Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror II With Will Menaker

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

For this week's Halloween classic we welcome on for the very first time the amazing Will Menaker from Chapo Trap House! Will's movie mindset helps us understand the very deep references in this iconic episode full of monkey paws, Twilight Zone parodies, Frankenstein riffs, and some excellent animation. All that, plus we dig deep into a ton of deleted scenes in this week's haunting podcast, so limit yourself to just three pieces of candy and enjoy! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the annoying podcast that used to be cute and funny. I'm your host, proud Bonerland citizen Bob Mackey, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today, as always? Hey, it's Henry Gilbert, and if you don't like it, you can go to Russia.

Who do we have on the line? No, it's not the Booger Man. It's Will Meneker from Chaplain Trap House. And this week's episode is Treehouse of Horror 2. It's moving! It's alive! Oh, that friend of a radio shack said I was mad. Well, who's mad now? This episode originally aired on October 31st, 1991, Halloween.

And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, boy, Bobby. The People Under the Stairs by Wes Craven tops the box office. The Perfect Storm attacks the Northeast Seaboard, and that causes the Halloween blizzard in Minnesota and Wisconsin. And Ted Turner buys the Hanna-Barbera Company and all of its films. Well, we have Mr. Movie Mindset himself on the podcast, Will Miniker. Will, have you seen the People Under the Stairs? Not in a long time, but I think, yes,

I have seen people under the stairs. It's a good creepy idea that someone lives under your stairs and fucking with you. Well, you see, the people under the stairs are actually good people. You see, it's a class allegory because the rich people steal poor people and keep them under the stairs. That's right. Just like the man does to us.

That parasite guy, he should play some royalties to Wes Craven. You know, you're being put on notice. Talking Simpsons. Treehouse of Horror. And yeah, that perfect storm. You know, I didn't live in the areas affected by it, but I then saw that movie. I saw the movie several years later. The George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg walberg perfect storm film which i didn't

know was based on a real thing until my mom was taking me and my brother to it and she's like well yeah it's based on a real thing they all died and i was like you spoiled it you spoiled it mom i didn't know and now i've spoiled it for all you listeners too so i'm like the i'm like the rest of us suckers who saw that movie and we're like well i mean mark walberg's definitely getting home to his family right i mean for for sure for sure i just i haven't seen the movie no way i haven't seen it but i know one of the descriptors on the rating is uh intense weather depictions or something like that that's one of the reasons why it's rated pv-13 delivers yeah yeah it delivers it is an incredibly intense depictions of weather will do, do you recall, you were living in the northeast seaboard area.

Do you recall any bad storms on this 1991 Halloween? Don't have any recollection of just anything before 2013. I'll do my best here. I do remember some big blizzards in New York around that era, but not on Halloween 1991. And you had Ted Turner buying the Hanna-Barbera company that would lead to the creation of the Cartoon Network, because he owned all these cartoons,

so that's where they're going to go live on a whole cable channel. Boy, the expiration date on these cartoons was past due, I think. Kids would not watch any of these things past maybe like 1996, so they had to start making actual original programming like Dexter's Lab and Powerpuff Girls

and all those things. So I don't know where these live outside of Boomerang now. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah. Kudos to the Hanna-Barbera Company for really breaking new ground and depicting people running in cartoons. You know, you have to have sort of a windup

where you run in place for a little bit and your legs go and then your body catches up to it. That was a Hanna-Barbera signature, uh not adulterated by uh mr ted turner that's not like bongos too it has to be that yeah we've gone through like a very fun cycle with these characters where 90s of the last time you could appreciate them sincerely and then 2000s we had like the gen x adult swim version of all of them where they're all like alcoholics and they all are impotent and have drug problems and are divorced and now we're back to respecting them again because there's the uh jellystone show on hbo max where it's like no you love these characters it's augie doggy and doggy daddy

they're back and they have antics now and some of them are gay too and and gender swap oh okay jabber jaw's a girl now so this is well they got my letters uh Droopy Dog has long been, you know, highlighting depression and mental health. It's true. He's a real advocate. But yes, joining us today is Will Meneker of the Chapo Trap House podcast. Welcome to the show, Will. Glad to be here. Yeah, Will, we've had on your Chapo pals.

We've had on Matt. We've had on Chris Wade. We've had on people from the choppo extended universe even yeah and i mean you uh are always quick with a good simpsons reference on the show we we know you're a simpsons uh enjoyer as well i mean was that was that a big part of your childhood oh my god it's like the it's like the only part of my childhood it was like you know we watched i mean i watched the simpsons like every day after school on fox it would be like i think like uh seven to eight. They do two episodes back to back.

I'd watch that. I watched like every Sunday with my dad, the new episodes. The Simpsons were like a just foundational part of my childhood and my life. And, you know, it's a joy to be here on the, you know, the premiere Simpsons podcast, you know, paying tribute to and documenting what I regard, you know, without a moment's hesitation or qualification as the finest example of American popular culture ever produced. Absolutely. Wow, man. That is high praise. I agree.

We, I mean, we wouldn't do the show if we didn't agree with that. It's nice when the guest is around our age and has the exact same history as us with The Simpsons. So there's not a lot to go over. Just like, yes, we all did the same thing in the 1990s. We all did the Bartman. No, it's just like the Simpsons of that era, like the classic era of the Simpsons, just really forms just like the fundamental architecture of my brain and memories, really.

It's just like the blueprints are all the Simpsons. And, I mean, did it, you know, inform you politically any growing up? I think so. I mean, not in any kind of, like, profound moment of realization because I don't really view it as, like, all that political of a show. I mean, it's a loving satire of American culture. But I do think it's just, like, as a kid, like, when you first, like, when you get the sort of, like, the entry-level quality of the jokes and before you really, like, imbibe any of like the deep cuts and references and just like truly how smart and wonderful the writing is.

I think kids just appreciate it because it's like, yeah, it's the Bart Simpson thing, like eat my shorts. But like more just Homer, like it's just it's just it's a depiction of like that, like every authority figure in your life is totally full of shit and has no idea what they're doing. And I think kids just instinctively understand that to be the truth of the world. And I think it's important to learn that as early as possible to avoid, you know, severe breakdowns or cognitive dissonance later in life as you get disappointed with the fact that, like, everyone you think is in charge and knows what they're doing is absolutely as clueless as you are. And, you know, Bob mentioned it before, You are a mastermind of movie mindset. And, I mean, did Simpsons, I know for Bob and me, we watched a lot of classic movies in our youths first to understand a reference on Simpsons.

Did that lead you into the world of movies more? Yeah, no. I mean, one follows the other. It's sort of a chicken and the egg thing. But it was just sort of like as I began to watch to watch like more more serious adult movies or just read like you know adult books and literature like yeah like it opens up a whole new world of like of them like the contextual layers of the simpsons like you know i mean just like the realization of just how many stanley kubrick references are in there in the classic era the simpsons is uh yeah it's just one of those rewarding things that like you know

like it's what it's what makes the simpsons so immortal is just how infinitely re rewatchable like the classic era really is like it just there's always something funny and there may even be something that you didn't even realize in an episode that you've seen probably 30 times before i mean do you feel a particular love for the for the halloween classics like uh like this one yeah absolutely i'm really glad I got to do a Treehouse of Horror with you guys because I think

the Treehouse of Horror episodes are like perennially among the best episodes or my favorite in The Simpsons and I just really love I love anything

like kind of like the horror movie anthology format you know like Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt or like the new VHS series

I just think it's just like the horror genre lends itself so well to these little self-contained shorts and spooky stories. And The Simpsons has really always just really excelled in the Treehouse of Horror episodes. It's funny to think that until they started promoting this episode in mid-October, it was not a known fact

that this would be a regular feature of The Simpsons, that you would get a Halloween special every year. As far as as we knew they were just having fun in season two and they wouldn't do that ever again and the choice to make it a yearly thing was a big i mean that is a huge moment for the series right yeah and like yeah like in the sort of the intro to this episode where marge comes out and she warns people not to watch it it's sort of establishing that like yeah like this this is now like this is the new standard like every Halloween we're gonna give you we're gonna give you a special episode we're like you know we're throwing the rules out the window we're gonna get a little bit nutty with it or the writers are gonna have a little bit of fun

playing around you know I don't remember what I dressed as for Halloween in 1991 but I do remember just you know cutting the it short I lived lived in florida so you know it was about to air and i was just like we have to get home i don't care about any more of this i i don't even i don't even trust the dad is going to tape this correctly mom we just have to get home now and see it live you know yeah that was my experience uh yeah a lot of my memories growing up are of watching tv like any well- person this episode in particular because i remember it was halloween night of course and we were trick-or-treating with a friend of my mom's from work and her kids and after trick-or-treating they came over to watch the simpsons with us but the mom was a like a maude flanders type and the

simpsons was a no-go in her household and it was a real like i don't know about this kind of uh you know attitude from her and i remember enjoying this but hearing her just constantly scoffing no-go in her household. And it was a real like, I don't know about this kind of, you know, attitude from her. And I remember enjoying this, but hearing her just constantly scoffing in the background while, you know, all the kids were just howling with laughter. One parent, one disgusted parent was just thinking, oh my God, my kids have been activated. They're going to want to want, they're going to want to see this now at home. And I can't do anything about it. No. And like, and you know, like the intro with Marge plays off that so well. I mean, I think that was like,

it's so funny to think back, like how controversial the Simpsons were. And it was mostly because Bart was the breakout figure. And like, I think there was this like, this real fear that like, it's undermining the authority of parents to have this lovable rapscallion say, eat my shorts or don't have a cow or something.

And you know what I mean? That's like such a huge part of my childhood. And it was also like, it's so important to me because like, of how much my dad also loved the Simps childhood. And it was also like, it's so important to me because like of how much my dad also loved The Simpsons. And it was such a kind of like, it built so much like trust and love between us that like here was this, you know, show for kids that like my dad who, you know, I looked up to

as like a very literate, like, you know, authoritative figure, you know, embraced as and thought was as funny as I did. And like probably even liked it more than I did, at least initially. Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, my mom too, when I think probably even liked it more than I did at least initially yeah yeah I think that you know my mom too when I think of even that's just this episode I think of seeing it with my mom and her saying like well this is a reference to that or her explaining references to me like or what a mammogram is as well because I was like what's that yeah when I heard that mom scoffing and I know her name I won't dox her when I heard that mom scoffing I thought I'm so glad my

mom is at least this cool to enjoy The Simpsons with me. It was one of the proudest moments of my youth is later iterations of cartoons that became very controversial. It's like when Beavis and Butthead came out, and that was a whole other level of parental hysteria. And this is a new level of the degradation of America's youth. I remember I was at a Thanksgiving, and my uncle was just complaining about beavis and butthead and talking about what a disgrace it is and how they'll never let their kids watch it and my dad just out of

nowhere totally surprised him by saying oh like i i think it's a brilliant work of art and i and i adore it and i remember being so proud of my dad it was he was like my uncle was dumbfounded was speechless wow that's beautiful it's something something that you know grotesque and you know uh it's apocalyptic by the standards of like the mid 90s you know my mom couldn't follow me to be some but she was like i can't she she appreciated simpsons but she was like no be some but had to a step too far see my mom enjoyed my butthead impressions as a team well you know i think my mom did come around to it because by 96 she happily took us to the bud head movie she did take us to that but yeah this uh this episode

is a true uh like stone cold classic like it's gorgeous too like one of the best animated ones too jim reardon directed it and he is a master of the series especially of Treehouse Ones and then there's some great bits that are specifically animated by guys like Brad Bird or David Silverman to look like even better and it's directed by the writer of WALL-E that's right yeah yeah the Oscar nominated writer of WALL-E Jim Reardon yeah and also you know if you got your DVDs handy pull them out because there are the original storyboards with matt graining's red line edits over them and you can see you know there's some cut jokes in there i'm not going to bore the listeners with every single cut joke but there's a few biggies that i think bob and i can mention

but yeah the different endings are the most interesting part of seeing those storyboards and and for instance not on the storyboards is the intro of march warning everyone again i think that was a late edition where like let, let's just reuse the animation from the year before and just have a new thing. Hello, everyone. Before last year's Halloween show, I warned you not to let your children watch, but you did anyway. Well, this year's episode is even worse.

