Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror V

Episode Date: September 6, 2017

Yes, it's Halloween time again, and this one is particularly disturbing. No TV and no beer make Homer something-something, a toaster causes the butterfly effect, and you might even say we just ATE Uter and he's in our STOMACHS right now! Wait, scratch that last podcast tease...

This week's episode of Talking Simpsons is brought to you by you. That's right, we're on Patreon now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons. For as little as $5 a month, you can help our show and get all kinds of great extra content on top of that. We've got a ton of great bonus content waiting for you right now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons today. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody and welcome to TalkingSimpsons, where the elite meet to have their spirits broken. I'm your host Bob Mackie, a negative Nelly in Sector 2. And this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of the Simpsons.

Who else is here with me today? Teacher, mother, and secret lover, Henry Gilbert. Who else is here? Shit, without a clever name, Chris Santista, I thought I had it written down. And our special guest, our first time guest actually. I'm Kat Bailey and what I find never fails is a glass of warm milk, a little nap, and a total frontal lobotomy. That always works.

And today's episode is Treehouse of Horror 5. These wieners will give me the quick energy I need to escape. What's amazing is that that actually works. It does work. And today's episode aired on October 30th, 1994, and as always, Chris will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God. Oh, boys and ghouls. The country mourns M. Bison and Gomez Adams for the passing of actor Raul Julia, dead at 54 following a stroke.

The country's top album is a soundtrack to a movie no one can see, Murder Was the Case, starring Snoop Dogg. And a little film called Pulp Fiction quietly rolls out to select theaters. I would say Raul Julia's greatest role is Fingle and Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. My nuts. Yes, exactly. I did it first, Henry. Raul Julia, you went too soon. I'm sorry. He looks so

bad. He looks so ill in the Street Fighter movie. It's really sad. If you've had the pleasure of seeing him in three other films and you watch the Street Fighter movie, he looks sick. He looks tired. That was a gift to his kids, though, on his way out. Well, and to the bank account he'd leave behind to his family. And, like, yeah, the Polygon a few years ago had a very good oral history of the making of the Street Fighter movie.

And they talk about how he was a total professional despite being obviously very sick. Very sick 54 dude like i'm almost there uh and since that we almost almost got a treehouse of horror during halloween yeah but since halloween's coming up someone had reminded me of it dude adam's family both those movies fucking rock they are great family halloween viewing yeah and they're on netflix now perfect casting like christina ricci as as wednesday is one of the greatest ever and but he is the perfect gomez like as as is angelica houston as morgana he has the uh i think he's a great uh follow-up from john aston like they both have the same kind of eccentric flair to them and i only gush over him now if he was still alive i think we would treat him like a christopher walken he

would have been a guest voice on the simpsons he would be a badass snl host he'd be in commercials he'd be loved ironically and sincerely by the entire world you are so right he would have been embraced by the a comedy world and he could have he would have gotten to have that christopher walken or james woods type of like ah time to bask in this appreciation i'm a super intense well-trained actor but i can use this really well for comedy. And he's not the only one who was kind of conned by his kids into participating in a really bad movie based on a nerdy property. This happened with Harry Potter, Dumbledore, and Bob Hoskins as well.

So it's a tradition. Yeah. Actually, Kat is our new guest. This is a normally phallocentric show, so why did we let a woman on Talking Simpsons? Please tell us, Kat, like,

how do you know us all? Well, Bob, I used to work with you over at US Gamer. That's right, until I quit for a worse job. Until you left.

And of course, Henry and I have been, we run in similar circles, I'd say. Yeah. And then we were formerly married. I want some good stuff

on the wiki. And you have your own podcast, too. I do have my own podcast. I have two podcasts now. Oh, my God. She's qualified good stuff on the wiki. And you have your own podcast, too. I do have my own podcast. I have two podcasts now. Oh, my God. She's qualified, folks. Don't worry.

Oh, no. And Kat was on an episode of Laser Time where we talked about the putting the bets. Star Wars expanded universe. That you knew so much about the novels and the story. So much fun. The old official story of Star Wars. It was really fun to talk about that one last time. Yes, exactly.

Or Disney makes it illegal. What's your Simpsons history? How long have you been a fan? What was your first episode? When did you stop watching, too? Oh, man. Okay, so unlike all of you, I did not watch The Simpsons when I was little because I was a good little girl. I did not

watch The Simpsons. I was kind of like, oh, I don't know. Simpsons, that's kind of edgy and out there. My parents were like, oh, no, Kat, you shouldn't be watching The Simpsons, I was kind of like, oh, I don't know. Like, Simpsons, that's kind of edgy and out there. My parents were like, oh, no, Kat, you shouldn't be watching The Simpsons. Oh, no, no, no. They're directly connected to mischief in every way. Exactly. So I did not-

You should be playing marbles. It would be a disaster. But I was aware of The Simpsons, because how could you not be aware of The Simpsons in the early 90s, right? And I saw, I watched Fox, and I saw the promos, you know, for different episodes. I clearly remember the promo for Kate Fear for example like appearing on

advertisements also Wacking Day I remember the ads for that but I would say I started watching The Simpsons really avidly say around 1999

and the first episode I probably ever watched was the one where Homer goes to New York oh my god that's a good one but I've heard people use that as a checkout point for The Simpsons as well but now it's a good one it's it but I've heard people use that as a checkout

point for the Simpsons as well but now it's a modern classic well because everybody I would so this would have been like 97 I think and I well you know all the kids at school were talking about it of course and also South Park but I I watched that episode so that I could talk with the kids you know at lunch and then from that point infiltrate them human children and everybody was kind of like oh i don't know it wasn't a very good episode but from that point on like i started watching the simpsons on fox 29 because it was on every day at 5 and 5 30 oh you lucky dog you had two earrings i never and it was on loop right so just turn on at five go through that watch news radio right afterwards i fell right after that it was so great and i saw so much classic simpsons and i came to love it i didn't know this so you started in 97 most people

that aren't me would say the show wasn't worth watching for much longer after that when did you stop watching uh i started stopped watching when ma died because oh wow so you weren't even on on the new episode train for that long like maybe three years okay i mean that's that's a good play i mean that's a very bad episode we'll get to it but uh there were better episodes after that but i i understand that as a checking out point for a lot of people yeah i was in college i didn't really have easy access to tv and that episode just really rubbed me the wrong way because the way they treated ma just wasn't cool in my mind so i was like i don't know like and it had taken a noticeable dip from like the good episodes i could always tell when they started to hit the later episodes because like the tonality

changed, like everything about it changed. The writing became a lot stiffer. It wasn't as funny. Yeah, though now there have been more episodes since Maude's death than there were episodes before Maude's death. That's how many there have been at this point. To go back to the time frame of this, I remember this week because a Far Side Halloween special aired the same week.

Oh, you're right. It's great. And I remembered it because I taped it on our Simpsons tape. So it was one of the only times ever on the Gilbert Family VHS of the Simpsons that a non-Simpsons thing was on there. It snuck in on that Halo tape? It did. Well, we...

It's infuriating. We loved Far Side. We loved it too. I didn't even know that it was a cartoon. It on that hallowed tape it did well we're infuriating i loved far side we loved it too but i didn't even know that it was a cartoon this is it was one special this is an upcoming laser time about this because for some reason after our theme park thing we were looking at universal's ultra sad cartoon lagoon hagar the horrible blondie the phantom who can forget everybody everybody nobody knows who any of these characters are but in the 80s i guess after it was like okay it's been 20 years charlie brown christmas is a staple every single comic strip got a shot hagar got a shot for better for worse got a shot and farsighted but they'd

aired once never released on video and never saw them again and like if you saw that and you have that part of it is on youtube part of it isn't I've never seen the Farside cartoon. God damn it. I had read that they aired it. It got more popular and had a better airing in Europe than it did in America. And that Gary Larson, like Farside, maybe it was just a weird space of like the jokes in Farside are too dark to be on Nickelodeon, but also too smart to be an animated sitcom. So now it could easily be on Adult Swim. He was like 20 years too late. It's super weird to imagine it in motion because it's always one frame and one hilarious frame,

but maybe it does not lend itself well to an animated thing. It animated one of my all-time favorite Farsight gags, which is, oh, it's two buzzards over the corpse of a cowboy and one has the cowboy head on like howdy howdy howdy howdy howdy my favorite one is a caveman with a tool belt looking in a hole and saying oh this not be cheap that's my favorite farce i miss gary larson you know he's well quit never came back he's more public than watterson bill watterson yeah but he's still he kind of stopped he'd. I know he drew some kids books or something. Nobody could do

the one panel comic ever again after that because there was a one panel comic after he left and it was terrible. I hated it. His departure spawned six Farside ripoff. The parking lot is full and there's like nine with a bunch of weird names like that, but they were never as good as the Farside. So yeah, this

episode, this is about the Simpsons, by the way. A treehouse of our episode! I think this is the last disclaimer from Marge. Am I wrong? I think it's the last one, yeah. And with new animation, too. I think previously they would reuse Marge's animation, but yeah, the first, the last, rather, Marge disclaimer.

Oh, my. It seems the show is so scary that Congress won't even let us show it. Instead, they've suggested the 1947 classic Glenn Ford movie, 200 Miles to Oregon. There's nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust your picture. We are controlling the transmission. What's that, boy?

We're in control? Hey, look! I can see my voice! Hehehehe! Brrrr! He! He! Blup, blup, blup, blup, blup!

This is my voice on TV! Dad, you're ruining the mood! Sorry. Yeah, so 200 Miles to Oregon is not a real movie. I think they just decided to make a parody of 310 to Yuma that sounded as boring as possible. And the reason Marge is saying all this is because in the Itchy and Scratchy Land episode, we learned that David Merkin was mad the network was trying to curb violence on The Simpsons. And he was like, I'm not only going to make an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon,

it's going to be the worst one you've ever seen. And I'm going to make the most violent Halloween special you've ever seen in your life. And that is evident by the last thing that happens in the show this is very violent yeah this well actually this is the most violent to this point but dave murkin i believe is also the guy who wrote the in a couple years from now treehouse opening of the stabbing the sensor to death that's that's so great that's so great so so him specifically calling out congress too is because he was just feeling like congress was getting very up in arms about violence on television too i know matt grading he doesn't like he doesn't want them to be too violent either

i think there's some disagreement on the simpsons staff of like or how violent can the halloween special get and they're totally not that violent now, except for the last year that I had arguments over. It had a James Bond name, like Mofinger. Oh, yeah. But it was a fucking Kingsman parody, and people on Twitter would not believe me. Like, no.

