Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror IX With Alan Denton

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

It's Halloween again, and that means it's time for one of the most violent Treehouse trio of stories yet, all with animation writer Alan Denton as our guest! We chat all about killer hair, splashing Regis' eyes, and the scandalous history of Jerry Springer in American pop culture! So get ready because this podcast is going to SUCK............... your blood! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

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I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where fire is the cure for everything. I'm your host, Quantum Presbyterian Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and don't forget Ken Starr, Bob. Oh, no. And who is our special guest today?

Look, Marge, Maggie lost her baby legs. Alan Denton. Woo! And today's episode is Treehouse of Horror 9. How are Bart and Lisa going to get out of this one? Today's episode aired on October 29th, 1998. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God! will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby soleil moon fry gets married and she's still together with that man surprising like every

time we do a wedding on here they are usually divorced uh at present but not her punky's a good kid oh punky uh then the yankees sweep the Padres in the World Series, which is why Simpsons Broadcasting was so spotty for the last month in 1998. We're heading to the last Trias of Horror before Halloween, I think. I think we're reaching the years. Yeah, for a little while it happens in November, but all thanks to World Series. It's fun, Halloween in November.

We're lucky if the Yankees hadn't swept the Padres, this might have been pushed to November as well, just because of it. And then finally, it's been just one week that Barenaked Ladies are at the top of the Billboard charts. And that song will play in every grocery store from here until the sun burns out. That's the one with the Sailor Moon reference in it. Yeah, I want to groan louder, but I was in eighth grade and I memorized all the words burns out. That's the one with the Sailor Moon reference in it. Yeah. I want it grown louder, but I was in eighth grade

and I memorized all the words to it. And I loved it. It was a perfect nerdy guy song to love then. Yeah. It was one of those songs that's a list of things. Except we didn't start the fire. It was a themed list. It's like, here are things that caused other things to happen.

And this is just like, well, here are some references chickadee china the chinese chicken i like that his dreams like well i don't make films but if i made films yeah samurai was he a weeb was he telling us this i think so yeah i think so canadian weebs a i welcomed it on the radio every time i heard it but they really i know i as a joke said that but they really were only at number one for a single week, a single seven days on the Billboard chart. That's it? I consider that song like the song of the year. I mean,

it was huge for all of 98, but it just got shoved back. There were just bigger hits at the time. Probably like The Boy Is Mine around then. You know, I think it might have been one of those. Yeah, yeah. My birthday in seventh grade, me and my bros went to see Titanic. Ooh.

That was, yeah. So I want to groan at that too, but like, I was like, well, I guess this is the thing to do. We're all seeing Titanic. Just a bunch of 13-year-old dudes having two and a half hours of fun waiting for a boob. Well, I mean, there was a boob. Did you hear about the boob in advance? No. Okay.

I knew about the boob in advance, but I knew that was a three-hour wait to see boob. Well, I mean, you know, it's a good action film. They were like, it's a good boob. I mean, it is a good... I've seen the boob. It's good. I don't want to insult Kay Winslet.

She has wonderful boobs, yes. But one hour of that three-hour film is a really great action film, too. It's a two-hour romance film and then an hour of an action film also. Bob has still never seen it. He's famously on this podcast. I've been told I don't need to now. So three hours can be spent in any way. Our previous guest, Kate Raff, she said you do need to see it.

She commanded you to. I still have not listened to her. I'm sorry, Kate. So the song that it dethroned was Monica's First Night, which then took back over after their one week on there. Don't recall that. And also right before that was Lauren Hill's Doo-Wop. And Aerosmith's Don't Want to Miss a Thing.

Wow, it owned all of July and August. It had a long time up there. And the Barenaked Ladies would go on to write the theme for another animated series. Anyone know what that is? Baby Blues. That's it, yeah. Yeah, that's it. I think it was an existing song.

Yeah, I think it was. It felt like one of those sequel songs to a popular song that a band would make. Anyway, our guest, Alan Denton. Yes, Alan Denton. Welcome. Hey, guys. So, man. Friend of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Yes, you are. You know Sonic the Hedgehog. Close personal friend. Close personal friend. If you ask my nephews, that's what they think I do. They think I hang out with Sonic the Hedgehog all day. I'd let them keep thinking that. I mean, people, if you've seen fun memes from Sonic Boom,

that's Alan's work right there, right? Yeah, it's funny because I saw on Reddit once one of the jokes from our episodes made the front page of Reddit. And I was like, I should be getting that karma. Wait, I wrote that. Some stranger's getting the points. So then I just started making image memes of all of the best jokes

from every episode and then sharing them and then i just sort of became like the de facto pr arm of the show because nobody else was doing that i think you can contact reddit to get residual karma from jokes that are yours i have to find out uh well yeah i mean you're a professional animation and comedy writer al like is sonic Boom maybe your most famous thing? Yeah that's probably my most well known work I've also done some work on some other cartoons and I was head writer on a preschool show that I don't expect

any of your audience to have seen I haven't learned all my shapes yet so maybe Our audience is old enough that they could have kids who have watched it though If your kids watch Sunny Day on Nick Jr. Season 2 I was co-head writer on that But you know I bounce around

I do a lot of stuff You must have been a Simpsons fan growing up as well Yes so I was the resident Simpsons encyclopedia In New Jersey where I grew up We got both the Philadelphia affiliate And the New York affiliate Which meant that I could watch syndication from both.

And so I would watch probably four episodes a day, five days a week. Yeah, being the encyclopedia of your group was such an honor back then in the pre-Wikipedia days. Yeah, it's a valueless skill now unless you do trivia night. Or a podcast. And I both lost and won a trivia night so it's not always you know a guarantee i i actually i met matt graining at like an animation he was getting

like an animator of the year award and i told him i was just like i don't want to embarrass myself but you should just know the simpsons i like the simpsons a lot if i told you how much it would be embarrassing and he was like well what are we talking about here And I was like I would watch it four times a day For like six years And he just went like ew You weren't alone though That was like a lot of kids in the 90s Because of how often that was syndicated

I think I didn't get two stations playing it But it was an hour a day for me At a certain point You were lucky then That sounds like the closest thing I had to that situation Was when TBS and WGN both had the Saved by the Bell rerun rights, and I'd watch an hour of it on one and then switch to the other. Sadly, I did that too, and I didn't even like it.

Yeah, that's such a downgrade. Yeah, I know, but it was just so easy to watch. It's just like, this is just not, I mean, before you go to high school, it seems like a cool show that's really about what real teens do. Yeah, I can't wait to call timeout. I wasn't granted that power in high school. I was really let down in high school. That was my first letdown of like time for my timeout powers on freshman day.

It's not working. When you, you know, started your career as a writer, like was The Simpsons a big inspiration for you? A hundred percent I met the guy who was head writer on Sonic Boom I kind of sidled up on him Because he had written for The Simpsons Oh really?

Named Bill Freiberger He wrote the episode where Lisa becomes a Buddhist She of Little Faith Oh, okay, cool Yeah, if you're back in town, talk to Bill So I sort of like immediately when I moved to LA, I came across him and just was like, we should hang out, we should be friends.

And then eventually that friendship, he hired me as an assistant on a different show and everything and then onto Sonic Boom as a writer. And we just sort of filled it with, I don't want to flatter ourselves and say Oh we filled it with Simpsons like humor But we gave it our best shot I guess

Wow I didn't realize the Sonic Boom show had such a connection To the Simpsons And I'm looking at his credits now He started on Get a Life There's a Sonic Boom Get a Life connection Wow no wonder No wonder it's memed Yeah the Sonic you know this has made me Want to watch the Sonic Boom get a life connection. Wow. No wonder. No wonder it's memed. One, yeah, the Sonic, you know,

this has made me want to watch the Sonic Boom show more than I had before. I mean, it has an unfortunate connection to a game that wasn't very well reviewed. Yeah, yeah, it does. But that is not a knock on the show at all. Like, you guys were doing your great work unrelated to that.

Yeah, how do I be political here? We just kept our heads down and made our show were doing your great work unrelated to that. Yeah, how do I be political here? We just kept our heads down and made our show and had faith that everybody else was doing just as good of a job. I'm sure they did. They worked really hard.

Yes. So yeah, we gave you possible episodes too, but we went with a Treehouse one. Are you a big Halloween Simpsons fan? Yeah, I love them.

I would kind of look forward to the Treehouse of Horror every year If it actually landed around Halloween weekend That was the big bonus Yeah, I think next year's is on Halloween This one is a few days before And it's 666 next year, right? 666?

Episode 666 Oh, I meant like in this timeline Treehouse of Horror 10 is airing on Halloween Oh yeah, they haven't announced i don't think they've announced the air date yet for the yeah the next one is episode 666 yeah yeah for season 31 which like wild let's say that but yeah what are some of your favorite segments in those classics halloween ones oh man well you know i would kind of lean towards like the genre parodies, Dracula stuff, or the, you know, the fly parodies and stuff like that. Which was interesting re-watching this one, that this one stuck to the Simpsons as themselves, as a family, through all three segments.

That's true, yeah. I never thought of it that way. Yeah, you know, they didn't shake it up with a full-on remake of something, or them taking on different characters. It all starts as a normal episode and then something crazy happens in it. Did you ever get to write a spooky episode of Sonic Boom? No, we had a thing with holidays on Earth might not necessarily be holidays in Sonic's planet. Oh, okay.

And so we had that. We were able to get New Year's in Because we said, well that's just one rotation around a star Every planet would have that But anything like Christmas or Halloween Or anything that would point back to an Earth culture I thought Sonic was Christian Yeah

A lot of drawings on DeviantArt would lead you to believe that Yeah, I take it those aren't canon So did you guys have to like create a wookie life day kind of thing for your show or yeah i think we we dressed we would dress knuckles up a few times we i think there was like a thing where on that new year's episode he was like is this the holiday where we uh where we dress up in costume and and threaten people unless they give us candy you know so we that's the closest we got i see man i would have assumed like robotnik came from well okay that's not in the boom universe sorry like i'm thinking

of adventure universe well dr eggman is the only human in the boom universe um we do not get into his backstory uh because that would probably imply other humans wouldn't it so it's good when he is the only human. I will say that. That's a good third rail. That's a third rail you got to stay away from. Talking about, like, how is he here? That's one of my favorite things in Sonic Goofery I've seen about the Avengers universe, where it's like, which characters have canonically had sex?

Well, Robotnik's father or grandfather did have kids. What are you doing? I'm sorry. I mean, it comes up with anything. There are so many orphans in cartoons because of that. You don't want to make anything a sexual being. But anyway, sorry. We're getting into you.

What's going on? Dangerous Sonic territory. No one's working after this podcast. So this episode, Trieste of Horror 9 for the 10th season, it's the first in the production of season 10, right? It's A-F-O-O-B-1. Yeah, and David Cohen's last episode as a writer.

In fact, his credit is Dave Watch Futurama Cohen. I noticed that. Stay tuned for, what, four months? Yeah, five months. And this is also one of the most star-studded treehouses ever. There's a guest star in every act. Yeah, it depends on your definition of star. Yeah, yeah. And this is also one of the most star-studded treehouses ever. There's a guest star in every act.

Yeah, it depends on your definition of star, but yeah. Sure, yeah. They're guest stars. They're all called special guests in the credits. But yes, now I'm most impressed by Regis Philbin. Like, oh, man, he's done so much. Scully got that star power on his shows. He really, you know, Scully went to,

he knew the value of a special guest for sure and got the most out of it. And yeah, I forgot that even the intro of this has a guest star in it. Like, so it really is every segment around a commercial break. So do you think Scully ushered in that era of celebrity worship on The Simpsons,

whereas before it was kind of the punk i think he did it more but i mean you can see in like when mel brooks showed up in a limousine that was a similar style or like crusty gets canceled it's just like an all-star celebration of celebrity and the baseball player one too yeah it happened less often yeah for sure before him yeah i think he indulged in it more and set up for the type of world we're in now where celebrities just walk into town. Hey, it's Elon Musk. And I think this also is one of like the bloodiest one in a while. I mean, there's implied violence all over the place, but it's actually not that bloody, really.

I still think the Merkin one that he made the most violent is the most violent. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The one with the shinning and the turning inside out fog and everything. The children in the blender. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

Yes, this isn't as violent as that, but I do think when it starts with Bart writing in blood, that surprised me. I was like, oh, this is kind of grisly. And same with the intro that is a full parody of the old intro. I like how they remix Marge happily honking her horn. She's not driving to get groceries or from the grocery store. She's murdering Homer.

She's running it over. I love that. And one of the most grisly things in it is Bart's fall and his position of his broken neck. Yeah. And Lisa's head is just embedded in the garage or something. Oh, no, that's Lisa. Yeah, Lisa.