It's scarier, more violent violent and i think they snuck in some bad language too so please tuck in your children and well if you didn't listen to me last time you're not going to now enjoy the show and i mean my mom definitely laughed at marge saying like you didn't listen to me last year. You're not going to now. Like my mom laughed of knowing like, yes, I'm allowing this again. I am going to let my kids see this another time. I accept my blame in this. The episode begins then with a bunch of funny tombstones.

We pass over Jim Morrison's grave, which like so much text on it, not made for standard definition screens. No. Yeah. It's funny. I was like, you know, I always try to clock the graveyard gags and like the opening credits of the Treehouse of Horrors one. There's one or two here that I felt was like, you know, the rare moment of like a joke on The Simpsons that seems dated or like I didn't get the reference.

And this one was Cajun cooking. And was this just like a fad in the early 90s for for cajun cuisine that had gone out of style by then you see well at first i was worried that we would bore you by explaining every reference but now i know we won't now i was looking into this and there were there were two big cajun chefs in the 80s that popularized the cooking style paul prudhomme was one of them but also justin wilson he's the I guarantee guy. And it reached a peak by the late 80s. Like, I think it started really taking off in the early 80s.

But yeah, I think they decided on the writing staff, people were kind of sick of Cajun cooking by 1991. So that explains, that is a dated reference. You're right. Taking a little bit of the piss out of the Cajun people and their wonderful gumbos and jambalayas. You're just in New Orleans, and you know Cajun cooking is alive and well. Like I said, I think it's great. New Orleans is the best food in America. I certainly lived up to that reputation,

at least on my trip. It's funny to think that cajun cooking was like a big enough fad to like just sort of like make fun of fun on the simpsons i feel like there had to be a hundred jokes on sitcoms in the 80s where the wife brings out like just a charred blackened piece of meat that's smoking and the husband says what the hell is this the wife says it's cajun and the the audience erupts i'm sure there were a million jokes like that. My childhood connection to Cajun cooking was just that the leatherhead on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

was just an impression of the I guarantee guy. That's right. That was his entire character. I think Darkwing Duck had one of those guys on it too. Yes. Another landmark thing in this episode, it's the first year with creepy credits. So last year we just had a creepy font.

This year we get creepy credits and a creepy font next year the font it gets even better folks so hold on to your pants it's funny we're covering this alongside 2001 season and after 9-11 they put a pause on the creepy credits for several years and so this yeah are you serious they did yeah they did out of respect ghoulish names after 9-11 oh god at the very least i think for 01 and 02 halloween they didn't do creepy names out of out of honor okay 2001 halloween i can understand it was like a month ago so i they don't want to do like you know james hellbrooks or screaming sam simon the country was still very traumatized but a year after come on it's time to laugh again, people.

Rudy Giuliani went on Saturday Night Live like the week after and said you could laugh again. So, you know, if it's good enough for America's mayor, it should be good enough for the Fox Corporation. You know, their production took so long, they didn't get the news in time from Rudy Giuliani. I don't think. And also, first time this registered is the

joke for me that the Walt Disney tombstone is frozen over because he's he's frozen in cryogenics that's the that's the joke that joke soon to be removed from the Disney plus version yes yeah mark my words uh and uh yeah it was apparently the aljean pitch of the creepy names because he is a big comic book nerd he grew up with the ec comics like tales from the crypt and that had artists like creepy jack cayman and so they wanted fun fun names like that too and he had the peanuts characters run by jim reardon he did a whole uh he bring me the head of charlie brown that was the name of his student film about a violent uh 80s action film starring the charlie brown kids it's basically just him as taxi driver i think yeah yeah and it's

it was like new grounds before new grounds like two uh 20 years before new grounds and also yeah i love all the quick cuts into the house of homer watching tv that's really great and uh this is when homer gets the news again it flew over my head as a kid, a joke about the presidential primaries of 1992 coming up. And you know, at the time I was looking this up, I'm sure, well, you know this, but yes, at the time in 91, in April 91, when they were writing this, April 16th is the date on the storyboards.

H.W. Bush was viewed as unbeatable, like an 89% favorability rating. Guys like Mario Cuomo, Al Gore, Joseph Robinette Biden, all of them were like, I don't even know if it's worth running. And so, you know, by... And then one plucky governor from Arkansas would rise to the occasion. By the time this aired, probably people were just thinking, well, it's either Jerry Brown or Jerry Brown's going to try to win and he's not going to win.

Like, that's either Jerry Brown or Jerry Brown's going to try to win and he's not going to win. That's all it is. They never even heard of some hillbilly Arkansas governor back in Halloween 91. But yes, this also is when I learned as a kid that older kids can egg houses and just did not even bother dressing up. I did not know such a scary thing about older kids. You knew about the treats, but not the tricks. Yes. So Homer is threatening to giving up his eggs and great sound effect is the egg smash the door as he turns around too

that's i mean gratefully all around but i did enjoy that but the kids come home and again talk about first time i noticed something too because this is much clearer in the storyboards bart's costume is an executioner and his candy holder is a severed head. Like it's part of his costume. It flies by so quick, you really can't register it in the show. But it seems dangerous to have a baby walk around in a full head mask of a witch. That just seems, you know, a risk. It would be like an escalation of Bart's Halloween costumes to go from an executioner in Treehouse of horror 2 to i believe alex from clockwork orange in treehouse of horror 3 that's right yes yeah yeah that's right you know that was pushing pushing the envelope there with the character yeah an executioner he he murders people on behalf of

the state and you know alex and his droogs you know uh murder and assault people just for fun so you know bart's getting more he's getting more twisted as the years go on. True. He's becoming more of an anarchist. Meanwhile, Lisa, very respectful costume of a totem pole of the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest specifically. She makes sure, you know,

it's not just an overall blanket tribute to them. But this is when it's time they look at their haul in our first clip. Get a good haul this year? Jackpot! I'm very, very proud of you kids. Would have gotten even more if Lisa could walk faster. I didn't select this costume for mobility.

I wore it to salute the noble Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Now, children, you can have one piece of candy tonight and save the rest for... If you eat too much, you'll have nightmares. Oh, yeah. Everybody in the family's going to have a bad nightmare tonight. Oh, yeah. Three bad nightmares. I'd like to see that.

They do this even better in the softball episode but i really love when the characters taunt fate of a story it is just so hard where they're just like but three bad nightmares i'd like to see that also when they're all eating the candy together in the original storyboards homer has his head buried in the candy like a pig just eating it mouth first and that's where graining wrote too much like all caps too much there's a line that you can cross of making over too much of a food monster i mean it was it was 30 years ago now uh this episode but it does bring me back to where hollywood used to be and that's like trick-or-treating is happening at night no one is inspecting candy uh i guess there's a rule about eating one piece which was never a rule in my family.

Just like you're home now. I'm not looking at what you're doing. You know, Marge is just trying. She's trying to instill some boundaries. And the kids are just like, well, no, we're just eating it all right now. Like, I am going to get a stomachache and go to bed fucked up on candy. That's, you know, it's the joy of Halloween. And, you know, like the one candy before bed.

I think that was like on the night of Halloween. You you know if your parents are enforcing that you know god jesus you might as well not celebrate halloween but like you know for the the nights after halloween i think it was like a sort of a a gentleman's code to have you could have one piece of candy after dinner for for me halloween candy was to uh be meticulously portioned out of just that i would i would count it all in a hierarchy of like all right this is the best second best third and like yeah i want to go from the top or the bottom and and slowly eliminate them i mean on top of that you have i had a brother and so it's also about competition of who had the most or like who still has it and

we would certainly not pool ours into a pile and share it like that as they do it yeah yeah that's communism just you gotta reward individual entrepreneurship of uh you know trick-or-treating and you could do some you do some horse trading you know i'll give you i'll give you like you know six of those rolls of like the tart the tart hard candies from maybe one like miniature uh milky way or something like that or you know my brother likes certain flavors of starburst more than me we can trade on that level you know also this taught me as a kid that like oh your parents they are giving out the candy but they just eat it too like that's that's their candy to eat as as they're minding the house so yes after that there's a deleted scene of lisa

brushing her teeth very meticulously before bed because she's a good kid they cut that there's a deleted scene of lisa brushing her teeth very meticulously before bed because she's a good kid they cut that there's like let's just get straight to it and though there's also a really good shot i wish they kept in where like they keep this where bart and homer have like a thought that will then influence their dream that'll happen like right before they go to sleep in the deleted scene lisa's like looking out a window and sees a tree branch that kind of like as it fades out looks like the monkey paw. Okay, yeah. I kind of wish they kept that just to show like why does Lisa dream about the monkey paw with little, I mean, maybe she just read the famous book or one of the short story or one of the million things influenced by it.

I always forget this is a Lisa nightmare because the Bart nightmare is Bart's story. The Homer nightmare is, well, Mr. Burns' story, but it's really a Homer story. But this is not the Lisa show in Act 1. No, not so much. Though I guess it's her dream that she believes world peace is unattainable, perhaps. Like, that's her dream. Yeah, yeah, no, that's why it's Lisa's nightmare because, like, you know, like, it's the whole story is about how, like, the ironic fear beneath her sanctimonious do-gooderism. You know what?