In the Kingsman, if you haven't seen it, really good. I have a feeling that movie's sequel's going to bomb like a motherfucker. Also extremely violent. It's one of the best fight scenes on camera in the last five years. You're talking about in the church. Oh, yeah. It was really messed up in just how vicious and violent it is. Yeah, but they frame them as Westboro Baptist church members, so you don't have to feel that bad.

You don't feel bad. But we do see the death of amusing tombstones. Apparently they just ran out of jokes. They were done with amusing tombstones. They're also done with having a framing device to set up why they're having the clips. That's right. Every year they had to cut good jokes to fit in the framing device that was never needed yeah last year was a

uh night gallery parody and this opens with a sort of outer limits parody i will say i've never seen the outer limits and they only made 50 episodes and it was just never available to me they had another they had two series reboots i think that ran a little longer. I watched the series reboot. I remember the first one was the sexy one that was on Showtime. And by sexy I mean like you'd see a boob for no reason.

Like somebody's giving dialogue to a kiss out. I also watched the reboot and the one that I saw was Rumpelstiltskin in the 90s. Dude! Was he rapping?

The only one I watched was because it's of connection to star trek which was the nimoy episode the only episode of outer limits most people remember is the humanity of a robot and like this robot's on trial is he a man okay and and um leonard nimoy is his lawyer in that movie or in that episode then when they did the reboot episode of it in the 90s his son directed it and he plays a different character was there was an outer limits movie like there was a twilight zone movie i recall that might be i i just remember the shows but uh but here's the original opening

of the outer limits there is nothing wrong with your television set do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. So cool. And I have to point out that it's another last and this sucks. It's kind of the last time they have an anthology horror show to parody because I guess Tales from the Crypt wasn't on the table. And there's

no more to do. There's nothing else to parody. You're right. They did Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which is mystery and thriller, not exactly horror. Even fucking Night Gallery. We're out. I don't know why we don't make horror anthology shows. They hold up really well.

Well, actually, the Nightmare Cafeteria is named after a failed horror anthology from the early 90s, Wes Craven's Nightmare Cafe. Six episodes. Six episodes.

But so, in the early 90s, there were attempts of like Freddy Krueger hosted one. The Friday the 13th series. No Jason. Which were all just a lie. They're just like, no, these are a new way to package anthology shows.

Is American Horror Story not count? I mean, it's kind of an unknown. It's the most modern day equivalent we have. Outside of the potential Tales from the Crypt reboot coming up. What about Black Mirror? Oh, Black Mirror. Sorry. Black Mirror is exactly that.

But doesn't have an opening in parody. You pointed out Tales from the Crypt reboot coming up. What about Black Mirror? Oh, Black Mirror, sorry. Black Mirror is exactly that. But doesn't have an opening in parody. You pointed out Tales from the Crypt, Chris, and I think that they would have parodied it, but it would have been too expensive because the first person shot going through a mansion, replicating that animation would be too hard to do. So I feel like that's why they didn't do it. I'm happy to inform you that there's an official

Tales from the Crypt YouTube account that uploaded all the episodes uncut on YouTube. Preserved forever in standard definition. Finally, I can see naked people on YouTube. It's really good. Seeing Moe hanged was really, like, that's disturbing. Same with their Frankenstein corpses

at the couch gag. I love it. There was definitely some disturbing stuff here. I liked it, too. I know you've heard me say it. I'm saying it again. There's nothing, like, Simpsons Halloween specials

are some of my favorite things in the universe. They're great. They're awesome. I will present them to aliens when they're about to nuke us as a reason for us to keep existing.

They're great. For some reason, this is the one I always turn on first when I want to like just hang out with people and watch a Simpsons Halloween. I don't know why. I don't think it's my favorite.

I might like the previous years more, but I just like the three stories in this. They're all different enough. They're really good and they're all based on things I kind of knew. I think the thing is that there are other individual stories

that I like maybe better, like Citizen Kodos and that kind of thing, but this is the one that just flows so well. There's so many good jokes. There's a through line. All three of them are really good. There's a good runner through the entire thing. I prefer Treehouse 4,

the previous one, to this one, but only just. And I do think The Shitting is my second favorite all-time Treehouse segment, only behind The Devil and Homer Simpson, just because I love this trip to hell so much.

Love the Omega Man. Yeah, shout out. This is, to think how much work they did into recreating, in seven minutes, the film Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is amazing. They hit all the most

iconic things. And I want to ask everybody in this room, did you see The Shining before The Shining? I know I did and it tainted The Shining for me. I don't think I did, but I would have been old enough to get The Shining. Yeah. And I actually think The Shining has more in common with the book because the book is all about alcoholism. Yes. And this has

a lot more to do with alcoholism than the movie does yeah but it's still all the scenes from the movie are yeah yeah i still for some reason have i've read the book seen the kubrick movie a billion times and the tv awful stephen king adaptation tv movie it's terrible old wingsy himself well well stephen king said he was finally going to do it right i I'm going to do it right. Well, because Kubrick made a Stanley Kubrick movie, not a Stephen King movie. And yeah, I didn't see it in the film. Let's be fair. King had legitimate grievances with the way Kubrick approached it, especially with the main female character and how he terrorized her and then turned her into just a total

wimp. She is the total heroine of the book, a much stronger character in the book. He also wrote a book where you can do anything and it just explodes. And he also said, sorry, Jack Nicholson, he said they took a crazy, he took a normal person in the book and made him crazy. And in the movie they took a crazy person and made him absolutely bonkers. Yeah, but Stephen King proved the scariest thing ever is a gay furry blowjob. Don't open that door. That's great.

Or a naked old lady. That too, that too. That's great. Or a naked old lady. That too. That too. Yuck. She was a hot naked lady first. Now she's old. No, I saw this after I saw The Shining, and I definitely, it freaked me out.

I saw it probably within a year of seeing The Shining, I was able to convince my parents to let me see The Shining. I did see The Shining first, but if you're a kid and you're watching Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining doesn't seem scary. Freak me uncomfortable. This is long

and I don't really understand what's going on. Are the little girls the killers? No. Only two mildly violent things happen. It's not gory or anything like that. Now as an adult, when I just re-watch some scenes for prep for the show, I was like, oh, this is disturbing to me now. It's really disturbing.

And yes, there's some violence and a couple N-bombs in there. I feel so bad. It's an amazing performance, but to know how much Stanley Kubrick tortured... Yeah, if you haven't seen that footage, it's him torturing Shelley Duvall,

like two tears. It's insane. I love how Jack Nicholson, he's like, 20 years ago, still really cool. Stanley and I got along great. He didn't do that with Shelley. Yeah. She didn't get that.

It was the performance he wanted, but it was fucked up. But Obsessing Over the Shining is one of the greatest documentaries i've ever seen yeah it's a bunch of crackpots arguing with other crackpots it's like your crackpot theory sucks my crackpot theory is better displacement of the american indians bullshit the rocket ship on danny torrance's shirt is a reference to faking the moon landing which stanley kubrick did no and he reversed all the oatmeal cans it actually is this message yes one can of baking

powder is the clue to all of this what i'm gonna say i think that kubrick is just crazy enough and just meticulous enough with his filmmaking that i could actually believe that he is trying to send some kind of message i don't think he is but i could believe i don't think he is but his reputation makes all of this plus all those things plausible yeah i i think they find him more as like this infallible god of film it's like no he's just a very good filmmaker who was meticulous but he is human and sometimes if the direction of the pattern of the carpet changed it's because he moved shots and somebody messed up continuity like it's not because they've inverted their expectations or the craziest one in the

movie to me was the person who said so we did a screening where we had this film going forward and then the film going backward and layered it on top of each other and saw how the scenes mirrored each other in the moment I was like watch a new movie exactly but Jim Reardon

the director did a fantastic job oh yeah him and his animation team he did a great job on this episode and uh we don't know how far away the the mr burns hotel is from the simpsons house but they have to go back at least three times for various reasons but not for grandpa it's a great detail that grandpa is in the background of the shot the first two times and then when there's no grandpa you you don't notice grandpa when he's not talking but so when you re-watch you're like oh there is grandpa and now grandpa's gone just from the beginning that overhead shot the exact overhead shot of the

arrival grandpa eventually makes it there we don't know how yeah how did he get there then we get burns and he is he's pretty stupid for burns in this episode oh goody the sea monkeys i ordered have arrived. Look at them, cavort and keeper. Sir, they're the new winter caretakers for the lodge. Yes, they work hard and they play hard. I mean, it's no stupider than him thinking a rock is a bird who became petrified in midair. It might not be a case of him being dumb. It's just that he sees them as lower life forms.

He's just like, I don't even care about these people. He equates them to sea monkeys yeah they're posed just like the sea monkeys in the sea monkeys ad yeah monkey families i mean this whole thing is a social experiment that mr burns does over and over to see if people will kill their families that's true actually when i read about the deleted scenes from this episode i kind of wish like this doesn't need to be in the episode it's not a strong enough joke you You don't need Burns here for any reason. Well, when I see that later in this sequence that they animated

all these famous movie... They have Sherry and Terry as the twins. Perfect. We don't get to see it. But we do get to see the river of blood come out of it. They animated... The animation in this sequence in particular. Slow motion blood coming out of an elevator.

That's hard to do. Which was the first teaser for this movie. Wow. That's all it was for Shining. To get ready for Ella blood. Elevator opening and gallons of blood spilling out. And also when they're walking by and hearing the horrors that happened at the mansion before, they do walk by the axe collection that Homer will check out later and use.

Several John Denver Christmas specials were filmed there. I've never seen one. Maybe I at least saw the one with the Muppets. I've seen the Muppets one. I can't say the others are horrifying. Is it the Overlook Hotel? Is that just the name of the story? Yeah.

The Overlook Hotel. The Overlook Hotel. Yeah. Though it is a real, I mean, they filmed in a real life hotel too. I believe Matt Groening talks about that his father had worked at it as a caretaker. His father actually did it. His father was a filmmaker when he was alive. Oh, okay.

And he filmed a promotional film about the hotel in the 50s. Well, Homer Groening did all that, man. And, yes, animating a torrent of blood. And they don't have the hedge maids in it other than this, but the use of it is so great of Bart just destroying the hedge maids to cut his way through it. Then we get the name of the segment. Hey, I found a shortcut through your hedge maze to cut his way through it. Then we get the name of the segment. Hey, I found a shortcut through your hedge maze.

Who are you, little? No, no, go easy on the wee one. His father's going to go crazy and chop all into haggis. What's haggis? Boy, you read my thoughts. You've got the shinnen. You mean shining. Shh, you want to get sued?

Now look, boy. If your dad goes gaga, you just use that shin of yours to call me and I'll come a running. But don't be reading my mind between four and five. That's Willie's time. They do always call attention to the word shin. Yeah. I love the over-pronouncement of shin. They know they have to.

But later when Bart will reference it, like he's annoyed he has to say it instead of the shine. And so Willie's playing the part that Scatman Crothers played in it. And Scatman Crothers talks about how he loved working, he loved being in a Stanley Kubrick film, but that Stanley Kubrick tortured him with having to do line after line after line after line. His scenes are outdoors in the snow. Yes. And I've heard him tell the story of like he worked on this movie. Then he worked on a Clint Eastwood movie.

And Clint Eastwood is Mr. One Take. And he said that he started crying after like Clint Eastwood. He's like, all right, that's done. One take. On next shot. And Scatman was like... We should point out that the Scatman Crothers character was also leaving the hotel to go back to where he lives.

In this version of it, Willie is still working on the estate while the Simpsons family is there. It's true. But he lives in his own shack. Yeah, he lives in the area. Yeah, and then cutting off... Don't forget the snowcat.

It's one of the most important characters. Just like driving a car. Then Burns cuts off the beer and TV just as he would to get back bobo so you're right it's his go-to strategy he doesn't have those big levers like in that deleted scene yes well with one house it's uh it's much easier yeah that wasn't a lot of beer it was like two cases of 224 packs of beer i'm like that's that's enough beer for a weekend for homer sorry yeah Yeah, it wouldn't have lasted him through winter. But also, I wonder, too, if Byrne saying that he'll owe Smithers a Coke is a reference to a previous treehouse, because when he puts the brain back in Homer, he's like, I owe you a Coke. And that's when Homer discovers there's no TV and no beer.

Cable's out. Think I'll have a beer. not a drop in the house what do you know homer i'm impressed you're taking this quite well i'll kill you i'll kill all of you sorry sorry don't worry it's funny i can do to keep myself occupied maybe i'll check out that axe collection see you later. Mom, is Dad gonna kill us? We're just gonna have to wait and see. I like Marge's practical optimism. It's like, well, we don't know that yet.

But this sober's like, sorry, sorry, sorry. And he instantly turns into Jack Nicholson. He does. See you later, Marge. He becomes him. He is drawn with the same half-lidded eyes. His hair, his balding hair is going over his head. It's perfect. Dan's acting is great there.

Through all the craziness, Dan's acting is great. But also, Jim Reardon and his team. So good. I'm certain David Silverman drew a lot of this. He did the freakout scene. Yes, yes. So Homer goes crazy so perfectly. And when Homer goes to the bar

that mo's ghost is in there must be no alcohol in there like otherwise homer doesn't just drink beer he's he'd ask if whiskey comes to beer he would drink spirits definitely but yeah but apparently his family would be much happier as ghosts do we see him drink spirits no no he doesn't uh well mo promises him a drink no i mean like just in the show like. Do we see him drink spirits? No, no, he doesn't. Well, Mo promises him a drink if he kills us. No, I mean, like, just in the show. Like, I've never seen him drink anything but beer. Well, he did say, does whiskey count as beer? But he didn't drink

it in that shot. He threw a whiskey bottle at a referee, so we have to assume he drank the whiskey. Yeah, I can, I'm trying to remember other times, I definitely remember Marge drinking a Long Island iced tea. He enjoys a snifter report at Christmas. Homer is definitely man yeah i've seen her drink blood in last year's christmas that's true too free blood correction and mo being the bartender is perfect that's a perfect fit up for that character of grady yeah yeah and the shot's the same too it's the same shot of the

bar the perfect shot of the bar i just want to observe that this scene has also been uh parodied in rocko's modern life the episode that heifer is a security guard i love that episode i guess i didn't realize at the time it was a shining totally shining the dead twins are there like every yeah and he at the end of it he runs out naked and he just tears off his security guard uniform and uh yeah i remember that one now thank you for reminding me you'll see passengers it's not it's pointless to mention never wait it's just that it has like but it basically it's a shining because it has it has a small cast and a bartender who is not a ghost but a robot who tells him everything he wants to hear because that's his job okay uh kind of makes him go even a little more nuts well speaking of going crazy

movie's terrible by by the way. Marge comes across a typewriter, which has no reason to be there because Homer is not a writer, unlike Jack in the movie or book. He was there to finish his novel. Yes, yeah. Well, as always, Stephen King knows the most approachable character in a film is a writer who does drugs and drinks. And lives in Maine. And was an elementary teacher. Yep. It's so approachable. And lives in Maine. And was an elementary teacher. Yep. Yeah.

It's so approachable. And his name's Stephen. But Homer is going a little crazy himself. This is less encouraging. Hello! What do you think, Marge? All I need is a title. I was thinking along the lines of No TV and No Beer Make Homer Something Something.

Go crazy? Don't mind if I do! Stay away from me, Homer! Give me the bat, Marge! Give me the bat! Give me the bat, Marge! Give me the bat! Give me the bat! Come on! Give me the bat!

Give me the bat! Dirty cat! Yeah! Ah! That's a weird joke. That scene has to be one of the top ten greatest moments of Simpsons animation ever. That is Silverman working his magic. Also, it's Homer making a lot of Charlie Callis noises.

And actually, Charlie Callis came up on a previous episode, but he's too annoying to play a clip of. Just take our word for it. That's an accurate impression. When I found a clip of him telling a very long story on Johnny Carson about guys going on a hunting trip, I was like, this is interminable. I can't play this.

But the Haraba, it's a fine line for homer to play because at a certain level if you are remaking the shining it is about a spouse trying to murder another spouse and homer has to be that character to a degree to recreate the story of it but you have to make a scene of homer threatening to murder marge. And it's a tough, it's a careful line to draw there. I do like her too on the nose comment of what he type will be a window into his madness. She understands she's in a shining parody too. Yes. And the pan around the room to reveal all the ways it says no TV and no beer make Homer go crazy.

That is masterful. I will find a link to this, but there is a Tumblr that takes those panning animation shots from The Simpsons and turns them into one big image, and that looks fantastic. Which is what they are to animate it. They are panning across. It's one large piece of art. The writing on the wall, that was not in the original Shining. No. Because the original Shining, it was just over and over again in the book that he's been writing.

The script or whatever. Which, by the way, they did that for every language it was translated into. Oh my god. You mean on the paper they filmed it? Yes, in the shot. Wow. Yeah, which is crazy. They filmed a new insert shot.

That's a lot of work. A prop we're tracking down, the Portuguese. Was the writing on the wall a reference to anything in particular, or was it just like, he's crazy, it's a great shot? I think it was their spin on him being crazy in a different way than Jack was. Or it was a mislead for like the joke you would expect is for march to read the no all work and no play blah blah blah on the paper but it's actually all around her and she doesn't realize it well i think also to soften this scene too that

homer has to cause his own injury he has to make himself fall down the stairs knock himself out marge cannot actually hit homer with a bat and bash his head in and i just i have the scene here the the real give me the bat like i just want to bash your fucking brains like this this scene is disturbing i forgot how much is and i mean that in a good way because it is a horror stop swinging the bat put the bat down wendy give me the bat give me the bat give me the bat stop swinging the bat give me the bat give me the bat when you see that shot too with the one in the show you see homer's motions are the same too yeah same hair over the head and the same like looking up through half-lidded eyes like the animation posing for homer to become jack is is quite something else

i think what makes the potential assault of marge more palatable is how quickly she bounces back from it. She puts him in the pantry and is like, oh, chili would be nice tonight. Yes, they need that scene to breathe. Like, okay, Marge is not affected by Homer seemingly trying to murder her. She's sort of grounding him for that potential assault. As we see, Marge can continue to be in a relationship

with Homer because she can compartmentalize like nobody I have ever freaking seen. That lady, my God. She's just like, oh, I mean, Homer's doing Homer things and now he's trying to kill me. But hey, chilly. She is a saint. Well, and the pantry is like the pantry in The Shining as well. Yeah, and apparently Moe has just a gang of movie monsters to help him. Which you don't really see.

Well, you see them in there, but you have them in another shop. I have a list of the monsters to help him. Which you don't really see. Well, you see them in there, but you'd have them in another shop, which was deleted. But I have a list of the movie monsters that appear. Yes, here we go.

It's Mummy, Werewolf, Vampire, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, and Jason. Pinhead gets lost. He's the one of like, you didn't have the staying power of Jason and Freddy. He's technically been in more movies. I mean, he's been in a lot of them and

i've only seen the first one and i used to be a little kid and watch the boobie scenes the third one i taped off a cinemax free preview but i just watched the first one it's an insanely good body horror disgusting film and yeah he's in it for four seconds yeah he's one of three people all the cinebites are cool like he's they're all neat in the in the first but the first movie is more about aids and then the other or the aids in the 80s but but then every future one's like no the torture is cool like you just like he becomes a freddy krueger yeah but this is my favorite scene in the entire thing just because like homer forgot to be on a murderous rampage and every movie monster ever has to drag him back yes yeah like in yes like in the movie the ghosts free him from the pantry

except in this they're just like they found out homer can gorge himself and he will forget that he misses tv and beer but only briefly eventually he'll get full he gets to fill his other vice so in the movie the shining the only ghost we see is the bartender and like the two guys in the room right do we see any other we also see the guy in the bathroom. Oh, right, right, right. The one who killed everybody? Yes. Okay, yeah.

Bathroom guy, greedy old lady, blowjob. Blowjob bear. Blowjob bear, yes. Available now. Use it as your Twitter name. One of the itchy and scratchy hour characters. Blowjob the bear. I obviously had to see the movie to get this joke, but I love this so much.

Here's Jenny! Don't! David Letterman! Hi, David. I'm Grandpa. Don't! I'm Mike Wallace. I'm Morley Schaefer. And I'm Ed Bradley. All this and Andy Rooney tonight on 60 minutes one of those shows is still on the air yes but none of the cast members are the same i imagine i think they're all dead and bradley's still around morley safer one of them is still

there abrams i forget i don't watch the show uh but this is the original just for comparison's sake here yeah i think an improvised line from Jack Nichols. I was going to ask you about that. Here's Johnny. It's crazy. It's such an iconic scene that it became the cover of the DVD.

I mean, just the scene of her hunkered in the bathroom while the axe is going through the... I mean, I've had nightmares about that. Like being trapped in a room while someone's outside trying to break through. I mean, that's terrifying. We didn't play the first part of that scene because it's not good for audio, but I just love how the camera tracks with the axe.

So the camera just follows the axe as it hits the door over and over again. It's so great. So much like Velocity. And you see it coming through the door. Yeah. And you're like, you feel the claustrophobia right there. Yeah. And well, then also then when she cuts his hand when he reaches in, he's almost like, hey, what the fuck?

He cut my hand. He doesn't get why she would do that. Don't you like my pop culture reference, honey? But Homer's downturned head looking through the walls like, whoa, that's scary. When he says 60 minutes, it's a really menacing look on his face. 60 minutes. On the subject of that scene, by the way, there's a good psych gag. Maggie spells Red Room with her blocks.

Yes. That's right. Yeah, I missed that. That's the closest to the... Bart has the shitting, but he does not have a fellow traveler in his brain. I think that kid's imaginary friend was named Tony or something. That's right. And is so ridiculous in the TV movie version.

A floating child just standing in front of the kid the whole time. Man, that kid was weird looking in that TV movie. But you never see... They wisely did not have him actually seeing the kid. He just talks about it in the Kubrick version. Yeah, yeah. And you think, man, that kid's a little off, but...

Yeah, and instead he has magic. And Abe found his way back from the gas station, so that was nice. And he's not even mad at Homer. Actually, he doesn't even recognize his son. He thinks he's David Letterman. He's changed that much. So in the movie, the Bearcat scanner is cut by Jack.

And in this, there's just a bad police officer on the other end of it. He's just like, oh, that's over. They don't even have that, the Bearcats. And also, when he sends the shin to Willie, Willie in bed, he has a Scottish lass above him in a photograph in the film in Scatman Crothers when he's in bed. It is a painting of a nude woman above his bed. Like a black velvet painting.

It's like a Black Power, the huge Afro naked woman. So they even did that. No one would notice if they didn't draw that painting above Willie. Again, to point out, I think those little touches, being slaves to detail is something the modern, even the modern treehouse of horror episodes like. Yeah, I feel like they're more like, hey, we got Daniel Radcliffe. That was the work.

We got him. We drew them as Adventure Time characters. In some of these scenes, there's also some Kent Brockman jokes in the background that aren't really jokes. It's like, and that was the first time she's ever flown a plane. It's just like, well, I don't know what that means or what the context is, but okay. Well, and so this is the arrival of Willie, and I'm sure he's going to save the family. Don't worry, Mom.

I can use my shinning to call Willie. And that was the first time she'd ever flown a plane the little fat boy and his family are in trouble i'm coming to arrest you a lot of you all right loony show me what you got is that the best you can do oh my i found that run was Scotchgarden. I find that runner just hilarious. Yeah. That joke is the perfect commentary on what happens to Skyman Crothers in the movie because when I watched the movie, I was astounded that we follow this character in his journey for like 20 minutes as he tries to make it to the hotel.

The second he walks in, he's murdered. So all of that time we watched of him trying to get there is just wasted. I still love the movie but it's just like man what a bummer i guess it'd be the one it's dark yeah yeah i guess it's to extinguish hope you've had all this hope the entire time and now it's gone i guess yeah there's like chekhov's gun you're expecting him to save the family he does not die in the book it's true so that's something else too though that i've seen scatman carters brought up many times it's like the Ur example of the black guy always dies in horror films. Just saw a screening of Monster Squad. He's the only person who dies in the movie.

The only black guy in the movie. I can't say for certain he dies in Gremlins, but the guy who gets his arm ripped off, it's like the first violence done to a person in Gremlins is a black guy. No, he totally dies. He's absolutely i guess if your arm is ripped off in in the middle of a school you'll probably believe i mean in the book jack undoes himself because he's supposed to do something with the boiler every day or every week or whatever but he's going crazy so he doesn't remember and i guess scatman crothers gets the wife out of there and then they escape and the the place blows up and

i think the epilogue is they live together in Maine, the best place on earth. Skyman Brothers and the wife. They have real names in the book. Before I forget, a great reorchestration of the Wendy Carlos theme from the original Shining, which I mentioned

because I love this Tron soundtrack and I've been listening to that a ton. Yeah, though also in the Black Eyed Dying thing, I had watched The Shining and then right after that I think I watched Misery, which is a great film.

His best book I would actually argue. Really? Yeah, I would say so. And in almost the exact same way as Scatman Crothers at least in the film he shows up

and it's like oh, it's the black sheriff. He's going to save it and he gets stabbed in the back and killed. Oh my gosh. Well, in the book he gets run over by a lawnmower

the police officer does. It's pretty amazing actually. Maybe by the time this airs, there'll be that J.J. Abrams, Stephen King-iverse thing that comes out. I'm fascinated by that, putting them all in the same spot. Isn't that the Dark Tower? No one wants to talk about that movie. Don't talk about that.

That didn't happen. Oh, boy. We're still waiting for our Dark Tower movie. I haven't seen it. Nobody did. Don't. So, I like the setup that Willie's Willie having that TV matters, and that it is a little the setup that willie's willie having that tv matters and that it is a little plot point that will end up saving them and that homer immediately takes another axe off the wall to then hunt them down and the shot of homer's like determined marching to murder the rest of the simpsons is scary like and well done but like and it's like the bad dream of them

being trapped in the snow like like, trying to get through. Because in the movie, I mean, the kid ends up running into the hedge maze, of course. And then, eventually, like, he just is, like, going, and he falls over and ends up freezing. And they just drive away in the snow cap. And here, it's very much a, like, here's the worst nightmare you've ever had. You're in the snow. You can't run fast. There's a dude with an axe coming up behind you yeah and the way the camera moves when the family's running

through the snow uh you know in front of homer is just very makes you very anxious it's just moving all over the place it's really nice the shining a great film with one of the weirdest funniest last shots that that like smash cut to frozen jack nicholson but alive like clearly alive in a cartoon it is a cartoon it's like a fucking Looney Tunes ending. Yeah, so this ending is like, I don't even know if this is a joke. Like, this is exactly how the movie ended. I guess it's just that they all did it together.

Yeah. Dad, look! Television! Teacher! Mother! Secret lover. Birds to kill. Fading.

Fading. Fading. Rising! Fading. Fading. Fading. Rising! Fading. Fading. Gone. Come, family. Sit in the snow with Daddy and let us all bask in television's warm, glowing, warming glow.

Live from Broadway, it's the Tony Awards with your hosts, Tyne Daly and Hal Linden. I'm our Chase Channel. Get frozen. Purge to kill rising.

So they are singing the song we'll hear at the end. I was just noticing that for the first time, and I can't believe it. I've seen this episode so many times, and I'm like, oh, my God, that's the song at the end. It's a real song. It's about the rights. Yeah, so it's a parody song at the end. It's a parody song then, too. Sing until they make us stop is what they say in the TV, little TV.

A chorus line? So, yeah, this is why I was happy to do this one. It's time to tell you all about Chorus Line. So Chorus Line is, until Cats, it was one of the longest playing musicals of all time. And it is a musical about musicals. And there's a movie version of it, too, with Michael Douglas in the lead role. So the story is, short version, allabe broadway stars tell the why they moved to new york city and their life story and why they deserve to be part of the chorus line and so

which is the not famous role it's to be in the background really and but they are like oh why should i hire you well i realized i was gay and i had to move away from my small town why should I hire you? Well, I realized I was gay and I had to move away from my small town. Why should I hire you? Well, because I just got breast enhancement surgery because they said my looks were a three and my talent was a ten. So now I have tits and ass. If you remember the song from Tiny Toons, Squash and

Stretch, that is a parody of tits and ass. Actually, I heard the song Tits and Ass I didn't it was from Chorus Line. Yeah, I thought it was DJ Assault. And also Chorus Line has the song What I Did for Love. Directed by Richard Attenborough, Dr. Hammond. Oh, I didn't know that.

Well, I don't know anything about it. Well, and so the musical ends with the characters. Some characters get hired, some don't. And when they get hired, they then become anonymous members of the chorus line and sing this song. One singular sensation Every little step she takes One thrilling combination

Every move that she makes It's astonishing what things people used to be entertained by. I love musicals. I will not apologize. That's just people barely dancing. Well, I will say that's supposed to be an opulent production because it is the closing number after a ton of very personal stories

and a very stripped down presentation. It's supposed to be over the top because that's how it ends to be different from the rest of it. But so that's the original chorus line that I tried to find a clip from that was actually them performing that song in the Tony Awards, but there isn't one.

Somebody taped it off the 76 one, but it is unwatchable in that video quality. The Tony Awards have always struck me as an odd thing because people watching it, most of them don't have access to the things that are being awarded. So when I was a kid, I'm like, what are all these things? It's an award show for the best Japanese restaurants. It's more like a preview of the off-Broadway shows you'll see like three years later. The shit that's coming to your civic center in the next three years. This will be a movie in five years.

Well, think of the poor gay children who just want to watch it. It's for them. It's for them. Speak for yourself. I grew up in a great theater town. I just want to point out that The Simpsons is taking a shot at another award show, the Tony Awards, this time. It's true.

Having already taken a shot at, say, the Emmys, the Grammys. Oh, the Grammys. Big time. And what else? Have they taken a shot at the Oscars? I don't think so. I don't think they really took a shot at the Oscars. I can't remember.

Maybe in the Starsburns they did. They're going to do it at some point. And mark my words, when The Simpsons wraps, its future will have some, it'll have some future on Broadway and it will be in contention for a fucking Tony. Oh, sure. It'll be embarrassing for all of us.

I look forward to being 70 and saying like, I remember The Simpsons before it was a thing you shot into your bloodstream. Hank Azaria narrates and then he takes a nap. Hey look, it's Hank Azaria's head. I'll be in line for Monorail the Musical. The Simpsons will be right back. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener.

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slash talking simpsons yes it's true these episodes go live a week early and with no ads on them on patreon.com slash talking simpsons and it's so easy to sign up and to start getting them added as an rss feed to your regular podcast listening devices i don't know why everyone doesn't do it especially because it gives bob and i the financial independence to do what we want to do which is talk about the simpsons all the time but also if you sign up at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you'll get a bunch of other scary extras, such as interviews with important people in the history of The Simpsons, including a brand new interview with Bill Oakley, an interview with Reed Harrison, the writer of the X-Files crossover episode of The Simpsons in Season 8,

and an interview with Paul Provenzano, who, if you don't know, is one of the executive producers of classic Simpsons games from the 90s, including Bart vs. Space Mutants and Virtual Springfield. Not to mention, every episode of Talking Critic is on there, as we go through every episode of The Critic. And the entire first season of Talking Simpsons is exclusively right there on Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, as well as our exclusive season wrap-ups, and a bunch of cool videos like our walkthrough through all the deleted scenes from season 5 and a ton of other really cool things that are coming.