But she's wearing a helmet. Oh, so she's dead but safe. Well, you know, that must have been some sort of... Oh, yeah, yeah. I think it's because she's wearing a helmet in the original animation, so they might want to keep it consistent to fool you. But, yeah, that's a weird touch. She's killed with a helmet. So The Simpsons is saying helmets don't work everybody i've seen so many uh

we're in la we're plagued amongst the scooters and the uh the bikes and all the uh app driven things that terrorize sidewalks nobody's wearing a helmet oh no no it's terrifying what do you carry a helmet around with you i don't want brains brains on me. Yeah, no. These nice jeans. Yeah, I guess it's a random choice to pick up one of those scooters or the bike. So you didn't come prepared with a helmet. Or you're just like a tourist who's like, I'll take one of these things. That is incredibly unsafe, actually. Those things should come with helmets.

But I guess people would just take the helmets. Well, and I wouldn't put that helmet on. Yeah, a shared helmet, yeah. I went through that in Little League, and that was gross enough. Another guy's sweaty batting helmet. If I was a homeless guy, I would pee on every one of those, I'd say. Every one? Well, if I could, if physically possible. They're multiplying.

Well, I mean, they're taking up good sidewalk space, so I'd at least want to laugh at the people putting on those helmets like god if they only knew stepping in so much p yeah so i guess the first guest star is robert england yeah that's freddy krueger i didn't even realize that was him until i saw the credit so he has one line that is an unnecessary effort nobody would know it didn't sound like him i mean i i love robert england he really owns that role freddie you can't do it without him they tried it doesn't work yeah but then they had jason who was just like dan castellaneta or something i think so like one of the regulars yeah yeah well

i think it's like the giant men who play jason don't well they never talk and they they probably can't act perhaps so i think they were right in not bothering with one of the jason vorhees bodies i wonder if they had to pay especially to have robert england play freddy like that almost feels like you got to ask new line cinema for the rights to that or something jeez yeah it's not like scary terry where it's a parody yeah i guess i mean nobody says out loud hey freddy krueger but i still think uh legally they're in a weird position with it him playing freddy krueger even but it's implied that marge and maggie are butchered by these two men oh i guess yeah when they must come in the door they get chopped up yeah i'm sure uh then the

first scene we get here it's written by donick carrie the hell toupee i didn't get this pun until about 10 years ago it's like oh yeah hell toupee it's an evil uh toupee no hell toupee I didn't get this pun until about 10 years ago It's like oh yeah hell toupee It's an evil toupee no hell Toupee as in there will be hell to pay Yeah I didn't get it either It's very good it's a very good pun I didn't get it until listening to it with commentary And they're all high-fiving each other

On how good the pun is Actually it might have been the commentary that could mean on it about a decade ago The writers have so much They should be proud of their cleverness The point of these Halloween shows is to show off clever writing and just and they can find nine tree houses in some new horror I was also impressed they didn't um I think all the titles are are animated like they're fully animated they're not written on screen which I think they did in other ones of just chironing it on or whatever process they used.

So, Hell to Pay begins with, I think the grossest thing in the whole episode is the nacho cheese in the air. Oh, it's so disgusting. Well, it's that sound, that squishy sound. They have so much good foley, but yeah, that nacho. His description of it too, like, nice lines. Let's see how it handles. He's describing working with a car, but he is...

A genuine hair comb. Yeah. But it's like a 10-cent comb. Oh, God, you smokers disgust me. Hey, Pooh, you got a breakfast cereal for people with syphilis? Hands up, scuzzbag! No, not you there, smoking scuzzbag. Oh, chill out, dude.

I'll pay the fine. Not this time you won't. This is your third strike. First you torched that orphanage, then you blew up that bus full of nuns. Hey, that was self-defense. Well, you'll be seeing lots of nuns where you're going, pal. Hell, because the penalty

for strike three is death. Oh, you'll never make it stick, dude. Well, two, because this place is full of witnesses. Apu, that scuzzbag Moe. I'm not going to forget this, dudes. I'm going to totally kill

both of you. And don't forget Bart Simpson. He's a witness, too. Right, Barty? Oh, you are so dead, little dude. Thanks a lot, chief. Ha, ha, you kids crack me up. He simply can't hear Bart's words.

Yeah. This is one of the dumbest Wiggum scenes ever. They get away with a lot of it because it's Halloween, so they can make him extra stupid. And Bart's hiding between those very conspicuous great white hunter and nuke arcade machines that they've had since season one they're not jokes they're always there in the background this is giant bright orange arcade machine that says nuke in green letters it draws your eye in a bad way i think it just gets grandfathered in like into season 10 it's something you always

have to draw into the quickie mart i had forgotten the three strikes joke in here yeah yeah which you did some research on this i did do a little research on it california's three strikes law was even controversial when it was implemented in 1994 but it was a one of those classic bipartisan tough on crime kind of things but it was also a voter you know brought up by politicians but the voters of california chose it the short version of it is under california's controversial three strikes law people who commit three felonies can be jailed for 25 years even if the third offense is considered minor as as stuff happens in this you shouldn't base your laws around how many lives you get in super mario that's what i have to say Baseball has told us how to run our government

The baseball analogy will ruin someone's life Let's do it Anytime we can apply arbitrary rules And more bureaucracy And kind of take judgment out of the equation In law enforcement That's a good thing I mean the three strikes law is one of those

Things that in government When you hear about a law it sounds just on its surface you're like oh well yeah that makes you know common sense if you do have three felonies you go to jail for life like you've you struck out three times we're trying to be a nice to all these criminals uh but in reality it is applied shockingly by america's criminal justice system it's applied in an unequal and often racist way. So if the third one's a felony, and if you increase through drug charges being called felonies even for simple possession, you end up with a lot of people with free felonies

who go to jail for the rest of their lives on pot charges or other nonviolent charges. Or I don't think anybody actually got it for smoking in a non-smoking area yeah but they are parodying that reality in this gag here but it's you know he's just put to death yes but you can't so there is no death penalty for third strikes it is just 25 to life but i mean honestly he should have been put to death for the blowing of the bus full of nuns yeah springfield uh they how he is walking around free after those two things is pretty shocking yeah though the third strike the three strikes law has been it's technically still on the books but it has been

changed some through voter uh action like in 2012 voting measure went through that changed it so it has to be like a violent felony for your third one like for your third strike and it kind of weakened it i think finally people had learned like oh this thing doesn't work like you think it does and then in 2018 they started expanding parole boards to be a little more lenient on people applying for parole even though they were given 25 to life with no chance of parole until then and i mean the timing of it's been around so long that like a Person with their third strike in 1994 Is now just Up for their first parole hearing

Oh my god That's how Sorry these are depressing thoughts but That's why they're making fun of it There's better podcasts for this Conversation but You know when you were saying it was disproportionately Racist maybe it's progressive that in Springfield Snake is You know When you were saying It was disproportionately racist Maybe it's progressive

That in Springfield Snake is Yeah You know The most racist thing Happening in the Quickie Mart Is still Apu Being voiced

By Hank Azaria He's fun in this one Though Apu But yes Yeah He's Snake's the only person They could get away

With putting to death On camera In the show Showing his death Yeah Though they also do It's one of these Great stratifying thing Of the springfield society they always have to say like mo you're one better than snake snake you're on this level snake is runs a business yeah

they were punching mo a lot in this one oh yeah yeah mo has a syphilis uh he has an outhouse lots of things are going on with mo though. Though he hates smoke, which is funny because as a bar owner, I would think he's smelled a lot of smoke. Though I guess nobody ever really smokes in Moe's. Yeah, it's not really a smoky bar. Even before all the rules against smoking in bars, like in 1990, they told you can smoke in a bar, and yet they still never really had people smoking.

They probably didn't want to animate it. Yeah, that's a lot of extra work. mean later in this episode when homer smokes it's still shocking to see it like oh homer with a cigarette oh yeah i think they just announced netflix had some new rule that like across the board just no cigarettes and any of the stuff they make like just zero well they said across the board but then they were also saying unless it's integral to the character okay okay and which which really kind of erases that whole mandate as long as they're explaining their backstory while smoking and that's why i smoke it's been a while since we've seen the laramie brand too i like seeing all the laramie yeah i think even

just mocking smoking just kind of stopped happening on the show by this point. Well, I think there was fewer smoking advertisements happening at this point. You know, like the smoking billboards were, you know, less prevalent in the magazine ads. So I think they kind of dialed back on it. Even then it did feel weird to like buy a TV guide or and see on the back they had like a menthol cigarette ad or

something that i think it's pretty much impossible to advertise cigarettes though 7-eleven i mean they still have behind the counter but i feel like that uh space is shrinking more and more in the stores the users are literally dying out and people moved on to their cool jewel cigarettes instead candy fog Jewel cigarettes instead. Candy fog. The Simpsons will be right back. Hi-oh! Hey, it's Henry here at the break, and I want to thank you once more for listening to this week's episode of Talking Simpsons.

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this is the uh the era of world's blankiest blank yeah reality television yeah yeah on uh on a futurama just a few months after this they'll have yeah i like shows like world's blankiest blank yeah reality television yeah yeah on uh on a futurama just a few months after this they'll have yeah i like shows like world's blankiest place i was stealing from fry you're right no i i wasn't i know i wasn't calling you on it but i was wondering where that line came from world's blankiest blank and that's where it is this is also uh we're gonna play the old death jingle here because uh in honor of this episode's only posthumous guest ed mcmahon so he died in 2009 at age 86 so it's a pretty that's a pretty good life and one of his last roles was playing alf sidekick on alf's hit talk show on TV Land. Oh, no. Only seven episodes.

Oh, no. Have you seen these clips of that show ever, Alan? No, I loved Alf, too, and I never watched that. It totally made sense of, like, everybody still loves Alf. Let's put him in talk show form. I think it was also based on the fact that So Aljean and Mike Reese wrote for Alf, and there are basically two episodes of Alf

that were just like What if ALF hosted the Tonight Show? I think it would look something like this And then that was the episode So there are two of those They're called Tonight Tonight Part one and part two Right

So they just wrote ALF hosting a talk show So I guess like 20 years later It's like oh I guess you could do that And then it lasted seven episodes Some proof of concept Yeah From an old shitty episode of ALF I think all the old actors

Just didn't want to be In that living room set anymore It's like get him off of the set Get him old shitty Episode of ALF I think all the old actors Just didn't want to be In that living room set anymore It's like get him off of the set Get him somewhere else None of them came back They all hated The creator of ALF Who also is the voice of ALF

Oh and the dad just died ALF's dad just died Oh really Yeah He's had a hell of a life Yeah Yeah What a

I will say that I think the issue on ALF was They were just running out Of stories to tell Because like Through the sheer Technical aspect of the show, Alf could not leave the house. They were just trapped in the house for every story. That's why an American dad by season two, they're like, you know what? Roger can just dress like a person and leave.

He'll do so many things. They got tired of his being stuck in the house by that point. Growing up, I knew Ed McMahon most as the guy after the Super Bowl got they got tired of his being stuck in the house by that point growing up i knew ed mcmahon most as the guy after the super bowl who gives out publishers clearinghouse prizes yes wow that was that was quite an error i missed that i missed those things the uh i yeah that's i think how i first saw ed mcmahon too because i wasn't staying up late watching tonight's show as a kid i though i guess i maybe knew him first as if somebody just said hi oh as a reference I'd be like is that a person well I knew that as a noise people made on the Simpsons yeah man one of my

favorite Ed McMahon guest appearances was about his um health actually it was on Just Shoot Me the plot was the older uh model character on show. She was worried she was going to get overshadowed on things in the news. And Ed McMahon might die. And she's like, oh, no, he's going to overshadow my news with his death. We can't have that. And so she visits him in the hospital. But it got wrongly reported. He was just in there for a routine thing.

And so I thought it was kind of edgy that he did jokes about, like, everybody thinks he's going to die very soon. I think he was also on this episode because he had uh he had several autobiographies and his most recent one came out this month oh it's called for laughing out loud my life in good times but if you waited just uh seven more years you could also read here's johnny my memories of johnny carson the night show and 46 years of friendship so yeah and then If you go back in time to 1976 he has another Autobiography so that's a lot He's it's sort of like Bruce Campbell he's like There's so many out of like you need just to write one

Yeah because on your deathbed Ed McMahon Had been impersonated several times on The Simpsons before this right yeah Yeah yeah I wonder if they asked Him those times and he said no but then he's Like well I got a book now I don't know if you Ever appear I think you just like hear him on the tv maybe yeah yeah he'd be on the tv reacting to johnny and there's like a sideshow mel scene where he's drunk on wow we saw us oh it's a parody of

ed mcmahon being drunk on the tonight show that's uh such a classic clip but if you just type in ed mcmahon drunk on youtube you can find all kinds of clips of him being drunk on TV. I like how loose they were back then. They're just like, well, we had a long lunch today. Wink. They'd say, this is McMahon appearing on the show like five years after Johnny did the show. Yeah, that's right. And Johnny's still alive, I think, at this point. At this point.