You need an A-bomb or two. After all, it turns out, she hates the A-bomb. The Simpsons will be right back. This Halloween. Did you get a good haul this year? Yes, boss. The Simpsons will be right back. are aliens invading Springfield. We can resolve our differences peacefully. And what's happening to Homer? Is it trick or treat? The Simpsons, Thursday at 8 on Fox 5. 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 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 Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie welcome to the break everybody it's henry gilbert and i use my monkey paul wish to have our guest this week will miniker it was such a big big honor to get the co-host of chapo trap house on this week's podcast for the very first time we love will miniker all of his work what a great nice guy he was to us too if you don't know choppo trap house come on

check it out and he's so funny on twitter too at will miniker but i have a feeling you know about that thank you so much again mr miniker also a big thank you to our many awesome supporters at patreon.com slash talking simpsons talking simpsons just passed its five whole years on patreon and me and bob have only been able to do this as their full-time jobs for that half of a decade because of the support of subscribers on there for five bucks a month they not only get to help us live our dreams but they also get access to a monthly episode of talking futurama and talk king of the hill that you won't hear anywhere else where you can hear me and Bob talk about another episode of Futurama and King of the Hill and you get a whole back catalog of over a hundred exclusive podcasts two there of us talking about Futurama King of the

Hill as well as Mission Hill The Critic and our 10 favorite episodes of Batman the animated series plus a ton of other exclusives when you go digging into those five years of Patreon content. Check it all out again at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. But if you want something even nicer than a Milli Vanilli Chicken McNugget, you should sign up at that premium level for $10 a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you get all those five dollar things i just mentioned but then you get a monthly what a cartoon movie podcast in addition to that me and bob going super duper in depth and when i say in depth i mean over five hours most of the time sometimes even over six hours into animated feature films like who framed roger rabbit toy story 3 the little

mermaid south park bigger longer and uncut and that's just four that we've done in 2022 we have over three years of back catalog of us covering things as diverse as akira a goofy movie beavis and butthead do america spider-man into the spider-verse kiki's delivery service millennium actress and tons and tons more you got to check out that entire back catalog for yourself just to see all the cool stuff you're missing out on, in addition to all the $5 stuff I just mentioned. Please check it all out for yourself once more at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. This is based on the 1902 short story horror classic called The Monkey's Paw, obviously, by W.W. Jacobs. It's all online.

You can read this on the toilet. It's so short. Not that I did that, but it's a very short story. And apparently Sam Simon wanted a very rude joke in this segment in that he wanted the final finger of the monkey paw to be the middle finger.

The last one to be unfurled. But they didn't want to do it because it would take a lot of money to get a retake if they changed the joke. And Fox wouldn't even let them blur it out. uh there were limits to what they could do in 1991 but that was a sam simon idea that didn't make the the final cuts too bad when i i hadn't read it in a while i read it before this i've read the longer tweet threads honestly but it's it's a good i mean it's a good little story and uh yeah it's just a million It probably wasn't the first short story that was about ironic punishment or like a wish

goes wrong or whatever. But the second chapter is just Pet Sematary. Yeah. It's not even about the monkey's paw. It's kind of meaningless to it. This also sends them to Morocco, which Hank is area, the master of accents all over, all over the place with his great great and accurate moroccan accents there's another uh like a homer joke you know um morocco monaco the other like a sort of dated

reference like if you're a kid watching this let's just sort of like just whoosh right over your head and homer goes like uh how could princess grace live in a place like this and lisa says dad that's monaco and he goes don't yeah that that says grace uh monaco coming in it's homer's confused morocco for monaco completely flew over my head as a kid yes yeah i uh speaking and also of things that don't make sense on an sd television lisa's shirt only oh and he still and he misspelled it too but yeah i think this is the first time i actually bothered looking this up because uh lisa's shirt you only see it once in the close-up there's a reason that takes a long time to spell out for an animator uh who's working with like all these frames per

second but yeah uh lisa's shirt i kissed the balmoo jalood which i guess they mean the baboo jalood which is a real thing it's the it's like a city gate in fez morocco but obviously it's a blarney stone reference yes uh but you only see that shirt once and i guess their their dictionary or encyclopedia was faulty or something but yeah that is what lisa's shirt means she kissed the city gates you know i could see in an in a 1980s like pre-internet guidebook a localization of that then could have been spelled that way. They didn't have the internet like us to just Google, what's a Babu Jaloud? And then it says, did you mean Babu Jaloud?

I'm probably butchering it myself here. I think you got it right. I think you got it right. All right. I'm shocked they didn't have a Morocco mole reference in here. With all the boomer references in this, I'm shocked they didn't have a morocco mole reference in here with all the with all the boomers in this yeah like yes i'm shocked there's not that uh i also as a kid i love that saying i can do that but i don't wanna like that is the perfect like little boy thing to say but yes homer goes shopping and finds a real deal yeah What is this thing? It is a monkey's paw dating back to

Alal bin Abdalai. It has the power to grant wishes to its owner. Yeah? How much? Sir, I must strongly advise you to not purchase this. Behind every wish lurks grave misfortune. I myself was once president of Algeria. Come on, pal. I don't want to hear your life story. Paw me.

Ew. Homer, where did you get that ugly thing? Oh, you dead little shop right over there. Put it away. It was over there. You'll be sorry. You know, I was just thinking in the next year's episode, Hank Azaria plays another shopkeeper selling cursed items. That's true, yes.

Yeah, yeah. And the gag here where he's like, hey, it was right over there. another shopkeeper selling cursed items that's true yes yeah yeah like and like and and and the gag here where like he's like hey it was right over there and then like the can't like you know it pans over and you see like a little dust devil like spinning away you're like oh haunting and he's like oh wait no it's over there and it's like it's still the same guy same place and he's like hey it's still me and then hey cuz are you doing the voice like yeah you're totally right bob this is like this is a rehearsal of like the perfection of that joke in next year's treehouse of horror where where he buys the the cursed crusty doll and the whole back and forth about that's bad that's good that's bad like which is

i think like when he says the like the sprinkles contain potassium benzoate and then homer just blanks him and he goes that's bad probably i think that may be my favorite gag ever on the simpsons and like the simpsons like the writers are like they were the master of just like the of like taking a joke and then like like pushing it past the limit of what you expect and then giving you like a really stupid payoff that like is unexpected and just so satisfying just the characters they like can i go now like yeah i'm tired of the comedy like yeah i also like the very subtle uh comedic premise of a shopkeeper selling an item but that says you must not buy this sir yes it's sitting on his thing for sale it's right there uh and also just that it's like i was once president of algeria

and over is like i don't get i don't want your life story which i would assume that's a reference to the civil wars in algeria they had they went through a few presidents uh right before 1991 so i would guess that's the joke only in a lot uh in hd can you tell like oh this guy's eyes are two different colors and it's supposed to be a glass eye oh okay yeah yeah i also just love the very wacky like just his little hand motion like you'll be sorry like it's so wacky and silly no no lip sync and uh then we head to the marrakesh airport which are really great just like design on it and and i always love it's a recurring joke i love it every time there are

many direct flights from like any place to directly to springfield like just marrakesh to springfield direct flight and this uh minna parody, which I didn't get as a kid. Uh, and I, and I only get now. Yeah. He didn't get that reference to, um, uh, being sodomized in Turkish prison when you were a kid. Nope. No, but like tiny tunes had jokes about Turkish prisons and things like that.

You know, I think as more comedy went towards, you know, American prison and sexual assault in it, I think that's when Turkish prison jokes kind of went away. Like, we can just joke about American prisons. You don't need to do a Turkish prison for gay sex jokes in prisons. But yeah, I mean, that scene, I hadn't seen the movie in forever. I just pulled up the scene from it. I mean, it is a really great just like harrowing, tense scene when the guy gets caught at the airport.

Just his fear as he's walking out of the plane with tons of heroin. He's like, all right, yep, I'm making it out of the plane. He gets just stopped. He's like, I'm ruined. My life is over. Just the look on his face. And the show lost a lot when it lost Alf Clawson five or six years ago. But I mean, this is an example. stopped he's like i'm brewing like my life is over just the look on his face and you know the show lost a lot when it lost alf klausen like five or six years ago but boy i mean this is an example

like his midnight express parody music his sound like music it's so good yes he had to work in so many styles but it just sounded it sounded so good i listened to the scene like three or four times it's really really good so yes uh we we head back the the family is starting to make wanting to make their choices. Bart wants x-ray specs like you see in the back of a comic book. Lisa wants world peace. I love that Marge says, Homer, there's something I don't like about that severed hand. But it's Maggie who gets to make the first witch, which they think is for a luxury car,

but it's just for a pacifier, just for a brand new pacifier. Maggie's wish has no downside, actually. Like she gets to make a pure wish with no ironic take backs or anything. We don't know what the pacifier tastes like. That's true. But she seems fine with it. But yeah, so then the next wish, of course, is for the Simpsons to be rich and famous. And I got to say, like, this is the funniest bit of this act, I think, to me, because it's just because it's just yeah no it definitely is it's about the actual curse of fame it's not in the original story

they wish for 200 pounds and they get it because uh their child dies and it's given to them it's like a write-off of like well your son died in the machinery uh and the company is going to give you 200 dollars uh for your for your grief or whatever uh 200 pounds for your grief in this case it's like no the punishment is everybody backbites you all the time and hates you behind your back and they're just sick of you like you get to be rich and famous but everybody's tired of your aunt they were saying on the commentary that uh they were feeling the backlash against the Simpsons. They were seeing articles that are saying, you know, the Simpsons out, Ren and Stimpy in, things like that. But yeah, like at least to like, I think my favorite gag of this episode is the get a mammogram man.

The Bart Simpson, like the billboard reminding women to get a mammogram. And then like there's another one the uh the simpsons calypso album yes yeah the simpsons what was it called what was it remember what was it called in the episode oh the simpsons go calypso go calypso yeah okay like i i could be wrong but like i think that may that may be a reference to the calypso album that actor robert mitchum cut robert mitchum did an album of calypso songs called calypso makes me feel so that i i bet you that has to be yeah that seems like such the corniest thing for a celebrity to do of all possible albums like the simpsons i mean they're

they're already dumping on themselves for they cashed in the Christmas before with Simpsons Sings the Blues. And so they're like, well, the sequel album will be the Simpsons Go Calypso. Like to know that I didn't know Robert Mitchum did a Calypso album. That's great. I wonder if Man Smart Woman Smarter is on that. I like that. I like the subtle admission. Like, yeah, that record we did suck, didn't it?

Yes, it sucked. We're sorry. You were right to see it as a cash-in and also like uh like commenting on like both the the the bootleg and then officially licensed just like the extreme explosion of like bart simpson t-shirts and merchandise that like saturated the country and like in the early the very early days of the simpsons before like the simpsons was really the simpsons in my opinion it was like when it was a Bart show. And then when it became a Homer show is when it truly became great. But Bart was like the, you know, he was like, he was the merchandise to death immediately,

like right out of the gate. Our pal of the show, Bart of Darkness, he's a Simpsons merchandise collector. And he posts like pictures of all the old merch constantly. He's always finding new stuff. One common thing the show really nails about that old merch, a lot of the Bart stuff, I would say 90 of it is him saying blank comma man so the ultimate bart merchandise is a shirt that says hi man hi man yes yeah and you know what so during the biden trump debates this is relevant by the

way uh like biden started getting like catchphrases based off those debates i think like will you shut up man was one of them. And come on, man. So when I went, when I went to the Biden website and I posted on Twitter, like 30 bucks for this, what a rip off.

And it was Biden saying something, comma, man. Oh man, that's great. I remember that. And by the way, that is a director,

rich more throwing away the $18 t-shirt. Yes. Yeah. You'll be recolored to be a black man for the nerds episode for soon homer goes to college yeah but hey yeah no actually uh you speak of part of darkness i believe it was him who commissioned like a a real life version of that high man shirt and and briefly was had it on sale i i still have mine i do and i wear it uh proudly i think i think actually that's the shirt i no no i'm sorry i'm in some of our official art i'm drawn wearing that shirt as well

but just bart especially bart with his like the teeth exposed at the top as he's saying it like looking extra stupid like that's that's so good and back to the mammogram thing uh that is based on a real Fox billboard. So on the Fox lot, there was a Bart billboard where the message would change every day. And the message would be something, man. And the writers would write lines for Bart to say, like clever lines. They put them up every day. But soon it turned into like, happy birthday to Fox executive Sherry Gunther, man, or whatever. So one day, writer John viti came up with increased

productivity man and uh james o'brooks got to the fox lot and thought it was real and was very angry about it so uh that's a great little story there was no bart billboard when we were there no it's sadly didn't didn't stay up i love to you see if you look on those original storyboards matt grating even writes under the note his note is like make it more like the real one like make it sure it looks like the exact one i also yeah this uh the gilded truffle it's the first time they go there it is their constant as if the simpsons go to a fancy restaurant it's the gilded truffle and also yeah i just love the line at first they were cute and funny but now they're just annoying like just such just such a funny... Okay, no more fooling around. Pa, this is Bart.

I wish for the Simpsons to be rich and famous. Now you're talking. Yay! Woo-hoo! Look, everybody. My purse exploded. Come on, everybody. We're going to the fanciest restaurant in town.

I'm terribly sorry. I have absolutely nothing until June. The Simpsons. Right this way, please. Homer, maybe fame and fortune aren't as bad as they say. If I hear one more thing about the Simpsons, I swear I'm going to scream. At first they were cute and funny,

but now they're just annoying. 18 bucks for this? What a ripoff. Man smart. A woman is smarter. Man smart. A woman is smarter. Man, this thing's really getting out of hand.

And yes, the song Man Smart, Woman Smarter, it's a classic song from a first debut in 1937, a Calypso classic by King king radio uh it's been covered by a million people ricky ricardo harry belafonte joan baez the carpenters for the in the 80s the grateful dead would do a jam version of it at many of their concerts but what i was shocked with when i finally watched a bunch of those covers this simpsons episode is a lie the the the title is man smart parenthetical woman smarter but the song is that's right the woman is smarter that's right so that's uh that's the actual version of the song there's i i couldn't find any even the 36 version does not say man smart woman smarter the the main spirit

of the song is it's uh it it actually is not about how women are smarter than men in a good way it's that they are more conniving and make a man work all day that's that is the way that a woman is smart but but yeah i mean it's such a great cheesy 70s classic like i think the uh the carpenter's cover of it is one of the funniest to me because they they kind of strip all the calypso and i love the carpenters but they they strip uh in there they get rid of all that culture yeah throw it out the window any of that it's it's the whitest and safest version of the song you've ever heard uh but yes after after this it's time for for lisa to make a wish and uh this is when she's told she was very selfish to to make a wish for world peace uh and uh yeah we we get a reference

to the falkland islands that argentina would not be the first one yes yeah that's actually that is another one of my all-time favorite simpsons gags is when crusty has playing the reruns of his show and they're like don't worry no one will notice and then he's like children the falklands have just been invaded the Falklands I repeat the Falklands are a series of islands off the coast of Argentina he pulls down a map he was ready for this oh man yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah the one American who cared about the Falklands and uh there there's a fun character in this scene thanks to what I think is just like a painting error so they needed characters to fill this fake UN and one of them in the upright corner Agnes skinner with a mustache check it out every time you watch this episode you won't be

able to not stare at the upper right corner of the screen never noticed it before bob that was a great spot by you and yeah then uh we get to see you know the the pentagon turns into the uh a mall danger becomes garden every five corners mall five corners well that's great we should honestly that should happen we like a better use of space and he also the everybody throwing their guns into the furnace including crusty like just like won't be needing this he's got throwing stars and then it kind of turns into the classic coke commercial but they can't use the music they can't use the music but they kept trying to uh with that reference so the wiki is wrong the wikipedia is wrong i'm going to call them both out on this they say this next part is a reference to

the twilight zone 1986 episode a small talent for war i don't see anything in common with it outside of the fact that aliens uh are mocking the idea of world peace that's all that's basically all i saw in common with it and yeah that's all i'll say actually i have a whole i thank you for saying that bob because i also went to the fandom wikipedia uh for this episode and i gotta say i think this is run that one is run by british people who all of their references are wrong they're just like oh you know this is like this movie it's like this is not based on the commentaries or interviews or nothing it's just like you know uh this monkey paw thing it's kind of like the movie aladdin which came out a year later i mean i was like what the fuck are you like this that's a bad their reference page is unhelpful like entirely unhelpful i only double check it of like is there ever a reference

in this that i don't catch but then i go to their reference pages like all wrong like i i'm calling you out uh wiki fan wiki on simpson's uh british simpsons fans boo irish simpsons fans thumbs up oh yes yeah love those love those memes those those those crazy those crazy cunts come up with i i'm using that in the you know like in the in the friendly way yes the british or the the yeah the irish no i think the the irish simpsons uh twitter i love their uh their memes especially if it's just about like mainly about pub culture crossing over with the simpsons reference like well i don't understand this about irish pub culture but through the transitive property of this reference i i understand it i like when they're i like when they're you know uh when they're when they're

when they're slagging off like an Irish political party that means nothing to me. They're like, oh, wow, Finna Gael really is like Mr. Burns. But yes, more so like out of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Kang and Kodos arrive,

and this is when they learn. I mean, also, too, what a great choice. Like they say on the commentary, they were 50-50 50 of like do we bring kang and kodos back do we you know they love the aliens in the first one but they're like uh do we have the aliens every time and after the second appearance they're like yes we have to have the aliens every time they are the greatest two big changes there's no serek the preparer which is j James Earl Jones. Yep. And also they lose the drool fully, which I like, but I could see why they got rid of it. So when they appear in Trios of Forerunner, whenever they're on screen, you can hear the drool dripping down their faces and into their like domes or whatever. This time it's just visual.

Yeah. But yes, here's Kang and Kodos' arrival. People of Earth, we come to you in the spirit of hostility and menace. Now what? Let's be reasonable. We can resolve our differences peacefully. Ow! Your superior intellect is no match

for our puny weapons. Gardener, you've got to do something. What do you want me to do? I'm a baker now. That can't get us with a club. Guess we'd save the neighbor on the tube. Move along, humans. This is all the Simpsons' fault.

Before, I was just bored with their antics and their merchandise. Now I wish they were dead. Bored with their antics and merchandise. I noted, too, that all four of the people in that lineup are all season one weirdos. So, like, yeah. This colonel or whatever, he's one of those just, those just like one line characters i want to know more about like hugh jazz the happiest man in springfield i just love his i'm a baker now yeah he looks like he used to be a movie like an action star and he's like i'm a baker now i can't do it i guess it at least his wish for world peace not

only got rid of all the weapons but also just the drive for self-defense. Like, even now they're just like, no, we can't do anything. I mean, too, I also love the shot of it crushing the Springfield statue and that the head falls off because the head is still loose from Bart cutting it off. Oh, yeah, yeah. It falls off as a separate part. Yeah, but. That's continuity.

They really care about, you know, keeping the tight rules in this universe, which, you know, you've got to appreciate. You know, one thing, though, King Kodos is not as hands-on with their slavery as they would be in Season 8, because back at home, Bart's like, that were slaves, this pos sucks.

Yes, yes. And Ned says, hey, fellow slaverino. So they're not actively really enforcing slavery it's more of an idea yes yeah you know now you're right in uh in citizen kang they get they get a lot more the invasion is a bigger scale that's for sure yeah they're like they're like they're carrying rocks and they're like shackled together by the end of that they're getting like literally whipped and like and this one it's just sort of like they're being they're being menaced and kind of pushed around by like a stick yeah like just just i also love the ow like just ow so but all right let me tell you that shot of bart holding up the

newspaper that says monsters okay slavery plan i found an auction for that cell and it went for one thousand eight hundred dollars i simply couldn't go that high i was like god damn it that's such a good like just to see bart also the family is not behind it so it is an incomplete cell setup but still they get to have a cell on my wall that has bart with a newspaper that says monsters okay slavery plan like what a great just amazing headline god i i love that so much but and it just like it just underscores how like so many of the funniest gags on the simpsons are like are totally visual they're just yeah like it's it's just something that you see and read that like or any sort of like like that just the texture of springfield in the world they inhabit like just the little details are often like really the funniest gags in any given Simpsons episode and uh and here's another great joke here just

Homer knows he is caught on to the ironic wishing and he knows he tries something that nobody in all those classic stories ever tries a run-on sentence that you need with like just and and and I mean Homer's acting Dan Kessler is acting here. And all the posing on it is so great. Geez, now we're slaves. This pause sucks. Okay, okay. I'll make a wish that can't backfire.

I wish for a turkey sandwich on rye bread with lettuce and mustard. And, and I don't want any zombie turkeys. I don't want to turn into a turkey myself. And I don't want any other weird surprises. You got it? Hey! Not bad. Nice hot mustard. Good bread.

Turkey's a little dry. Turkey's a little dry! Oh, bone and cursed teeth! What demon from the depths of hell created thee? Oh, man. I needed to write no notes for that scene because it's all burned into my brain. So perfect. And in our revisiting of different seasons,

well, we're running into a lot of famous freeze frames that became memes. And there's one in this scene. So when Homer is sampling the sandwich, there's a cutaway to Lisa and Marge. Marge is standing behind Lisa with her hand on Lisa's shoulder. Oh, so they're sort of grimacing at each other? Yeah. And somebody online. They're sort of looking at each other, yeah.

Exactly. Somebody online, I don't know who, they flip the image, they added a computer to the table, and that is basically the image you post as a quote retweet to a Megan McArdle article or something like that. Yes, yes, yes. It's just they're they're they're sort of like slightly queasy and sickened by what they're looking at yeah just adding a computer to a simpson shop works so well as a meme too yeah it every every time and internet detectives actually track this down because i posted about it yesterday people have found out

that is actually the computer on lisa's uh table from guess who's coming to criticize dinner which is like uh 10 years after this wow so yeah that's nice yeah that's impressive i also just love you know the the monkey paw is left with like so little options it's just like fine all right it's a dry sandwich like i can't i just love homer's demand of like i don't want to turn into a turkey myself like none of this but yeah so the the paw is dead but uh this just love homer's demand of like i don't want to turn into a turkey myself like none of this but yeah so the the paw is dead but uh this is when homer is gonna throw it out throw it out and i just love how ned is like hey fellow slaver you know is that one of those monkey paw dealies that you wish for things just instantly knows what it is and i love how the paw just reloads

if you pass it to a new person it reloads but apparently it counts for like your whole family because it didn't change passing around within the family but i guess if it's passed over to ned that's when it reloads but and and ned ned has no irony like his are just what he wishes like he gets and just the shot of him wishing that mo could get rid of the aliens and then just mo running back with a board with a nail in it like that's so good it feels like they didn't have dialogue for that scene so they put in some real like popeye dialogue that's why mo's like enslave humanity will you yes it feels like a real like popeye dub and again they i love kang and koto's like kang doing the speech of that it's like the end of of a sci-fi film,

but he's gotten the wrong moral of like, as soon as there'll be a bigger board and a bigger nail, that will destroy them all. Like, it's so good. I guess my first wish is to get rid of those awful aliens. He's got a board with a nail in it! And save humanity, will ya? Run, Kodos!

Well, Kang, it seems the Earthlings won. Did they? That board with the nail in it may have defeated us, but the humans won't stop there. They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails. Soon, they will make a board with the nails so big it will destroy them all. Hey, Homer, this little thing of a jig really works great.

Now that I've saved the earth, maybe I ought to spruce up the old homestead. I wish I had a monkey's paw. And yes, this is where there's a big change from the uh the the boards uh that i don't know how far it got in animation because definitely the ending feels like they reworked final animation as well yeah i guess in this one uh it's reused animation from you know the episode henry it's from i forget which one it is but uh the i wish i had a monkey's paws from another episode yeah i think the animation i think it's from uh the dead putting society i think it's from that okay yeah i think you're right but in the in the original uh version of this as soon as ned gets his castle homer goes it's not fair it's not fair and he runs over to ned's castle starts pounding on the door and from inside the castle you hear ned saying boy it sure is sure it's hard to relax all that banging outside and he makes homer disappear he wishes homer away yes yeah which it's uh it has more action but i do kind of like that the scene ends

with homer saying i wish i had a monkey's paw but uh it's but at some point off screen lisa wakes up terrified and uh we start the next scene with her asking if she can sleep in bed with bart just to not be alone and scared and bart of course like any older brother is like no go away i'm sleeping and he needs to be bribed oh god talk about more uh good on point fully the sound of eating that brittle candy necklace candy and then pulling the disgusting band out of your mouth yeah these can't be manufactured today, can they? Boy, you would think not, right? But then again, I feel like if you go to the cheapest candy in the aisle,

I bet you could find it still. Candy cigarettes, they're gone. But I bet these candy necklaces still exist somewhere. 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,

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proclaims less talk more sleep goes goes right back to sleep in his dream and this again a great segment uh me and me and bob did a lot of watching for this one uh we did catch up yeah so obviously a parody of the november 1961 episode of the twilight. It's a good life, so here's some scary math for all you folks out there. This episode of The Simpsons airs on October 91. That episode aired in November 61. We are now

further past this episode than they were past The Twilight Zone episode, so that's some scary math for you. Sorry, it took my brain a while to process it. That's why I was pausing. Alright, I'm judging it based while to process it. That's why I was pausing. I'm judging it based on the remake of this episode in the Twilight Zone movie directed by Joe Dante. So I'm going to give myself a little bit more breathing room here as far as the grim hand of fate

and the inexorable march of time leading us to the grave. You know, that's only almost 40 years old now. Yeah. Hey, next year. Yeah, and Henry and I watched both both of these i guess we can give our thoughts on them but yes obviously it goes without saying the original twilight zone episode is so great so haunting chloris leachman is in it she's amazing in it that little fucker you want to just smash his head in you hope somebody does it's the moral of the story smash the kid's head in but, but nobody will do it. And it's just the greatest, sweatiest, most desperate people in this horrible situation. And the most haunting thing to me about that story is that nothing exists anymore outside of this group of people.

They are just in hell. In Ohio. It makes it worse. Yeah, I know. They can never leave Ohio. They're just trapped there forever i mean bill moomy is uh perfect as this haunting super spoiled child and just yeah every every actor around him going like and that's good that's real good oh it's good you did that oh it's the best tv

we love it like i i think it's really a great argument for child free by choice people too because it shows you know i see these kids they fuck everything up it's a hashtag it's also sort of a terrifying portrait about how like um like children if you imbued them with like forget god like power it's just like any level of like adult power and authority like kids don't have morality like morality is something that you need to like develop as you mature into adulthood and like a kid with godlike powers would be like you know satan incarnate yeah i when they talk about it you never see it it's always off screen but when they're just like oh look at that i made a

three-headed gopher well i'm gonna kill it now and just everyone is so disturbed by it but then they have to i mean it is just acting toward a force because it all is sold through the acting of just how terrified everyone is of him and the Dante segment I like it for what it is but I it's got a I mean because Spielberg is on that project has a weird like Spielberg equality where the kid is too cute and he's misunderstood yeah

the ending I don't like as much but I'm thinking maybe that woman had the right idea like no you ally with the evil child you don't try to fight him you join ally with the evil child. You don't try to fight him. You join forces with the evil child. Well, for me watching it, I think Dante imbued a little more, like his Anthony is slightly older, like he's not a little kid.

And I think there is a little like boyhood crush he has on Helen in that. I think there's a little to that, that she's maybe taking advantage of that to control this God, this horrifying God. But I mean, I definitely little to that, that she's maybe taking advantage of that to control this god, this horrifying god. But, I mean, I definitely agree with that, Anthony's view of like, yes, cartoons should be on in every room. And every room you walk into should have more cartoons on it. And carnival food for dinner.

Carnival food for dinner, yeah. And I also like the villain from UHF, Ken McCarthy, who's in it. He's great. But, of course, I wanted to rewatch it, too, because Nancy Cartwright, Bart herself, is who's in it he's great and but of course i wanted to re-watch it too because nancy cartwright bart herself is the sister in it and she is killed inside a cartoon she is sent to live in a cartoon and is killed by it which is pretty funny that's i mean yeah but that's very very meta yeah and cloris leachman was on the simpsons last season that's right so two connections there i mean yeah like re-watch it again.

If you haven't seen it in forever, like I hadn't watched the original 61 version in forever. It's so good. Every actor in it is amazing. They're just covered in sweat. It's so great. Yeah, and the parody of the intro is so perfect because the intro for the episode is about 90 seconds long,

almost too long, where it's just like the parody where Rod Serling is intro for the episode is about like 90 seconds long almost too long where it's just like the parody where Rod Serling is like something weird is going on something kind of fucked up you wouldn't believe how weird and fucked up this is and then would you believe it's a little boy that like it's the most perfect parody of that like over the top intro

yes I don't know if you guys clocked this or not but the intro to Bard uh bard's nightmare uh like everyone's walking down the street and they're like they're grimacing like this like you know rictus smiles they're like yes this is good we're happy we're happy we're thinking good thoughts and uh jasper is the one who fucks up and he's like i'm getting mighty sick of this and then it's just like bloop and it uh morphs him into like some sort of dog dog man, like a dog with a man's face, which is, I mean, like 1000 percent a reference to the Philip Kaufman remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mike, Mike Reese on the commentary says there's there's almost too many parodies in this episode.

Yeah, man. I rewatch. I haven't watched that movie in full and forever. Again, I pulled up that scene last night. I was like, oh, yeah, it's really creepy that just this mask they put on a dog and the way the tongue just sticks out of the dog's mouth in that scene. Oh, it's like, oh, it's such a disturbing scene in the Invasion of the Body Smashers remake. It's so horrific. During lockdown, a few times I have posted that, Jasper, I'm getting mighty sick of this. Yes, yeah. You know, it's how I think, i'm getting mighty sick of this yes yeah i uh you know i it's how i think like getting mighty sick of this and uh yeah i there's another there's another scene of this it certainly reminds me of podcasting sometimes too but or at least pandemic podcasting but yeah you're

right bob the i'm so glad i re-watched the old twilight zone because they so perfectly parody the the how full of himself serling is of like, bet you didn't see that coming. Six year old boy. That's right. Like, so, so proud of himself. But yeah, so as the, the family eats together, Bart is, is torturing him and they're all, they're so great at, at playing off of him here. Presented for your consideration, Springfield, an average little town with a not-so-average monster.

The people of Springfield have to make sure they think happy thoughts and say happy things because this particular monster can read minds and, if displeased, can turn people into grotesque walking terrors. Everythos, everythos.

Boy, I'm getting mighty sick of this. Ruff, ruff, ruff, bow, wow. And did I mention that the monster is a ten-year-old boy? Quite a twist, huh? Bet you didn't see that one coming. Good morning! Morning! Good morning, dear. bet you didn't see that one coming good morning morning good morning dear hiya bart how's my boy oh man just like yeah i i just love also marge's line later after he transforms uh snowball too she's just like oh good the curtains are on fire

uh it's good that you made that awful thing part it's real good just uh so so funny and and uh and like that snowball too also kind of turns into like the duckamuck transformation daffy i i also like that just design is great i i think graining's big note on that was that he just didn't want it to look like snowball was in pain that was his big uh storyboards yeah snowball is like uh breathing comfortably after that it's happy to be that way yeah yeah but uh and the entire family is tortured by bart's godlike powers he heads off and uh gets on the school bus all the kids terrified of him on the school bus like that's so great looking too the way the way sherry is the closest as he gets

out like ah then runs to the back and i love i love the line with uh i love the line with auto where he's like he's like move over auto i'm driving the bus he's like oh like sorry like i can't do that and he's like wait wait oh yeah you're the kid with all those gnarly powers auto has forgotten yeah and we're reaching the end of auto like auto is functionally dead after the auto show because they just ran out of auto material so it's fun to see him still in his bus function yes yeah having conversations with Bart he's so stupid of a stoner he's just he forgets the god that lives in their town and gets whatever he wants like he just completely uh but then once

he agrees to it I just love too that his his death drive he's like hey this is fun isn't it we're all gonna die aren't we just ah so good uh also cut there was a uh in the storyboards there's a joke of wendell puking over the bus uh seat and uh graining wrote no delete this we're not doing a puke we're not we're not going all the way with the puke. Wendell got to puke like twice in this entire series. And so Bart heads to school. This is when, well, he realizes he loves school. Well, class, the history of our country has been changed again. To correspond with Bart's answers on yesterday's test. America was now discovered in 1942 by some guy. And our country isn't called America anymore.

It's Bonerland. Your attention, please. This is Principal Skinner. Bart, this one's for you. Hello, my baby. Hello, my honey. Hello, my ragtime gal. Send me your kiss by water.

Baby, my... I was taffing. Hold on, I'll check. Hey, everybody. I'm a stupid moron with an ugly face and a big butt, and my butt smells, and I like to kiss my own butt. Wait a minute. You know, I always forget. So I love Mo reading the most, you know, tired, uncreative prank call joke in the world.

I forget the actual joke is, hey, wait a minute. He's not playing along with Bart. He's not doing it for Bart's sake. He actually wants to go by it. Yeah, that's great. It's just like I said, the master of the subverted expectation. You know, like if the joke is leading you in one very obvious direction and then they juke left at the last moment in a very always very funny ways

uh i was thinking like the the scene that we're uh we just played it where uh skinner is serenading bart over the school pa system with um like a barbershop song i mean obviously not the first time skinner uh does his barbershop thing but i was just thinking like it's it's it's an odd choice and it made me think of when we actually when we uh we interviewed bill oakley on the show like a long time ago it's a couple years back and he said that when they were writing like when he would write homer and they were writing any of the adults on the show they were always writing it from the perspective of like their parents generation so there's always this odd there's always like this like this little like these little touches of like old timey uh like references or just things

that feel sort of out of place or like of a different era for like when it's supposed to be depicting that like i always just sort of like take notice of now uh after after he said that to us on the show yeah i i always love that removal like uh bill bill mentioned to uh i uh we've had on the art show too he's he mentioned like when he did grandpa jokes he was like basing it on his grandpa who was born like before 1900 like yeah he's like oh yeah i can't if i do grandpa jokes now it should be about a grandpa who was born in like 1953 like is that or like like 39 maybe tops it's too bad with the slide of time like grandpa in a current simpsons episode he can't be a world war ii vet anymore or he would have had to enlist when he was like 13 or

something and lied like that's the the best thing for him to be a hunter yes yeah yeah i mean they're they're retconning a homer and marge uh their their life stories but not yeah to be our age but not but not grandpa not yet he's still i think canonically a world war two vet yeah i i watched a new one last year and he was still a world war two vet impossibly i mean that also means he had he had homework when he was like 65 or something which you know is possible there's old dads but still it's and he also first time i noticed there among the apples on edna's desk is a dead mouse which i guess guess that was Bart's gift to her. I noticed that for the first time, too. I wasn't sure if it was evidence of a cut joke or something or what.

