Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror V With Ian Jones-Quartey

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

"Relax, kids; I've got a GUT FEELING Uter is around here somewhere. After all, isn't there a little Uter in all of us? In fact, you might even say we just ATE UTER and he's in our stomachs right now! Wait—scratch that one." - Seymour Skinner It's time once again to bask in the warm, glowing, warming glow of yet another Simpsons Halloween special—and, quite possibly, the funniest one to date. On this fifth installment, Homer becomes an axe-wielding, family slaying psychopath, the family gets trapped in a dystopian society lorded over by Ned Flanders, and Bart and Lisa risk being gooified by their hungry teachers. And if that's not enough, it all culminates with a show-stopping, inside-out dance number! Our guest: Ian Jones-Quartey, creator of OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Bluesky and Instagram!

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To make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot CA. Cargooros.ca. This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon movie podcast, and tons more. Ahoy, hoi, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, a window into our madness. I'm one of your host, the unquestioned Lord and Master of the World, Bob Mackie,

and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Urge to kill fading. Fading. Fading. It's Henry Gilbert. And who is our special guest on the line? Hey there. I'm Ian Jones Cordy and, oh, great.

Now I got to work in the dark. And this week's episode is Treehouse of Horror. Five. Oh, goody. The sea monkeys I ordered have arrived. Look at them. Cawort and keeper. Sir, they're the new winter caretakers for the lodge.

Yes, they work hard and they play hard. This week's episode originally aired on October 30th, 1994, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Stargate tops the box office. One of my favorites, the Gargoyles debut in syndication, and Rare's fighting game, Killer Instinct, makes a splash in arcades this week. Though, of course, with arcade game releases back then, the internet is, even the Wikipedia's like citation needed for October 28th, 1999. before, but let's just say that's when the Midway published, Rare developed fighting game came out.

I didn't play that until it came home to the Super Nintendo. Didn't they tone it down some? I remember they toned it down a little bit. Or, well, maybe it was just they had to turn down the graphics quite a bit. I recall it not being that over the top in terms of violence. I'm sure they had to reduce the, like, the sprite size and the complexity of the sprites for the Super Nintendo version. But it was a pretty impressive conversion by Rare. Yeah, I think I just remember watching the attrite. attract mode for that game, like a ton in the arcade. I don't know if I ever, like, dug into it.

I put on the attract mode to watch it real quick today. And it's so Mortal Kombat, but also with, like, kind of the tech and cutscenes in it. But then, like, oh, here's the splash screen of all the text describing each character in it. Except it does have rare sense of humor in it. I remember there's some, even in that, it's fatalities or whatever they called it, had like googly-eyed jokes in them, if I remember correctly. Does that one have like a rotating Ultra 64 logo in the track mode too? That was the big reason I cared about it at all because I wasn't a big fighting game kid, but I was reading up on it. I'm sure Bob's the Retronauts master here, but Midway made a big deal with Nintendo in 94 to start publishing a couple arcade games that would be advertised as this is a preview of what the

Ultra 64 is going to look like when that system comes out. Yeah. It came out as like Killer Instinct gold in like 97 and by that point I feel like nobody cared on the N-64. Well, there was very little to play, so a lot of people just bought it. Right. You're either playing that or Mario Kart 64 in 1997. And Gargoyles, yeah, it debuted with

basically a whole movie or a five-parter that I loved it so much. We've covered it many times, at least twice on our What a Cartoon podcast. Ian, you were a fan? Loved that opening. I remember watching it every day. I own the Laserdisc Now. It's a pretty great.

conversion and I remember just like my mind being blown by the quality of like the backgrounds and the animation from Disney, Japan doing that stuff. It was just like very exciting for me. You know, it never quite reached the heights of say, you know, like X-Men, which I liked a lot more at the time, but the animation was better. Yeah, advise listeners to go check out our what a cartoon episodes about Gargels. We've done two of them so far, I believe, like Henry said. My biggest complaint on Gargoyles in the second season was that they give up, half the season to be like pilots for other shows that could happen in the Gargoyle series when I just want to see their adventures.

But though I've also had Gargoyles on the mind because I've mentioned it many times, listeners, and I'll subject you to it again. But I've started a rewatch of Star Trek The Next Generation with my husband. Everybody, take a shot. Take a shot. But like half of the cast is TNG actors or other people from Voyager or Deep Space Nine also. Yeah. Yeah, it gives the show a great, like, sonic quality when you're just like,

Oh, I know all those voices. And Ian on OkKO, you worked with several people who were also on TNG and Gargoyles as well, didn't you? I think I probably just had the same amount of hubris as the Gargoyle showrunners of like, I can cast people from TNG. So, yeah, we basically, we had Martinez-Sirtis, we had, you know, LeVar Burton. I couldn't help myself there. And what, Bob, you watched Stargate recently, right? I haven't seen that forever. I'm going to say more like one and a half stars gate because that's what I gave it on ladder box.

This movie stinks. And I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be fun. I went into it thinking, oh, this is a fun 90 sci-fi movie. It is so boring because the question it asks is, what if there was a portal that could take you anywhere in the universe? And what is on the other side is ancient Egypt. And what follows is a white savior narrative where everyone just seems very bored. And there's one puppet.

There's only one puppet in this crazy alien world. That's it. But then it spawned like 300 episodes of a TV show. so people love this shit. I remember I only saw it in theaters as a kid, and I don't think I've watched it in full since. I remember it being a real special effects showcase when, like, digital effects were, like, new in movies.

Like, I remembered that feeling. And then my mom told me that one of the stars in it was from the crying game, which I only knew was a punchline as well. Yeah, basically everybody jumps into the portal that leads you to Hazy Mays Cave in Mario 64. That's how the Stargate works. And what's on the other side is ancient Egypt, And there's an evil queer villain who must be destroyed.

Oh, okay. Good. And he's a person of color. Don't forget about that. But it's a weird movie. I think the TV stuff it spawned is much more above board. And I'm sure there's some good stuff to be had there. Obviously, it was coasting on the success of Star Trek in the 90s because it kind of is like a Star Trek show.

But I don't know how all of that came out of this movie where there's like really nothing going on. And that's all that happened this night of programming, which was a block of Simpsons episodes. Treehouse 2, 3, 5, and then 4 on the night of October 30th, 1994. And joining us once again is Ian Jones Quarty, who last joined us to talk about Treehouse of Horror for, welcome back to the show, Ian. Hey, thanks, glad to be back. I'm super excited to do this one. I think I might have mentioned four is one of my favorites, but five just inches it out for me. So I'm really happy to be here.

This is the Super Mario Brothers 3 versus Super Mario World of Simpsons episodes. And that they're both kind of doing the same thing, and you may prefer one over the other, but people have definite camps. And I am in the Trias of Horror Five camp. Yeah, it's hard to choose, but five, just it has the balance of segments. I think it's just, it's perfect. It's like, you know, you have your movie parody, then you have like a sci-fi one, and then you have just like a straight slasher. It's like a great balance of segments that I think they don't always get that like nice balance. It's just really well put together.

I remember Mike Rees' book, he said that pretty much always on Treehouse of Horror, there's like one third of it is kind of a stinker or not as good. And they always have to work around it. But in this one, I think the weakest one, which I would say is the third segment even. Even that would be the best segment in a lot of tree houses. I can agree with that. Yeah, it's like even the weak segment is like operating well on like all cylinders. It's great.