All of that is right at your fingertips if you sign up just $5 of you that you should own a talking simpsons shirt what's that there's a talking simpsons t-shirt yes the very first ever talking simpsons shirt is available designed by the wonderful Nina Matsumoto, a friend of the show. And in a beautiful sky blue, it is a takeoff on the Ion Springfield logo, which is so near and dear to our hearts. Now you can get one of those shirts for just $19.99 on Shirtsicle, or you can find it at the address tiny.cc slash talking shirt. That's tiny.cc slash talking shirt that's tiny.cc slash talking shirt and you can find the t-shirt there comes in tons of different sizes base price of $19.99 plus shipping and handling and tax and all

that and it also ships outside of the U.S. so if you're not in America that doesn't mean you can't own this really cool shirt I have it it is It is not some made-to-order trash. It is made with the same quality that I expected from the same people who make ProWrestlingTees.com. So be sure to check that out and get yourself your own Talking Simpsons shirt. Or there will be a link to it on the post for this week's episode on LazerTimeodcast.com Hey, this is Hank Azaria. You're listening to Talking Simpsons on Lazer Time.

I didn't know that was a thing. Woo! It's time for a scary note about audible trial.com slash talking simpsons if you are a fan of podcasts you're probably a fan of audiobooks and there are some awesome audiobooks out there such as well to fit with the theme of this week's episode how about the unabridged reading of stephen king's the shining narrated by one Campbell Scott. If our chat about the shinning in this made you want to rediscover the original novel, why not do it in audiobook form

so you can, you know, use your hands at the same time as listening to somebody else read it for you for 16 wonderful, scary hours. And you can get a free copy of that by signing up at audibletrial.com slash talking simpsons as a way to support the show that's audibletrial.com slash talking simpsons you like laser time shows then you might like bonus time laser times weekly bonus show exclusively on patreon.com slash Lazer Time. Here's a taste of what you've been missing.

And so I was camping a lot of the weekend. We had a couple friends drop out in the last week. So it ended up being us and then three couples that had two kids each. Actually, the craziest thing that happened is that we saw a kid choke. Yeah. Well, he was like maybe three or four. Oh, man. And he walks up to the table.

He starts by, like, belching. And we all laugh because it's like, that's funny. A little kid belched. Yeah, a little kid burping. And after about two seconds, I hear, like, yelling. The kid is starting to turn purple. Oh, my God. He's, like, in between two parents.

One is putting their finger in his throat, and the other is slapping his back. Whoa. And... Is your brain like, oh, my God, I don't want to be on this trip? Yes, like, this would be very bad. A four-year-old child dying.

Right in front of you. In what was supposed to be a fun camping trip. It's like a Rescue 911 episode. Your brain's maybe like, oh, I'm going to have to talk about this on bonus time. No. He either swallowed it. I think he also, like, he might have It's like a Rescue 911 episode. Your brain's going to be like, oh, I'm going to have to talk about this on bonus time. Oh, no. He either swallowed it. I think he also might have thrown it up or whatever.

But so it was gone in like... It's so weird how kids' brains function. Like, he was hysterical crying for about eight seconds. And then he's like, oh, my Peppa Pig toy. And then he's just like oh business as usual get bonus time laser times weekly

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Well, so then we get to the second segment, which I think we're going to talk less about than all the other. Time and punishment. I, well, I have a, I was a Ray Bradbury kid. to the second segment, which I think we're going to talk less about than all the other... Time and punishment. I... Well, I have a... I was a Ray Bradbury kid, so, like,

this is one of the few things, like, oh, fuck, I got that. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I totally got that. I never read the short story, The Sound of Thunder, I believe it's called. It's a great story.

It is. I'm pretty sure I read it, but I'm positive I heard it on Ray Bradbury Theater. For my money, whenever the power goes out or it's Halloween, I just want to drink and be in the dark.

I listen to these Ray Bradbury radio plays and they're fucking astonishing. My parents got me addicted to them on road trips. I don't know why, but I love them. So it's topical actually because in the book, of course, they go back in time to hunt dinosaurs and they are warned of course that you're going to change history

if you accidentally mess something up. And in their present time, the year 2055, a moderate candidate has just barely defeated a fascist candidate. But when he accidentally steps on the butterfly, the fascist wins. So what actually happened to America was that somebody stepped on a butterfly

in prehistoric times. We need to find that time traveler. I meant to look that up, whether it was responsible for... Most people know this is the butterfly effect. Yeah, it was popularized by Aston Kutcher. Yes. That movie series, which is about just that. Well, that's from Chaos Theory. Yeah, but

the butterfly effect, I don't know for sure that it comes from this Ray Bradbury story. No, it did not come from the Ray Bradbury story. Because isn't that like a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa creating a hurricane? Creating a hurricane. Yeah. I don't know know but that's the the story's about i really really like this story so i love the shinning i i really do uh it goes by really fast uh for me i'm like visually great and amazing but i think time and punishments like sheer zaniness like my favorite yeah just really appeals to me it's the second homer episode like of the bunch and

like they just let homer go completely off the hook. There's barely any dialogue. It's just him screaming and going from period to period and getting progressively more insane until he's literally taking baseball bats to giant dragonflies and stuff. It's a great segment. It's hilarious.

The opening with the toaster is just such madness. I had to watch it three times today. It's one of my favorite, just Lisa's screaming. It makes me laugh so much that I just noticed for the first time that her mouth is not open the entire time she's screaming. Yeah. You know, Marge, I've had my share

of troubles, but sitting here now with you and the kids in our cozy home in this beautiful free country, it just makes me feel that I'm really a lucky guy. Dad! Your hand is jammed in the toaster! Dad!

Get it off! Get it! Get it off! Dad, it's in there again! That's great. I also love the care in the animation. When Homer first notices it, it is plugged into the wall, and you will see the plug rip out when he runs with it.

It's a little tiny bit of a cheat, because if you look in the pre-Lisa's screaming your hands in the toaster, there's no way he could be that close to the wall. But then he's just like, now he is. But it's fine because it all gets a scene. Don't think about it. I'm with everything Kat said, and that's why I love this episode.

But it just has to be said, this is all Rick and Morty is. Yeah. Like everything about this is a Rick and Morty episode. Yeah, like fucking with reality. Yes. With no care. And revisiting it, not giving a shit a Rick and Morty episode. Yeah, like fucking with reality. Yes. With no care. And revisiting it, not giving a shit.

Alternate timelines to explore and play around with. But it's missing the, like, really profound, like, sentence that, like, puts everything into context and makes you go, oh. Well, they've only got six minutes in this one. Yes, it's true. This wasn't just a filthy cartoon. Just one more thing before we move on. I just want to point out that Homer fixing the toaster actually reminds me of his work with

the spice rack but somehow he did not turn his spice rack into a time machine somehow with a stone he was able to make a time machine well also right before this he breaks a very expensive camera by hitting a hammer into a drill but this time with a stone it's it's so great the smash cut or just the time cut of all right better than new and he's built a time machine somehow in his garage accidentally macaraning has some strong opinions about this segment he likes it but there are jokes that he thought of that he wants to be in the final version he pitched that every time homer goes back in time he has to jam his hand back in the toaster but he's like it was shot down for being too crazy. That would have been funny.

And so then when Homer goes through time, I didn't get a clip of it because I think it's been scrubbed from YouTube. I could not find it. But it is a parody of Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel, a lost 60s, not exactly anthology, but it's an anthology in that, you know, on The Fugitive, he really just went to a new town and it was a whole new setup every time, but he was a consistent character. Littlest hobo. So, Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel, same deal. Two guys go back in time to a different thing, and it's a new story and setup every time.

But it had the same, that idea of going through time with the circling, spinning, whatever thing. That's from time tunnel which is a 60 a late 60s show i know that the other the other show i got oh this after being as a kid after being confused by all the shining stuff to see rocky and bullwinkle characters show up made me quite happy and we will explain this joke by the way look at that! I'm the first non-Brazilian person to travel backwards through time.

Correction, Homer. You're the second. That's right, Mr. Peabody. Quiet, you. That really underlines their relationship on that show. I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle back in the day. Yeah, we were just... R.I.P. June 4.

We just lost the last surviving member of the show yeah she almost made it to 100 and she was like uh you know cresting 40 when she was playing rocky that's how old she was we have a later time about uh last dead actors and i think she's she's our last she was our last link to the original looney tunes i think it was on nick and knight like on the regular like that's one remember how i remember watching yeah well It looks like absolute garbage, but they replaced it with writing. It's constantly making jokes more than any other show, I think

10 years before or after it. One of the few cartoons outsourced to Mexico. Really? That's true. So I want to explain the non-Brazilian person who traveled backwards through time. I didn't know what this joke meant until the commentary, and here's the amazing,-interesting story. The original line was, I can't believe I'm the first

non-fictional person to travel backwards through time. And as they heard that line over and over, they were like, we can make this funnier. So after about nine hours of deliberation, they landed on non-Brazilian. The joke is, it's a non-sequitur. It means nothing. It's supposed to make the audience think, oh, there must be Brazilian

time travelers. And in the years before the DVDs came out, people pieced together like, oh, it's actually a reference to this Brazilian author who experimented with psychedelic drugs and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, they went for a non-sequitur instead of the original joke. And Matt Geranings is like, put the original joke back in, and I agree.

That's a much funnier joke, and it makes the Sherman and Peabody thing make a lot more sense. Yeah i mean they're also non-brazilian you know yeah they're not brazilian either hey yes in the cartoons peabody is a little nicer to sherman and if you've never seen it peabody and sherman they go back in the way back machine and uh and learn about history but hardest dog in the world and his pet boy. Yeah. And then they just made a movie. Well, not just actually. It was like two years ago. Yeah, it's all those Rocky and Bullwinkle characters,

along with every Christmas special you've ever seen, somehow ended up in the hands of DreamWorks. So I think they were like, hell yeah, we're going to make it all into movies. And it kind of stopped at Peabody and Sherman. But it did get a new series to coincide with that. I didn't watch the movie, but at least with that one in the new Smurfs movie,

they at least decided, let's not give these cartoon characters creepy, photorealistic eyes. That was a weird thing they kept doing over and over again. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something, as Ian Malcolm would tell us.

It was part of Rocky and Bullwinkle. It's weird. I don't know what happened to the rights if you go to Netflix or Amazon. You can watch these, but you can't watch the Rocky and Bullwinkle things that bookended them. Yeah, it seems like different, technically different

production companies own different things. They're just like, well, I own Dudley Do-Right, but that guy owns Fractured Fairy Tale. He owns Super Chicken. I think some moron has plans for Dudley Do-Right. Those people can have Super Chicken, man. Savoir-faire is everywhere. Savoir-faire.

And so then we get, not too long after Itchy and Scratchy Land, we get a Jurassic Park reference of just the orchestral score overseeing all the dinosaurs, which, again, credit to the animators on this episode. First they had to do a pitch-perfect Shining parody. Then they had to draw a bunch of dinosaurs acting naturally and alternate universes. And then at the end of this episode, they will have to do a musical.

Like, that is so much extra effort. Jim Reardon is a superhuman. That's why I love these Treehouse of Horror episodes. It was a time when dinosaurs weren't just confined to zoos. Okay, don't panic. Remember the advice your father gave you on your wedding day. If you ever travel back in time, don't step on anything. Because even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can't imagine.

Fine. As long as I stand perfectly still and don't touch anything, I won't destroy the future. Stupid bug! You go squish now! But that was just one little insignificant mosquito. That can't change the future, right? Right?

Wait a minute. Abe couldn't have been at Homer's wedding. They were at Shotgun Pete's. I sure hope someone was fired for that one. Come on, it still matters. Perhaps in the original timeline that Homer has now disrupted, he was at their wedding. Well, you know, this is a Halloween episode, so it's apocryphal.

So I don't think we have to worry too much about it being canon. I'm still writing my hate mail. Yeah, well, at the very least, though, they did draw Abe how he looked at that time when he still had some brown hair instead of his hair being yellow with the rest of his skin. The tuxedo's a nice touch for that joke, I think. Yeah, and yes, the non sequitur that Abe, the advice he gave to Homer was if

he had time traveled. And then Homer's just like, stupid bug, you go squish now! He immediately forgets. And the giant sloth just shrugging at him. But I've, you know, I've read science fiction books and uh fiction books really tell me more well in this actually i read this sci-fi comic called tom strong which is really good but in it he travels back in time to uh dinosaur times as well and they

establish in it that like some guy says well i'm gonna change the past i'm gonna do all this stuff and then tom strong just leaves him there he's just like well no an extinction level event is happening now so whatever you would cause won't matter it basically erases the entire paper so whatever happens before the extinction of the dinosaurs probably doesn't matter yeah but uh it was an interesting theory in that but i believe the book the sound of thunder is the lead character killing himself at the end i can't blast it with a shot yeah and it's the only simpsons treehouse of horror basis that has its own game boy advanced game the fucking movie which is apparently is terrible never seen it from 2005 uh yeah has a game boy advanced weird sound called the sound

of thunder i had i this is all news to me. Well, then they go back to the present, but things are not as they seemed. Oh, my loving family. Nothing's changed. Heidly ho, Slaverinos. Oakley, Oakley. Hey, what the hell is that geek Flanders doing on TV? Oh, I see. By the big board, we got a negative Nellie in sector two.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask the whole family to kind of freeze and prepare for re-education. Don't you remember, Dad? Flanders is the unquestioned lord and master of the world. Don't! So Flanders in the last Halloween episode is playing the devil, and now he's a dystopian dictator. He has conquered the world. So Flanders in the last Halloween episode is playing the devil, and now he's a dystopian dictator. He has conquered the world. He makes everybody dress as either him or Maude, and that even calling him a geek is like, oh, boy, got to get you guys. And of all the questions for Homer to ask, as a TV morphs out of the ground, what's Flanders doing on TV?

And that was T-1000 in Terminator 2, especially the checkerboard thing, though. They mentioned Time Bandits. Kind of has that same thing of a TV coming out of the ground. T-1000 meets Big Brother. Yeah, exactly. And well, speaking of Big Brother, the reading education scenes really reminded me of Brazil. Oh, yeah.

I love Brazil so much, especially the hooks in the mouse remind me of when Jim Broadbent is doing the plastic surgery to his mother and just stretching her face around. But let's just let the hooks do their work in here. Okay, everybody, let's see some big smiles. Just relax and let the hooks do their work. What the hell are you smiling at? Now, in case all that smiling didn't cheer you up

There's one thing that never fails A nice glass of warm milk, a little nap, and a total frontal lobotomy It's not so bad, Homer They go into your nose and they let you keep the piece of brain they cut out Look Ooh, hello Hello there nose and they let you keep the piece of brain they cut out. Look. Ooh. Hello. Hello there. Who's that big man there?

Who's that? Join us father. It's bliss. No! I mean I know. I was reading of that line. It's bliss. I know he just got a lobotomy.

I think it's the one time in the series Moe was happy. Yeah. And like at peace with something. It's true. They should try that out in an episode, the Moe's lobotomy episode. I just want to point out that this is also, in the next one, Lunch Lady Doris is also happy for the first time. That's true. When she's wearing her German outfit.

Oh, you're right. So two very cranky characters finding happiness in cannibalism and, like, 1984 lobotomy. Yes. I love, Azaria's acting like, who's that big man there? Who's that? It's really cute.

Oh, it's such a great and disturbing moment, though, when they're actually looking at the brain and just the animation of their eyes and then the drool on Marge's face is so messed up. My God. We played the clip at the beginning. This is one of two great inversions of the using meat to do something with dogs that are chasing you.

So in this one, the wiener's giving the quick energy he needs to escape. In the Lemon of Troy, he throws the wiener to the dogs like, they've got a taste for meat now. Then the dog's head being in the drawer. It's yeah it's a great shot ah can't get to that one and the these wieners i love that line these wieners will give me the strength it's it's such a wonderful mystery oh and the animation on homer when he says no i just love it that his muzzle is fixed in the frame and his head moves up and down behind it oh yeah it's such a great like overreaction shot it's just oh it's beautiful and uh the next reality is giant bart and lisa yes yeah which i

didn't get a clip for that because it's not very funny or it's not a great line the visuals are fine but it's an amazing visual it it was a real i remember seeing the commercial for it before it aired and like oh my god it's a story that one of the tree houses is about Lisa and Bart being giant and torturing the town like it's four seconds but it's a great four seconds. It's a good idea though and this is where it goes just full wacky where it's like yeah we don't even care

like why would killing a freaking like fish cause everybody to be gigantic or why would anything cause don't think about it too hard it's insane. And I combine these two together, but they're my favorite ways. One, Homer basically becomes Dr. Seuss,

and then the other, just his line-reading reaction to what he does is just so great. Mustn't crush, mustn't kill, made it! Oh, I wish, I wish I hadn't killed that fish. This is going to cost me. That's so amazing. That's the fish that walks out of the water and becomes us.

Yes, he prevented evolution. He prevented man. And then meanwhile, he just goes, this is going to cost me. I am a simple woman. I watch Homer sneeze at dinosaurs and they all die and I laugh. It was so crazy. But doesn't doing that give him his perfect life that he's afraid of? It does.

Sneezing on the dinosaurs gave him the perfect life. Yeah. But that is some Merkin-style cruelty, too, of like, no, this is the perfect world for Homer, but he doesn't know it. He runs from it. If he stayed for five more seconds, you could have had a world where Patty and and someone were dead his family was rich he had he had a lexus and donuts rain from the sky all the donuts he could eat just rain from the sky in fairness donuts raining from the sky would actually be hellish haven't you ever seen uh the the book about the all the the food

coming from the sky with a chance of meatballs yeah exactly it's pretty much that it'll spoil eventually well i mean in real life when it's rained frogs it was like i was crazy at first but now we just have a lot of smelly on the ground yeah so then we get the second willie death which i love this so good you're still not in your own world homer i can get you, but you have to do exactly as I... This is indeed a disturbing universe. So yeah, James Earl Jones, which previously he was playing Serac the Preparer. Was he anyone else outside of that? He was like the moving guy in Bad Dream House. Yeah, when he was given a tip he doesn't like.

But really, it's him being Serac the Preparer. And the narrator in The Raven Short, too. He was in all three segments. I forgot about that. They used him a ton. In this too. He was in all three segments. I forgot about that. They used him a ton. In this, they got one line out of him, but it's great. I can't imagine that joke without James Earl Jones.

I always think he's in the This is CNN Lion King joke, but that's sheerer. It would have made more sense to bring him back for that one-off joke. I love that they did it. Do you guys know the third time he would appear on the show? No. I think I know. It's a bad episode well is it halloween segment no okay it's the

one of their most shrug endings of oh oh i know das bus let's say mo yes that's the das bus when when they're all stuck on the island and they realize at the end of the episode the children are left on the island and not saved they just said well we need to explain how they were saved and let's say mo okay well let's have let's have let's have james earl jones say it to add extra weight to it so justify everything yeah maggie does kill willie in that scene we should point that out by willie's second death second deck with an axe to the back with an axe it's always an axe and he's and there's blood all around the axe i think that softens homer murdering him too it's always an axe and he's and there's blood all around the axe i think that softens homer murdering him too it's like well everybody murdered him so homer's not special i

remember in life before internet and dvds i think people i heard people think that willie got killed in every treehouse of horror special because of this this is one of the only ones with a through line yeah where there's references go back and forth yeah i don't think he'd be a lead in one until freddy krueger that's next year nightmare on evergreen terrace i believe it was called and okay this is my line of the show i don't know if you guys agree but don't touch anything i'll judge whatever i feel like foolish earthling totally unprepared for the effects of time travel what happened to us kudos quiet you

miss you always need king kudos to show up and kill time. But I just love that. Their only appearance, by the way, in this mystery. But I just love that. I just love how angry Homer is. He's just like, don't touch anything. He just loses it. He's just so frustrated, yeah.

And then he returns, everything is normal, but the family has lizard tongues and he's willing to settle. Yeah, well, close enough is right. He's got all the time traveling. Though they go through a bunch of houses. They're right, yeah. The Flintstones house, they're underwater, then the Sphinx. And they tell a story on the commentary that is some real cruelty to animation directors.

Unintended, they weren't mean on purpose but like so they had in the script one of the designs was based the house was made of squirrels it was the house was made out of squirrels and so an animator meticulously drew a house where it is an individual squirrel in like that made up the house and then then in the uh at some point they're like nah don't want that i think they just decided it didn't read well on a tv screen like people couldn't tell what it was i hope that poor poor animator just just doing what he was told and apparently uh after that he made that design for like christmas cards he tried to use it as much as possible because he

was so resentful and never made it into the show yeah i mean it was it was pretty cruel uh so then we get to the next segment which i want to use this as a time to talk about another major simpsons figure who enters it but this is the this segment is the first ever episode credited to david s later x cohen and so david at the time credit here david s cohen he was a science graduate from harvard and then got a master's in berkeley so then cohen decided instead of going to science he wanted to write comedy so then he went and wrote several episodes of beavis and butthead in the original run yeah actually he wrote uh for season three of beavis and butthead and two episodes that are identified as his are

couch fishing and plate frisbee very this is a very this is a very primitive years of Beavis and Butthead, trying to figure out what to do with the characters after Mike Judge was not the only guy writing for them. And they're okay, but I feel like the show will only get better. But I just want to know what writing for Beavis and Butthead is like. What is a good Beavis and Butthead script compared to a bad Beavis and Butthead script? It's not stupid enough. So then he got hired by the Simpsons in season six.

He was one of their new writers then and his most famous episodes i'd say the two are lisa the vegetarian he made her a vegetarian pitched it to dave merkin who was just like hey i'm a vegetarian now i love this you're hired and and then he pitched the itchy and scratchy and poochy show or he wrote that one and so and he is the most nerdy guy on the commentaries he's yeah i mean ken keeler is oh wait sorry ken keeler is the most nerdy guy in the commentaries i say this as a nerd by the way yes well david x sounds the nerdiest he sounds like comic book guy how do you go from a writer to co-creating a show with mac rainey um so in 1997 while working in seasons eight of the simpsons

i think he just started having conversations with Matt Groening about a show they could do together. And Matt Groening was into it. And so he was like, OK, this is going to be you. Though you read all these stories about Matt Groening had these flights of fancy of like, we're going to make a live action Krusty spinoff show. We're going to make a show called Homer. He had all these dreams of shows and he didn't make them.

But in the case of David X. Cohen, then he decided like, oh, no, yeah, let's do this. And they pitched it and made the show and it sold to Fox. And so that's why David left the series in season nine. His last episode, I believe, is Bart the Mother. It's true. And the last season, Phil Hartman appearance. Yeah.

And I was going to say this is the weaker one, but actually reflecting upon it, I love Skinner. And that's great. Turning this boring, stern character into a murderer cannibal yes really really good and i love a lot of his a lot of his dialogue in this episode definitely and and also like to he got to be on the school bus one last episode but he never got to be the villain of one and i like when the horror episodes can go outside of the family for the fun. You know, like Burns is a vampire. Nightmare Cafeteria is a reference to an old show.

Nightmare Cafe. It's a six-episode 1992 ABC show. I feel like there's some specificity to this segment. I see people pointing out Soylent Green, but I've watched Soylent Green more than anybody I know. This has nothing to do with Soylent Green, but I've watched Soylent Green more than anybody I know. This has nothing to do with Soylent Green. It reminds me more of those B-movies you'd see from the 80s like Class of Newcomb High or something. It reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode.

There's actually a really great dark comedy, I think it's called Parents, with Randy Quaid about cannibals. I see a lot in common with this. I'm not sure if he was inspired by it. And I haven't watched it, but there was also that new I believe it was Netflix series, the whatever diet.

Oh, yes. Santa Clarita Diet. Santa Clarita Diet. Yeah, yeah. So, but yeah, Homer is not in this at all. They mentioned in the commentary, Cohen did write a scene for Homer, but it got cut. So this is one where there is no Homer. And also, Cohen wrote the end of this sequence too, the post-dream sequence as well.

So he did the whole bit of this act. So the school is overcrowded. So I also like that they start from the place of an overcrowded school, which is still a problem 23 years later. And this was the first time I ever heard that the kid said, oxygen running out. Yeah, it's very muffled. Yeah, I never heard it as a kid before or understood it as the words he said. Skinner and Doerr are supposed to have the same

problem. This overcrowding and detention is becoming critical. It's a powder cake waiting to go off in an explosion of unacceptable behavior. Don't bitch to me, boss man. Thanks to the latest budget cuts I'm down to using grade F meat. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was some sort of common solution to both our problems? That would be great.

Hey, Bart, watch this. Oh, no! My favorite outfit! Jimbo, this is by far the worst... Jimbo, why don't you assist Lunch Lady Doris in the kitchen? Bite me, Skinner. Well, might we. I love that. Okay, so Skinner had the cannibal bug before this.

Just eating slime off of Jimbo's skin was enough to be like, we have to kill these children. Probably something that happened in Vietnam. Lunch Lady Doris totally understood exactly what he meant when he said, assist her. She's like, oh, finally. She's like, I got it. My favorite outfit.

He defines that skull outfit as his favorite outfit. I mean, it is. He wears it every day. I guess it is his favorite outfit. And when I also think of bad meat, I think of grade F meat as well. Circus Ant. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie. Animals, some filler. Some filler. They won't even say what the filler is, but it's worse than circus animals. Goes well with malk.

And, you know, we've been watching The Critic. It's been nice to hear Doris Growl back again on the show for a brief scene this is not her last scene i think uh lisa the vegetarian might be one of growl's last appearances on the show yeah rich and bundly goodness i didn't capture but the just jimbo's his inability to know he's about to be murdered it's like oh great now i gotta work in the dark so i guess he was roasted alive and that's how he died. Yeah, pretty terrible death for Jimbo. And it's something that, again, is a nerd.

That they make so much food out of one child body. It doesn't make sense. You can't make dozens of sloppy Jimbo's. I mean, that machine can gooify. I think they just threw his entire body in there and the bones are part of it too. I guess with some filler, maybe. I like that they came out with ironic names for the actual food.

Sloppy jimbo. They're almost like flaunting their murders. I love when Edna asks him like, did you kill him? And he just taps his nose. I think a deleted scene was a teriyaki and sherry sauce. The sandwich takes so young and impudent. just taps his nose. I think a deleted scene was a teriyaki and sherry sauce. Yes. Oh, yes, yes.

The sandwich takes so young and impudent. And then when he sees Uter, that look down at Uter, he looks so, he does look appetizing to a cannibal. He's just like so fat

and innocent. And he's looking for a reason to take him to detention. The one thing in that scene that bothers me when Bart and Milhouse are in line getting their sloppy Jimbo,

for one cut of that scene, their buns are not colored in, so they look like styrofoam balls cut in half. It looks so gross. We're just plopping the sloppy Jimbo onto their weird white buns. And then, yeah, like Kat said, I love that Doris gets so excited about, like, she's into dressing up for Oktoberfest. This is the best meet she's ever had to work with. Yes, yeah. She's smiling. It's not horse meat she's ever had to work with. Yes, yes. She's smiling. It's not horse testicles.

It's not circus animals. Okay, I got your German grub right here. Bart, does it strike you as odd that Uter disappeared and suddenly they're serving us this mysterious food called Uterbraten? Oh, relax, kids. I've got a gut feeling Ooder's around here somewhere.

After all, isn't there a little Ooder in all of us? In fact, you might even say we just ate Ooder and he's in our stomach right now. Wait, scratch that one. Oh, great, Harry. He gets out the line of the show.

That's my line of the show. Yeah. That's the joke. You could say we ate Uter. Yeah, it's... He's got our stomachs right now. He takes it one step too far by directly describing what's happening. And he just...

And then he takes it back like, scratch that one. Yeah. Which that definitely also feels like a Futurama joke structure as well, of somebody outright stating their feelings after going that far with it. There's, like, Skinner, maybe this is just the writing from this general area of the show, or this season of the show, but Skinner would do a lot of things, like freak out or act the wrong way, and then go, Anyway!

Or like, Goodbye! Anyway! Prove me wrong, children! Yeah, he just tried to wave it away with a very lame way to cover it up. They at least have a scene that explains why the parents aren't worried about their murdered children. Marge just tells them,

Hey, you stand up to that bully. Tell him, Don't eat me. I can't fight all your battles, kids. Yes. And then we get to see the overweight Edna Krabappel, which is like a great design. I love it. So messed up.

You're like, ah, yeah. She's been thin her entire life, but now she's put on like 100 pounds because she cannot stop eating children. Homework. She loves it too much. Eat a stick of butter. Yes. She just goes.

With a little belch. And then she goes, detention. Detention. Yeah. goes a little belch and then she goes detention detention the only children who are not in detention before the scene starts are wendell ralph millhouse bart and lisa and when they sneak out they leave ralph behind he's still in the class like fuck ralph well if ralph doesn't know to sneak out with him he knows that this is the time to get out there's a lot of there's a lot of meat on ralph's bones too they could be busy with him for a while And poor this is the Most plot important Wendell Has been in a very long time On the show also we see Martin in a cage

Once again in school you only make yourself tired And stringy I wonder if that is a Like fetish Yeah no Something about factory farming It's like the comic because it's first It's first him in a cage and then free range Children as well that are just walking around.

Not trying to escape. And the joy of cooking Milhouse, that was the joke Homer had before in the Coen script. He gives a long script, but he says, you know, don't judge people on their behavior. This is just like something some people are into. In fact, I want to cook Milhouse. And I developed several recipes and I showed it to his parents and they were closed minded about the whole thing. So it was a very long speech they cut from homer and uh but don't worry willie to the rescue well then kids i'm coming to rescue theouring you, Bart Simpson.

Yes. I believe I'll start as you've so often suggested by eating your shorts. Gross. I'm going to start with your butt in a non-sexual way. I'm just going to eat it. I had about 15 hours of plane travel recently, I read a 400 page book about a serial killer who killed and ate children. So this is a lot more meaning to me now. This is much

creepier to me now. Why don't you eat adults? That's stupid. Children are nice and tender. Albert Fish, look him up. He's a total freak. I just winced. Did you just read a whole book about that guy? Yes. Wow, that's some good reading material on a flight, Bobby. No one sat by me for some reason.

Well, I also like that Doris, she has just become like a monster. She doesn't even talk. They're all monsters. I mean, Miss Hoover is in the background, too. You barely see her drooling behind them. When you eat human flesh, you turn into a hissing evil monster. That is true. And sort of true.

Well, I mean, maybe it was like eating the brains will give you the madness. Maybe that had that happen. It will give you power. The mad cow disease. I love that. There's something in nature that makes it so you don't eat your same species. From the cannibals in Papua New Guinea, that was the thing. They would eat the brains and it would actually cause madness.