But yeah, there's a dead mouse on her desk with apples. It was not in the storyboards. I'll say that. I also love Barney's like, happy thoughts, happy thoughts. It's really good. But we then head home, and it wouldn't be this era of The Simpsons if there wasn't a joke about gambling on football, which is what all the writers were doing on the show then. I think every sport.

Yeah, every sport, yes. But football most of all, yeah. And most importantly, betting on the spread. Yes, yes, yeah. It has to be the score. Lisa the Greek comes a little after this, but that's when all of us learned a lot of the rules about uh football gambling as as children again i i have the full clipper because every second of this i love so so much as as bark comes yeah this this this is the best joke in in this segment for sure come on make it make it make it please please please i want to watch crusty

not a boy if they make this field goal I win 50 bucks the kick is up it's looking good the ball is turning into a fat bald guy no good and you know what we say every time something strange happens it's good that Bart did that. It's very good. Well, we're still on 346 consecutive hours. And all because of one little boy who won't let me stop. Anyway, now let's go over and see if Sideshow Mel has any more of those legal over-the-counter wake-up drugs of his oh god damn it uh i love every second yeah and the crusty scene uh was laid out by brad bird still on the show like he he liked to do a crusty scene every now and then which is why it looks kind of off model but awesome no yeah that's they they said that brad bird back then he was

very protective of the character and so he's like no that's my yoink that's my scene i'm doing i mean every second of it is so good i you can tell he heard dan's great performance of crusty is just strung out and just like who won't let me stop and and brad bird if you see on the on the storyboards you can pull them up they look good and it's a good disheveled crusty but none of those poses are in there like that's what makes it you know just yeah crusty looks absolutely haggard the the pain on his face that he's been awake for two weeks straight that's how that's what the math lines up to on that like part won't even let him sleep when bart sleeps he's just like nope you have to always be on tv never stop and just his his screaming like god damn every and and yeah there were some me and bob were very productive podcasters during the pandemic and there were a

couple days that felt a little like a little bit like that yeah and also just the to hear this commentator say the ball is turning into a fat bald guy what happens whenever something strange like that happens it's good that bart did that it's very good like everybody in the world knows of a weird thing happened bart did it and it's good that bart did that i love how this all happens in the same scene so bart wishes homer away to the football game he watches the crusty clip and then attacks he drops homer back off to rejoin the scene yes yes it yes, it's so good. Same with the way how he enters the room with just a smile on his face, and then in his head he's saying like, don't even think,

he can read your thoughts, then bash him in the head, and then just Bart's pointed him like, boom. I guess in a way, Bart is defending himself in that very moment there. He's not punishing Homer for wanting to listen to a Perry Como you know that's not why he's punishing him like bill moomy does in the original one but uh yeah bart turns him into the jack-in-the-box which looks amazing like it's so great it's you know they they did their best in 61 with it but they kind of just have to like it's really just in silhouette the man turning into the jack the one shot i i wish they would lose is the actual actor kind of bobbing back and forth for a few seconds. It's really lame. And I wish they would have cut that out.

But I like how this episode picks up after the end of that one where it's like, well, now hang out with the Jack in the Box. Yeah. What happens after that? Yeah. A sort of like an early and then never again really recurring Simpsons character, the child psychologist. Was it like, what's his name? Marvin? Dr. Marvin Monroe.

Then he's like a call-in, like a Frasier type character. But sort of like he was around a lot in the very early seasons of The Simpsons. Then he kind of drops off. But I do really also like another sort of like reading visual gag is that when they go to see him, he is certified by the Bonerland Medical Association. So now everything now has been retconned into bart's reality where america is now boner land it's it wasn't just in the classroom everybody accepted it is different yeah i yeah like marvin monroe we've talked about him before but he was a production episode one

character he launched with the show yes yeah uh and he was never popular oh and will you might uh you'll be i think impressed to know this that originally they thought that character was going to be played by tom likas like the radio personality what tom likas yes he uh this is on the dvds for season one they actually have the original table read script for that episode and in the cast list it's tom likus and he was there for the table read and uh i believe it was jay cogan in another interview said like oh yeah tom likus got fired during the table read like that we hate him so much they kicked him out during the table read yeah wow jesus wow wow his personality was sort of uh toxic and annoying that You surprised me.

But also cut from the storyboards, when Bart says Lisa did it, they then would do a back and forth like, no, I didn't. Yes, I did. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. And then Bart uses his powers to then make her

basically hypnotize and say, yes, I did, mother, and walks away. So they cut out him hurting lisa i think that was probably also like a graining graining didn't write a note on yeah but i was like uh you know maybe they don't want to have him bart directly hurt lisa maybe that's too dark for this episode not for later tree houses but for this one yes and yeah i guess their point here too is like well if anthony had just been given like proper therapy as a child maybe maybe these things wouldn't have happened with him you like attention don't you bart do i ever well we

all do the problem is that you don't care whether you get good attention for say getting high marks in school or bad attention for say turning your father into a jack-in-the-box homer i see you agree with my theory i'm not nodding it's the air conditioning well that's too bad because the attention the boy craves should be coming from you i want you to spend some quality time with him get to know him maybe even love him also there's a great another great note on the storyboard i showed you that too bob that like when they were setting up this scene it's very similar to a butterfinger ad they did as well and matt graining actually wrote on it like make this look better than the Butterfinger ad.

He thought the Butterfinger ad wasn't funny. There was a Marvin Monroe Butterfinger ad, right? Yes, yeah. Bart is, like, diagnosed with Butterfinger obsession. And Marvin, he's really, like all therapists, he's just lying to Bart to steal something from him as as all therapists do yeah I yeah don't trust them don't trust them there's another important lesson I learned early along in the watching The Simpsons as a kid is yeah never go to therapy and I never have or will uh but the way he says like Homer I see you agree with my theory I'm not nodding it's the air conditioning like what a great life he see he seems annoyed but then comes in i swear at this point it already is like the second one of

these in the series right bob and not the last yes so uh you won't know this if you're not 60 but uh there was a very very famous psa on in the 60s and early 70s uh called like father like son and in the psa it's about like what a minute and a half long henry yeah i'm just music like i'm not gonna we can't play it because it's it's really just the music they parody in this sequence of bart and homer hanging out but in the but in the psa it's like a small three-year-old child hanging out with his dad and he's like imitating the things his dad does like his dad is fixing a thing he's picking up a little toy hammer it's very adorable but then his dad starts smoking a cigarette and he pulls out a cigarette and the voiceover says like father like son think about it so it's a psa saying your kid will imitate you

if you if you're smoking around him that was seen a ton by boomers i think it was there this is your brain on drugs yeah for the late 60s so the music in this montage is this is this is your dad on cigs exactly exactly. Think about it. But yeah, instead of getting the music they use in the commercial, they try to, but the guy wanted money. They did a parody of the music from that PSA from 1967. And I know a lot of boomers have seen that because it's also a joke on Mystery Science Theater. So many times. Yeah, I know you're a misty.

You've had on Bill Corbett on so many great episodes of Childsville. Absolutely, absolutely. Bill Corbett, one of the nicest gentlemen I've ever met. An absolute treasure, Bill Corbett. And on Mystery Science Theater, if there was ever a scene where people were just doing stuff to music over it and nothing happens for a while, that's when Tom Servo when bob servo when tom

servo would say think about it won't you like that every every single time uh but uh but yeah all they're hanging out is cute i love i like that it's just the most wholesome things that like bart is like now he's going to church with him and yeah they're going to they're going to pray together you know what once again the simpsons is like the only American sitcom to acknowledge a religious life for its characters for the most part. That scoffing mom in the room with me should have appreciated this scene. Yeah, yeah. But on the contrary, they say this church image is a parody of a Rockwell painting, but they named the wrong one. So listeners out there, which one is this?

Because we're still in the era where you can parody famous paintings and photographs in 1991 you know these comedy writers they had it so easy because there was like you know a hundred hours of things that everybody remembered because there's only like three networks yeah they were they're like they were mining from when america was still a monoculture and like that, like the shared cultural references could be satirized in a way that was, you know, like I said, like still remains timeless, but ultimately would land to like,

you know, to the wide, wide variety of viewers. I was thinking that watching the 83 Twilight Zone movie too, that like the start of the movie is literally Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks just talking to each other like

hey remember old tv yeah i remember that remember this theme song it's just yeah and and and it really was just this dream of like these boomer directors who watched the twilight zone as kids and wished they're like oh man i remember those so well but i wish they had better special effects like and now i'm finally going to give the special effects these deserve like they're no better than us with with their with reliving their childhoods through through content you know they're not so special but yeah so bart then learns his lesson changes homer back uh i also love homer tucking his son into bed with his mouth is very but you know that sounded wrong when i said that there but um but yes that just that like i love you dad i love you too son i uh again talking about watching this with moms

my mom called it before she's when she saw the treacly ending happening she said this is bart's nightmare and he and he's gonna oh there. Very clever. My mom caught it beforehand. Quite an astute viewing, yeah. But yes, Bart wakes up from his bad dream ending in our last clip of Act 2. Good night, son. Good night, Dad. You know, these last few days have been really swell. I wish there was something I could do to repay you. Well, if you wanted to, you could give me my body back you got it

hey hey oh whoa thanks boy i love you dad i love you son great scream great and the animation too the wiggly mouth on a scream great great stuff uh but okay the next scene starts it's 4 a.m uh homer i've now lived the life of or i did when i worked in an office job like i'm just waking up at 4 a.m and thinking like i gotta get up and go back to work the pain of that or also just the fun the fun math of your anytime i wake up at night i'm like i know like you just say uh four hours 30 minutes like i know exactly how much time i usually break down in the movies it's like that's one lord of the rings i can sleep until it's time to go but this this segment but uh homer's nightmare does capture like the uh you know the nightmare of having a job

i don't know if you've had this experience where like you go to a job every day in an office and then you start remembering dreams that just take place in your office that like aren't nightmares, aren't especially good or bad dreams, but that your dream reality is just completely colonized by just your job. Like that's what you're dreaming. That's not even like an anxiety dream. You're just at work in the blissful hours of the day in which you are not conscious and like free from the clock. is a truly horrific experience yeah your subconscious is on the clock no matter

what even though bob and me have been living the podcast life for a few years now even then i still i feel like even a few months ago i had like a well i'm in the office i just i'm just walking around that old office from like 10 years ago and it's, it won't go away. Like it's just always, always there haunting me. But man, yeah, Bob, this is one of the best looking things they ever did on the show, right? I feel like this segment does not get enough credit because the first two are just so good.

I feel like this one mostly gets forgotten because I honestly, the premise is not quite as good. It's about Homer becoming Frankenstein, but then he's Frankenstein for about 20 seconds. But at this point in the show, they're really in love with Burns and Smithers, which is why they are in the front seat in this segment. Jim Reardon says they wanted this to be their animation tour de force. And it is a great looking bit of both character animation and staging and background design. It's a very beautiful segment.

Not as funny as the first two, but still, I think it does not get enough credit, this one. Yeah, it's like a half-baked frankenstein kind of thing uh they're like oh what you know you get some of the like you know the the classic universal frankenstein in there but you also i don't know you get a little robocop mixed in as well which is really a modern frankenstein and by modern i mean 36 years ago well frankenstein was a modern Prometheus. That's true. Take that. Ah, there we go. Ah, there we go. I went to college. But yes, Homer in his dream, it's not too different at first.

A couple of hours I have to get up and go to work. Gotta go to work. Go to work. Ooh, look at them smithers. Gold brickers, layabouts, slugabeds. Little do they realize their days of suckling at my teat are numbered. Oh, in the meantime, sir, may I suggest a random firing? Just to throw the fear of God into them.

Very well. Eeny, meeny, miny. Ugh, him. Attention, Homer Simpson. Attention, Homer Simpson. Wake up, Homer. Hey, what? What? You're fired.

For what? For sleeping on the job. How do you know I was sleeping? We've been watching you on the surveillance camera. Camera? Doh! Homer in the same shot, like the same static shot of him slowly finding the camera like that's that's a really good like setup too that looks great and you know the smithers is uh

just so bloodless in this one too it's just like oh yeah it's a throw the fear god into them and just uh and also yeah they're just they love burns talking this is just like the burns like lay about slug abeds slug abed slug abeds i love the i love that like the Burns layabouts, slugabeds. Slugabeds. I love the deep pulls. Once again, extremely antiquated vocabulary that Mr. Burns will come up with. Mr. Burns and Grandpa, but Mr. Burns especially, will come out with. And yeah, 30 years later, the dream of automating every job by a billionaire is no... Burns is bright now as it does yeah yes yeah

sick yeah he's a proto bezos figure and he says like yeah the robot he wants to invent he says will be the uh the greatest breakthrough in labor relations since the cat of nine tails yes yeah i mean the joke here is that like oh isn't burn so evil no one would be this evil it's like nah this this barely even keeps up with current day evil i think but he's not even killing any monkeys for this you know what you're right yeah monkey death here i yeah i mean they're they're trying to steal a brain from like a fresh corpse they're not just pulling it out of fucking chimp or something to put a microchip in it but yes the well also he builds a robot that

works dang it not like not like all these fake like convention presentation robots that elon musk builds uh but yes this again this little bit here of burns talking about his need for a brain like is so good like that he's uh i i'll hear i'll it. You know, Smithers, I've always despised the laziness of the common worker. Then I realized his spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. So I replaced the flesh, which is weak, with steel, which is strong.

Behold, the greatest breakthrough in labor relations since the Cato IX times. How long until it's up and running, sir? pants on smithers first we need the human brain i just love how needlessly burns explains it like he already said like yes the the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak so i replace the flesh which is weak like just he has to just like so stupidly over explain it like and just how he puts his finger i'm like which is weak. Like just the ass too. Just like so stupidly over-explained it. Like, and just how he puts his finger up like, which is weak.

If you remember what I just said, the flesh was weak. And yeah, the design on it, it's Bender pretty much. Like it's like 80% Bender from Futura. It's a huge Bender. I didn't realize that, but yeah, you're right.

It is a proto Bender. And if you look at the storyboards, they're kind of, there's actually like two versions of him that's kind of there's a halfway robot version but it's not all the way to the design and then your other one is like it's just a classic cheney frankenstein design of homer which i'm glad they went with like no no make it a cool robot like why i don't need to see homer with bolts in his neck or whatever like let's let's let's not do so direct of a frankenstein thing i i kind of prefer the robot version yeah i guess

it's more of a robot than frankenstein even though i've seen it a billion times like oh yeah he's a robot but you barely see the homer robot really do anything yes yeah but yes first uh we cut homer looking for a new job in the want ads needs to know how to use an ultrasonic lithotripter which is a real medical device used to break up kidney stones with ultrasonic vibrations shot into your kidneys so which uh the commentary even aljean's like oh yeah how hard can that be just point it at it and zap it like that's all you gotta do but uh you know they didn't have google back then they just they knew it because they were putting their harvard brains to work which uh also mike race's dad is a doctor oh that's true yes yeah you could have called him up yeah you know well actually uh as a quick aside on choppo you guys have done uh so well talking about this

like pipeline of ivy league schools of harvard and yale to soft power places like say the cia or fbi or whatnot but what do you think of like Harvard also being the breeding ground for so many of the the classic Simpsons writers you know I mean it's like you cannot have you know like like everything is uh pregnant with its opposite in life so like Harvard an institution of great evil you know uh feeding into uh true sources of satanic power in the world like the the CIA and the American government and, you know, McKinsey. I mean, go down the list.

Big law, Jeffrey Epstein, you know, Larry Summers. Go down the list here. But you cannot have an institution pregnant with such truly satanic evil without having its opposite in some way. And I think the truly redemptive part is all of the wonderful comedy writers. I mean, you know, despite their association with um with with true evil i think have uh have imbibed um the that vein of the american ruling class and channeled it into as i said uh the finest work of american popular culture ever produced in the simpsons you know maybe they were shown the all the illuminati stuff there they're like nah and that that's that's how it sucks i want to write i want to do the harvard lampoon was sort of like the dark souls bonfire within the institution yes

uh i think what was i've i've if you guys like have you guys have you guys been to the the lampoon castle that they have there it it is it is it is very it is very dark souls adjacent let's just say that you know i yeah i had forgotten it was a castle until recently i was listening to it was it was conan o'brien interviewing john mulaney and mulaney was asking him harvard lampoon questions and conan jokes about like yeah i was in the castle and we did this and i was like oh that funny conan o'brien joking about how opulent harvard is that they were in a castle and i was like like, Oh no, wait, no, it's the, I Googled it. It was like, you know,

it's an actual castle. Like it's on, on Harvard property. Yes. Uh, but Homer then takes the job of grave digger. Uh, and we get another appearance of good old groundskeeper,

Willie. Uh, they're really in love with him in season three. They, they introduced him late in season two. And they're like, this guy is funny. We got to keep having him just yell at people in the script.

He's grave digger, Willie. Oh man. He's, he can sometimes just be a grave digger as the need uh approaches he can just do it but it's any kind of groundskeeping you know because you know what is a grave digger other than just you know a groundskeeper and and of course the second willie walks away. Homer falls asleep just in the inside and open grave. In an open grave, yeah. And so, yes, Burns and Smithers are then skulking around the graveyard. I just love Burns.

Great animation. Like, yeah, the lighting of it, the creepiness of it, and just Burns saying, I feel like a kid in a candy store. Hello. Hello. What's this? He's just so happy. Sorry, go ahead.

I think this is the first time they do a joke about Homer smells horrible. I think this is the first time they do that joke. He smells worse than the rendering plant. Yes. Yeah. I think my grease even regretted that. It's just like, did we have to? We make him a giant fat food monster.

We also have to make him the smelliest man alive too who smells worse than death this is when uh they as they're taking over away again the acting of burns here is so fucking funny what corpse should we unearth sir i don't know i feel like a kid in a candy store. Hello. An open grave. Smithers, get him out quickly. The stench is overpowering. Wait a minute, sir. That's Homer Simpson. He wasn't exactly a model employee.

Well, who is a model... employee? Simpson will do just fine, sir. Did you hear that, sir? No, I didn't. Who is it? Frankenstein? The booger man? Did you hear that, sir? No, I didn't. Who is it? Frankenstein? The booger man? It's the man in the bag, sir. I think he's a lion.

Bedcorps! Bedcorps! Stop scaring Smithers! Satisfied? Thank you, sir. 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 net zero hope at electric island.ie upon watching it this time i thought no we hear homer's death rattle we hear his final breath uh or at least not yeah you're right yeah yeah you're right i god i just love how stupid they are this is such just a comedy sketch of like- The man in the bag. The man in the bag. So like, he's clearly not dead. He's like, okay, bad corpse. And he just, while saying bad corpse,

he beats a man to death. This is like unprecedented strength of Mr. Burns. He's so powerful in this segment. Yeah, yeah. Oh, guys, like bad corpse. He stoves Homer's skull in with a shovel. God, it's so. And also just the look on his face as he's seeing the X-ray of Smithers'

floating brain, like that's so good. And Smithers already can tell the end of this story. Like he's like, well, no, he's a bad employee. He should not be in your robot. But his own sense of self-preservation stops him from correcting that problem. We cut then to the sound. As a kid, it just really creeped me out to see Homer's head cut off and it just like emptily tumbled to the ground and just roll around like an empty like...

Thermos lid. Yeah, that's what it reminded me of. And then again, this is a little quick clip, but just Burns is so funny here. Smithers, hand me that ice cream scoop. Ice cream scoop? Damn it, Smithers. This isn't rocket science.

It's brain surgery. Hello. Look at me. I'm Davy Crockett. Yeah, like this stuck with me, too, as a kid. Just how he rips the brain out of homer's skull and there's a bit of the spinal column still dangling man the way it like stretches and pops yeah god yeah i mean there's no putting that back but yeah that that creeped me out as a kid and then it leads to uh when we interviewed jay cogan he still was proud of this joke i think he said it was his

favorite joke he ever pitched uh in an episode he didn't it doesn't have the writing credit for which was putting the brain with the spinal cord on top of the head and saying look at me i'm davy crockett and they they they say it on the commentary it's one of their everybody on the commentary's favorite moment of like when jay kogan acted that out they were laughing for like minutes afterward like literally rolling on the floor laughing at just how how funny that idea was to them they they i mean his act out of pointing at his head while he has like ah look at me like it's kind of like pirouetting like yeah yeah though oh god the way is it's just pulled out like gum or whatever

just the stretch of it out of his brain we get a lengthy scene of them uh building everything they take a break to eat pizza in the original storyboards homer is in the background his corpse is there at the table with him eating pizza matt graining x through that i like that joke so they then the robot comes alive we have a big parody of the it's the live scene but him saying that the guy at radio shack told him he was bad but who's mad now what a great line the first person shot maybe i just love robocop too much but i think i it feels like a reference to robocop yeah like uh the little flashes you see as like time is passing and then when they finally wake him up,

that's kind of, I think, what they're doing with this. I think so, I think. But yeah, and then the Homer bot comes alive, instantly finds donuts and smashes through a wall. Just like, it's the way it, like, herky-jerkily moves around and smashes through the walls. Again, like, amazing animation, too. I really like this next mean-spirited scene that's not necessary at all. I don't think it's in the storyboards, even. I really like this next mean spirited scene.

That's not necessary at all. I don't think it's in the storyboards even. I didn't see it in there. I think Carson's drawn in there. But I don't think it's this bad of a joke. It's like they're just checking in with the family. And Bart and Lisa are up watching Johnny Carson. Doing a terrible Carnac joke.

And Marge has to remind them. That Homer's been gone for two days. I always forget this scene is in here, but I mean, Gene and Reese worked on Carson and didn't have a good time. So there's a lot of Carson bashing until he came in and was the nicest guy ever. Yes. Yeah. What's really funny on the timeline of this is that like, so I double check this.