It's directed by Jim Reardon, who is one of the best, and would we go on to be series director? I feel what I love about Treehouse for is that it is like David Silverman working with Rough Draft and doing like amazing stuff. And Silverman is like the Simpsons director. But this is like Reardon. And then there's about a minute that's like buffed up Silverman. So you kind of get the best of both worlds here too. I believe also Rough Draft on this one. They know that these are such hard work animation.

episodes. That rough draft Korea is the one to trust with it. No offense to ACOM, but... I'll offend ACOM all I want. I've seen their animaniacs. By the way, there are new writers on this episode. We have Bob Cushel who wrote The Shinning, and we have David S. Cohen who wrote Nightmare Cafeteria. We will talk about them when we get to the episodes, the full episodes they're credited with on their Simpsons timeline, so don't worry about that. I didn't want to take up a lot of time doing two writers' corners here. When this episode is packed, what a run of episodes. We're in right now, it's itchy and scratchy land, then side show Bob Roberts, and now this. And Bob, you mentioned when we did itching scratchy land, which was Merkin's response to

internal pressure from the network to have less violence. That was a response to it. And this one is just as much response. The children are murdered on the screen. This is so bloody. It's crazy. Like, I think they've certainly gotten bloodier in the last few years, I'd say, or the last decade. Like, I mean, the one where boy, it's hard to even say. Actually, the one where Sideshow Bob has his face taken off, and that's not even a treehouse episode is grisier than this

one in recent ones. I think Thanksgiving of horror was pretty grisly. Oh, yeah. Yeah, God, the apocalyptic one, like heads explode on screen in that one. That's a really rough one. This one is such a response to violence and television. I mean, Ian, you've

working primarily in younger demographics. I'm sure you've had to deal with network pressure about action or violence, right? Oh, yeah, oh yeah. And, you know, there's always pressure, yeah, to not do anything violent. But I think in an episode like this one, it's like you really need it to be violent.

And also what I love about this episode is that it isn't maybe the goriest they ever got, but it is the one where they take the violence kind of more seriously, you know, than some of the goreier stuff. And that's really fun. I think, too, it crosses like, internal boundaries they had set before of like, well, say in Bad Dream House in the first

tree house that we also covered with you, Ian, that the family walks up to the line of trying to hurt each other, but they go like, oh, no, we're not going to hurt each other. But Homer is going at them with murderous intent. So it's like, and Bart even talks about it out loud of like, well, nothing bad happens to us in these, though. Like they are intentionally crossing lines in this one too. Yeah, it's great. This one as well, if you watched it in markets, hopefully you got to watch all four

Simpson tree houses in a row on that special night of horror. And it wasn't preempted by Minnesota beating Tampa Bay 3413 in sports interfering with our treehouse of horrors as it will often do on five. I believe not in my market. I recall this night of television being fairly good. I don't remember if I saw this live. But I do remember a night of watching like a bunch in a row on TV. But I know they did that for several years.

So I have no idea if I saw this. this on that night or if I saw it in a later one. And these were special because they were as close to Halloween as you could get. Yeah, instead of waiting until after election days usually instead, as we are in the teens episodes of tree houses. Though also what a difference it is too. Like we covered the 16 tree house as the premiere and now this is like, I believe what, the sixth episode of the season in air order.

That's just crazy. Yeah, normally the season kind of debuts with the treehouse of four, the broadcast season, right? Though these last years it seems, I think definitely this season and the last treehouse is now like more like the third or fourth. I think it's starting to get a little more normal. The programming blocks of all the tree houses together, the one that always sticks with me and I put it in the episode as the ad break, I think too, because I'll never forget it. It was like whatever year Briscoe County Jr. was airing it. I want to say it was 93, but it was like Briscoe County Jr. hosts the Simpsons Tree House of Horror Marathon from Universal Studios. And so it was like, Like, you know, it was where I got to meet Bruce Campbell for the first time as a brisco viewer. This episode is full of bonus features on the DVD. There's multiple deleted scenes and I've got them. There's some fun behind the scene stories. There's an illustrated commentary with David Silverman, Jim Mirren, and Mac Raining.

They're having some fun on it. Mostly just having fun goofing around. Not too many. Honestly, not a lot of lessons you can learn from the animatic, but it's still fun. I miss when DVDs had budgets or DVDs, existed, I guess really, I should say it for TV shows. Yeah. Well, now you can buy a Blu-ray for $60 and you just get all of the old DVD features because

they're not making features anymore. Yes. Unless it's criteria, they're like the boutique people, they can still do it, but everybody else, no, no. I could go on and on about that arrow box set of all three Ninja Turtles. They put more work into the bonus features of Ninja Turtles 3 that, like, most real films gets in the last 10 years in their DVDs, or Blu-rays, I should say. It's worth the Turtle fans.

But anyway, also, there's a table draft you can find on Internet Archive that I've noted the major changes from. It's dated April 7th, 1994. So the usual about seven-ish month, six to seven-month timeframe. That's pretty normal. Though, for how dense this is with animation, I'd say it sounded like they were right up against the wall on shipping this one, I think. So the episode begins, though, with a fake out that makes you think they're just replaying a previous intro. But Marge has some new stuff to say. our first clip. Hello, once again. As usual, I must warn you all that this year's Halloween

show is very, very scary, and those of you with young children may want to send them off to bed. 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! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-h-h-h-blop-blop-blop. This is my voice on TV. For the next half-hour, we will control what you see and hear. You are about to experience the terror and foul horror of the Simpsons Halloween special. Oh, man. This is back before nerds made it that they have to call them tree houses on the TV broadcast to. Yes.

And notably, it's the first, I guess you could call it a framing device. Sorry, it's the last framing device. They'll stop with this after this season. And I'm glad because this is cute, this is fun. They've kind of run out of anthology shows to parody, so I understand why they're getting rid of it. But watching this again makes me a little resentful because it is stealing two minutes from this very funny episode. And it just was part of the formula. but man, I wish they could apply those two minutes to the segments that follow.

Yeah, it's true. It is kind of surprising when you watch through the whole thing and you get to the end and you're like, wait, what was the framing device? And I guess this is it. I didn't watch much outer limits as a kid. Every time I could watch Twilight Zone, I watched as a kid, but I watched very little outer limits. But as I remember, like, outer limits other than like the intro, you know, that they're parenting here, it didn't have as so much of a host. like Rod Serling would have on it to let you know what you were watching. And I guess it was popular enough, but it only ran for two seasons.

And weirdly enough, the 90s revival ran for much longer. That ran for seven seasons from 95 to 02. And it's a tour of Vancouver in Cyphi Anthology form. That's awesome. The only one I remember from that was that Leonard Nimoy did a remake, and he directed it too, a remake of the Outer Limits that he did, which was the only outer limits anybody remembers about like it's an Isaac Asimov one about a robot on trial for its humanity. Isn't it I robot?

Is it? Is it a robot? Man, I can't remember the name of it. You might be right. I can't remember though. But I do remember that it was like a big deal. Like, oh, Leonard Nimoy directed the one that I think the only outer limits people remembered from the 60s because it had Spock in it really. And by the way, 200 miles to Oregon, not an actual film.

I'm sure if we said that yet. Don't waste your time looking it up, listeners. You won't find it. This opening is indelibly etched into my mind because of songs in the key of Springfield. I think this intro was included on that CD. Oh, like it's the setup to just playing the tree house theme. I'm pretty sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I also love how this is Marge like saying what Merkin is talking about. Just like in Itchy and Scratchyland that you're just talking about, this is about TV violence. And here she's saying, Congress is telling us we can't even show you this episode this time. I can't count how many times I've tested out wave forms for test recordings with. This is my voice on TV. I've said it many times. But I'm using tombstones dead. This is the end of them.

They are gone. What I think is the first Moe suicide joke on record. I think so. Him hanging from the tree and looking at us, yes. The first of many, I think they're discovering. And you know what? They also tease Patty and Selma as witches, which will be expanded on in Treehouse 8. Though the most disturbing to me as a kid was Skinner's like thumbs

up in approval of being decapitated. Like, that's the eerieous one to me. Then the Simpsons walk in as Frankensteins and with fun asymmetrical designs. Are they as sexy as the Jacob Allerty Frankenstein? I haven't seen that. Bob, you've seen it. Where do you rank

Alorty's sex appeal as the monster? Oh, he's a beautiful monster. He's not like the De Niro Frankenstein. And yes, Bob, as you said, this is a Bob Cushel one and we can talk about that. We later get to it, because there's quite a story. He would later write the story for Bart The Fink.

He was fired. It turns out much later, not a good guy, this Bob Cushow. Just reminded of him because I watched a couple episodes of the 2015 The Muppets, and I had forgotten that he was like co-show runner of that show. I was unaware of that. Right. I remember, yeah. That show also that Muppets kind of office the Muppets had some interesting stuff to say

about inter-office romances and relationships. I will say we'll get to Bob Cushel with Bart The Think. but this is not the first show he was fired for him for being inappropriate at work. Oh, no. I'll just say that. He also exited the Muppets in the middle of that production, too, I should say. But you're right, Bob. We'll get to it.

But that Office Muppet show, it is so weird. It's like the Muppets, I'm watching it because I just am like, well, how many times am I going to get to hear Dave Goulds be Gonzo anymore, even if it's like, Gonzo, the head writer of a TV show who dates human women. I'm like, that's not, like, I got stupidly Muppety mad, that Gonzo had a, blind date and it's with a human woman and I'm like, why isn't this a chicken? Come on. It makes no sense.

Yeah. It's right there. Come on. They can still make it the office. If they want to make it an office style beats Larry Sanders show, the jokes can still work if he dates a chicken. Like that doesn't need to be. Then it's even funnier if Liam Hemsworth like starts dating the chicken instead of

him. That's funnier than a human. Actually, no, it's a human Muppet, which is even weirder. These complaints should have been mail to ABC 12 years ago. See, I can't help you anymore. I could watch it back then. My blood pressure couldn't take it. I was too.

We begin with, I've seen it ranked as number one on a lot of treehouse lists. I mean, the middle segment is my favorite period, but this one, it might be second place. Yeah, I can agree with that. The logo goes by so fast, you might not on first watch notice that it is written as the shining instead of the shining even. I definitely didn't catch that on my first. So I had not seen the shining as a, I mean, I was like 12 when they say. aired. I think by 14, I did see The Shining to finally get it because I love this scene, this segment so much. Yeah, I eventually saw it as a teen. And before you watch it,

everyone is telling you, well, it's the scariest movie. But when you're watching it in a bright room on a crappy TV and you're a teenager who has not lived in adult life, you kind of don't really get it. You understand the vibe to a certain extent. But every time I watch it as an adult, it works on me more and more, especially when I see it in the theater. And I did see this in the theater like two or three years ago. And it makes me appreciate the parody so much more every time I see it because they managed to condense every beat of The Shining, a two-hour movie, into maybe five minutes. Yeah, it's a movie that really luxuriates in itself. And yeah, the fact that they got it all in. I saw the movie a couple years later. I was in middle school and we wanted to

rent scary movies from Blockbuster. And I was like, oh, I heard this movie is really scary. And at the sleepover, it was just like, I had done the worst thing ever because it was so boring. We put it in and then I think someone was like, gosh, all they're doing is talking because at the beginning they're like just talking. They're showing the grounds. So they just fast forwarded through all of the beginning. And then like when they got to the blood coming in, it was like, all right, now we can watch the movie. And it was like, so we basically just watched like the last two-thirds of the movie with no context for what was going on. It's actually kind of scary as like middle schooler to see all this crap going on

and have no idea why it is the way it is. And once I watched it, I was just marveling as a kid like, oh, that is the shot. Like from the beginning, like this trailing the car overhead shot is the shot in the movie. Like every shot is just incredible. This is, I think to another reason this can stick to parodying it so perfectly in camera angles and movement and layout is Jim Reardon boarded this segment too. He didn't just direct, which is it's rare as Simpsons director back then at least like boarded their own, even in an act, I think. This is too bad. I think about this too with your work, Ian, that like, I really

wish the Simpsons would credit borders up front and it wasn't like buried in the back. I mean, it is a writing job. Like it's nuts. You have to dig deep in the credits to see who even boarded something. I mean, the Simpsons opening credits. go on for like 10 minutes nowadays. Like, why not? Throw another credit on the pile. Who cares? This is also where on the commentary,

Merkin insists on something. I have never heard anywhere else, but that he says he had heard that Kubrick was a fan. Maybe had it been said that like his children said after he died, oh, he loved The Simpsons. I think he loved television.

This could be apocryphal, but I think he shot his movies open mat so they would be more TV friendly. Okay. I would love to see this movie theatrical. I've watched it a few times in the year since, but never have seen in a theater. It probably is amazing as all Kubrick films are to see in a movie theater. Unfortunately, the last time I saw it in a theater, I had a real movie guy in front of me who was

there with his wife or a girlfriend, and he was offering a running commentary through the movie, pointing out actors talking about trivia, about 20 minutes in, he's one of the few people in movie theater I've had to scare in order to get him to shut up. Would you please be quiet? One of those. Oh, God, man. This guy can do that at home and make his girlfriend watch it a second time. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like if you're there with a date, you get like two nudges at most. And then it's over. But when you escalate beyond the nudge and you start giving like IMDB trivia, you have to just like salt the earth. Bob, have you ever read the original book to? Yeah, I did. In fact, I read the book first because it was just in the library, very accessible. And as I was reading it, I was like, well, this guy must be Homer and that guy must be Willie. and I was surprised by all the differences,

which is why, I guess, initially Stephen King did not like the movie version. I think he's come around on it, but there is a late 90s version starring Stephen Weber that is very, very faithful to the book, and I hear it's God awful. I do not have experience with it. This is just the vibe I'm getting from people who have.

Yeah, I remember watching that. It was like a mini-series, right? It was, yeah, because ABC had a big Stephen King miniseries decade because there was the Langalears and the Stand and the Tommy Knockers and the Shining. So it was like a recurring thing they were doing. Yeah, I remember they do like the thing with like the topiary bushes attacking him or like coming to life or something. And I remember it looking very hilarious in that like 1997 early CGI kind of way.

What was the Stephen King one about the rapture and the end of the world? I watched that one. That's the stand. That's the stand. I don't know if it's the rapture. It's about the virus. But it is a battle between good and evil. evil with like biblical elements.

This begins with the same as the movie, with the drive overhead, the family going together, except it's the whole family. And, oh, God, the beats of it just to like, do, do, do, like, and then Homer refuses the third one to even react to it. They're just going to leave grandpa at the gas station. There is a grandpa payoff in about four minutes, though. He does make it. Don't worry, folks.

It's done so stealthily, like you don't even really notice Abe is in the backseat with them. until he's not there in the next shot, in the third hit of the joke. And the family arrives, and this is where the opening line comes from. I do feel like they're even posed a little, like the waving sea monkeys on the back of those old comic book ads, which I learned was drawn by the legendary EC Comics artist Joe Orlando.

That's who did it. I love the sea monkeys line, but in the original script, Byrne said this line reacting to the families arrive. So this is what the four families of Chicago send against me. I'll slaughter them where they say. I remember Sea Monkeys being a big kitch item in the 90s. It was obviously nostalgic.

And from what I remember at the time, they were trying to get a Sea Monkeys movie off the ground for a very, very long time in that decade. And they were attaching sort of like every SNL star to the project. Oh, there was like a TV show too, like a Saturday morning Sea Monkeys show, maybe. Maybe that's what the project resulted in. They're like, I guess we could just make it a cartoon. But I just, when I would read Entertainment Weekly or eventually go online and read like movie rumors, you would always hear like sort of like, oh, they're remaking the incredible Mr. Limpit. Or they're making the Sims into a movie. This is one of the things that would be talked about a lot.

Was it the Bob Camp drawings of him working on the Jim Carrey as Mr. Lippet stuff? Yes, I would say there's an excellent Bob Camp drawing of Jim Carrey as Mr. Limpit. Yes. Wow. Then they start giving them a tour of the house and is again, reared in. he's very proud of it on the commentary as he should be like it is a perfect Kubrick tracking shot

across as Burns is explaining all of the horrible things that have happened there including a John Denver Christmas specials and also in the background you see the axes already like the whole axe collection is right there and set up and then the rough draft animators they are told could you animate

a slow mo explosion of blood cascading out of an elevator shaft like yeah sure easy do it right here they do a fantastic job This John Denver bits, there's a lot of John Denver in the original animatic. They hit on John Denver several times. I've only seen The Muppets Christmas special. You can keep it.

I don't want to see any other ones. That's probably the best one, right? I would bet it is because at least you have the Muppets there to boost up John Denver. I'm resentful because it's like John Denver is making the Muppets go to church. And that's special? Right. I'm sorry, I love that when the River meets the Seasong so much. I can't hate it.

It's better when it's in the Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas than when it's sung by Robin and John Denver, of course. But also, the blood normally gets off at the second floor. Great line. The original script after the blood, Marge has this funny line. Homer, the idea being stuck in this place all winter gives me the hebie-jeebies. Then Homer replies, there's nothing to worry about Marge. We have everything we need to keep us happy.

Cable TV, enough liquor to kill us 10 times over, and the world's largest tax collection to defend ourselves against all enemies, real or imagined. Then we cut to Bart. He has been messing up that hedge maids. I've never been in a hedge maid. They scare me those maids. I do fear I'll never get out of them.

I think the trick is you just trace the right wall with your hand, and that's how you get out? That sounds like something I would have read an encyclopedia Brown. This could also be made up. Yeah. Or maybe I'm tricking you because I don't want you to escape from that hedge maze, listener. You want me to freeze to death. Yeah, I mean, the part has a chainsong cuts through it. And this is where he meets Willie in the part of...

Skyman Crothers. of scatman crothers. Yeah. Sorry, Bob, sorry. Hey, I found a shortcut through hedge maze. Who are you little? No, no, go easy on the wee one.

His father's gonna go crazy and jump them all into Huggis. What's Huggis? Boy, you read my thoughts. You've got the shin in. You mean shining. You want to get sued? Now look, boy,

if your dad goes Gaga, you just use that shin of yours to call me in El Camar running. but don't be reading my mind between four and five. That's Willie's time. Funnily enough, in this parody, Willie just lives next to the mansion,

unlike the Scatman Crothers character who has to literally fly back to the hotel. We follow his journey for quite a long time in that movie. You know, listeners, I am assuming you've seen The Shining or Reddit. He dies. It's pretty great in the movie that they spend all that time setting up his arrival and all the work it gets there. and instantly just like, bam, he's down, he is down.

It's a great misdirect. I just learned that also that Welcome to Dairy series is kind of a prequel to The Shining as well. Oh, really? For Halloran's character, yes. Well, there's also Dr. Sleep, which came out probably like eight years ago, I think. I'd heard that was actually all right.

I hadn't heard that was good. Yeah, never saw it. This bit about that shin of yours. Like, Willie even pauses to be like, this is stupid. I know, but we have to. I love how they lead into it. with it. It's great. In the original script,

when Bart says, you mean the shining, Willie replies, no, shitting. It was this book by Stephen King, just like Curry, Ku Jow, and Nedful Things. Simpler's better with that joke, I think. I think they saved that in their pocket

for Ricky Rouse or Mommel Muck. This is where there's two big animatic changes in there. And this one, I sort of stitched it together because I'm going to include the payoff, too. So, Originally, Bart says in the animatic, I'll explain the visual and then play it. Bart is running or it circles around a hedge, and he thinks that is the hedge maze.

And then Willie lets him know he is incorrect. Here's the clip. And then the callback to it is stitched on at the end here. Everybody says it's tough to get out of a hedge maze. This is a piece of cake. That's not a hedge maze, you cookie chub and whitchie bait. The real hedge maze is over there. Help.

It's me, John Denver. I've been stuck in here since 77. I've got a whole lot of new songs. I'm stuck in a hedge man. They're really giving it to John Denver. I know. They didn't know there wasn't much John Denver left. Yeah, so you would have seen John Denver twice there.

He eventually does get out of the hedgemaids. But fortunately, they were nice enough to John Denver to not have Homer kill him after running out on the process. As I was thinking was going to happen. I prefer Bart ruining the maze instead of having a joke with John Denver. That joke is to the tune of Annie's song, which is, You fill up my senses. That's the song.

So now we learn that the reason all the caretakers have gone crazy is not because the place is haunted. It is because Burns constantly takes lies and takes away their beer and TV to drive them insane. If it's wrong, Hill O'Smithers a Coke. His classic Owing a Coke. I mean, this is an intentional callback to Treehouse 2, right? King Homer? No, no, sorry.

Frankenstein won. Parity, yeah. He's alive after all. I guess I owe you a Coke. They drive off. Then we see that Homer, another fantastic recreation of the establishing shot of the Overlook Hotel.

Gorgeous, gorgeous looking. And as Homer is watching TV with Maggie in front of it spelling out red rum in her blocks, this is where Homer learns his predicament. Yes, by cutting off cable TV and the beer supply, I can ensure an honest winter's work

out of those low lights. Sir, did you ever stop to think that Maybe it was doing this that caused the previous caretakers to go insane and murder their families? Perhaps. Tell you what? We come back and everyone slaughtered? I owe you a cook. Hmm.

Cables 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!

Homer! 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 going to kill us?

We're just going to have to wait and see. Things have to move so fast. The very idea of no TV and no beer makes them instantly go crazy. There's no prolonging this. It just immediately has to happen. Let's just get to it. Quite different from your experience at night watching it as a kiddy and of the taking a lot of time. Yeah, yeah.

this we probably should have just watched this again instead of trying to watch the movie yeah i think the first 20 minutes of the shining it's all about watching a guy try to write a book yeah it's really really long like set up of like you know this is what the mansion is this is what it's like now i'm going to write a book that's a lot for a middle schooler to take it's Stephen king's idea of the most approachable like relatable main character you can have a writer who lives upstate And I think the book has some segments that take place in Maine, or at least the ending does. Bit here of Homer just snapping immediately and just is like, I also just love like, what do you know?

Like, I feel like that entered my vocabulary too if like something went wrong. Like, oh, okay, well do you know. And Marge can only assure them of like, guess we're just going to have to wait and see. Also that Homer immediately, as soon as he opens the door back to like, say, see you later, he is doing the crazy eye look that Jack Nicholson is doing through most of the film. They talk all about it on the commentary reared in saying how, like, they worked very hard at getting the half-litted crazy Kubrick. They kind of like head down, eyes up. You get that like crazy look, yeah.

Who does it better, Jack or Vincent Dinoffrio? I think Vincent Dinoffrio. Jack crawled so Vincent Danoffrio could frag his commanding officer. So Homer heads off in the original script when Homer sits down and says he wants a beer. Another ghost appears sitting next to him and he says, Hello, Mr. Simpson. I'm the late Sebastian Cabot. I can assist you in growing a beard.

And Homer lets him know he meant beer, not beard. A follow up to the Sebastian Cabot Beard book from Seymour Skinner's badass song, right? Yes, they were on a real Sebastian Cabot kick then. But yeah, same exact tracking shot over it. Moe is recast as Lloyd the bartender. And I mean, this is just like, perfect. In the movie, Jack Torrance says, God, I'd have to give anything for a drink. I'd give my goddamn soul for just a glass of beer.

And here as well, Mo just cuts right to it. None of the innuendo that Lloyd the bartender has. Your money's no good here. None of that stuff. Straight to it. I mean, is area trying to act happy as Mo? As is, la, la, la, just great. Super good.

So then there is another deleted scene here. And I have it from the animatic. They also have it, though, fully animated. But Barts going down the hallway. do the hallway tricycle scene, but it's parted on his skateboard in the hallway. Down the hallway, the doors open, and Pinhead, Freddie Kruger, Wolfman, Jason Voorhees, the Mummy and Dracula all open doors behind him. So they're staying in the hotel, too. Oh, so they're introduced in this scene before they help Moe. Yes. It makes it less random that they're showing up to help Moe later

in the episode. New treats and new tales of horror. There's a bug that looks like dad. The Simpsons Scarathon. Welcome to the break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert, enjoying some Uterbrotten. And a big thank you to our guest this week. Ian Jones Quarty loved having him back for another treehouse of horror discussion with him.

We had so many fun insights from Ian and all of his experience from working on Adventure Time, Stephen Universe, and even the series he created OKKO. And he has so many cool things happening right now. including the very recent special elephant that was on Adult Swim that he was part of. So please check out all the cool stuff Ian does and look forward to all the neat stuff he's got coming soon. Thanks again, Ian. Great having you back. And we're only able to have cool folks like Ian Jones Cordy on our podcast because of supporters like you at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons.

$5 and up subscribers. Make this a possibility is me and Bob's full-time job. Plus, they get tons of bonuses. They get ad-free and early episodes. You wouldn't have to hear ads like this one or the other ones you hear. here in the podcast if you subscribe at patreon.com slash talking simpsons plus you get tons of bonuses each month we cover futurama and king of the hill just like we do the simpsons we are deep into both of those series and we've also already covered the critic and mission hill every single episode of those

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Last month was us covering Shrek 2, the highest-grossing film of 2004, and once the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It's crazy. There's a ton of weird things in Shrek 2 and an interesting history behind it. We cover that, and that's just our most recent one. If you sign up now, you'll also get to hear

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Bart sees two of the famous twins in the Simpsons and two more twins that I'll trust listeners to guess who they're parodying here. Your daddy's gonna choose. Yes, it was parodies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito standing in the Twin Hallway. That's the joke. I guess we remember twins in 1994.

Yeah. Patty and Selma also, it's very disturbing. It's in the fully animated version, their throats have been cut. It's not bleeding, but they have holes in their throat. So when they take a drag from their cigarette, the smoke comes out of their throat holes instead of their mouths. So I'm wondering if it got cut just because it's disturbing.

That's great. After Bart runs away, then we come back to like, it's the best animated scene in the whole episode, I think, right guys? Oh, for sure. The rotation that they do in this part, I have, like, very, as an animator and a director, I very like specific tastes on what a rotation is supposed to look like.

And this definitely formed my opinions. There are some people who, when they do a character rotating like this, they have a character maybe overshoot the rotation or turn a little faster than the background goes or even turn like the opposite way that the background goes. And it drives me nuts. I think probably because as a kid, I watched this so much. And the way that it's timed is just so well done. It's not a full 360, but it is a lot around Marge.

And to make it even harder for the animators like, it's a full animated background turn with text on the wall, like scrawled crazy text on the wall and like lightning strikes. So you've got color changing too, right? This is all on physical cells and backgrounds too. Yeah, it's gorgeous. You know, I don't know if the way that the front of Marge's face is lit is if it's 100% supposed to be like that.

But it really does add to the whole moment. It makes it look like very creepy. I love it. This did ruin the movie for me. Like when they get to the scene, I saw the movie the first time. I was just waiting for like the equivalent of, you know, all work in no play makes Jack a doll boy that was the bit in the movie.

And even when Jack Nicholson is so terrifying in that scene, scene as he's about to, you know, bash in the brains of his terrified wife, I was just watching it closely to be like, oh, that's the action. Homer did. Or like, that's like Homer's move there. Like, I was not fully engaged with the scene. Yeah, it's hard to dislodge this from your brain, but like I was saying earlier, it does make you appreciate the parody a lot more. Homer comes in and also great little design bit, not just the eyes, but like they have Homer's two hairs falling over his face like the mussy hair of Jack Nicholson in the film. to. Listeners, you're going to have to just imagine it, but David Silverman does go crazy in this

sequence here as he takes over this. Hello. Yes, I think, March. All I need is a title. I was thinking along the lines of no TV and no beer make home or something, something. Go crazy? Don't mind if I do. What? What?

Stay away from me, Homer. Give me the bat, Marge. Give me the bat. Give me the bat. Come on. Gary Cat. They're here till you're no longer insane. Hmm.

Chili will be good tonight. And unlike in The Shining, Marge does not have to hit her husband over the head. He just falls down the stairs. Her hands are clean. Marge having the strength to carry Homer also. I'm just like, dang, Marge. That's nuts. In Homer Badman, when they go to.

the candy convention. It's set up that March has big ropey muscles. Carry around a lot. What I like to in this scene is tone, is that I've been thinking about this because we just covered, the Simpsons Family Guy crossover. I think about like, in Family Guy, things can get a little mean, a little

dark, but here, they are dealing with a scene that is like terrifying in it, but they know where the lines are like, Homer scares himself in a silly way and falls down the stairs. Marge doesn't have to hit him, and he's not directly saying, I will hurt you, Marge.

And then Marge looking for the chili and just like, oh, chili be good tonight. She's not scarred and destroyed by it either. Like, she's just moving on. Like, I think that's a helpful tone to make this fun instead of like too dark. When you get down to it, it is a movie about a family annihilator. And then you're projecting the Simpsons onto those characters. It can't be kind of weird if you don't watch the tone.

Homer's scaring himself and falling down. I don't know if it's true, but it does feel like kind of one of those graining. you know, sort of like, oh, he can never actually plan to strangle Bart. He has to like do it impulsively and get hurt in the process of doing so. It kind of just balances things out and it makes it so that Homer's not actually like straight up menacing a woman on TV. I mean, I was also just thinking of Homer's actions because when we cover the Simpsons guy recently and he like bites Peter Griffin's genitals as like, this shouldn't have. happen. Homer shouldn't do this. There should be a rule here. This shouldn't be happening. But Silverman drew like every pose of the Homer freak out. Like it's also like Silverman gets to

break the rules. These are all these tons of Simpson's rules are being broken here with Homer's act out. But he gets to do them because he made the rules. He can break them. And it works just gorgeously. So Homer is left in the pantry just like Jack Torrance is. But unlike Jack Torrance, he loves it. He's just going to stay there and eat until the winter's over. His problem is solved. Now in the movie, Grady and the others, as he says, you know, they talk with Jack and tell him like, you know, well, we give you another chance and they open the door and let him out. Here, Mo just like cuts to the chase again. Like, all right, we're taking you out of here. We're dragging you out and making you kill your family. I like how Mo's calling it a project.

This project is not moving forward. We then cut to the family, and I like to think they are eating chili, though I guess it looks just like Simpsons Clop in the Bulls. I don't know. Could it be chilly? Possibly, yeah. Now, watching the movie again recently, it really made me appreciate this whole series of jokes because you think it's an exaggeration of what happens in the movie, but no, in the movie, Jack busts down several doors before he finds Wendy, his wife, and every time he has a new, fun quip, he ends with here's Johnny, but there are two rooms before that where he says, I think one of the ones is like, Little Pig, Little Pig, Let Me Come in. I don't know what the

second one is, but yeah, like he does bust into three rooms just like Homer. I think on my first viewing, I must have expected him to say, here's Johnny on the first door, because I knew in The Simpsons, oh, that must be, he says it the very first time in the Simpsons, so it must be the only thing he says. Yes, Homer lists off, well, actually here, I got the clip. Johnny! Don't! Hi, David, I'm Grandpa.

Do! I'm Mike Wallace. I'm Orley Safer, and I'm Ed Bradley. Oh, listen to Andy Rooney tonight on 60 minutes! Hello, police? This is Marge Simpson. My husband is on a murderous rampage. Over. Oh, well, thank God that's over. I was worried there for a second. No answer. Don't worry, Mom. I can use my shining to call Willie. It's the first time she'd ever flown a plane.

Uh-oh. The little fat boy and his family are in trouble. I'm coming to arrest you a lot of me. you. All right, Looney, show me what you got. Is that the best you can do?

Oh my. I hope that wrote was Scotch Garden. That pun flew over my head for a million years as a kid. I thought Marge

just meant that literally as she is worried that it's going to cause a stain and it needs the you know, the Scotch Guard stain repellent brand

on it. But obviously it's a joke that it's a Scotchman fell on it and it needs scotch guarding. I never got that for the longest time. I directed in the Venture Brothers, I think I can't remember what season it was. I think it was the

episode perchance to Dean. They do a shining reference where Dean uses the shining to connect with the delivery man. And I directed that scene and I was excited for that because I got to basically do

basically this scene with Willie, but in the Venture Brothers universe. Oh, that rules. I need to pull that one up. I can't remember the season either. I also love the specificity of the background design of the police where we see Whigam. That's like just out of the movie too with like crest in the background and everything. You're right.

But they had to like reformat it from widescreen and get into the four by three. Yeah. And every Homer face like is so great. It's more Silverman drawings too. You can see it all in the animatic all. So, and the bit there of him calling to Willie, it's also the shot from Dick Halloran's bed that's in the movie where he gets the shine message. And he does have, they even drew a Scottish version of the sexy photograph that is above his bed.

I thought it was like a black velvet painting or something. It's very cheesy. Yeah. It's like a really cheesy painting. Despite the fact of the mania of all shining movie fans, as far as I could tell, people cannot find the specific photograph that is. But people say it is a 1979 photo

from Playboy photographer Chaco Leadman. They can't find the name of the model in it. Though over his television is a different sexy photo. That one is named. You can find it as a poster called Supernatural Dream. And the model is Azizi Joe Hari.

In case you want to look it up, but nobody knows. I could not find anybody who knows the name of the model in the photo over his name. You know, I'm looking at these again, that is a painting. Yeah, well, okay. Is the conspiracy, that's not a painting? That was the blog I read of a guy who knows his playboy photos saying he thinks it's a

painting of the photo. Maybe that could be it. Like the photo was the reference. It's just so funny, they then even took that and drew it as like a Scottish lass with long locks. I think it is the Scottish lady he met in like season four. Now there's a lonely man. Things didn't go well with that for him seemingly.

You know what? I'll give him credit in the recent season. He is still married to the Karen Gellon-voiced wife that he married in the previous season. So they've kept that continuity. Also, Merkin gets in a quick shot at the incredibly generic U.S. news media. Oh, also, you know, I'd be terrified of the 60 minutes these days based on how CBS News is going on. Am I right, guys? Topical.

Topical. So just like Scatman Crothers, Dick Halloran, Willie is taking out very quickly. though it's right in the chest on Scatman. I also just think it always reminds me of this great story I heard about Scatman Crothers who he did this movie. He said it was so hard. He was doing like 100 takes on scenes.

Kubrick, you know, the perfectionist who does every scene a million times. And that the next movie he did was Clint Eastwood's Bronco Billy. And when Bronco, in that movie, Eastwood directed it and Starsnet. And after he was like, after two takes, hey, we got it. Like, Cap Man was like in tears.

just of like, oh my God, it's sick. I can go home today. So Homer chases the rest of the family outside. And again, just perfect. He's terrifying in that. This move so fast, I always missed the plotting that Willie, for some reason, takes his portable TV with him, and he drops it in the snow on his way to the hotel.

So that is how Lisa finds the TV later. Oh, you know, I never really thought about that at all. There's no reason for him to grab, to take the portable TV, TV with him, but he does. I'm going to say he wasn't such a rush that he didn't realize, oh, wait, I left the TV in my hands, and throws it down. I'll say that. Lisa picks it up.

Those portable TVs were so cool. I always wanted, I never had one. There was one for a game gear. I did have a game gear and it was like there was teeny tuners for game gear. Though I never got it either. I heard it worked pretty poorly anyway, the TV tuner. My mom had one of those portable TVs and it was great, especially. on like long car rides trying to pick up signals from like towns that you pass.

And now we just have one in our pockets at all times. Yeah. But this is where Lisa saves the day for the family by giving Homer the television he needs to stop. Dad, look! Television! Teacher, mother! Secret lover. Urge to kill. Fading.

Fading. Fading. Fading. Rising? Fading. fading God 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 host's Time Daily and Hal Linden Homer Chase Channel Gett Frozen Hurd to kill Rising Tyndaily

Howlinden strays. Both still alive. I think Hal Linden's like 98 years old too. Wow, I'm impressed with that. In the script, it's Liza Minnelli in Hal Linden. But you know what? I prefer. Liza Monelli was becoming a real punching bag for comedy then. I'm kind of glad if they're going to defame a woman, find a fresh one with Time Daily. And out of all of the Simpsons cast members, I think Hank Azaria was the only one nominated for a Tony 10 years after this for Spam a lot. He did not win, but he was nominated. Oh, no, nothing. The Tonys that year in the 1994 Tonys were a few months earlier and the actual hosts were Anthony Hopkins and Amy Irving and the big winners that night were Angels in America and Stephen Sondheim's passion. Angels in America, the only famous person in the winners I saw

was Jeffrey Wright won for supporting. Early big role for Jeffrey Wright. The song they are parodying there, it's a parody of a chorus line. It actually seems to just start with the to the tune of one the closing number from course and we'll hear it in a big way at the end of the episode but it seems like they couldn't get the rights but with alf klaus in there the sound alike is so perfect you know just like sending the clowns for the longest time i thought this was like the lyrics

of the real lyrics until i saw the actual version of one and because it's our job to ruin this show for you if you look very closely in that last shot they forgot to draw the tv homer's holding nothing i always noticed that but i feel because of the ice and the snow you you kind of just fill it in with your mind. So yeah, I think it's okay. But it is the perfect smash cut to the family frozen because I know there is some very dark humor in The Shining, but the smash cut to cartoon character Snowman, Jack Nicholson, feels like it's intended to be a joke.

And the theater always laughs when that happens. It is funny. Yeah. It is hilarious. It's so quick. I feel like if they stuck on it too long, it would leave people laughing too much. So they need to get you back to being creepy with another one last. long zoom in after his frozen shot. The whole family

freezes together. I mean, that's a perfect Simpsons ending to like that instead of one person freezing, the whole family freezes together because they can't stop watching television together. And also the Tony Awards, they don't want to watch that, apparently. And I mean, Merkin also,

I can see why he was interested in taking his swing at a chorus line because it was a popular, kitsy, or, you know, gimmicky Broadway musical that was only 20 years old then. If you want to see him also taking a swing at popular Broadway musicals, watch his Get a Life episode, Zoo Animals on Wheels. Which is, it's Cats meets what, Starlight Express?

Yes. Starlight Express is famously the musical everyone's on roller skates, right? Right, yes. Now, this registered with me as a kid because I knew what Broadway was, but most people don't have access to Broadway. So I just would think, who would watch this? outside of the very small amount of people who can actually see these productions. I would love to see a chorus line live now.

I did, before watching this, I decided, you know, I want to watch that 85 film again. It is, you know what, on its own, I wouldn't call it terrible. Richard Attenborough directed it, which is the best musical directed by somebody who's in Jurassic Park. But once you watch the real musical, I watched YouTube recording of it, you see the way they hacked it to bits to make it a movie and, like, Michael Douglas takes it over and he neither sings nor dances, which the whole point of the movie is you're supposed to fall in love with the chorus line, the people who sing and dance and they become real people to use.

So then the big trick at the end when they sing the song one is that, oh, now they've become anonymous again. And is this how it is with every chorus line when you see a Broadway show? Are they all these real people with these amazing stories and you're now just knowing them as anonymous people in a chorus line? And what I did for love is a great song. I do love that song, too. I think that one song is ruined by this,

and it's also used in a lot of commercials because they'll often say, like, one, very tasty flavor. You know, and then the song will continue. Yeah. And the song is supposed to be vapid. That's the fun of it, or the interesting thing about it is, like, the lyrics are supposed to be nothing.

It's about becoming an anonymous chorus line person, but you're singing about a singular sensation when you're becoming anonymous in the song. It's very clever. Henry, you recently saw five Broadway, musicals. What is your luck for this year's Tony's? Well, you know, I'm just behind. I didn't watch any of the fresh ones that are getting nominated this year. So I did watch the Tony Award winning from the previous year, O'Mary. And it does get a big thumbs up for me. I saw it with

Jane Krakowski in the lead. It's about to go on tour. A big, big thumbs up to O'Mary. It is hilarious. I've heard good things. And it was written and starred for a while in their original role Coloscola, who they are now a like regular on the Simpsons this season. It's been interesting to see. So all right, there we go. That wraps up the shining just in one hour in here now. Yes. Hey, 20 minutes was preamble.

Yeah, yeah. We're doing good. Time and punishments. Bob, you love this one so much. You have art of it. Yes, I don't have it on hand. It's actually behind me framed. But I have Bill Morrison's artwork from one of the home video releases of this segment.

So, and there is like a full poster you can buy of his heart that looks like an old 60s sci-fi movie poster. But yes, I love this one so much. I've always loved it as a kid because it is just like constant nonstop jokes and new scenarios wrapped around like a Jurassic Park parody. It's perfect for you when you're 12 and I still appreciate it today. I think like the pacing of this one gets like the closest I think they've ever been to like a pure sort of like Tex Avery like gag fest. and it's like there's just like a joke every like 15 seconds that is just like transcendently funny. It is like I love the shitting a lot, but every time I watch I'm always like surprised like, oh man, the middle segment is actually my favorite one.

Yeah, even the things that aren't about time travel really get me like when Homer, we'll get to the clip, I'm sure, but when Homer's hand gets stuck in the toaster twice and all the chaos that surrounds that, that could be for me the funniest moment of the show. Like, I just love it. I anticipate it so much when I see this again. When I first watched it, I remember laughing so hard just at that segment alone, that little bit as we start these segments. When you say the Looney Tunes kind of feel that, yeah, if you recast Homer with Daffy Duck in this, it would not change any. Like, it would follow all the same beats perfectly.

This is based on the Ray Bradbury short story, a sound of thunder, which originated the term the butterfly effect. And apparently in 2005, this received a feature film adaptation, which Megabombs. Nobody saw the... Well, people watch the butterfly, it's like, nobody saw a Sound of Thunder. I see. I've read a Sound of Thunder as a kid and reread it again recently.

It's a pretty quick read. You know, I used to complain that because basically they invent time travel and then hunters go back in time to kill dinosaurs or, you know, oh, the most dangerous game kind of thing. And then they're like, wait a minute, this causes things to change in the future.

We had no idea. And I used to complain of like, what? the guys who built the time machine would have said, hey, by the way, don't do this or whatever. But now rich guys and unchecked science is just so obvious to me now. I have to give it to Ray Bradbury. He is correct that that is what would happen.

They're all tampering in God's domain. And this is another Greg Daniels combo with the late Dan McGrath. We talked about it before, though also me and Bob watched this along with Bill Oakley back in 2018. I can't believe it was. 2018. It's so long ago. I think that was our first live show with Bill and he has some secret information about what didn't make it to air. Oh, fun. Yes. I listened back to it and pulled out some of my favorites.

He did mention on the record in that one a reason, as he recalled that Daniels and McGrath got comboed together to do these was because they did an uncredited rewrite on Deep Space Homer and they reviewed as so good together that they should work on this together. It's also funny on the commentary. Greg Daniels is there, and they are slightly joking about like, oh, is King of the Hill still on the air?

You're going to have to come back to the Simpsons. And this would be like right before the office would happen when Greg Daniels would like never stop making new television. Yeah, that was back when it always seemed like King of the Hill would be canceled. And then it was finally canceled and then brought back for, I think, two or three seasons. Those final King of the Hills. Yeah. It's while the King of the Hill could debut deep into original Simpsons first decade. then have 13 seasons and then can be gone for over 10 years and then come back and the Simpsons was airing the entire time with no stop through all of those things. It'll never end. Bill had some fun things he remembered from it too. Also, in the early draft, there is some interesting changes in there too.

Steve Moore did the boarding for this one and he said that the boards were war and peace sized because of how many things happen in this one sequence. I bet Steve Moore got the same rate. as usual for doing probably triple the boards for the section. I mean, this is an insane segment with, and it goes, does so much stuff. So, yeah, I can only imagine everything that got cut. Bobby said it. This might be the funniest moment in the series history here.

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. And it does feel like the mislead here is that this could be a maximum overdrive parody or something with evil appliances coming to life because there's no reason why it should end up there in the toaster in the first place or the second time either. But the big mislead is what happens next.

The sound mixing in that deserves a lot of credit too of just like not just Dan Castlenna's screaming. And by the way, he was perfect in the shining too. But, like, Castletta is screaming, then punctuated by just like clang, clang, clang, like, God, it's so funny. Yeah, the premise is funny on its own, but they're really handing this off to animators and sound designers to really make it sing. If they didn't do their jobs or if they didn't have time to do their jobs, this would not be as funny as it is. There's a reason Steve Moore would graduate to being a full-time director on Simpsons 2 and be one of their best directors. Like, I believe it's three directors on the boards for this one as well. And hey, the layout people, let's not give them short trip,

or I wrote down none of their names, but they're good to. If you look close enough, they're all there. So Homer then with the right tools is going to fix it. I'm so used to the jokes being Homer, not knowing how to use a hammer or a screwdriver, that when he pulls up that rock, like, God, oh, so good. Also, I noted in the credits later, speaking of Dan McGrath,

that he's credited as the deer departed, Dan McGrath, which, you know, obviously that feels a little eerier now that he just recently passed away. But it feels like a reference to the fact that he was basically gone by the time this episode aired, and I'm pretty sure. And he was also a one-year contract kind of guy under Merkin, kind of like Bob Cushel a little bit as well there. But only similar to Bob Cushel that way. I don't want to sound like I'm saying anything untoward about Dan McGrath. This episode, now that I've seen it somewhat recently, we covered the Merkin sitcom Get a Life, I don't know, four or five years ago. There's an episode, I think it's called Time Machine 2000. And that

is where Chris Elliott's character goes back in time by drinking time travel juice. And it is very much the same idea in which, because it's a second season and there's no budget, he can only go back to the same room over and over, his living room, to see how what he's doing is affecting the future. And because there is no ending, instead of drinking time travel juice, he accidentally drinks juice that makes you explode. And then he explodes in the episode ends. If you want a taste of Get a Life Season 2, that is like the perfect story for that season. Doesn't he before drinking the time travel juice He walks by like three other time machines

And he's like, well, but I can't use that one. I believe there's even a time tunnel Which whenever you see a character going through time And there's like in centric circles, I think it is a reference to 60 show the time tunnel Which only lasted for two seasons like the outer limits. But if you were there and you saw it, it really stuck with you, I guess. That's what Homer's time travel is too when he finally

Well, the big flash of light reminds me of quantum leap But then he's in a time tunnel after that. Yeah. Homer, I miss this as a youth, but to know that the time Homer spends back in time is the time it takes the toast to pop out. When the toast pops out, he's gone. That's why he's only there for a few seconds. Let's talk about one of the most confusing lines that's ever been. 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. Yes, and I think this is, whenever you see like Josh Weinstein doing and ask me anything on Twitter or Simpson's Q&A, I think people ask about this joke the most, which is why I'm glad the commentary exists because 21 years ago it solved the mystery. And you can see by the lip sync, he was never saying non-Brazilian.

The real line is, look at me, I'm the first non-fictional character to travel through time. And I guess the reveal is that Peabody and Sherman are real. And they do exist. And Brazilian is just a non-sequitur. And I guess it's explained by the fact that David Cohen says on the commentary, this is just the kind of joke you come up with after you've been pitching jokes for three hours. And nothing is sticking. I do actually think non-Brazilian is better.

I haven't listened to the commentary in a while, but I feel like Matt Graning is like, well, you should have kept it non-fictional. But I do think it is a better joke now, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. I like in the commentary that, I think is being his little stinker self because he goes like, what? No, I think I heard about a Brazilian guy who traveled back in time.

He's still trying to defend it because I think everybody else on it is like, so it's just a random non-sequitur. And he's trying to defend it like, no, no, it's not. Let's not tell people that it's nonsense. I always took it as a non-sequitur. But then over the years before the truth was revealed and some people still don't know the truth, I understand. But I feel like people were trying to find the meaning behind this joke and it was driving them mad. Like, were they referring to this author? or this person or technically this person's Brazilian and they did this.

Yeah, I remember, I think the thing I always heard was that there was some sort of surreal Brazilian novel that was obscure that they were referencing. Yes, yeah, that's one of those. I remember that being the lore that was going around. And I just took it on face value because I was like, well, I'll probably never read whatever that novel is. So I'll just never know. Though that's like when you see on, as Bob and I have come to see several times, you'll go

to like a Futurama Wiki. it'll say, this is based on this classic episode of Star Trek, or this old short story. It's like, no, they're just similar. It's a sci-fi trope that's been done a million times. And in fact, I just look this up now because Crack wrote an article about this. The official episode guide lies because the stuff you may have missed section for this episode, it includes the trivia.

Homer's reference to himself as the first non-Brazilian person to travel backwards through time alludes to a hallucigen-inspired author Carlos Castaneda. Oh, okay. There you go. Yes. The episode guide, I did add to the confusion even more than. Because I listened back to when we watched this with Bill Oakley. And he was saying that like when he first heard that line in the writers room, his reaction was like, what?

What's happening here? He said that three-fourths of the writers had no, were very confused by that. And also, Carlos Castaneda is an American born in Peru. Very much not a Brazilian. Yeah, you're right. Yes. Yeah. One other thing about that was funny just to know whenever we meet a fellow traveler.

who's as crazy as us. Our good friend, multiple time guest on our podcast network, Mike Lawrence, he mentioned that when he got to write on a TV show run by Greg Daniels, he said he made sure to ask Greg Daniels, what's the deal with this Brazilian, this non-Brazilian time traveler joke? What's the deal?

As for Peabody and Sherman, they're high up there. I would put them just below Dudley-Duright, maybe they're even better than Dudley-Duright, of Rocky and Bullwinkle side characters. They're pretty great. in the J. Ward Pantheon, though the trick of every P. Body and Sherman,

Mr. Peabody and Sherman's short, is that it's all leading up to one terrible pun in the end. I think the writers worked backwards from a terrible pun. And 20 years after this, there would be a movie. Yeah, there was a movie. There was another TV series, too. I didn't see either of those, but yeah. It was a 2014 DreamWorks film,

and yeah, then it was back in the mid-aughts, like DreamWorks animation had to deal with Netflix, where they would just go straight to series with any animated film before. Like they were working on the Turbo one as well as the Turbo movie was out there. But this feels like that one in 2014 feels like the last time a Jay Ward brand

was treated as that like prestige to be a movie. Like they never... Unfortunately, it is credited with killing PDI, the animation studio who made the film because it really, really underperformed. Those guys made them like literally $8 billion with Shrek movie. They'll get to survive layoffs of one movie that only made $200 million.

Ian, I think there might be problems in the animation industry. Maybe. Though, Ian, have you been trying to pitch any J-Word projects or IP for a super chicken? Do you have a super chicken pitch? I don't have a super chicken pitch. I feel like underdog, I think no one has really done a good underdog yet. I know they're trying to do it again. But I feel like someone should take that out.

Yeah, that Jason Lee movie, it didn't really become a cultural. touchstone. I don't want to see an underdog where it's real dogs in a world. No, no, no. That's not how it's supposed to be. No, that's disturbing. I don't want that. It should be anthropomorphic dog in a human world where nobody mentions it. He's just like a boy, but is obviously a dog. Yeah, just a humble shoeshine boy. Did those still exist anymore? Will that be apocryphal? I think so. Yeah, we'll have to find him some new, I don't know, make him a TikTok influencer. I think you only Shushine Boys are men and they only exist in airports.

You only see the worst people getting their shoeshines. That's true. Then, after a quick meeting with Mr. Peabody and Sherman, this is where Homer makes an incredible discovery. I've gone back to the 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? That was giant sloth. Oh, man. That, like, fake Jurassic Park score is so good. So, like, pitch perfect.

And then Homer thinks the dinosaurs are still alive, but they're in zoos. You can't just see them in the wild. These dinosaurs are incredible. Like, I mean, talk again about, like, Bob, when we covered the late Philip J. Fry on Futurama, they talked about avoiding drawing dinosaurs because it was too hard in that time travel one. I think it might have been that. And also, whenever time travel is involved, you think the people are going to go back and see dinosaurs. It's the obvious thing. Right. And in that one, Fry's like, oh, there's the dinosaurs, but nobody ever turns to look at them. Yes. Thank you. I love the color palettes on these dinosaurs, too.

It's like they are kind of realistically drawn for Simpsons animals, but they still have Simpsonsie colors, you know, bright purples, greens, and even like oranges on the pterodactals. They're very, just feel like really great as Simpsons dinosaur designs. You're right. It follows the color design choices of purple trees. Like, well, if trees are purple, then this is what a Dolophosaurus would look like or be colored like, yeah. And that Abe memory is the best. I love it so much. Like that the fact that they draw him in a tuxedo to sell the joke even more. Well, like, yes, of course he was at the wedding. And it's how Abe looked in that time frame. And look, I know I bring this up every time Ian and Rebecca Sugar are on the podcast. But in the don't cry for me, I'm already dead. comic which I love. This quote is in the characters of everybody just look it up but in the great comic Alan the character in one panel

they are at Jim's wedding and Alan his brother is saying this line verbatim to him on his wedding day to make it the perfect Simpsons quote and I just love that use of this quote in that comic strip or in that short comic I honestly wonder how many people

have actually said this at their friends' weddings. I'm really. regret I didn't say it to Bob at his wedding reception. I had a COVID wedding so that my stepfather could come and give me this advice, so I will destroy the future, unfortunately, or the present. