he naps in the writer's room though because he he's uh only comes in uh a couple one or

two days a week oh yeah yeah he naps every friday no i yeah i had heard he'd had a similar deal to mike reese coming in one day a week type deal. Right. I also like the statement of he still hasn't finded me. That's a good one, too. I like that. Wouldn't you call that Rugratsy, Henry? It is, sure.

That is Rugratsy. But this one's funnier. But yes, no, it's a misstating of a word. But I feel like this, so many Ralph quotes got repeated so much in my, I mean, when this came out in high school, this was when short bus humor was very funny with me and my friends. Oh, yeah, for sure. isn't the first like time as a child i watched a tv show where someone abandoned someone through hide and seek but if it was my friends and i definitely did that to someone in willston i know i did i definitely did that i mean i kids do that they'll ditch someone by playing hide and seek i was like god what if i did that because i saw it on the simpsons i you know the the more i

watch the show the more i'm like i guess tv did uh influence most of my life yeah good tipper gore was right all along we're all monsters well actually speaking of lines that get said a lot i do say like bob sometimes when you walk faster than me i do say my legs don't know how to be as long as yours that's true and which is a funnier thing to say than like i'm in worse shape than you are and want to walk the sidewalks for fast walking not for slow walking uh but yes here's here's uh bart and ralph heading off to uh to a new place. Slow down, Bart. My legs don't know how to be as long as yours.

Well, that is your problem, Ralph. This is how I always walk. Videotaping this crime spree is the best idea we ever had. Quick, Ralph, in the bushes hi guys I'm not for ya shut up I love the artless shut up replies on the Simpsons

shut up no joke just like shut up this is a reference to a real life incident in which teens did videotape their own crime spree but that has happened so much since this episode aired, I couldn't find the incident. The actual incident. So there you have it. At the time it aired,

I thought it was, this was, I had not seen the movie Natural Born Killers, but I thought it was a Natural Born Killers reference, but now it is just I mean, the quaintness of a VHS tape recorder taping a crime spree. Like, the massacres get live-streamed now.

Yeah. It's pretty horrible, this reality. Got to give a shout-out to PewDiePie. Oh, yep. Yep, you do. You're supposed to laugh, Henry. It's ironic. Yeah.

All this hate was ironic. No, but I mean, and it's also police crimes, too. We get to see live-streamed all the time. Well, and also just even vandalism, mischief that the police are doing here. That's just YouTube content. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're called pranks. It's all prank videos.

Yeah, there's also two great shut-ups in this episode. This is the first good. This is the better of the two. I really like it. I also like how after Bart shoves him in the bush ralph's being very nice about it like oh they don't hurt unless they have prickers this one did ow he's he's at least being nice to him yeah bushes are not his friend the berries taste like burning they have prickers yeah actually sorry kate one more uh one more writer's question we had heard

a story that there is like poisonous looking berries outside of the writer's room on some bush there and one one person ate it once could you is that bush still there is there a bush with berries on it uh i can't remember uh if there was like i never talked about it with anyone so all right i probably i mean they they really don't change anything around there so i'm like sure it was i'm sure it's still there they removed it after it nearly killed steve tompkins as as a story we had heard from josh weinstein the uh well also yeah is there still the dinner bell or the sorry the lunch bell uh yeah oh yeah that was a big part of my day was being humiliated, having to ring a cowbell for adult men. Mostly men.

I'm so honored to have a cowbell ringer, the ringer of the official cowbell. Conan O'Brien touched that bell. He did. Yeah, me and Conan. Is it the same bell? It's the same. I'm sure. It's probably the same bell.

Maybe not. But, God, yeah, I would have to ring the cowbell And then the worst would be when there were like Tours going around the fox lot And like a golf cart full of like Important looking people would just like see me Ringing a cowbell We've only heard the cowbell stories

From the writer's side Oh yeah, they love it, they love it They don't have to do it That's funny. At this point, it could be automated, but I'm still kind of glad it's the same cowbell. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs.

Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? I don't know. I don't know nothing. You can't like the thing with the Simpsons is you, you can't change anything over there for a reason. Like it's a well-oiled machine.

That's why when I worked there and I was training other PAs, I'd be like, never try to improve the system because it just works. Like you have to fax in the lunch orders. Don't ask, just do it. Use this fax machine from the eighties. Wow.

Use the cowbell because as soon as you would change, like, one thing, like, you'd put the chips in a different cupboard, like, everyone would notice and, like, be like, why is that different? It'd just be chaos. It would be chaos. Like, everything is, like, in its place, like, in its disgusting, weird, old, decrepit place for a reason.

Okay, this next scene I feel like is line of the episode. This is Ralph showing Bart around his place. I love it. That's the joke. You have to make it official with the line of the episode jingle. Sorry, had to do that first. This is my swing set.

This is my sandbox. I'm not allowed to go in the deep end. That's where I saw the leprechaun. Right, a leprechaun. He told me to burn things. Uh-huh. You want to play stuffed animal parade? Maybe later. Come on, Ralph, your dad's a cop.

There must be some cool stuff around here. Bullets, dead body photos, what have you. He keeps that stuff in his closet, but he says I'm not allowed in there. Did he say I'm not allowed in there? Yes. Well, I'm going in anyway. I do like the glee with which he hits, burn things.

Burn things, yeah. And then Bart's just old like, uh-huh. Hey, it pays off later. We meet the leprechaun. It does. That's the same leprechaun who appears in many episodes. off later. We meet the leprechaun. It does. That's the same leprechaun who appears in many episodes. They didn't make a new leprechaun.

He became a character. But goddamn, him saying he told me just his, the way also Ralph stares off into the middle distance and he says he told me to burn things is so fucking funny. I mean, it definitely, there were many comedies after this that did jokes about how mentally slow people also could be pyromaniacs or dangerous. So I don't know how I feel totally about that legacy of jokes, but this is so goddamn funny. I do love it.

It is so funny. That's also when we get to see the Wiggle Puppy drawings, which just, he's drawn so many of them. He seems fun. I like that Wiggle that wiggle puppy and also it's so cute he's like stuffed animal parade which he does so so many times in his life apparently that wiggum has outright said to ralph bart simpson is not allowed in here yeah he knows bart well by now oh he should yeah he definitely should then they head into the closet, which down time for Henry's tale of the tape number two. I was worried. We only had one so far. We're in act two. When they're going through the criminal reports for each person, there's a little

sideshow Bob one too there, which that was cute. Yeah. But they pull up Homerer's one and for this airing i don't know on my tape i don't know why i did it and didn't do it for other episodes but uh i was being so nerdy one day that was like what do the closed captions say and do they say something different yes on the show and they did yes the closed captions from the broadcast version on my tape said a different joke looking at homer's crime reports and it's a much darker joke and one i don't think you're gonna like bob oh no oh no birds it is bird related oh come on so my guess is that they changed the line late but the closed captioners got it from the old audio yeah that happened a lot actually so this will explain a

lot about me for about five years i watched tv with closed captioning on because i thought it was cool it's like this is so cool the words show up and i caught a lot about me. For about five years, I watched TV with closed captioning on because I thought it was cool. It's like, this is so cool. The words show up. And I caught a lot of those. There were more than a few cases on The Simpsons where there'd be a changed line. You'd see the original one in the captioning. I should have done it on more.

I really should have. But boy, we are gigantic nerds. I'm sorry, Kate. I'm sorry. So the line, mom's only been in twice, wouldn't really make sense because he's looking at homer's thing not marge's anyway so and his mouth is so off you can tell it's way off say it uh in the closed captioning i remember it clear as day it's not mom's only been in twice it was uh he killed a swan at the zoo okay and you can see at the end of the altered line in the animation still bart's mouth

still goes into the ooh shape yeah i i'm kind of glad they cut the joke that homer killed a bird for seemingly no reason they like strangled a swan i think the jail count is right for marge at least because we have uh homer alone she gets arrested and also marge um margin change margin chains yeah that's true okay yeah two arrests and there's many for homer it's got to be more than six but who knows oh more than six yeah but so yes that was the that's tale of tape number two there's two more comment listeners on the edge of my seat gonna fall off but yeah they so they go through all that stuff and then we have then wigum comes home early which i i also love there's good Wiggum stuff in this episode.

Hello, Sarah, Ralphie. It's me, Chief Wiggum. Who better hide? Quick, in here. Man, we have got to get an escalator. A 341 in my own bedroom. All right, crookie, let's dance. We have got to get an escalator 341 in my own bedroom. All right, cookie. Let's dance Oh

Officer down down It's just you well help daddy up You know, you're not supposed to go in there. What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery? Sorry, Chief. We were just playing. Ralphie, you got a friend? Wickham has rarely been fatter when he fell down there.

He's like a perfect orb. Oh, God. And his turtle-like movements on it. It's so funny. A real painful back noise, too. Oh, yeah. Though he did a...-like movements yeah it's so fun a real painful back noise too oh yeah though he did i gotta give it to him he did a full roll back yeah the other side uh at one time it seems like he was a good cop or could do it uh you know actual acrobatics but i also i remember watching the first time with my mom she kind of gasped at the idea that Wiggum was about to shoot and kill Bart and Ralph. Such a dark place to take that to. And I also love that when he arrives home, he just says out loud, it's me, Chief Wiggum.

And they mislead where it's taking him extra long to get up the stairs because he's just very out of shape. Yes, yeah. He wants to get an escalator. He goes right back to Wiggum being just so nice to Ralph. He's like, he's just happy Ralph has a friend. It's really sweet. I like that. He gives them riot gear.

And then meanwhile, Bart starts drooling over the police master key, which apparently that's also a thing that locksmiths have. But I don't think it's one of those open any key type thing, but more like an official capacity. Though now everything's like digital fobs like that's my my apartment has that which they just pass along to amazon delivery people who get into my apartment pretty easily you look clean you look like yeah though i've had people steal packages a number of times now so i don't know it's it is nice to have it put in on the inside

i had some nice new pair of these earphones just taken by some dude hope they like them in hell i gotta think wired earphones is like you didn't end up with anything good here buddy like it's these are twenty dollars uh there's some kind of gross bart drooling there too in the animation uh so this next scene with the answering machine it goes on long this was the one that felt to me like the script is short. Let's have a long joke here. And I like the joke that they're using a very outdated book. Yes. Like when answering machines were new. If you look at the cover, it looks like it's from the 70s.

Although there is a Jerry Maguire joke in there, too. Oh, okay. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Though that feels very must-see TV, this gag, too, I think. I feel like this... It doesn't feel as Simps-y to me i feel like this

would have been on like seinfeld or caroline in the city don't give seinfeld this henry come on what they did a whole answering machine gag of like believe it yeah that was a much deeper cut than jerry mcguire okay i'm offended defending seinfeld here i'm sorry i didn't he just turned 65 now he's officially old uh let's let Let's hear the whole answering machine gag here. Hi, this is Jerry Maguire. Show me the message. Show me the message! No, that stinks.

Let me try one. This is Geraldine. And the devil may be missed your call, so here come the beep. Here come the beep. Do the message! Long, I'm going to sleep over at Ralph's. Oh, see, I knew you'd find something you liked about him.

Oh, I found something all right. After the beep. So my parents did, when they first got married and were a young, loving couple, they still are, by the way, they did record hilarious answering machine messages. Oh, wow. My parents never did that. I just remembered one of them right now. So my stepdad's last name, please don't dox him, is Subnoski. And it's like, you've reached the home of the subnoskis

where we like to eat kraut and kielbasa and they did so there you have it and then there was more rhyming after that so i was not deeply embarrassed by that as a kid he really leaned into the polish jokes they really did yeah he was all about polish humor can you believe a guy named subnoski is polish you know my parents never did that now Now everybody is an answering machine jokester on their message. Yeah. I had one when I was a kid, and I remember coming up with it, but I don't know if it was because I stole it from a TV show or something, but it was like, you've reached the Raftery's washing machine.

The answering machine is on a coffee break right now, so leave a message after the spin cycle. That's a classic machine joke. I think I stole it. I don't think. I think I made it. I don't think I, I think I made it up when I was like seven. I like it. When I say made it up, I mean fully stole it. But me and my brothers, we all did it

together. It was very adorable. That is adorable. I, you know, if nobody knows where it was stolen from, is it really stolen? I just Googled it and I don't think it, I can't find it. All right. Well, I'm going to take credit. My message on my voicemail is this mailbox is full because I never check my voicemail. Don't call me. I can't find it. All right. Well, I'm going to take credit. My message on my voicemail is this mailbox is full because I never check my voicemail. Don't call me.

It's pretty rare I answer the phone unless I know the number. And even then, it's more like a callback situation. I'm in the shower every time my dad calls. So I can just like have 30 minutes to like, all right, I'll let him wait. Then I'll call back like, oh, dad, I was in the shower. That's a good policy. You don't have have to speak up i'm wearing a towel though i've never uh i've never set up my voicemail box now just because i don't want messages and maybe maybe i'm inviting a i'm gonna miss something because of that but i i like living without voicemail it's been nice really if it's that important you can text me like yeah leave a voice memo if you must uh and uh here's boy i didn't think i'd be telling this many

childhood stories here okay i was the kid ashamed of his nightlight on sleepovers i i think it was around eight that i realized like i either just don't I can't have sleepovers at my place. I have to go to the other guy friend's house or I have to pretend I don't have a nightlight eat one night and sleep without it. Like I don't know what it was. I just really hated the idea of being in complete darkness when I slept. Oh, the dark is scary as fuck. It's a human fear.

I think it wasn't until I did enough like sleepovers, like 13 going on, that I slept over at enough friends who were toxic boys who hated the idea of being weak with a nightlight that I then learned to no longer have it, just to not be made fun of. That was all it was about. And now I'm totally fine with darkness. It's more annoying to me when it's not dark i actually just uh the last five years i sleep with a night mask on just because i want complete pitch blackness that's also so my husband can stay up playing mortal combat late if he wants to which he's been doing a lot lately the sound of that nightlight turning on is so funny he just and bart's like like god such a funny reaction bart steals the key uh we get a

funny joke about too many bad pig panther movies but it's such a specific joke yeah i think at this point there was one in the 80s with a different clue so was it benigni that was in the 90s there's one in the 80s and i think that's what they're referencing here. And the estate of Peter Sellers sued them or something like that for disrespecting his memory. I didn't know that. Ken Wall is funny casting because he was a handsome, tough guy actor. So him playing Inspector Clouseau is very silly. For a long time, I thought those movies were about the cartoon character. And then I found out that was not true.

And I was very disappointed. Because I only watched the cartoons as a kid. It was like my late teens when i finally saw a pink panther film it was uh i think i didn't like it as a kid because my brain just shut off when a cartoon if i saw a movie with a cartoon opening and then the cartoon was over i did think like now that's a scam yeah it's like the movie's bad now cartoons over yeah like g. Yeah, like Grease. Remember the opening of Grease? Still a cartoon. Oh, wow. City Slickers. What was the beach one? Well, Better Off Dead had it, too.

Better Off Dead, yeah. And in the summer, God. One crazy summer. One crazy summer. There's animation all throughout that, though. Yes, yeah. Which David Silverman worked on. That's right, yeah.

We talked about that on our podcast interview. Oh, nice. How much interaction was there with the artists? I knew David Silverman. Okay. He was in a lot. He would come in for all the, basically, I only know the animation people who were at any color screening or animatic screening. Or I don't know if they would come for the table reads, but I think some of them would.

So, yeah, because the animation studio, the animation side of things, that's all the way on Burbank, right? Yeah, Film Roman. Or did it change? I think it's still Film Roman for now. Yeah, Film Roman. Yeah, I know some of those.

I know David Silverman. He would always give me a Christmas card. He makes a New Year's card every year with a drawing on it. That's so nice. That's great. Yeah, I see it. It's in my little memories box. He was very nice when we talked to him.

Yeah, he's really, really great. He's a sweet guy. Boy, you mentioned that film Roman thing. Yeah, I wonder what need does Disney have for a film Roman when they're an animation company? I mean, I feel like just because it's The Simpsons, I truly don't know what's going to happen. You would think they can keep the machinery themselves because the power Gracie films has contractually. But I don't know. Disney is a powerful monster.

Anyway, this is too much business he's talking. I do love the little joke of Bart when he looks back at Ralph and then smashes him and just gratuitously in the face yeah yeah get him one last uh poke also a great name jrr toykins as uh as a toy store that's pretty good there used to be an obscure reference yeah you know in 98 it was we were what three years away from fellowship yeah yeah that's true though everything before and after 9-11 in my mind feels separated by like a decade when it was really like less than three years right uh but all right tale of the tape number three they're getting better everyone

you know the last one and i'm thinking about this too no i'm i think i'll peak with three four is kind of a down point uh after that but i got to do it in order okay uh so tale of the tape number three from the closed captioning i my belief is that they had originally timed out this scene to the who song i'm free yes the lyrics of that are on the oh you know that too yeah yeah again caption fan right here i'm checking in yes yeah so i remember reading it to i'm free and then i'm hearing on the sound it Oh, you know that too? Yeah, yeah. Again, caption fan right here. Checking in. Yes, yeah. So I remember reading it to I'm Free and then I'm hearing on the sound, it's like it's just the, really a library song they'd used before of just kids frolicking.

So I would guess they either just couldn't secure the rights or a budget thing. At the last minute, they couldn't clear it or something happened. I mean, that scene wouldn't be that much better with I'm Free

over it anyway. It feels like something is missing and now that you know a song is supposed to be there. Yeah, I can, that scene wouldn't be that much better with I'm Free over it anyway. It feels like something is missing. And now that you know a song is supposed to be there, yeah, I can see that. All right, so yes, that's Tale of the Tape number three. Yeah, that's another thing that would happen. They would show you song lyrics often when there was no song.

Like, oh, that song didn't end up in the episode. I think, you know, I mean, the Who I'm Free really fits with. Mike Scully loves 70s rock. Like, he puts that in every place he could in the show. Future stars, I guess stars. Yeah, yeah. The Who would be the season 12, was it? I think so.

Drawn as young people, though, strangely. And the Pete Townsend brother voices Pete Townsend for part of it. You don't want to talk to that guy. You don't want to know what he's into. So I do. My favorite, there's some OK gags. Again, on the commentary, they're dumping on the gags. part of it you don't want to talk to that guy you don't want to know what he's into uh so i do my favorite there's some okay guys again on the commentary they're dumping on the gags there they're like this could have been funnier this could have been better like they honestly i think they're a little too rough on this but that's the feel i got from dan graney in general that he's a

very like exacting joke writer and maybe too too critical like give yourself a break dan you're don't be too critical of yourself. But the Barbie archeries, that's my favorite. Yeah, I did like that gag. And I guess the uncreativity of using Lego blocks to build a giant Lego block. That's pretty funny. I could also go for some funeral fudge about now. I don't think that's real.

I've been to a few funerals. There's not always fudge. There's rarely fudge. It's not enough. It's more casseroles I've seen there. More drinking. Well, I didn't like it. More drinking. Yes. It's not enough It's more casseroles I've seen there More drinking More drinking I prefer I stuff down my funeral feelings with food

Not alcohol I leave the open bar to the others But anyway enough sad talk The bullies The bullies enter the picture here I can't believe we ate a whole wedding cake And an entire pan of funeral fudge Lully's into the picture here. I can't believe we ate a whole wedding cake. And an entire pan of funeral fudge.

Check it out, guys. It's dark and darker. What you doing there, Simpson? Babysitting? We're on a play date. Isn't that a story? The girls are on a play date. I'll take it from here, Ralph. Um, we're just hanging, chilling.

A little bit of illing. We don't get you, Simpson. Sometimes you seem kind of righteous, but then we see you fraternizing with the Lamoids. Which makes you a lame wad. Oh, yeah? Would a lame wad have the police master key? Whoa!

Wow, very handy. Hey, maybe you are cool enough to hang out with us. Really? You think so? I don't know what to say. This is all happening so fast. Poor Bart doesn't understand he's being used by bullies. You're happy to be popular in those kind of moments.

Yeah, he's above Ralph but below the bullies on the bully scale I've referenced that line a million times but I think that really captures what's weird about Bart with how they write him that he oscillates from the coolest kid in school to a heavily bullied

nerd and it's like sometimes he's the awesome kid who can do all the skateboarding tricks and everybody wants him to sign their yearbook. And then other times he's on the level of Milhouse being savagely beaten by bullies. He does go between. What was the joke? They get beaten up, but they get a reason. Yeah, they do get a reason.

I mean, I suppose it is just like the bullies think he's cool until he hangs out with Lamoids that then bring him down to Lamoid status. And how do you feel about the Morningwood joke? I didn't know it was. I was very innocent to that. I didn't realize it was a boner joke until they brought it up on the commentaries in my first commentary viewing in like 06 or 07, I guess. I think, I mean, they said Morningwood about 10,000 times on Beavis and Butthead at this point. Yeah. So I was on board. They said morning wood about 10,000 times on Beavis and Butthead at this point. For some reason, when there was no space between the words morning and wood,

I did not understand that it was an erection joke. Had two erection jokes in this episode. Not enough. Also, you mentioned Beavis and Butthead. The torturing of a frog really reminded me. The frog got away safely. Yes, the frog was safe. I'm glad.

It would have been worse. At first, I think you're supposed to think it's a dead frog. And then when it hops away, you're like, okay, good. And yeah, Bart just has no idea that he's being used here. This has another great just like, shut up. In this next clip here of them arriving, all the bullies have lame ideas to use the key that can get it to anywhere. Keying the car is my favorite.

Yeah, yeah. But Bart has the best idea. Here she is, the big house, the stony lonesome, the thug jug, the mobster trap, Penn State, the old crook. Shut up! Let's just open the gate. I'm scared, Bart. I want to go home. Come on, Ralph.

Don't embarrass me. It's just an abandoned prison. All the murderers are long dead, and I'm sure their ghosts are probably in hell. Let's go, Simpson. Ditch the baby. My key. Sorry, Ralph. I thought we were friends wait i missed that get him to say it again such cruelty i uh well i like the gag that jim ho knows that's a good exit line for the break

he's like say it again that's a good act break yeah uh there there is a lot of they get some good little emotion there out of like ralph they give him enough emotional depth to be sad that a friend betrayed him like i he's usually such a blank slate to be betrayed by a friend yeah until that point had let ralph keep the key i like that bart had enough respect for ralph of like bart could have kept the key the whole time but ralph's like no it's my dad's key i'm gonna hold on to it and bart respected that yeah they're bonding and they were bonding a bit the act break shot of them in black and white just both staring head on at the camera just covered in mud yeah oh god it's so though storytelling wise i think it's interesting that

like when they come back from break bart immediately changes his mind like instead of waiting for scenes later he's like you know i know what, no, I treated Ralph bad. I'm going backwards on this. It's very speedily plotted. He had three commercials worth of time to think about it. Bart changes his mind, and then he gets some ironic betrayal. Go on home, Ralph. I can't without Daddy's key.

I can't bail on a friend, even if it is Ralph. Ah, you wuss. Hey, give it back. Hey, key boy. Hey, come on. I thought we were friends. Yeah, well, I hope the irony's not lost on you, Simpson. This sucks. Let's do something else.

I know. Let's go pick some huckleberries. Yeah. James, keep winning there. Hey, Ralph. You're braver than you thought. Wait for me. I like when Nelson is occasionally wholesome like that yes yeah nelson has a deep love for huckleberries he's in the uh lisa kudrow guest starring episode we'll hear more about his love of huckleberries and confectioner sugar

you need that uh you know i gotta try that with huckleberries and sugar on that it's hard to get huckleberries around here i I don't know if Northern California is a huckleberry area. I don't know if I've ever eaten huckleberries. It feels more like, well, I guess I associate it with the South because of huckleberry hound being so Southern and gay. So gay. Also, again, the awareness of the bullies. Bart says, I thought you were my friends which

is what ralph just said to him and so when nelson like so the irony is already there for the observant but nelson has to say out loud i hope the irony is not lost on you i think it's very wasteful of the bullies like they have a key that can get anywhere and they're they just throw it away like they'd rather taunt them by throwing away a key than using it for more mischief yeah honestly that's the ultimate troll no it's true yeah and i also like it's kind of a cute cool brave ralph moment of him he is terrified by this more than bart but he's also so single-minded and like i have to get this key that he just storms right into it. I like that a lot. He's more unaware of actual danger.

And so they hit in. Bart appreciates the distance of the toilet to the bed. Luxury. I love the pointy kitty took it. Ralph doesn't know what a rat is. And he just sees it as a pointy kitty. I mean, again, I guess that's Rugratsy as well. Yes, but it's a high-class Rugrats show.

But yes, the rat then leads them to a dangerous door. Whoa, mama, the electric chair. Smell that, Ralph? That's the smell of justice. It smells like hot dogs. Hmm, maybe it still works. Give me the newlyweds from that cake. Stand back.

What a jip. Maybe our key fits in here. Till death do you part. Somebody down there? Uh-oh. Let's get out of here. Why do I always shout first? Just gives him a chance to run away.

Well, I'm an idiot. I love this character. He has such a great backstory that we don't know about. We hear about him and his wife. I've used that phrase before when I mess something up. Like, well, I'm an idiot. I love that guy because it's a comment on all the old guards in movies who are just like, hey, who's over there?

And it does just give people a reason to run away. They know they've been spotted uh that and then he knows he's a trope but he can't change his life he's too old now this really reminded me of how uh at the grocery store i worked at as a teenager and i still see this at banks our security guard which was just the guy who sat in his car in the parking lot and smoked endlessly all night i think he was probably 103 years old it's's like if push came to shove, someone would just knock him over. He'd crumble in the dust. Yeah, yeah.

You feel, I guess maybe they're hoping that a bad guy will not hurt an old man. Maybe they're hoping on that. I guess. It just confused me. Maybe they'll feel even less ready to fight. If he was a young man, they'd be like, all right, this young guy, I'm going to shoot him in his back. But when it's your grandpa, maybe you feel less ready to fight if he was a young man they'd be like all right this young guy i'm gonna shoot him in his back but when it's your grandpa maybe you feel less likely to shoot but it does seem pretty useless to have someone that old as a guard well he's dead and in hell now so jeez and also that i love the animation on the plastic people melting also

you see the bard is very pro-death penalty that he calls it justice so them turning on the electric chair is so silly everything this is a very creaky third act dilemma and they know how creaky it is i love i love that they know and that they especially with what quimby says later it's just like the most contrived dilemma to set up but i like that they lean into how contrived it is they even again on them when you really care about someone you shouted from the mountaintops so on behalf of desjardins insurance i'm standing 20 000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you care about you home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we

care? Clowning on themselves on the commentary. When the line goes, maybe our key fits in there, they just go like, this is the third of those times we said maybe this will work and then it happens it just worked they felt like they were cheating by having so many maybe this would work the world is just cooperating with bart and ralph right now you would think that key is the wrong size to work on that but hey we need the we need an end of this episode usually the electric chair is not in a closet. It's like behind a mirrored window. People watch you die. The electric chair was out of practice.

Most of them were creaky and old by this point. We moved on to other ways for state capital punishment. Although I just listened to a podcast about the electric chair, and I guess the most recent one was in 2018. Really? Wow. You have to request it, I think. I think you have to be like, I want to die that way. Really? Wow. You have to request it, I think. I think you have to be like,

I want to die that way. Wow. Damn. Well, the new way of killing people allows us to make big contracts with pharmaceutical companies. Oh, yeah. So it's good for everybody

except the condemned. Except everyone. I guess the pharmaceutical companies had better lobbyists on a state level than the electric company did, I suppose. True. It doesn't take much electricity to kill a person, though. companies had better lobbyists on a state level than the electric company did i suppose true doesn't take much electricity to kill a person though uh you know actually i have some stats

on that later but yeah no the capital punishment little bit here is it's funny to just think about capital punishment no the uh yeah i remember the requesting yourself you're requesting your thing was a plot on oz in like the first season of oz they bring back the death penalty in the fictional state it's set in and i think it's i think it was around when new york did bring back the death penalty and a guy asked for like a firing squad because he wants it to be like as disgusting as possible to make people feel guilty i learned a lot about the logistics of the electric chair via the green mile the book the green mile yeah that's uh that's a fun book gotta put that sponge on their head folks yeah so it conducts better that's what they don't do to quimby quimby doesn't act that part out so it's the next

day they think everything's fine there's a bit with go fish that it feels like there's a missing scene they're like isn't ralph drawn like he has stuff in his it looks like yeah there's there's something in his mouth i feel like he ate the cards and thought they were fish i feel like that's the joke that got cut oh yeah actually kate have you seen a lot of if did you get to watch the animatics on animatic day or i did yeah i get to watch them yeah how how exacting could they be sometimes with like cutting a joke or like have you seen them see uh you don't have to name scenes but like have you ever seen a scene get cut and uh how how that's done oh yeah totally i used to have to sometimes take notes after the animatic screening you'd watch the episode the animatic and then yeah they fully yeah they they fully uh cut things and

they'll they'll rewrite stuff i've seen matt graining watch an animatic and then give al jean in the writer's room like his thoughts or like al noting it up a script and yeah and even holding al writes the jokes that need to be changed or whatever um it's all like handwritten and then like you have to photocopy al's notes and then like it's like a whole and then you have to like write next to the things as he's describing his notes if you can't read his handwriting that that also sounds like the fact system of just like it's been the same for season one i mean it's hard to it's hard to argue with the success those those early years that yeah it works i like the line of the justice

league moving into their new building today, too. That was back when Justice League things were corny. And now it's the wave of the future. Now we're just tired of the Justice League, honestly. I just imagine the show Bart's talking about is Super Friends. Because obviously the writers of the show didn't know there wasn't a Justice League new cartoon happening today. But Bart could say the Justice League's going to fight somebody. But it's like the Justice League is moving it's moving day for the justice league which i don't think that's a plot

on an episode of super friends but i don't know that entirely uh but yes bart finds something else on tv instead of superman any threes go fish oh see here's the problem, Ralph You have several threes Go fish! Why don't we watch cartoons? The Justice League is moving into their new building today Ken Brackman reporting live from Mayor Quimby's press conference At the abandoned penitentiary Huh? I have ordered the reopening of this prison

To send a message to the criminals of Springfield If you commit a violent crime in my town you are going to end up here hey that's our play chair to demonstrate what you're in for i will now strap myself into this electric chair which was deactivated over 30 years ago and i can only assume still is we didn't reset the safety switch. He's gonna smell like hot dogs. I do love the line he's gonna smell

like hot dogs. Ralph is worried. Ralph thinks the chair that makes you smell like hot dogs. That's the danger of smelling like hot dogs. Holy shit,

this whole bit here. And I can only assume still is. There's no, he can't test that it works or not before he gets in it. And they just happen to turn this channel on.

It is so contrived. And then he also, later he's going to say he's going to act out all the motions. Yeah. Though his characterization here is very much a Clinton era Democrat of just like, I'm tough on crime. Oh, yeah. I think it was your Kate AM co-host who who brought up how uh like this kind of thinking got people killed like clinton clinton was worried that he would be judged as weak on crime when he was arkansas governor and so he put someone to death he

probably shouldn't have well i'm i'm anti-death penalty in general so he shouldn't put anybody to death uh yeah that that that's what that was the i think we still have a lot of uh bullshit tough on crime democrats these days honestly yeah it's pretty bad yeah they i mean but it's all because the dukakis everybody's afraid of being seen as like a weak dude like dukakis was the guy that clinton killed uh via death penalty was he the guy who was injured his brain was injured in a shootout with the cops? I think so. There was a really infamous case like Ricky Ray something

where he, you shouldn't, the rule in the books is like they have to know they're going to die. They have to be at least mentally sufficient enough to know they're going to die.

He didn't eat all of his last meal because he wanted to save some for later. That was the way that like, oh no, oh no. He got brain damage

from being shot with the cops. He killed a cop in a shootout and he was shot in the head. Which, hey, like, you know what? That's life imprisonment. Yeah.

But, yeah, that's why indefinitely around this time, Bush was, George W. Bush was killing a lot of people in Texas with mental problems. That's freedom, folks. No, so, yes, the acting out, this is so fucking funny, too. Like, this plotting, this was the time I really laughed at just the plotting of it that they need to tell a story where Ralph saves the day, but he is incapable as a character of coming up with an actual plan that will save the day. But the plot has to treat it like Ralph saves the day as do the characters. And this problem happens in what, like the last two minutes, like they set up the problem

and solve it within two to three minutes. quickly yeah yeah it this this feels like a rushed ending it does but uh we're so removed from uh like the main problem of is bart friends with ralph that's done like they're just friends like they're friends now before the end of the episode so it's really just about saving a life and uh of a bad man and uh and r and Ralph has quite a plan in this next clip come on man's life is at stake we need to get a message to the prison think think Lisa's a good thinker Ralph you're a genius now as I mind the convulsions of a condemned criminal I remind my staff not to come to my assistance no matter how realistic

my performance may be. Normal. Getting ready to throw the switch. Come on, Lisa, hurry. Let's just pray this hits the prison. Ow! Ow! Smithies, there's a rocket in my pocket. You don't have to tell me, sir. Smithy's

is a rocket in my pocket you don't have to tell me sir turn off the chair turn off the chair he's just saying turn off the chair out loud and no one's turning it off I now I like with the music

sorry just listening to the audio I love the little sparkly sound cue they play when Ralph's like, ask Lisa. That's it. That's it. Yeah. We'll ask somebody else. And even better that they don't. Another episode would have had a different plotted episode would have Lisa say out loud

the plan of like, we need to use the rocket to alert the people we can shoot at the prison. But her coming up with that idea doesn't matter to the plot point of ralph saving the day so she's just using it without and then also how useless bart is of just like come on lisa hurry up do it uh so aside from me and gay joke there's a walk-in in my pocket is the uh dr seuss book from 1974 i think a lesser known one i didn't realize that was a dr seuss joke until i went on the internet later after this episode aired i did not know that uh i mean yes it's also i think i don't think burns has ever had a rocket in his pocket i know we've seen what his well the characters have commented on the size of his genitalia before so we know that we know that

ain't no rocket and his lethargic sperm though it wasn't lethargic enough to make create larry burns it did do that that's true so oh yeah i didn't get the clip but they can't call the prison because the old man is on the phone with his oh yeah too old to have children uh that voice tells her to start a ball of twine a new one yeah she's already made a lot of balls of twine but uh the it's a great animation too of how the rocket looks for a second like it's going to hit the prison and tell them to stop and instead it misses very clever geography that prison has always been there between the house and the uh nuclear plant yeah and it's all visible right out the window that's uh

i think i forget which season it was there is the episode where marge adopts the prisoner and the gag is twice in the episode she looks out the window, and one time she sees the prison, and the other time she sees a different thing. Yeah, yeah. All for plot purposes. Though I guess now this does fit with the prison being visible, the Morningwood prison.

It goes into Mr. Burns' office. On the commentary, they also joke that sometimes Mr. Burns can't do anything, and this time he has full control over all the power he's got a huge complicated console but uh is uh quimby is being electrocuted before i played the last clip i didn't want to say i looked this up he's electrocuted for 24 seconds of the show and in the electric chair at least in classic uses the way it would be done is you would be zapped for 30 seconds with 2000 volts, which is usually enough to like, even if your heart hasn't stopped yet at that point, your brain's dead. You're dead.

But there were rare people who the first shock would not kill them and they would survive. And then they just do another 30 seconds. So I'm guessing then that Quimby is one of those lucky few who survives the first 30 seconds of electrocution. He's okay, folks. I also love that he is decidedly not okay. Yeah. How do you make that smoke appear?

There could be a joke. I mean, they could just say he died on his way home. Like he had multiple heart attacks from what happened. Nobody just recovers from being zapped that much. The animation on his electric, it really reminds me of the season one one when they're all zapping each other. No Disgrace Like Home, yeah.

Here's the final scene of the episode. That was really entertaining. How did you make that smoke? Yeah, all right. Way to go, Ralph. Ralph? But the rocket was my idea but asking you was Ralph's idea you're the man Ralph but surely I deserve some credit for Ralph Ralph Ralph I'll let him have this release after all it's Ralph you've done grand lad laddie.

Now you know what you have to do. Burn the house down. Burn them all! Good. The sinister music at the end. That music tells you he killed the Simpsons that night. By giving Ralph a victory, they empowered him to destroy the home,

to burn the family to death. And that's an important lesson. Don't give children hope because they might burn you to death later. Exactly. Now the, well, okay. Last Henry Tale of the Tape. Oh no. This is the least, this is less interesting, but it was that I taped it.

I taped this well the first time it was but the next week or when there was the next episode i normally was very good at starting the record after the credits ended but i started the record right as the leprechaun appeared so on my tapes it was burn the house down burn them up and it just starts that's funny at some point you never learned your lesson, Henry. It infuriates me every time you tell these stories. After the 30th time, you mess up a recording. Just leave the commercial.

You know what cheap blank tape is? It felt I refused to learn lessons as a teen. As a kid, that was my main thing was a refusal to learn lessons. And that's good. That's like you're a TV character. Yeah, exactly. You're a good sitcom character uh as an adult i'm very good at recordings i never mess up our recordings

i i learned my lesson since then but there's no tale of the audacity i also think lisa's life will have a lot of inferior men she has to not take credit on something to make them feel better i think that's she's probably gone through that a lot better to be prepared for it at a young age and i also like that they that wigum lou and eddie they all think that he's still they all think he is faking it as they're carrying him away like he's just like like they they still think it's a performance that's insane that's why they have to end that scene very quickly they're famously good at their jobs they're very good so usually lou and eddie are not as bad as wiggo but uh here they're all just so impressed by uh quindy's acting it's quite a show put on but this episode to wrap up i guess it's a great ralph episode i do enjoy just how much again they lean into how contrived the ending

is like the episode ends and then like another two minute mini episode begins. It's like you get a short at the end of the episode after Ralph and Bart become friends and bond at the abandoned jail. So yeah, yeah, it's good. I like Ralph. There are some kind of ableist kind of jokes in here. They do a lot worse ones in the future,

but I like how they try to make you sympathize with this sort of joke machine character in this episode. Yeah, I also like that too. they find a lot of heart for ralph even though they're still doing jokes about him staring into the middle distance and just stating things but obviously bart will not hang out with ralph any after this episode no but uh but in this episode they are friends and you feel like bart will continue to be ral friend. I also like how arched and creaky some bits in here know they are and they just do it even more. That's very funny writing to me.

And so kudos to Dan Graney and the rest of the Season 9 staff on this one. Also, Neil Affleck and the animators too. I didn't mention the director before. But yeah, they did a really fine job too. But yeah, Kate, any final thoughts on this episode? I enjoyed it. I think it's a good one. Well, thanks.

Yeah. Thanks for having me. Do you have anything you want to plug right now? Yeah, watch Kate AM. It's actually spelled J-A-C-K-A-M. It's my Twitch show I do every morning, 7 p.m. Common spelling. My husband, Jack. It's my Twitch show I do every morning. Common spelling. My husband, Jack.

It's twitch.tv slash jackam. Also, I'm doing a monthly zine. Every month, I'm sending out a zine on my Patreon. It's patreon.com slash catrion. C-A-I-T-R-E-O-N. Thank you so much for all your insight into just the inner workings

of the Simpsons office, too. Oh, yeah, of course. If you have any questions about the mild but tedious minutiae of working at the Simpsons, I know it well. From now on, when we name the writer of the episode, I want to name their lunch. I can be that correspondent for you. Okay, good, good. I need to know these things. They inform so much of their personality, I think.

It's very true. Oh, yeah, and what's your twitter account too it's kate raft c-a-i-t-r-a-f-t excellent awesome well thank you so much yeah thank you so thanks again to kate for joining us but as for us if you want to support the show and get lots of cool bonus things tons of bonus podcasts go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons. And if you sign up at the $5 level, you'll get all sorts of bonus things like our currently unfurling mini series, Talking of the Hill, going through the entire first season of King of the Hill in this treatment. Also other existing series like Talking Futurama and Talking Critic can be yours for the low cost of five bucks a month, along with, frankly, too many other bonus podcasts to list.

But Henry, we have a newer $10 tier that has extra long podcasts and so much more. Yes, if you want to hear me and Bob give the same treatment we give to Talking Simpsons episodes and a different animated series each week, you'll want to hear What a Cartoon Movie, where for over three hours an episode, once a month, we go through a different animated feature film

last month in april we did spider-man into the spider-verse three hours and 22 minutes a spidery oscar-winning fun and we give it all the same treatment we do this everybody loves that and it's only available for the ten dollar and up patrons at the premium level so if you're a five dollar and up person who go up to $10 and you'll get access to already six different three-hour long podcasts, that's 18 hours of content right there. And you'll get a new one each month, including one that is to be decided

as the time of this recording, but it's going to be great too. And I already know. So again, that is patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. We would appreciate your support and we'd like to give you back a lot of stuff for that support. But as for me, I've been one of your hosts, that is patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. We would appreciate your support, and we'd like to give you back a lot of stuff for that support. But as for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo.

My other podcast is Retronauts. That's a classic gaming podcast. Check it out every Monday and occasionally Friday. Just look for Retronauts wherever you find podcasts, and it'll probably be there. Henry. You can follow me, Henry Gilbert, on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Whenever there's updates on our podcasts or on the Patreon, I definitely tweet about it so you'll learn

so much just about our content if you follow me on Twitter, H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you next week for Simpsontide. We'll see you then. I am not a baby. Talk to the ear, baby. Good one, guys. Simpson, go kiss the virtual ass. Yes, sir.