So those storyboards, which means the script was even before that, the storyboards were April. It was May whenon announced his retirement so they didn't know to be respectful of carson yet i'm just like oh the the elder statesman of comedy we all love him it was right before that so it's just like boy carson like sucks right like he's not funny it's just this old man doing this old routine david letterman's way better and uh they by the time the episode comes out now it's like oh it's it's respect-a-thon uh carson again but i love the mean spirit it's like this isn't funny like they'll they'll have a joke i think a few months after

this of bart and lisa seeing again another bad carson joke about uh millie vanillie impersonating a mcnugget or whatever they say well it's still great to be up yeah it's still fun to be up late i would also i would also appreciate later in the run of the series when they shit all over garrison keeler because my parents were big prairie home companion fans and i would often have to listen to that when we were like in a car driving someplace so when the simpsons finally finally trained their guns on uh mr garrison keeler and his prairie home companion i was i i thrilled, thrilled by that. It's really great to not to hear about him ever again.

Yeah, yeah. You know what? He's gone. He's, well, I feel like he, every now and then I feel like I read he's trying to make some comeback or whatever. But yeah, at least he's gone. You know, my mom really didn't like when they made fun of Garrison Keillor as well. She was like, oh oh he's funny like

it was uh yeah i think actually even on the commentary for that episode matt graining's like uh he disavows it he's like no i like garrison keeler this is too mean he's funny but uh yeah i i also love it's almost like uh a heckle and jekyll kind of exchange the way lisa goes like what do you know she's right like just like thatle and jekyll kind of exchange the way lisa goes like what do you know she's right like just like that lisa doesn't care that much i think what's that tell you about homer's subconscious here too he's like oh my kids wouldn't even care if i was gone for two days but yes we then cut to the abomination and uh burns has learned his lesson. Geraldo Rivera, Madonna, and the diseased yak. Mom, what's wrong?

It's your father. He's missing. Dad's missing? Get out of here. He's been gone for two days. What do you know? She's right. It wasn't supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be a thing of beauty, not this abomination. Oh, Smithers, I was wrong to play God. Life is precious, not a thing to be toyed with.

Now take out that brain and flush it down the toilet. Sir, his family might appreciate it if you returned the brain to his body. Oh, come on, it's 1145. Oh, Smithers, when you look at me with those puppy dog eyes all right you know what there's continuity because they're watching the tonight show and then it's 11 45 you're right wow yeah there you go it's weird i cared they cared that much i just i love the way burn says it's 11 45 come on oh like again great great writing there of acting like oh i've learned my lesson life is precious anyway flush it take the brain out and flush it down the toilet just lesson he learned from this uh and they're all over wizard of oz in this segment so we have

burns humming if i only had a brain while removing the brain right and then he's sort of quoting the wizard of oz uh kind of dissing the tin man when he's like uh ranting at the the homer robot yes yeah in the wizard's line to the tin man is clinking clanking clattering collection of caliginous junk and burns is his clinking clattering cacophony of caliginous clogs cogs and camshafts see it takes a voice actor to spit that out hard yeah hey you know give me two more takes i bet I bet I can say it. I don't want to waste Will's time trying to get it right. I also love Homer's just, ow, ow, ow. And they're like, oh, see, he's alive. Stitching him.

And Spinner's like, oh, Burns is going, I guess I owe you a Coke. This is the first of two Coke bets in Triassic Horrors. Yeah, that's right. If I come back and the family's not slaughtered, owe you a coke i owe you a coke but uh also deleted scene they use a trail of donuts to get the robot to come back into the room which uh you know they don't really need it you can just cut to the it's already out of it but but yes then we come to our big ending which i love every word burn says in this in this lengthy ending to here shattered organs leaking vital fluids a slight headache loss of appetite Smithers I'm going to die sir is there nothing I can do well perhaps Smithers go to my office In the third drawer of my desk are... surgical tools and some ether. Perhaps you're wondering why you have two heads. Well, my body was crushed,

so I had my head grafted onto your, shall we say, ample frame. I didn't wake up. It's all a dream. It's just a dream. Oh, that's right. It's all a dream. Or is it? No! Next week on The Simpsons. Don't forget, Dad. Tonight my class is having an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner.

Mmm, spaghetti. But Homer, tonight's our reception for Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. Oh, I hate having two heads. So, Will, have you seen The Thing with Two Heads? Wait, no, I haven't. I've seen How to Get a Head in Advertising, but not The Thing with Two Heads? Wait, no, I haven't. I've seen How to Get a Head in advertising, but not The Thing with Two Heads. The Thing with Two Heads, as the poster says,

they transplanted a white bigot's head onto a soul brother's body. I have to say, the premise is much more interesting than the movie itself because they put Ray Milan's head on Rosie Greer's body. And that's the premise. What a combo. It's a 90 90 minute movie that feels

about three hours long because i swear to god i've talked about this before on the podcast there is a car chase scene in the movie i think it's 17 minutes long oh gee and it's not an interesting car chase so it's going over hills and things like that it's not it's not like a um like bullet or something like that but uh i like it's not worth watching, but everyone has this image in their head of the the giant Rosie Greer with an old white man's head on his shoulder. I mean, this whole sequence is great. Like Burns lightly kicking the robot and then it falling over on top of him so slowly that he can be told, like, run, sir. And he's like, yeah, yeah. Like just God, it's so fucking good and then also what

a great bit of overriding in such a funny way that the scene would work of just like ah and then it ends but burns i said like i bet you're wondering what i'm doing on your head here well i did like my body was crushed inside like he has to over explain it to such a degree it's so fucking good and there was a different ending intended for this it's in the storyboards and uh i don't know what i prefer because i haven't heard the voice acting for the original ending but in the original ending there was going to be more of a back and forth argument between burns and homer about the changes homer now needs to make now that burns his head is on his body and it would continue under the credits as well yeah it's i

mean that's funny but i really love how they recast it as next week on The Simpsons, meaning that... Yeah, it's just like the classic sitcom gag. Be like, oh, but the boss is coming over for dinner. It's just, how am I going to explain this? With the implication that from now on, The Simpsons will have Homer with Burns' head on his shoulders. That's every future episode.

It's just, it's not a dream. This is the setup for the show from now on and i guess according to mike reese the original original ending for this segment which i guess was part of the table read script was a parody of broadcast news but he said uh james all brooks didn't even get it so we cut it so i don't know what that would have been you know i i watched some scenes from broadcast news recently i don't know what that would have been uh you know i i watched some scenes from broadcast news recently i haven't watched that in a while it seems nice but it's like i feel like sorkin ripped off every moment of it for the newsroom so i just can't not feel like newsroom related cringe when watching scenes of it of just like yeah it's and i mean it's really just like complaining about the

news and how i you know the news needs to be better it needs to not be so like light and silly or whatever and have a guy as stupid as uh william hertz playing i mean it's good actors all over the place in it i don't know i should give it i should give it another full watch again maybe i've for being such a simpsons fanatic i've not watched many of james l brooks's directed films same here much yeah i i have have a real space for Spanglish. No, how do you know? Was the Jack Nicholson one as good as it gets? That's it. I was one that won all the Oscars.

Yeah, it's as good as it gets. I remember being bored stupid by that movie when I watched it. But it's about New York literary world, Will. How could you be bored by that? I mean, I don't know. I was probably a teenager when that movie came out. God, it was just like, yeah, no. I guess it was like Jack being rude to people.

That was kind of nice. But that movie did not win for me. Maybe I should watch it again. It was like a textbook example of a movie that adults thought were funny. But when I watched it, I felt like Bart watching fucking Prairie Home Companion on The Simpsons. You know, we talked about this before, but James L. Brooks got like all of his famous friends on the show. Never Nicholson. And I'm sure it's because Nicholson always likes to get a bunch of money up front. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And Nicholson would have got a cut of all those bootleg Bart T-shirts if he'd ever done a voice on the show.

Yes. See, that's that is the joker ruined him like the joker he got the jokerfiedness for jack nicholson was him realizing like oh i can get merch money from all of these i will never settle for not getting merch money ever again yeah well i mean why would you they really wanted him this was came up in research in another podcast we did but disney really wanted him to play hades and hercules which ended up being james woods and they thought like oh man we really got him like he sounds really down for this him and his kid he you know he was an old dad he wanted to have kids uh a movie his kids could watch but then in the negotiation he's like well of course just like with joker i'm getting a cut of these these toy sales for hades right and then that's yeah uh the mouse is not gonna put up

with that they're not gonna they're not gonna yeah they would not they'll not abide that for even a second no way no they i mean if they give it to jack they got to give it to danny devito they got to give it to everybody they're not going there i like the idea of jack nicholson in kingdom hearts though as hades and we talked amazing we talked about how great the animation is in this third segment they like it so much internally that a freeze frame of this act is running under the credits yes yeah yeah the tombstone shot yeah it's such such a great i mean gorgeous episode burns is posing like you you did a tweet of it bob just so many just great burn shots in here i think reardon and his team uh steve moore who'd go on to be a director in his own right like he uh was co-storyboarder on this they did just such as such a great job yeah i

think yeah the the references in this i think you know this is them really figuring out what treehouses can be and they'll get even more ambitious every year after this but this is such a big level up from the previous one, even, and just so wacky. Like once they free themselves of the setup of like, Oh, this is the characters having a nightmare or telling a story and they can just start from zero with every act of like, all right,

this is just the story right here that frees them up even more so after this. Yeah. This one, I like it more than the next years, even though that one is very good. I think, uh,

four and five are my favorites, but I think this one, I won't say it goes over look maybe the third act does but it does show you how much they've really improved since even the end of season two which is so fast so mean uh the references are even more obscure and uh very self-referential too so i feel like this is them just pushing it into overdrive that will continue throughout season three and i can't wait to keep doing uh more season three it's it's all from here folks uh will any final thoughts on this episode um nothing like i think like yeah like this is uh this is like the the the first proof of concept of treehouse of horror as like in like a standard like institution on the simpsons um i think like

you can see like just like you said like just how much they built on each one of these and like just just how like pushing the limit like every year in in one way creatively in terms of the animation in terms of like the grossness or the horror of it and just like just just like really like uh just a prime example of like the simpsons at its absolute best so i was really glad i got to do this one and on and on friday recording this on friday theth, you know? So very perfect. Yeah, extra spooky, man. Now, Will, this was so great having you. We've wanted to have you on for so long. It's been so awesome to have you on.

Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much for having me. And we all know about Chapo Trap House. Will, is there anything else you want to promote? Any other podcast appearances? Anything else you're working on right now? Nothing, just same old, same old. Chapo Trap House, same trap channel, same trap time.

Oh, thank you. thank you so much well you i mean at the time of this recording like just you've been really helpful in uh these bleak bleak times here and this could work anytime i mean on the especially your commentary on the roe v wade situation has been very very good same with you know what you've turned me i wasn't an avatar liker before i didn't give it i i you've you've uh given me new outlook on on the avatar film and i can't stop thinking about ape slurping yeah so yeah gentlemen thank thank you so much for the kind words and uh thank you again for having me on the show it's uh oh it's always a joy to talk simpsons thanks again to will menaker for being on the podcast. Please check out Chapo Trap House. We love it.

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