That was the thing. So that's what happened. Mad cow disease. Note to to self don't eat other people's brains well then cohen ends the scene with kind of a meta commentary on that the children never die in previous tree houses like it was a line they wouldn't cross and so bart vocalizes that of like no we won't die we never die in these things. And even when Milhouse dies, like, well, Milhouse is a bystander. We still won't die. The first time I watched this, seeing Milhouse die was shocking.

Yes, yes. Before I knew it was going to be a dream sequence. And the camera angle from the bottom, like underneath the rotating propeller, as they're falling and the look on their face. And then you hear the sound of Milhouse being ground up by the blades. It's glorified.

At the time, one of my most scary scenes was the Goonies when they try and stick his hand in the blender. It was just, as a kid, you couldn't, that would suck! It's very visceral. And I believe, due to the nature of just this segment, it's one of the few episodes that has to be reclassified ratings-wise abroad. Very different ratings in different territories, where usually, I don't know they have

like a 12 and up in the UK. Corpse mutilation kind of is. Yeah it crosses that line to where like they it can't air in certain certain countries.

Well it really was quite violent. It was. I think I remember there's being so they're being blood around the spout of the giant reprocessor too.

I didn't look into it too far but apparently they removed some of the blood not the scenes but just like the like the excess blood from characters to reclassify it with a better airing. Yeah, I mean, David Merkin wanted to make this

the most violent Halloween special, and he did succeed. I don't think anything after this got this intense. And this is also the first time I noticed that the Kid Blender is a Hamilton Beach one, which is a brand of blender. Oh, no. But then we get to the ending, and it seems that Bart and Lisa are doomed.

Don't worry, guys. Something always comes along to save us. Nevertheless, I remain confident that something will come along and save the two Simpsons children. Relax, honey. You were just having a crazy nightmare. You're back with your family now where there's nothing to be afraid of.

Except that fog that turns people inside out. Uh-oh, it's seeping in. Stupid cheap weather stripping. Mark said it would save them 7% on their heating bill. It should have happened. Those are some serious sound effects, man. They're really good. Well, and the footage of them turning inside.

It's great. It's great. And I feel that Merkin always wanted to have some big surprise at the end of his Halloween episodes. The last one was the Charlie Brown Christmas parody. And this one is another kind of shocking moment, too. Yeah, well, I think in both those cases... They're shocking for different reasons. I think both of them

came from probably a note from somebody saying, like, we can do all this horror, but we have to end on a laugh. We can't... If the episode ended with them screaming and turning inside out and landing in a pile... And then, like, executive producer... Yeah, you would have been like, Bart punching Lisa in the arm and the stomach of Skinner.

You'd have felt horrible. But when it ends with a musical, then you feel a little better. I just want to point out that it ends with Santa's little helper getting hold of Bart's entrails and dragging him away. Yes. And they sing about it too.

They do. But the turning inside out, Bob. Yes. Yes, we both captured close. We both grabbed close from this. And when I saw you did it too, I was like, damn you, Henry. But this is from the, I don't know what you call this guy, Arch Obler. Yeah, well, this was a radio play from the radio series Lights Out.

Yeah, and it was something that haunted David Merkin, this segment called The Dark. And it is about people being turned inside out by shadows. Doc, the lamp. Okay. So they're finding a person turned inside out by shadows. Here, Doc. The lamp. Okay. So they're finding a person turned inside out. Yeah. What? Oh, mother in heaven.

What? On the floor. What is it? It's a man. Oh, no. It can't be. Yes, I tell you, yes, it's a man. A man. Oh, no. It can't be. Yes, I tell you, yes, it's a man. A man.

And he's been turned inside out. Wow. The whole thing is great. Listen to it. It's online. The Dark by Arch Obler. O-B-O-L-E-R. It wasn't totally scary, though.

We had that public television guy with the inside out. Slim Goodbody. Yeah, Slim Goodbody. We had Inside Out Boy, a Nickelodeon who swung over the bar. It wasn't something I hadn't seen before. This is all theater of the mind, though. What you're imagining is way worse than what they could show you. From my experience, I'd literally see.

That Inside Out Boy caricature, you could see his veins and his heart, and it's kind of gross, and it's claymation. It's only because he swung over the bars. Can't swing over the bar, man. I'm surprised I never made it to series. I mean, come on. I think they made at least a couple more. Yeah, it was like how Pete and Pete wore bumpers and then a series.

Well, they didn't have the budget to make it a full series. It's a lot of claymation. Yeah, it is. And so then we get back to the, it's going to close out the show. I don't have the clip of it here, but we'll to close out the show i don't have the clip of it here but we'll just close out the show but the it is the parody of one with them singing of their chorus line of people dance until they make a stop yeah so watch the animation when bart's bedroom turns into the set it's amazing the walls pull out and they rotate and it's so great looking and this made the overseas animators really mad because this is a like one minute in her uninterrupted scene

with no i think there's one cut when he goes! I think that is the one cut they allowed them. But it is five characters, more complicated than they've ever been drawn, all dancing to choreographed music with only one cut throughout that entire segment. It is a madness that it came out looking that well. Yeah, man, I didn't think of that. They're covered in details of veins and bones and all that. And they still have to look like the characters. Yes, including it.

In my first viewing as a kid, I didn't even recognize that was Willy. Same here, yeah. I think they make his mustache or his beard part of his inside-out face. Well, same with all their hair is inside-out. Like Marge's hair is apparently veins. Has organs in it. Yes, yeah. But it really should be bunny ears, as we all know.

Again, big ups to them for ending the episode in a musical like this had to be one of the most like resource intensive tree houses they ever did and it came out so well yes it did it has every kind of flavor you'd like in a tree house episode i think watch mojo rated at number one best halloween um yes wherever i find it the most watchable, to be perfectly honest. 5 is still my favorite because I will give it a slight animation edge and that I like all three of them more than I... Like, Nightmare Cafeteria is good. It is really good, and so is Time and Punishment,

but I like the terror of 12 Feet and the one after that. I will say the Season 5 Halloween special has the best animation. I think I prefer this one, and I don't know why. Maybe there's something for everybody, but whenever I'm hanging out with friends in a Halloween-type setting, that's the one I'll put on first, the one that we just talked about. But Homer's selling his silver-colored donut. That's also good. Yes, that's still my favorite segment ever, and I put Shinning right behind that. Well, Citizen Kang is definitely my favorite segment ever, and I put Shinning right behind that. Well, Citizen Kang is definitely my favorite, along with the one that you described.

That is also an all-time. But just this one, from beginning to end, is just so good. It's wonderful. None of the jokes fall flat for the most part. It goes at such a clip. And Time and Punishment is a great example of just a segment that is so tightly packed and so insane. It just keeps getting higher and higher and higher until Homer is just like, screw you, and just starts beating up everything. It's amazing.

Nothing goes to waste. They're in a Ned Flanders dystopia for 90 seconds, and things just get crazier from there. So, yeah, fantastic episode. And I just want to recommend that Simpsons is pretty bad about having digital offerings on amazon but for some reason they have three packages of just the halloween specials and i forget what what's what because that's what i watch every year and they're all like it's season two seven four like and then the next one is season treehouse one yeah it's it's all over the place it's all over the place but at least you can get the Halloween specials together. I loved as a kid when they would air like four over a night on Fox. Those were the days.

Well, when there were only four or two air. I'll put this challenge out there. Why not do this with other shows for fuck's sake? Why doesn't... Just steal it. It's fine. It's The Simpsons. You can steal from The Simpsons.

Yeah, they're an institution now. Do an out-of-canon Halloween episode or an anthology episode. Just do it. Yeah, you know. I mean, Futurama would do it with their anthology of interest series. I love your court beep. Well, there's no other good holiday, though, for it, unfortunately. Yeah.

Well, thanks so much for listening, folks. This has been Talking Simpsons. I've been your host, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retronauts every Monday at retronauts.com and occasionally a bonus episode on Friday. It's a classic gaming podcast. Just look for it in your podcast machine

for Retronauts and I guarantee you'll like it. Just find a topic that you're into and find our corresponding episode and you will like it, I swear. Our special guest Kat, where can we find you? I'm Kat Bailey. You can find me on US Gamer. That's where I work and contribute all of my writing. I have two podcasts. We have the US Gamer podcast. That's where I work and contribute all of my writing. I have two podcasts. We have the US Gamer podcast.

That's our flagship podcast. And also Acts of the Blood God, which is our RPG podcast, where we talk about all things RPGs, but mostly JRPGs. But yeah, I digress. I also appear on Retronauts occasionally with Bob and Jeremy, and I'm looking forward to being on that again. And you can find me on Twitter at the underscore KatBot. Did you come at another laser time, Kat? cat yes i totally will when you have me again i see that the hot

fuzz is written down on your calendar also is written under april yes sorry calendars kept digitally but uh we're gonna do a star trek one right someday someday i just i'm not trek discoveries right around the corner my friend so very when i think we do a show called 30 2010 on the laser time network and when when Brett was a part of it on a regular basis, we're leading up to casting announcements to Next Gen, to the eventual launch of Next Gen,

because we look at the world 30, 20, and 10 years ago from this week. Let me tell you, the first season of Next Gen in 1987 was such a clusterfuck. It's great. Ah, thanks for great podcasting.

Can't wait to talk about it. Well, you must be really excited about Seth MacFarlane's The Orville, right? No. Yeah, I know. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Stop trying to talk about it. Well, I can't. You must be really excited about Seth MacFarlane's The Orville, right? No. Yeah, I know. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Stop trying to become an actor.

It's going to be a great one-season show, guys. Leave it alone. Leave it alone. I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter, and if you listen to this ad-free, that's because you gave to our Patreon, patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons.

If you haven't, you're missing out on tons of awesome stuff like the entire Talking Critic run. We're doing a new episode of that every week. Some exclusive videos. Some special interviews with writers from the show like Bill Oakley, Reed Harrison. One of the executive producers on classic Simpsons video games and so much more. You get access to a ton of stuff for just $5 a month.

And you help me and Bob do this a full-time jobs. So, again, Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons i'm a patreon i'm a patron thank you yeah hope you enjoy it cat so thanks so much for listening we'll be back next week with bart's girlfriend a great episode we'll see you then Two! Many dancing people Cover with blood, corn, and cloth Just one sniff of that fog And you're inside out It's worse than that Flush-eating virus you've read about

Vital organs They are what we're dressed in. The family dog is iron, box, and dustin'. Happy Halloween! Bye.