Well, at this point, yeah. Yeah. But yes, when they hired Ed McMahon to do this stuff, he went all in on this. He's like, you paid for Ed McMahon. You're getting Ed McMahon. He got the joke. Hi, I'm Ed McMahon to do this stuff. He went all in on this. He's like, you paid for Ed McMahon, you're getting Ed McMahon. He got the joke. Hi, I'm Ed McMahon. Tonight on Fox,

from the producers of When Skirts Fall Off and Secrets of National Security Revealed, it's World's Deadliest Executions. Making his first appearance on our show, here's Snape. Here's Snake! Thank you, chickie pies. The chair? Oh, how come they only do crucifixions during sweeps? Snake played lacrosse at Ball State University. So long, Snake. You'll never harm another person with secondhand smoke.

Dude. Hello! Alright, now let's get this carcass over to the hospital and carve it up for organs. Tibbs on the liver! That music gave me Star Search vibes, too, because he was on Star Search as well. He was an active guy. He did a lot of stuff.

I mean, not as much as Regis, but he kept pretty busy at McMahon did. Yeah, it's a very elderly fan base they're going for in this episode. You know, I don't think America has yet televised like a execution I feel like we're on our way, but not yet Yeah, when I was reading up on this I read that Phil Donahue tried at one point

To like have an execution on a show and they wouldn't let him Wow, it's for the best Yeah, although maybe people need to see that i mean yeah if people uh then we're an anti-death penalty podcast yeah yeah but uh but yeah i think you know maybe if people saw the grisly reality of what state murder does and i i'm glad later lisa just says like it's not a deterrent i love that line yeah uh but yeah the death penalty thing it also comes kind of soon after starship troopers had a joke about like this person was caught this morning tonight he'll be executed 8 p.m like you know annie will do somewhat

exploitative like um death row specials like interviewing people on death row but they they have yet to air someone being killed i think that's good yeah uh you know and it's like they're making fun of these shows the world's blankiest blank shows and like again i can't come in from a high pedestal on this because i watched all of them i you know i watched world's deadliest police chases and i also watched magic secrets revealed like like the things specifically they're making fun of i was watching i remember uh like a year or so after this when freaks and geeks got canceled those are probably like two years later yeah i remember paul feig like on the freaks and

geeks website i loved freaks and geeks and on the website he was like ranting about like i guess a show like this won't work and every people just want to watch magicians reveal secrets and i was like hey i like magicians revealing secrets like both yeah i like your thing and i like the mass magician i think later i turned on reality shows when i just found out that they were like they were how much cheaper they were to produce and that's why the scripted shows weren't picked over them a lot of the time oh yeah yeah you were thinking about jobs yeah and i loved it on this parody that they do live crucifixion the electric chair seems bad enough but like televising a crucifixion is such an insane it's gonna be like a marathon show then yeah it's a very slow death yeah maybe they check

in like a week later all right we'll see you tomorrow night checking in on this guy also though they say they're they're wrong there. Snake went to Middlebury for college. That's true. Goodbye student loan payments. Oh, yeah. Maybe he got his master's degree at a ball state. You never know.

And it's not canonical anyway. Well, he just played lacrosse there. He maybe didn't attend. It's true. Them instantly carving up his body for it. I think that's the fear that makes people not want to be organ donors I think They just chop up your body

Yeah I've heard people you know scared Like oh I don't want to be an organ donor Because then they'll let me die Because they want to harvest Which is a crazy way to think They don't look at your ID to see if you're a donor Until after you're dead That's worth that liver's worth a fortune

The doctor's got a scalpel in hand like wait Look at that wallet He's got the red dot Tear him up Yeah that No my friend His mom Explicitly told him

Do not check Our organ donor Because they will kill you Like if you're in an accident There's no way that's true That seems impossible Wait wait Don't operate

I think I believe I am an organ donor On there But but don't tell the doctor that. Bob, if you take me to the hospital, don't tell the doctor that. And don't you listen to steal our organs. It's not a free ride on my organs. So then the phone rings. Homer is informed that he's found a donor.

That phone call happens the second people start walking towards Snake's body, too. I like that. They don't have a start walking towards snake's body too i like that they don't have a lot of time to kill in these uh in these like seven minute acts and homer's reaction you think that he's getting a kidney or a lung or something but uh it's just hair demoxenil still exists can't he afford that yet that's a that's a hanging thread in that episode it's like it's still there anytime they get money he can get it again get all of his hair back but we have to forget that it exists. Yeah, well, I guess by going to Dr.

Nick for the hair transplant, that would imply that he doesn't have much money. That's true, yeah. He went to a doctor. Yeah, this is Dr. Nick's first appearance in a Scully led episode. Yeah, I thought it had been a while. I mean, in airing season 9, he is in Lisa the Simpson

who pronounces his appearances when he tells everybody Jasper isn't dead. His heart's just beating slowly. And in this one, he's back to like really bad doctor. This is the worst he's been in a while, too. I love that he punches Homer. He injects himself with drugs and then grabs a pizza cutter. It's just so great. Pizza cutter's nice. It reminds me of the Frankenstein parody. Oh, yeah. But there was not a pizza cutter. It's just so great. Pizza cutter's nice.

It reminds me of the Frankenstein parody. Oh, yeah. But it was not a pizza cutter. They were eating pizza, but they didn't use a pizza cutter to open his head. Yeah, they used a circular saw. Yeah. Yeah. That was the biggest wince from me watching when he takes out the pizza cutter.

Yeah, it just starts going on. Oh, God. Because he pulls it out of an empty pizza box just to gross. It's all disgusting. Scully years are gross years. Oh, you know, also, though, that Frankenstein one, I think Burns uses an ice cream scoop to get it out. Yes, he does.

Yeah. That's kind of the general area similar to. So I could see getting it mixed up. I think I remembered it as a pizza cutter, too, in the old one. Yeah, I just checked while we were talking, and it isn't. But, yes, Homer gets some new hair hair and that's when we get to meet their sexy new daddy wow if your fly weren't open you look just like roger moore well it sort of reminds me of like the samson and delilah haircut or one of his He gets like 17 hair stylings in that

Though also the part really reminds me of Family Guy Which is like three months away It looks a little like Peter Griffin Though I doubt intentionally Yeah he looks a little like Unky Herb too Yeah I like it's still a little wild

It's still Snake's hair Especially when he turns into Snake the hair transforms too It's almost like sort of devil horns with the cowlick. Yeah, there's briefly, yeah, I paused it like as his hair morphs at least one time. It feels like a little in-joke from the animators of a little pair of horns as it resettles. But it's also a weird drawing that like when they're saying if your fly wasn't down, they're all looking at his crotch area at his down fly instead of his hair. It's such a weird drawing.

Back to the drawing, they are looking at his fly. It's strange. And he doesn't do anything to correct it. He just continues to stand there with his fly down, presenting himself. With his arms at his side like, well, it's down. It sure is.

I mean, he's so proud of looking like Roger Moore. He's like, what if I zipped up my fly I might look less like Roger Moore Homer goes to bed and then the hair transforms Into Snake's pompadour I like it going into his brain Through his skull It looks really painful when he tears it off at the end

When he tears it off that shows that he has A second scalp They kept his original scalp. I don't know. It seeps through the Homer's scalp and then into the brain. He should have an exposed skull under this. Yeah, yeah. I guess it was a skin graft and he only ripped

the hair out, not the skin, I suppose. It's really subtle, but like, Homer's facial expression does change when he becomes Snake. Like, they give him more of the scrunched up eyes and stuff. And like the wiggly mouth. Yeah, yeah. Snake first approaches, or Homer approaches Apu.

And Apu, I love how sassy he is. Like he thinks he's in like a Friends type show. Like, ooh, I love you and your sexy new do. Then he doesn't realize that Homer's voice sounds different. And that's weird at all. I like how the murders he commits are in the first person. It's like a horror movie. Yeah.

The Capoo one is really good. I really like that one. How she pushes him back into the squishy machine. And a great just wavy mouth on Capoo's. No! So good. Yeah, I mean, it really puts you in the horror of seeing Homer do such a thing to a beloved character like Apu.

Ooh la la, Simpson. What can I do for you and your new do? You sent me to the chair. Snake? But you're dead. I know you are, but what am I? No, no, no! And the fluffy kitten played with that ball of string all through the night.

On a lighter note, a Quickie Mart clerk was brutally murdered last night. Oh, man! That's horrible. Who will run the Quickie Mart? Yeah. I'm afraid we have no leads, but I can safely say Apu did not suffer. Yeah Marge is always worried about who's going to run the quickie marts I love that they brought that line back Yeah That's even more cruel than any other time she did it Marge is always worried about who's going to run the quickie marts. I love that they brought that line back. Yeah.

That's even more cruel than any other time she did it. Like, Apu is their friend. He got married in their backyard. And yet Marge's first reaction to his murder is like, well, who's going to run it now? Like, is the quickie mart going to be closed? How does this inconvenience me? Yeah. And he's got a cool, cool like killer back from the dead uh catch line or catchphrase yeah yeah he's uh it's it's a lot like idle hands or a number of

things uh but also yeah that wigum drinks that thing for so long that's just it it lasts such a long time and the way he somehow didn't see apu sticking out of the quickie yeah it's brutal two legs sticking out yeah covered in blue goo that's dripping. He still can see it on the squishy machine. I'm wondering where the purple squishy is. Yeah, it wasn't one of the things, was it? Well, there was two. There was, I think, a blue and a purple.

Yeah. But only the blue got everywhere. The purple was safe. I guess he got shoved into just the blue compartment, and the purple was not breached. You're right. This has to move really fast, this one. Homer has to quickly kill the next guy.

Though it is shocking when he lights up as Lisa is going like, who could be doing this? The family should be like, why are you smoking, Homer? That's weird. We then get to see filthy old bartender Moe. Ah, morning, Homer. Ah, you're looking unusually focused this morning. Shut your squeal hole booze jockey. I'm gonna like

totally waste you. Ah, somebody's a grumpy gus. What? Oh! Yoink. Ah, for crying out loud. God. Another of Springfield's beloved citizens was murdered today. Filthy old bartender Moe Sislak has watered down his last eyeball.

Oh, my God. Everyone Snake swore revenge on is being murdered. It's almost as if he's killing from beyond the grave. I told you capital punishment isn't a deterrent. Don't you get it? He swore he'd kill me, too. I'm next. Don't you get it? He swore he'd kill me too! I'm next! Don't worry. I'll protect you.

Little dude. It's a very clean heart rip. It's like cleaner than a Sub-Zero heart rip, I think. What do you guys think about the snake voice coming out of Homer? I never really warmed up to it. I think they changed

enough of how he acts and his appearance to make it work. I expected it to be kind of alienating to me, but it still works. I don't know why. I think they still remember body language that he moves around so much like Snake. There's a couple bits when

he's on the bed looking down at Bart. It did feel a little weird to me there. I'm like, oh, I'm taken out of it how he sounds out of Homer's body. I liked him saying yoink when he kills Mo. And Mo was just mildly inconvenienced by getting his heart ripped out. It was a clean pull. It's a good callback to the food for people with syphilis joke, too,

because Mo is eating penicillos. Penicillos alone, it's a good joke but when it's a callback it makes it a better joke yeah i like to that it shows you that people like apu more than mo because when they kill off mo they're like no all on screen no one's care like heaven flopped down disgustingly in his bowl of cereal apu you got to do off screen it's it's uh you like him too much. This file photo, I love a file photo gag. That's one of the best ones. Yeah, he's getting out of like a 1930s outhouse

with his pants still halfway down. And he sees the camera. He's like, what? Like you can tell he's shocked he's being photographed, which who is to taking that photo? Yeah. And I also like kent doesn't care about any of these murders just like water down his last highball homer helps close up bart in his room and that's when he finds out there's no way to get in or out and it takes

part a long time to realize how much trying to kill him and who is doing it. But I guess, you know, ghosts aren't real in this universe. So that wouldn't be your first thought that he's snake as he's just he's going to really mess up part two of that sledgehammer. It's harsh. That's another of my favorite gags. It's such a cheap at the the my school picture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The close up of Bart screaming to smash the picture. Yeah. And then you found out that Bart's school picture was him in scream pose. In scream. But he's kind of proud of it. He's like, aw, my school picture. Well, he framed it and put it in his own room. Yeah.

When I first watched this as a teen, thought I was going to have a real, like, somebody get fired for that blunder moment because I was thinking watching it like Bart went from his green pajamas to his orange shirt guess they messed up but that's part of the gag he's wearing his orange shirt at school

for his picture I didn't know his shirt was different wow they made sure to change it but it in my very first viewing my snap reaction was they messed up they miscolored his shirt for this show you noticed immediately i i swear i did whoa i'm not bragging i'm just uh i'm not i'm not a hero i just you're not superman yeah i'm not superman uh but yes as they all charge into the room everybody has figured it out

my school picture daddy would like a word with you, Barty. Help! Dad's trying to kill me! It's hammer time, Snitchy. That's Snake's voice. Of course, the transplant. Somehow, Snake's hair must be controlling... Oh, please, Lisa. Everyone's already figured that out. You've got to fight the hair, Dad. But I look so youthful and hunky.

The kid's gotta die. But I love my son. More than a lush head of hair? Don't make me choose! No! I love the lighting changes when he goes back and forth between arguing with the snake in his head.

It's really great. It's really, like, very technically well done. And another great shot, like, art-wise, was the, from the ceiling perspective, where you see the whole room they're living in. It really, I think it adds to the tension more of the scene because you realize how cramped bart's bedroom is yeah it's really claustrophobic yeah so when i was watching this uh does maggie always wear a night a white nightgown actually i think this is a rare yeah i

think normally she's just in her blue uh sweepy outfit normally i think it's i think it could be a mistake honestly i don't know i mean it's multiple shots so i don't know if it's a mistake i think it was just like they're in their bedtime clothes and i think maybe a couple times i've seen her in a different colored one uh than her blue one but it usually she's in her crib in her normal blue outfit she's always wearing pajamas but yeah it is a white uh white outfit this time yeah it's it is an odd uh it's slightly distracting i guess it resoundingly doesn't matter yeah but i but yeah everybody is in their night clothes for this sequence that also is actually it's even weirder that homer is

doing this not out in his snake costume that he's in all the rest of the episode but in his classic blue pajamas too but he rips off his hair he rejects snake and you think it's all over but the toupee is still alive and it jumps on bart's face and uh it's so funny but i can't believe they got away with homer punching bart in the face like three times but this is like this is scully era here with the the walking toupee running yeah and the punching in the face and everything yeah just an excuse to like punch bart in the face that was, the punching in the face and everything. Yeah, just an excuse to punch Bart in the face. That was my biggest laugh of the episode. It was for me too, I think.

By punching Bart in the face, he thinks he's saving Bart too. So there's a turn there. So Homer doesn't punch Bart when he's mad at Bart. So he thinks he's protecting Bart by punching him in the face. And then when Bart insults him, he goes to choking him. So he'll never punch him in anger. Mm-hmm. That is too funny.

It's a poor distinction. It's true, yeah. Yes, yeah. Coming in to save the day is Chief Wiggum. There's no explanation of how he figured out it was Homer that was killing these people, but let's say they figured it out. Yeah, let's say Moe's body led them to the place. You're under arrest for the murders of Moe Sislak and Apu Nasa Pasa. Just Moe. Just Moe's body and let them to the place. You're under arrest for the murders of Moe Sislak

and Apu Nasa Pasa just Moe. It wasn't me! It was the hair! Freeze, hairball! Now that's what I call a bad hair day. Did you mind you that two people are dead? Oh, wait, I just got it. Oh!

Bad hair day. Marge got two really good lines in that last scene. Yeah. You know, they spend so much time dunking on Marge in these seasons, but I like that she finally gets to dunk on Lisa. I like that she gets to tell Lisa. Everybody's figured it out, Lisa. For once, Marge is the more, like, self-aware than Lisa is. Marge innocently did not get the very obvious joke of, like, bad hair day,

which even by 98, a bad hair day joke was old, old, old. Maybe that's why it wasn't, because I, when watching it, thought it would be more in character for Lisa to scold everybody, but it was probably because of that tag of oh wait i just got it that they were like well that shouldn't be lisa she would be smart enough to get it yeah yeah that yeah that's it that's i think a good reason to do it yeah i agree they shoot the toupee so many times too i love that uh it's one of those ones where it's like five seconds longer than you expect it to be i love that and maggie gets to keep the bloodied scalp of the stuffed animal

or something? I guess so, yeah. It immediately softens this incredibly murderous section of the episode, yeah. You know, how do you stop a sentient piece of hair? And it's like,

you have to shoot it, but like a lot of times. It has no organs, but somehow it does respond to pain. Like, yeah, the toupee should have just stayed on Bart's head because they it does respond to pain like yeah the the the two patients just stayed on bart's head because they weren't going to shoot bart in the face right or would they it could have seeped into his brain that way yeah just take bart back over uh but so that was the first segment then we go to commercial break come back it's time for the terror of tiny tune

do we know the reference? Only from Google. I've never heard of this movie. Okay, I haven't either. It's the only musical Western with an all little person cast. What? It's called The Terror of Tiny Town. Wow.

What was your reference you found? I just knew it as a title. I didn't know what it was. Yeah, I thought of Tiny Toon Adventures. Yeah, yeah. Calling it Tiny Toon, probably not great. Not a great idea. Yeah, like I thought of Tiny Toon Adventures Yeah, yeah Calling it Tiny Toon, probably not great Not a great idea Yeah, but wow

It's an all little person film That's a western man I'm sure it's very respectful to them Because it was made in 1938 So I'm sure you can watch it today Nothing's offensive about it at all It really holds up It definitely sounds like the type of bad B movie

That Simpsons writers would hate watch together. It does feel like a reference they'd all have. But this one's written, speaking of writers, by Larry Doyle, who the only reason

I bring that up is because he's the writer of Looney Tunes Back in Action. So he did a lot of like, this is his skill of the real world intersecting with cartoons oh yeah so

he's kind of a ringer i wonder if this got him the job of like see this guy can write animated characters interacting with real people he also worked on a bunch of as we learned uh from our daffy duck podcast that larry doyle oversaw a bunch of looney tunes cartoons that did not come out most of them didn't and apparently they were not very good and kind of mean spirited, but there you have it. I guess the failure back in action is why those shorts were never finished or fully released. I think they eventually,

whatever ones they finished were put out on the, the Blu-ray or sorry, the DVD collections of the Warner Brothers shorts. Oh yeah. In the late two thousands. Hey, hey, tonight I'm going to suck!

Your blood! Okay, get ready for the violentest, disembowelingest, vomit-inducingest, itchy and scratchy Halloween special ever! Hey! Sorry, but if I let you watch one of these gruesome Halloween cartoons, I'd be a pretty lousy mother. Aww. Why don't you kids come trick-or-treating with Maggie and me? let you watch one of these gruesome Halloween cartoons, I'd be a pretty lousy mother. Why don't you kids come trick-or-treating with Maggie and me?

Nah, it's too early. I need to work under cover of darkness. Oh, Homer, you're not going as a hobo again. Going where? Well, we're leaving. And remember, no itchy and scratchy. You better take these batteries just to be sure.

Mama took those batteries. She took them away. Mama took those batteries. Size double A. Marge is assuming the role she had in the first three specials where she would come out and say this is too violent for children please tuck your children do not watch this so she's sort of redoing that here with the uh with crusty special yeah it's a fun kind of callback i like that a lot yeah yeah it's kind of like uh i don't know this like thing where i think they're trying to make the parents at home feel guilty right now i don't think that i don't think they want anyone to

to keep their kids away it's too late but they've already survived one act at this point yeah but they're like oh now now we're judging you if you've if you stuck around after the commercial break you are a bad parent officially the kids didn't realize you just go find the flashlight and or find the other remote and take the batteries out of that well i mean their tv has knobs on yeah hey wait a minute they could just they could turn it on manually you are correct i i noticed in in that one in that sequence there's a bunch of jokes kind of on top of each other that that make me think of the scully years in that the characters just are whatever they need to be for that joke right now uh crusty is reading right at the start yes there's a door on the kitchen and that door it is not normally there yeah but crusty it was not reading very well That's true yeah I remember that door in

Lisa the vegetarian episode Because Bart was like Cartoons don't have morals they're just things Like people getting hurt and stuff Oh and Homer throws it over I think there is some That's the only time I can think there was ever a door there If there's like a door swinging joke

I think like Marge walks in and out of the kitchen at some point And like the door swings and the kitchen's dirty again Or something like that. Oh, yeah, yeah. In some episode, yeah. So it's the magic joke door. They should be terrified when they see that door. They're like, a joke's coming.

Someone's going to get hurt. As a pacing of the gag, that song ending with a slam of a door is so funny. It makes the song twice as funny. Yeah. Yeah, and also the tonight I'm going to suck. Love that. song twice as funny yeah yeah and that i also the tonight i'm going to suck love that yeah and and homer a great like sounds from dan castellaneta as he is hobo style eating beans out of a can covered in filthy like clothes he homer has rarely looked worse than yeah yeah the top of his shoe

has come unstitched and part his eggs four of the six are going to people in the house he's in. Oh, yeah. Why even leave the house with the eggs then, you know? He's a think big with this egg plan. Half of them are dad. It's three for dad, one for Lisa, one for Flanders, one for Skinner. Yeah, trick-or-treating used to be important to the kids. But again, it's just sort of, eh, it's Halloween.

It's what we need. Well, meanwhile, Maggie seems really excited for this trick-or-treating used to be important to the kids, but again, it's just sort of, eh, it's Halloween. It's what we need. Well, meanwhile, Maggie seems really excited for this trick-or-treating, which I've never seen a one-year-old alone be taken around trick-or-treating. Yeah, like just carrying her baby from house to house. Give this child candy, please. She can't eat it yet, but please. She will choke to death, but give him now. We'll put it in the freezer.

This Twix will be good for four years, for sure. I mean, I would think Marge is just, well,'s gonna eat that candy what am i saying the candy goes to homer uh but so they leave but bart has a brand new plan he's not going to just you replace him with regular batteries he's going to put plutonium into the remote and actually this whole sequence is reminiscent of the first Bongo Comics crossover. I don't know if you guys were Bongo Comics readers. No, I wasn't. So in the first year, they had four regular books.

One that was a miniseries, but actually lasted longer than the Itchy and Scratchy comics. So they had Simpsons, Itchy and Scratchy, which ended in two issues, Bartman comics. Yeah, I read that. And Radioactive Man. And after their first year, which was around when four issues came out of each it ended with a giant crossover in three parts that was when bongos collide that is yeah and it starts with uh you find out later it's kang and kodos but a mysterious energy frees itchy and scratchy from their tv while bart and lisa are watching it

and it's then they go around the town and around the same time that same energy makes everybody superheroes in town too and then bart is able to use the remote also to bring out radioactive man as well from the comic book page i might have had one of those i remember like uh an itchy and scratchy comic or something that came with like a little decoder thing yeah every time there's static on a screen oh whoa it was magical yeah it came with a decoder and if you lost that decoder then you were gonna miss gags but yeah the in the reprints of it they didn't do the whole uh screen thing but you can see that so like matt grating loved little uh tchotchkes you'd add on like physical things like that like how all the first run of

simpsons trading cards under bongo came with temporary tattoos as well like he he loved having little little extra gifts for kids like that and uh but yeah this is it's it's a similar start to when bongos collide though every in that story every person in springfield becomes a 90s style superhero and uh it's pretty funny like my favorite gag i remember that is that the senior citizens become not young blood but old blood but they are still dressed in the crazy young blood costumes as well uh but yeah so when bart puts the plutonium in there he says what i forgot is kind of a runner at this time too like don't you hate always being wrong like they already said that to marge like uh last oh yeah you're right sometime bart and lisa turn on the tv they're able to watch it. It's scratchy, but they're then pulled into the television.

Hey, Lisa, we're characters in a cartoon. How humiliating. Look. Why are you laughing hey they're laughing at your pain that's me let's teach them a lesson the cartoon eggs i love it when i was first watching this the brief brief bart's head bleeding was kind of shocking

to me yeah they can only make it bleed so much but seeing that trickle of blood in the middle of his head it is it is more shocking than him painting with blood at the beginning or whatever the way they they play it is real it actually reminds me of uh the level in bart's nightmare yeah where you're just the in and out and scratchy cartoon. They just are running back and forth on the screen over and over and over again. That level sucks. Yeah. I mean, they're all bad. I think it is the best level. No, the Bartman one is the best one. Oh, yeah.

It's below that. Yeah. I always feel weird when there's extended itchy and scratchy talking. I've never warmed up to it. I just want them to giggle and scream mostly is it yeah i think of the original ones they stuck more to like the tom and jerry rules of like tom and jerry don't talk itchy and scratchy don't talk but now it's more like late tom and

jerry where it's like no tom and jerry do talk i think it's more they're talking because barton lisa interrupted their cartoon yeah yeah i like too that itchy seems to take no pride in what he does to scratchy's is like well look it had to happen but these people are bad they're laughing at you and i i do love too that when the blood splatters on them bart and lisa just laughing they're they're as as we've seen many times they're fully desensitized to itchy and scratchy well they're in a cartoon yeah one that sometimes physical danger actually does hurt them but other times they do their eye bug out thing but it doesn't literally rip the eyes out of their head and bark gets all of his flesh consumed at the end so so i think it then it doesn't follow like freddy krueger rules or whatever it is like

you're in this world but scratchy dies all the time in this world, so they can be killed, but in cartoon logic style. Yeah, I mean, I guess in theory they still feel pain because Scratchy has pain acknowledged. They're laughing at your pain, but then Bart, eh, it's not that much, I guess. And so they run out of the house. That's when Homer sits down and is watching it,

and I love his, how are Bar and Lucy going to get out of this one? I like the, it's a very Simpsons thing, the cannon that shoots not only cannonballs, but dynamite and guns. Yeah, they like putting a machine gun into a cannon that will shoot at them. Yeah, I like, when I watched the first time,

I was going like, how did the hilt of that axe go into the wall? But then when I watched it again, it actually kind of comes to a point at the end. So it was designed as kind of an old medieval axe that kind of arcs. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's not like a classic fire axe

or a flat one. So I was impressed that they used the correct axe to motivate it sticking into the wall. They didn't cheat it. And then they get in a cop car that they think is safe, but they see the sign to protect and sever instead of serve. A cute little sign gag. Though I guess it gets less cute when Lisa says it out loud. Yeah, yeah.

The show's for children. They can't read. And then, it's a good thing this is non-canonical, this episode, because otherwise Krusty would be sued for breaking his legally binding promise that Poochie would never return to the Great Lakes. Yeah, so Poochie did not die on the way back to his planet. And in fact, he doesn't die here. They had ample opportunity to kill Poochie once and for all.

Yeah, I thought they did kill him. I mean, he's maim's maimed horribly but not dead yeah he's not dismembered or anything like that i mean he doesn't look like it's nice to be poochie it certainly hurts but it's also funny that homer's watching it and he should be like oh my character's in the show here that's fun uh but i think by this point they realize like people like poochie like some he's actually a fun character he's not the bad character you never want to see again that they designed him to be actually yeah i want to see roy but yeah roy i don't see roy get murdered on screen also there's a great little gag of itchy cutting off the arms of scratchy and he's like that happens they just is driving with his mouth without even caring

It's all a job for them And then Bart I kind of wish they did A little more of Bart Knowing cartoon logic To get away with stuff Yeah This whole segment

Felt too short to me It is very short And it's mostly Just like stage directions Which is why There's not a lot of clips for it I was like When I was watching

I was like There's not a lot to clip here No one's talking Just screaming And sound effects. Yeah. So you can tell that the people involved

were pretty excited to make a bunch of cartoon gags, but they could have gone another five minutes with this. Well, they had to also cut around jokes

to make room for a celebrity cameo too. Has a cameo like this ever occurred on the show before this point? Like a live action Appearance of something In one of the Halloween specials There was that live action footage of a cowboy movie

Oh yes But it was not like original footage that they shot And actually I guess the one original Homer Cube the erotic cake store But in both those cases it was cut off From Simpsons world Like one involved full trans-dimensional Travel and the other is cube the erotic cake store okay yeah but in both those cases it was cut off from simpson's world like one involved full trans-dimensional travel and the other is an out of canon scene of march telling people to change the channel so it is the person changing the channel to watch their people

tv but now in this world it's established that in this dimension at least homer watching things can change a channel to see live action regis and kathy lee i i didn't understand why not just do it like they've done every cameo and get regis and kathy lee to do some voices simpsonized yeah it is a fun magic trick i don't get why it's these two but uh it's well they'll do any it's still fun to watch i think it was also happening at a time when like south park was being really mean to her and they're just sort of having fun that's not this is not made to make fun of them it's something people were like recognized and they're just having a little fun with it but it's not like let's make fun of these two you know so i had never um you know i didn't really watch regis and kathy lee i

knew it as a reference but like i mean you know during the summers if i had if i was free in the daytime to watch things my i just felt like the mom interview show it just did not feel for me as a as a teen my mother watched it daily my grandma watch it daily yeah my parents like flew down to florida when they were doing a week of shows in florida really attended the taping and stuff. Wow. Yeah, which was weird because my family's in New Jersey. They could have gone to New York any time. Yeah, it's right across the bridge.

That's crazy. Yeah. Weird thing about this cameo, I mean, Regis and Kathy Lee kill it, I think. I think that they're very funny and it's one shot. There's nowhere for them to cut around timing. They have very good timing they're very fast the weird thing for me is this is the only thing homer flips to and then he flips back like i was like okay this is the fun of this segment right yeah he's gonna be flipping around to all different types of tv shows i never thought of that this could have

been a longer segment where they get to play around in different realities but they only go to one you're right yeah they must have they must have had a script or something that had more it just feels weird to go one and back yeah it's been yeah a channel flipping gag in a show like this is an invitation to do like three jokes minimum of parodies like that but instead it's just it's just the one i i do like to right before they they flip to regis and kathy that it's like it's not just bear traps but they electrify the bear traps like that's such a great hat on a hat there isn't kathy lee on that like uh drunk wine mom show uh with hoda yeah on the today show yeah it's like they're speaking of plaster people on tv it's like 11 a 11am and they're just sipping away My mother watches the hell out of that too

Yeah my mom does She'll call me and go Did you see Kathy Lee and Hoda this week And I'll go no the answer's never yes mom Regis still alive Yes 87 Before we play his clip Let's play the anti-death jingle

To protect Regis So also this was like Let's play the anti-death jingle to protect Regis. Jim, I ain't dead yet. So also, this was like right after Kathy Lee Gifford's husband, Frank Gifford, cheated on her. And I think she was trying to restore her public image. Like, no, I'm cool. Like, I'm not just the cheated on wife. I'm a cool person on The Simpsons. She doesn't have to restore her image for being cheated upon.

The world looked down on her for it. The world looked down on her for sure. I mean, she did not cheat, but it's just like, well, of course, Frank cheated on her for it The world looked down on her for sure She did not cheat but of course Frank cheated on her She's a bitch That was the reaction to it He's good at football Everybody hated her That's why she was a target on South Park

Growing up with my mother watching that show all the time She would just constantly talk about Her little kid Cody And that was one of the things Cody said the cutest thing today You know like that was like a critic joke Yeah you would see the jokes about Talking about your little kids on TV shows

People were pretty sick of hearing about Cody Which I guess he's probably like 40 now The South Park that had her on I was like Mr. Garrison was going to assassinate her Yep she was going to die Because she Well they also had a joke about her real name being kathy lee epstein and it felt like they were like shaming her for changing her name it was really for taking her husband's name okay the

very famous football player yeah i think her last name is actually johnson oh wait it was epstein i'm sorry yeah she married some guy named johnson All right. Well, because I also remember that from a Jiminy Glick interview with her where he asked about it too, like, why did you change your name? She's like, well, people hate Jews a lot. She pretty much responded. Oh, my God. So she said she was

doing it just to help her. Not exactly help her career, but definitely she was like, anti-Semitism. That's why. She just straight out said it. Wait, so is she Jewish? She seems the most waspy white woman. She does, right? Well, I mean, that name, though, even if you want to be a beauty queen,

that's going to turn anti-Semitic people, who I would assume are beauty queen judges, they're turned off just seeing that name. They're just like, like oh how dare she have when she left the show it uh regis and kathy lee in the in 2000 it's crazy to think that like i don't think anybody remembers her doing that you know like kelly ripa just so took it over and most people viewed her as more likable than kathy lee yeah she didn't get the blowback that kathy lee did she was on like on snl she like hosted snl too yeah kelly ripa makes fun of herself even more uh often and and is very

she's a better i think comedy actor than kathy lee is in her many guest appearances although again kathy lee did a good job she did like i have no complaints about the job they did i just thought it was a bizarre segment to have on the show and that because they film in new york it meant they had to fly out to like oh crap that to go across the country to do that that's right which like there's lots of morning shows they could film with in la but they went to new york for it i mean maybe they wanted a trip to new york maybe that's why the show did i've done that yeah that switch preview event was pretty fun yeah i mean maybe again like maybe it was like a little late thing that they it would be difficult to animate or maybe maybe having animated regis and kathy lee would not hit the cartoon clashing with non-cartoon show right yeah i guess that yeah that Yeah, that does fit more, yeah. Boring.

I'm telling you, this cilantro really gives it a zing. Reach, there's no cilantro in it. What? Oh, God. This soup is out of control. My eyes, my beautiful eyes. Oh, that's it. I'm going home. Dom DeLuise can interview himself.

Itchy's house. This is where we came in. Look. Dad, you gotta get us out of here. Use the remote. Huh? Oh, okay. Fifty-one, three, no.

Ten! I missed that one. Yeah, I think I missed that one. I was watching it This morning I heard FIFO But until this clip I was like Oh yeah

He says three Before that Which like Why would three Do anything either Homer Yeah Regis Philbin

Still with us at 87 He left that show In 2011 But I mean He still will appear In stuff Like he's not fully gone Are we in the

Final answer time Of his life I think it's 99 yeah this is a little early because i think that would make him even more popular for sure oh yeah that was the real boom in his like i mean uh you know if you're our parents age everybody remembers him on the joey bishop show of course but then he was the kathy lee's co-host character and then people knew him as the millionaire guy and then people knew him as the millionaire guy. And then people knew him as the old man who won't let Kelly Ripa speak.

And also the Regis Philbin, according to Guinness Book of World Records, the man who spent the most time in front of a TV camera of any human ever. Whoa. Well, because he's been on TV since his early 20s. That's 60 years of basically always being on TV and filmed daily at least once a day. And in the millionaire era, he had like... Yeah, it was on five nights a week. Yeah.

So like basically four hours of him per day, five days a week. And then to film all that, that's just so much time. I mean, maybe there's some newscasters like Larry King could be close. Yeah. I mean, he's still on Hulu and I think he's as old as uh regis oh that show he's uh well see regis needed more jobs where he always is sitting now he has to stand up sometimes but larry king just sits they have those big stools on regis kathy lee yeah i think he needed more back support uh and so homer yeah switches back they're back in itchy and scratchy sass he almost sounds

disappointed too but it's like this is where we started i think the viewers are feeling the same way like i want more fun adventures with this premise uh but bart gets his uh all of his skin bit off by a fire hose of piranhas i like the firehouse full of piranhas and they're dressed like firemen right oh were they i think so yeah. The itchy and scratchy were, yeah. Lisa finally tells Homer how to get them out. We have a happy ending. Yeah, abusing instruction on how to get out. And how does she know?

She's never pressed that button to get out before. Oh, please, Lisa, we all figure that out by now. Ooh, that is going to hurt tomorrow. Dad, push exit! Hey! Lisa, look out! A skeleton! Ha-ha! Huh? Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!

Ha-ha! Ha-ha! You're beautiful. Oh, somebody's in love. That means you'll have to be neutered. No! So Bart can live for about 20 seconds without flesh or organs in the scene. Yeah. So what I was talking about with Lisa is like, push exit. And I'm like, what button is exit? Well, maybe not that. Not certainly on their TV, but TVs then were getting like a menu button.

Menu and exit, yeah. But it's too advanced for me. Maybe it's like the cable box on their crappy TV. So I looked into it, and I saw in the original version of the script, they enter and exit on a menu on the TV. Oh, okay. You know, like they're fighting, and it's toggling a menu so they hit the enter button enter on menu oh okay and that's also a good idea and then so i guess they

recorded it that way and probably didn't want to take the extra seconds in animation and they went this is stupid they just go in yeah the fact that there is an exit button homer presses it is enough but uh putting them in a menu makes the scene, I guess, have more logic to it within this magic world. Because the remote, it's like a VCR remote. It has an eject button, which seems like if I'm picking one on the remote to use as the gag. In my notes, I wrote Homer needs to push eject. But then I was like, oh, no, it's exit. That's what I was expecting was eject the whole time.

Yeah. So exit. Even in this listing of it i think oh she says exit not eject like it just yeah the i felt logically eject had was supposed to be the one i did not expect the episode to end with like a zoom in on scratchy's crotch but but finally all of the fic writers who have been writing their scratchy snowball to imaginings like now it's it's closer to canon Than ever before They're a good couple

It's weird to see Scratchy like a cat That walks around On his hind legs Talk to Snowball Just a regular cat And also it hits you That like

Oh Matt Groening Draws cats the same way Whether they're itchy Or whether they're Scratchy or Snowball Cartoon or regular They're both just A black cat

With yellow eyes Yeah I appreciated When Marge walked in She sees like A mutilated Bart ball cartoon or regular they're both just a black cat with yellow eyes yeah i appreciate it when marge walked in she sees like a mutilated bart and it's still his head she's like a skeleton that's the weirdest line that she says get away from that skeleton lisa so is that like something homer would say i mean i i think about how like there's there's like an internet meme now of like you know too spooky for me because like skeletons are associated with halloween they're supposed to be scary but they're not and i was like is that is that like an early

version of that joke was like well i think it's early early skeleton humor yeah i'm a fan of it yeah they learned that they can press rewind to do which also that means they have a magic click style remote still that didn't get busted well i i appreciated they did not have to do a reset to you know to status quo it's a it's a treehouse of horror they could have just had you know they've ended plenty on situations like that where they go well i guess i'm a skeleton boy now yeah yeah it would have been similar to homer with his donut head we didn't need to save bart i guess you're right It could have ended with them smashing through the TV

and they're like, oh no! But then they have to let you know these are tiny things. And when Scratch, Itchy gets put in the mouse cage,

he adapts to it instantly like, well, better start running. I did notice you brought it up, these are all stories about the family and also in every story

the status quo is reestablished at the end. There's no weird ending or in every story the status quo is re-established at the end there's no like weird ending or living with like a new status quo is that is that a scully thing i don't know i don't know i they i think they were writing them too much like um we have to get back to the beginning again i think they weren't thinking like we can leave we can have bart be dead or homer be a zombie or marge be a head in a jar. They weren't thinking like that. You know, the last one had the whole crucible one in it from Scully. So maybe they felt like after doing that one, they for some reason wanted to just have it be all modern day in the family.

But it's not that Scully was like against it, because he did do it the year before. And it'll happen again in his seasons. But yeah, it never hit me that they're all the same. They're all the same there. We then get our third segment. The last one written by Futurama's David X. Cohen. Starship Poopers.

They get poop on the show again. That's a groaner. Yeah. I think they normally are going for the Mad Magazine EC Comics one. Poopers is not as clever as Hell Toupee. No. And my most damning of phrases, I'm going to say, it's Rugrats.

It's a Rugrats joke. Yeah? Really? Well, I mean, not literally Rugrats, but it means in the style of Rugrats and being lesser for that. In our way to get donuts the other morning, we walked by Klasky Chupo,

animators of the first three seasons in the shorts. And I don't know what's going on in that building, but there's a picture of Ickes on the side of it. Yeah, I i don't know what's going on in that building but there's a picture of ikkas on the side of it yeah i don't even know if they're still in that thing or if they are they in business if they're in business they're in the business of licensing characters because they still own all that crap they i mean they sold a rugrats revival to nickelodeon like it was in a press release and everything it didn't look like anybody was working on anything in there it's all too small of a building to, oh, sorry. Yeah, Rugrats animation would happen

at the Nick's studio. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's just licensed. Yeah, I guess Nick's studio has grown quite a lot since Klasky Chupo was working with them. Yeah. It is fun to see this just gray square covered in Rugrats characters on one side and Aureal monster characters

on the other. And some weird Facebook show about a skateboarding zombie from the Aureal Monster characters on the other. And some weird Facebook show about a skateboarding zombie from the future. Yes. One on the front. This sounds like Homer's pitch from When You Dish Upon a Star, but their last attempt, I mean, their website is still up,

but it's 1999 as hell. But there was something on the front of the building that had some name I never heard of. I Googled it and it sent me to their webpage. It was their Facebook series from 2012 that is inaccessible today So it's no longer online Oh cool

But it is about A skateboarding zombie From the future Or in the future maybe They bothered to mural On the side of their wall A web address And that's not even around anymore

It's not So sorry Class Couture That really makes me think That building is empty then If they haven't gone rid of that Well it sounds like A historic relic or something if nobody's painting over the murals.

It's interesting to see, though. On their webpage, it has, first of all, the menu is Flash. It's a Flash menu. So you have to enable Flash to actually access it. And so the banner at the top says, Oli Mongo, which is the skateboarding zombie. And there's a little like thing on Facebook next to it. And it says, like Klasky Chupo's new fictional character a skateboarding

Zombie on Facebook So there you have it new fictional character New fictional character yes It's not a real skateboarding zombie on Facebook It's important that no existing zombies Were involved in this at all but there was no Duck man on the building I was upset by that I remember when I was in high school

I emailed Klasky Chupo Because at that time it was really hard to find the Simpsons shorts. And I remember emailing them like, do you sell these? And they actually responded to say no. I eventually found them on eBay. I think I paid $15 for a VHS cassette of all the shorts. We only have those shorts because Comedy Central was able to license the Tracy Ullman show and get those reruns. I think they were the last people to get to license that show, I think.

I wonder if by command of Matt Groening to James L. Brooks of like, nobody can syndicate this again. I don't want people to see these shorts. This is not important, but I believe Lifetime had them after Comedy Central. I remember seeing them on Lifetime and waiting for those shorts. But yeah, sorry. It's Starship Poopers here. Maggie is getting her first tooth, which is a pointed triangle sharp thing.

I like Bart even says, what's wrong with Stinky? Like for the first time ever, Bart has just called Maggie Stinky. That makes me think it's pretty rare to see a Bart-Maggie scene. They really don't interact all that much. She's a prop.

It's rare she gets to do anything. Maggie is active in a way she never gets to be in a normal show in this one. So not only is she getting her first tooth,

but she's also losing her baby legs. Here comes the flying saucer. What's wrong with Sticky? She's teething. Look, her very first baby tooth. Oh, yeah.

Disgusting. I just lost my appetite. Me too. Wait, mine came back. I know how to cheer you up. This little piggy went to Quickie Mart. This little piggy went nuts. This little piggy went to Quickie Mart. This little piggy went nuts. This little piggy went surfing.

And this little piggy went... Look, Marge. Maggie lost her baby legs. Oh, my God. I like the way he's daintily holding her legs. Yes, yeah. Oh, scrapbook these. Oh, Murray knows so little about raising children that when their legs pop off, like, Ooh, scrapbook these. Homer knows so little about raising

children when their legs pop off like, it's supposed to happen. Yeah, he's so happy about it. And then Maggie gets, you know, space mutant style limbs growing out of her. And we get a nice, like, Bam Bam style joke. It's a Bam Bam joke on the ceiling

this time. Well, I remember specifically that joke was what they showed in the preview for this episode we're like she's entering the she's definitely in the terrible twos as he's yeah being swung like that was the thing uh yeah it's a reverse bam bam but all but they don't reverse bam bam but they don't uh take it easy on them and just repeat like the two positions he kind of swings a bit around too and there's some really good animation just in general and maggie's slithering like she's she's really cool they're just octopus style slithering about and they take her to hibbert hibbert has only one suggestion for them

it's probably nothing but we just wanted to be sure. Is there anything you can prescribe, Doctor? Fire. And lots of it. That's your cure for everything. Poor Maggie. If only you could tell us what's happening to you. And her sucking is how she communicates with her father.

It's good to get a Dr. Hibbert where he's not doing a good-natured chuckle. He understands the gravity of this. The waves go out from the house, and they mention on the commentary, like, oh, does this look like they live in Louisiana then? It did. Oh, yeah, from where the waves emanate from. Well, I remember, because I was on alt.tv.simpsons back then and like like everybody noticed because there was a whole we really thought that that there

were messages we could detect and decode where is springfield like we really genuinely believed that that together we can crowdsource this and figure it out And so I remember that being like People were going like It looks like it's somewhere north of the Gulf of Mexico I'd given up on it by that point I was like no there's no way I think at that point I had read the FAQ That was posted on the SNPP.com

Like where is Springfield And they had dropped so many clues In that there was too many contradictory clues It was like well it's here but it also isn't here because of this. Yeah, yeah. The Union Pacific runs through Springfield. Yeah. Also, they're on the eastern seaboard.

And whatever, if there's a K beginning with a radio station address, it means it's on this side of the Mississippi instead of that side of the Mississippi. So, yeah. And the animators, I think, said they're like, well, no, we just centered the image. Because the effect is the circles we just centered the image. Because the effect is the circles come out from the center. They just chose to randomly to center the image for what they felt

just looked best for it. And it just so happens that Louisiana was right in the middle of it. They had to drive a long way to get to the kind of bayou style episode. We could just be bad drivers. I suppose. Homer is.

Yeah, actually, it's hard to say that categorically. So then the message is land and outer space. And I do kind of wish this hadn't been spoiled for me. I saw the commercials too. I kind of would have preferred the shock of this moment. Like, what? Like, this is a Kangan. How do we feel about a holy, flirking schnitz?

That's shocking I can't believe they got that on TV Yeah I mean having written for TV That is like a huge no-no Where you can't curse And you can't put in a word that's a clear substitute for a curse Yeah

They're just a few syllables off Yeah A few vowel sounds off It's still F and S together Like yeah I can't believe they got away with it Like I've tried writing in What the fudge

And they go no that sounds too similar And you could break it off I mean I'm writing for kids So that's another thing Then we have to put in something more like What the what Not what the snap Because that's too close

There's a whole negotiation that goes on Clearly on Fox late at night At 8pm they were not caring that's too close, you know, the S sound. Wow. Yeah, there's a whole negotiation that goes on. Clearly on Fox late at night at 8 p.m. they were not caring. It's the filth hour. I feel like it's one of those ones once they got it through, then it's like, wait, we messed up. You can't do that again. No more.

Flirking schnit did not become Kang's catchphrase at that point. It's time I paid a visit to... My daughter! We'll return with how Dracula got his groove back! Hello! Oh, great. Mormons! Actually, we're quantum Presbyterians. And we've come to see... My daughter! Oh, Lord.

I was hoping this day would never come. Huh? What are you talking about? You mean you never told him? I guess I've been in denial. Homer, Kang is Maggie's father. You intergalactic hussy! How could you? Oh!

Was he better than me i like that little comment yeah something that made me laugh so much in this this justice viewing was i realized they do it twice yes my daughter bump bump oh yeah yeah they expect the audience to be just as shocked the second time. That felt like a real Futurama gag to me, of just the repeating of a dramatic thing a second time and treating it as with the same Dutch camera angle and music sting. Well, I guess it's due to them, but not us. Yeah, and also apparently Kang inflects my daughter with that tone no matter what. He knows it's dramatic, yeah. Or yeah, it's just the natural way he says, my daughter with that uh with that tone no matter what he knows it's dramatic yeah or yeah it's just the natural way he says my daughter he was only talking to kodos and kodos was there

from the beginning kodos isn't shocked yeah this bit here it's a i mean it's a parody of the an alien made by my baby is an alien type thing which was going around a lot back then same with the whole like anal probing gags which yeah so that's some old tired stuff there so tired that in the 96 treehouse they knew like let's not do an anal probing joke guys yes please a thornier topic in this is that marge is kind of impregnated against her will yes yeah. Yeah. Yes. Makes this a little uncomfortable. She's more than when I was a kid. She's very good natured about it, though, in a very Marge-like way,

which I guess makes it darker. Oh, yeah. Actually, that's a little darker. Yeah. Yeah. She gives up so quickly, which doesn't make it better. Well, Marge also says, she says, like, I tried to resist him, but he tricked me when it's just like, I think even in my first viewing, I was at least slightly uncomfortable.

Like, how far are they going with this gag here that when he pulled out his little laser gun that impregnated her, I was like, oh, that's how they're doing it. Okay. I was wondering, too, because on the abduction, she says, like, and they came without warning. And then they go, warning, warning warning you're about to be abducted which i was like is that saying that marge's narration is not to be fully believed oh i think marge is trying to say they caught me off guard but she's clearly lying when she had lots of warning i also like that right before that she says i was having a wonderful time in the backyard which is just hanging Laundry She's so boring and then yes they Going on the commentary mentions that they tried

To have a different way of abducting people Each time like the last time we Saw Kangakoto's it was Yeah the UFO catcher yeah And this time a lasso So I looked Up and I saw A lasso abduction had happened on Get a Life.

Really? So I'm wondering if this is like a Merkin joke or something. He was in the rewrite rooms then, so that's interesting. I had forgotten that on Get a Life. It is a funny way to get abducted. That must have been from their E.T. parody one, right? Spewy? Yeah, spewy.

Oh, spewy. Yeah, so Marge Oh, spewy. Yeah, so Marge is inseminated, let's say. Congratulations. You have been selected for our crossbreeding program. To put you at ease, we have recreated the most common spawning locations of your species. You may choose either the backseat of a Camaro, an airplane bathroom, a friend's wedding, or the alley behind a porno theater. I absolutely refuse to go along with this. But since I have no choice, I'll take the alley. Initiate fertilization procedure. Oh, you look lovely this evening.

Have you decreased in mass? I tried to resist, but they applied powerful mind confusion techniques. Look behind you. Insemination complete. Really? That seemed awfully quick. What are you implying? Nothing, nothing. Oh, wow, look at the time.

I'd love to stay, but I have an early meeting tomorrow. You're a super girl, though. I'll call you sometime. I like how Kang turns into a ledge to dirtbag suddenly. Yes. Immediately after, I guess, coming, he's like, oh, look at the time. I mean, shooting his laser. Yes.

With the locations, it's rare on The Simpsons to see a comedy list of four. Yeah. Yeah. I think someone couldn't win a fight today. It was a rule of fours this time. Friends Wedding would be my pick of those four. Yeah, it's funny that Marge didn't choose that one. She wanted the porno theater.

I like they don't really discuss that choice. Maybe because it was four, they're just like, well, if we're going to spend the whole thing in the alley, the rule of three is the three before the alley. Maybe that counts as a separate rule of three joke. But no, you're right. Four things is an off pattern. But they're all funny.

It didn't bother me watching it. The only one that feels slightly classy is the Friends Wedding one. You know, you're all recreationally drunk. You're all thinking about love. Like, you're wearing a nice outfit. That's much better than, who are you meeting at a porno theater that you're having alley sex with? Let's say Moe. Not Marge.

She wouldn't do that. Although, the Friends Wedding is wedding is like right in front of the cake so oh yes so so it implies in front of 200 people all right the reception at the reception it's a little trashier than i guess yeah but yeah the scene makes me a little more uncomfortable than it did when i was 16 they marge marge plays it with such like good humor and is fine with it or acts so fine with it i think if she played it any differently it would change the tone of it and it wouldn't be light tone so i get why their their choice on that they knew what they were doing oh yeah well i mean with the jokes they're doing there they're doing way more sexual of jokes than they normally

do on simpsons like Like a joke about that was fast is like that would not be on a Simpsons normally for sure. Well, they did the whatever child that he made, it was like the joke was like 20 seconds later and you see the Homer sperm floating by. So they have done like premature ejaculation jokes before. That's right, okay. Oh wait, no, Maggie makes three.

Okay, yeah, yeah. Now that that truth is revealed, Kang is like, all right, we're taking maggie i love that he reveals that she's just gonna have a clerical job he didn't even impregnate marge to have that kid take over the world or anything it's just like no come back to the planet earth is an obscure t-shirt producing planet they don't want to take it over pretty worthless they wanted to take over so bad just two years ago. They come to Earth all the time. He doesn't really, he shouldn't need a

refresher on what Earth is. He could have visited Maggie before. So the fight is escalating and there's only one man who can fix this. Get your slimeless hands off her. People, people, space monsters, this is going nowhere. There's only one man who can settle an argument this bizarre.

Okay, we're back. Homer, how did it feel to learn your baby was fathered by a drooling space octopus? It made me angry, Jerry. Angry and tired. Well, you're about to get a whole lot angrier, because we have the extramarital extraterrestrial backstage in a soundproof booth where he can't hear us. I hear all. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Kang.

Hey! Yeah! Mmm! One-eyed, two-timing! I'm good! Oh, yeah? Well, hyperbolic parapalloid. These jokes were very fresh Yeah It's a very specific moment in time Yeah

We were all captivated It's weird, this whole Halloween special They got a real talk show thing going on There's a talk show reference There's the Ed McMahon And then the Regis and Kathy Lee And Jerry Springer It's all chat shows

I didn't think about that, wow Holy flirking schnit Were we all Springer viewers? I didn't watch the show every day. I'd watch an actual full episode maybe a handful of times, but I was an avid TalkSoup viewer, which had a ton of Springer clips. So I'm not saying I was above Springer. I'm just saying I watched the best clips every day of it on TalkSoup.

This John Henson era TalkSoup? Yes. Greg Kinnear. Well, I came in right When Kinnear was quitting So it was mainly Henson Yeah yeah Come to think of it That's how I got

Most of my Springer too Because it aired While I was at school Yeah so it was mostly talk soup If I was home sick I would watch it Yeah oh yeah me too It had started like

Seven years before this In 1991 And the last episode Aired like almost A year ago today I couldn't believe it Yeah when I looked at it I was like How the fuck was it on so long?

It's incredible. I had no idea. Was it syndicated nationally the whole time? I think so, yeah. And I guess he's moving on to be Judge Jerry because Judge Judy, looking at the watch. Yeah, she's... Yeah, doing the famous gif. I did the gif, listeners.

You have to just imagine. Yeah, I can't believe he's Judge Jerry. Well, he's not getting any younger either. But yeah, he's coming back with Judge Jerry in September. Look forward to Judge Jerry, everybody. But no, I remember it was such a trashy show. And it felt like me and Bob talk a lot about the end of history feel of the 90s. But so I think back then I was like, it's fun to watch this crap.

It's just crap. I watched a lot of these kind of shows, especially in the summer when I just was like a weird insular kid staying inside. And I didn't like this one that much because Jerry Springer didn't really do anything. It was mostly just him just in the audience while people on stage yelled at each other. There was no interviewing or talking. It was just breaking up fights, filming the fights, and then just sort of talking

to audience members. He didn't really have much presence in his own show. Well, he tried to act like he was above. That's why he would do his final thought. But haven't we all learned something? Isn't this, this was a valuable experience that everybody had.

We weren't just gawking at open sores on stage. We were, we learned things together. You know, it's kind of a theme for me where like when I'm watching this, I'm going, oh God, this is embarrassing. But I can't, again, I can't really be above it. No, no. I dread, like my friends and I I went as the whole Jerry Springer gang for Halloween one year. Yeah, people on his show would become celebrities.

We were talking about one of the security guys, Steve Wilkos. And I guess you just found out about his show. I didn't know he had his own show that is also still on the air. What? I think Jerry Springer is trashy. Oh, my God. Yeah, well, the guy who breaks up fights got his own show that is also still on the air. If you think Jerry Springer is trashy. Oh my God.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the guy who breaks up fights got his own show. Yes. The security guard, who's like an ex Marine. Would you believe he's not very articulate as a talk show host,

but, but somehow in 2007, he sold his own show, left Springer to do his own daily talk show that, um, yes, Springer is like b-level trash he gets the darkest shit on the show that often involves like crimes like literal crimes that people did including two children and like

maybe he was partially inspired by all those dateline sting things but like the titles of the episode i'm like how can you call this how can you title your episode this about actual children who are having horrible things done to them? How can you do this and live with yourself? Do this job. Springer, I feel from the descriptions I've read of that Wilco show, he stepped over the line that Springer wouldn't do. And maybe that's why he got got a show he's like well I see where how far Springer will go I gotta go farther yeah

I'm looking at The episode titles I won't read some of them But so we have they're too hot for Podcast I think they just bring people down But it's like I'm not a molester she's a liar So no that is Basically

And they're basically all like this Steve I'm not a molester, she's a liar. Oh, no. That is basically... And they're basically all like this. Steve, I'm being falsely accused. Steve, I need your help, again. Yeah, so these are just all from this year, actually. Horrifying. They're making a choice to use molest and molester, but they know what they're really going to say.

Well, one of them does. I saw one title that did have the r word i was like you're a daytime tv show how can i i can't believe it like that is did you bite and burn my eight month old baby jesus yeah i mean uh it makes mori seem better you know like it just feels like a new low on that stuff, which I hate. I don't want to sound like a snob, but that is too far for me, that show. And it's also like the guy who was the silent security guard is now a talk show host for 13 years? I did not set him up to be shot 10 times.

These are all real titles. I wonder if it was one shooting with ten bullets Or ten separate shootings That I did not set them up for any of them The first nine were a setup But the last one, so it wasn't ten It wasn't ten It's on a technicality

But yeah, Jerry Springer, he got his start as a Cincinnati Political figure His big scandal was in the 70s That he went to a massage parlor and paid in a personal check so it came back to him and he was outed for it what an idiot uh nt though somehow he still got appointed as mayor when cincinnati lost a mayor he didn't win an election for mayor he was just appointed it he then tried to run for governor but in the democratic primary but but lost and so that's when in the 90 90s, he transitioned into a show.

The trash host. The TV show host. Well, apparently the first season was a little more Donahue-y, and I think he learned, like, we got to go trashier. We got to beat him in that way. Yeah, and now, like, every show. I mean, it's been a while since I checked in on daytime talk shows, but I guess if Steve Wilkos is still doing them, they're probably all like this.

But everyone had to escalate the trashiness to compete with Jerry Springer. I remember when Maury was just like a touchy-feely emotional Oprah show, but then it became like, it's a show you go on to do your touchdown dance when you find out you're not the father. Yeah.

Maury was another show that my mom watched religiously, but the old Maury, the one that could pair up with Regis and Kathy Lee. Yeah, with Springer, too, I found out he is like over 200 episodes into a podcast. By episode count, he seems like he started around we did with his Springer podcast. You should do a crossover. This is one of the earliest TV shows where he played himself, but not the first. Can you guess what the first TV show he played

himself on? Celebrity Death Match. No, it was 1996. Oh, wait a minute. You got me. One more hint. A fellow Fox show. Oh, I think I know. Is it Married With Children? You're close. Damn. X-Files. X-Files, okay.

They both fit. They both fit. It's funny, actually actually Maybe when Married with Children Was over They're like The new king of trash Is here And it's Jerry Springer

And plus I mean The show got so huge That they I think they made Millions off just those Too hot for TV tapes Oh yeah You're right

Yeah I totally forgot about that Yeah Mr. Show parodied those Perfectly Yeah All with the same censoring of brian post-saints butt crack over and over that's right yes uh yeah they sold i even remember seeing those

like in the it seemed too trashy for him but they were they were renting those at like blockbuster video my local blockbuster my friends and i rented one but it was just kind of boring yeah yeah like there were always those commercials for for those backyard wrestling outtakes or the underground comedy movie, which was the ShamWow Guys movie. Oh, that's right, yeah. Before then. Yeah, there was this whole market for like... Girls Gone Wild, right?

Yeah, extreme videos that almost certainly were all disappointing. Well, now they can all be just slimmed down to like a 10 second vine of somebody's pants falling down or whatever. Why would you pay $30 for a VHS tape to like find it among 60 minutes of outtakes of people to say like, fuck you, man. No, fuck you. I mean, I guess it's something to hear people actually say the words that are getting bleeped.

I mean, that's what the Simpsons chewed on that wall a lot in this, where they're just bleeping constantly. It felt, it feels strange. Yeah. The joke is, I mean,

I guess I'm just used to watching Hulu and Netflix and everything now where nothing is bleeped, but the joke is like, Oh, they're swearing a lot on Jerry Springer, which is where swearing happens. It's constant bleeping, constant blurring. And the Simpsons where swearing happens. It's constant bleeping, constant blurring.

And the Simpsons never get to swear. It's very rare you get a bleep on the show. Well, the only other time before this I can think of a bleep was when Kent Brockman on TV says, and it's about fucking time. Which one was that? The Do As You Feel festival. Yeah, they did the The episode with like Homer's swear jar

Where they Yeah Cut around Cut to birds flying away Or something Same with when he said The loudest profanity Ned has ever heard

In Mr. Burns part one He does breathe in And make the F Like Yeah It's amazing They got away with that And the writers of the show

Elise Cohen Are There is very well observed springer acting here of the um the wronged man who's trying to act too serious like angry and tired yeah like yeah there must be a disappointed and terrified yeah it's sort of like his vindicated like agreeing with the you know when an audience member shouts down Kang. He's just kind of nodding. And then also Kang's arrival is the guy who loves being on Jerry Springer,

like, hey, that's right, I'm the guy you love to hate. Woo! And coming out with the roses for the woman. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's all very accurate to the Springer characters, which it wasn't all fake fake but how fake was that show sometimes i wonder i i think i think they're real people with real problems that just sort of get pushed into being cartoons of themselves i think i remember seeing like mtv did an interview with

some people who did it and they're like well i thought i had to fight the guy i'm on jerry springer so i was like yeah i gotta jump on him yeah i'm sure they get you amped up and stuff like that too so springer got sued in a wrongful death thing which then got thrown out of the course they just both decided like let's just settle neither of us can probably win this but it was that a uh they did a classic you know this woman is cheating on this guy episode and the woman was murdered like and so the uh by one the man who gets wronged in the quotes. And so her kid sued Springer of like, you made this murder happen. But it didn't go to court. So who knows how it would have panned out.

I'm sure you've got to sign a ton of waivers before going on a show. Yeah. I worked in reality TV before I was able to write full time. It is weird because they are real people, but you just, you kind of, they're producers going up and going like, what are they doing over there? That's not right, man. If I were you, I'd do something about it. And, you know, and also give them tons of alcohol. The wildest story of that was like, I was running camera on this lady and she was like doing an

interview and she started crying. And then the producer turns to me afterwards, after the interview goes, did you get it? And I was like, uh, yeah, I mean, the camera was rolling. I got it. He goes, no, but did you zoom on the tear? And I went, uh, oh no, I didn't, I didn't know I was supposed to do that. And he goes, oh, you always zoom on the tear. You got to follow the tear down her face. And I was like, oh, I'm not cut out for this at all. Capture the pain. You aren't as ready to pounce on their misery as you should be.

Well, then I was like, what if I become, I was like. Once it gets normal to you, then what happens? Yeah, what if I'm the guy 20 years later telling some intern, you got to zoom on the tear. Kids these days don't even know. Well, when I was your age, I learned, and I learned fast. I made them cry, and I zoomed. And technology is so much better in the 20 years from now

when you're telling them how to zoom in. You had auto zooms on the tier. Then they even have a parody of the person in the audience. I'm glad they went with a white trash lady as far far as other voices oh yeah yeah that felt like a choice as well but it's a good design on her with her like poodle sweater and the curler in the hair that feels almost like too old that's like is she from the 50s this old lady um but she's played by tress tress does a great job with these kind of voices maybe her only voice in this episode i think so yeah and she gets a scary voice on it too uh or she gets

a scary credit as well which yeah she doesn't always get but yes this also this bit though reminds me of a jim gaffigan bit from oh yeah that was on uh dr cats but it was about a manatee but it boy was it funny i like the response like i'm a manatee yeah i got a question for that gross thing, whatever it is. Homer. Nah, the green dude. If you're that baby's daddy, where you been at? You know, somebody needs to learn your green ass some responsibility. Now, hold on, Kang. You can't bully my audience with your fancy ray gun. And now for my final thought.

Nobody wins when parents put their petty squabbles above the welfare of a child. Let's hope they put their differences aside and do what's best for Maggie. What the f***? Get the f*** baby off! Son of a. I'm so embarrassed. March had some good lines in this episode. They let her have fun. The vaporizing of the audience. That's so funny.

He's like, you can't bully my audience. And then they're all dead instantly. It was, it looked like it was a challenge for the animators to one draw a simpsonized version of jerry springer and then to do the parody of his closer he has to speak to camera so it's not just a front-facing simpsons which we know like those look weird in general but it is a guy they've never drawn before that has to look accurate to jerry so uh I think they do a good job with it. I think it's probably more of a challenge for the animators than the writers expected when they wrote. He does his final thoughts.

Yeah, the bit, him being attacked by Maggie is pretty funny, especially that it results in his death. I especially like that. I mean, it's this thing where they just did fighting and cursing. And then they're like, more fighting and cursing. That's kind of all. That's the only joke you really got on the Jerry Springer set. But I do like Homer is held up in the air, octopus style, but still kicking at Kang.

For the whole sequence there, Kang does not have his glass tube over his head. I guess he needed it off to kiss marge's hand but it kind of stays off yeah they're never that consistent with the glass tubes i i love a glass tube king codice's glass tube one of my i want the drooling to come back yeah they don't drool as much there either we get to the ending here and this is where uh it's one of my i think it's my most hated adr lines it's so artificial yeah it's like oh yeah but it was a killer joke it was worth it it was worth it well i guess to put this in time listeners just in case you don't remember 1998 bill clinton was being impeached i believe the process was still

happening he hadn't been officially impeached yet all over a blow job he got a blow job and lied about it but uh which boy that was a classic time of clinton allegation now it's like he stole a pie off a windowsill everything was that then you couldn't get away from him like then the uh wizard of evergreen terrace we just did that starts with a clinton boner joke that's right yeah i see this ending bit here it's kind of a just a bipartisan joke about killing politicians because we're sick of the politicians. Always with the politics. Yeah, those clowns in Congress did it again.

What a bunch of clowns. But then, and that joke's funny enough, they don't need a specific because that kind of joke probably could be timeless of just like, ah, people are always frustrated with politicians. They'd want the aliens to kill them all. I bet they were feeling some sort of friendly rivalry with something like South Park.

I think, yeah. Where they were very of the moment. Simpsons, you know, was written nine months before the episode airs. So I feel like, no, we could do a reference. We could reference this thing. I think you're right. Yeah.

Yeah, but I mean, South Park would reference something from this week. Yeah, yeah. And 10 stars, like this period of 18 months. Yeah, and it's super dated. And then just the delivery of it is just so... Oh, it's squeezed into a locked animation. Yeah.

I made a joke. It's like you can hear the phone ringing, and then Nancy Cartwright picks up, and she's like, don't forget Ken Starr, and then she hangs up the phone. It's like it's not even coming out of BART. And they wait so long for him to say it. They hold on that shot for so long.

Yeah, it's very distracting. They should have recropped. If they were going to have that line, recropped the shot again with Bart not visible in it then at least. Or lift a mug over his mouth. Don't forget Ken Starr. I can't believe it. Jerry Springer didn't solve our conflict.

And now he's dead. Anyhoo, this is your last chance. Turn over the baby now, or we will destroy all your leaders in Washington. Oh, you couldn't destroy every politician. Just watch us. Don't forget Ken's car. Suckers.

Come on, Maggie. Let's go home. Very well. I'll drive. I need blood. They should have gotten James Earl Jones for that, I think. Yeah. You know what?

Yeah, totally. It would have fit with both of his previous appearances. This is indeed a disturbing universe. And we voiced Sarek the Preparer, so he's also connected to the aliens. I agree with your casting, Bob. We've got to go back in time and get James Earl Jones to do this. It's actually a pretty long list by this point of people who have voiced Maggie.

Yeah, Elizabeth Taylor, James Earl Jones. Harry Shearer. Harry Shearer, yeah. I mean, Nancy Cartwright makes the babbles. She makes baby noises, yeah. But that I Need Blood, I'd forgotten that. I was like, that's weird. I don't know. The laughter

is enough to close it out. Again, that feels added, doesn't it? Yeah. It feels like, yeah, it was added after the fact. You can feel a little of the sweatiness of like, do we need one more thing here? Yeah, them getting bored with their own jokes after hearing them 30 times going,

is this even funny anymore? Yeah. I mean, that's a danger in general with editing. And I don't know, has that come up in your line of work too? Just of like, we've seen this thing so many times, maybe we'll change it up a little bit. I mean, in animation, not as much. Like in live action, sort of famously, everyone's tired of their jokes. So if it's not in front of an audience, they're always like slipping in new jokes because

they don't even know what's funny anymore. And that's sort of like what, you know, it sucks to hear the laugh track on shows but that's that's like sort of the point of the audience is like they confirm yes this is funny yeah i think with the simpsons guys they've said it too they like they've thrown out good jokes just because they've heard it too many times and they they go with something else i think definitely the ken star one was one of that and maybe the i need blood which doesn't even sound like it's harry it sounds like it's dan actually saying it's a bit different yeah it's not a great joke maybe they're just like can we go out with this laughter again because so many things uh go out with like crazy king kodos laughter yeah i do

think the springer one might be the boy no hell to pays the best of the three actually i think so yeah the springer stuff is at least fully formed like unlike 10 seconds of a tease of regis and kathy this is like they paid for the graphics they got the music they drew the security guards right they hit so many of the notes of jerry springer like it's a enough specifics that i appreciate yeah well you can tell this was the springer one was the marquee one the one one that they were, I don't know, put the most effort into, and the one that they advertised the hell out of. Yeah, I think it was the key

part to the ads, for sure, yeah. Something that I only noticed in this rewatch, too, is like, Bart, Lisa, Itchy, and Scratchy are they're only on screen for like four seconds, but they are so fluid. Like, I think they're animated on ones in that. I think yeah i forgot to point that out yeah they're just very fluid i think just to match like because now they're in live action they have to be a little more fluid

to not like look like they're just pasted on top of a live action image you talk about the regis yeah the regis catholic live action segment yeah yeah it felt uh their fluidness reminded me of roger abbott quite a lot yeah maybe they can afford five seconds of that animation yeah i i read that they like actually dropped stuff in the pot yeah i was re-watching to see like was there something coming up from the pot or something dropping they just animated on top of whatever they dropped at the pot i wonder what it was i also sandbags how many times were Regis and Kathy good with like, okay, splash me a fourth take of splashing in the face?

All right, sure, sure. At what point do they go like, I think I've been splashing enough of this soup. Thank you. I would expect Regis to do as many takes as you want. Yeah, he seems a little more game for it, I think. He's just like, fill me some more. Come on. Hey, I loved his z's just like, fill me some more. Come on.

Hey. I loved his zing. That's a funny word, too. But yeah, a good treehouse. Yeah, I liked it. It's very zippy. A lot of it, I think, is more visual than in the writing, especially this is the middle segment.

But it's fun. The Jerry Springer stuff is incredibly dated, but it can't help but be dated. It was made to be as relevant as possible for 1998. Yeah, but i will give credit for the springer stuff to at least be accurate and well observed like they didn't they didn't phone it in and just you know i go springer's popular kids today whatever that is just write a general talk show yeah they didn't do that and same with you know hell to pay was that both were

all three were really good at what they were the stylistically you know parodying so yeah and the animation backed it up pretty well too a good to start the season with tan yeah yeah like none of the segments are are classics but they're all fine not one stinker of mine we say goodbye to david cohen who went off to make some other show no one ever heard about ever again well that was like when i was a when i was especially on the news groups And stuff like Mike Scully was this pariah But as I got older And wiser I realized like oh Half the writers left to go

On Futurama maybe that had Something to do with the change in tone There was a lot of brain drain We talked to Mike Scully he's a very nice guy Very funny on Twitter too Cool dude we apologize to him If you listen to our interview you'll hear me and Bob apologize to him for our uh internet indiscretions with him beforehand i'm sure he's gotten a lot of those apologies over the past 20 years but alan you're

a special guest hey can you talk about where we can find you what you're working on what we can see sure well you can find me on twitter i'm at alan the writer a-l-a-n the writer i i'm developing a show that I don't I can't really mention And I wrote For a different show That they haven't announced That season yet

So I can't talk about it Anyway I write for cartoons You have written before Yeah I have written for I mean the The most famous thing was

Yeah I was staff writer On Sonic Boom Which went for two seasons 104 episodes On Cartoon Network So you know Just check out some Sonic Boom. That'll be good.

I get no residuals on anything. People can Venmo you if they enjoy the show. So watch it in whichever way you deem appropriate. Well, thank you so much, Alan. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks again to Alan Denton. Be sure to check out Sonic Boom and follow him on Twitter to find out what he's doing next.

But as for us, if you want to support our shows and get a lot of bonus podcasts, please go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up at the $5 level. If you do, you will get every episode of both Talking Simpsons and our sister podcast, What a Cartoon, one week ahead of time and at free. And at that $5 level, there are a ton of paywalled podcasts you probably haven't heard yet, including all of our miniseries. The most recent one is Talking talking of the hill a first season exploration of king of the hill we have a new mini series coming this fall only for five dollar patrons and we have a newer ten dollar tier featuring extra long podcasts every month henry what is that for our ten dollar patrons at the

premium level you get access to our monthly what a cartoon movie podcast where we talk about a different animated feature film once a month if you sign up now you get to hear july's beavis and butthead do america as well as all the ones before that and you'll get to hear august as soon as it goes live and is chosen by our wonderful patrons at patreon.com slash talking simpsons so please support us today at ten dollars a month patreon.com slash talking simpsons so please support us today at ten dollars a month patreon.com slash talking simpsons so i've been one of your hosts bob mackie find me on twitter as bob servo my other podcast is retro knots it's a classic gaming podcast every monday and occasionally on friday go to retronauts.com or look for retro knots in your podcast machine find it and subscribe to

it i think you'll like it henry what about you you can follow me on twitter at h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g i'll give you updates whenever a new podcast goes live on either the free feed or on the patreon so be sure to follow me to find out there first as well as all my other fun thoughts one more time on twitter that's h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g thank you so much for joining us folks we'll see you next week for the episode When You Dish Upon a Star, and we will see you then. My eyes, my beautiful eyes! Hey, hey, wiggity, wiggity, Poochie's in the house!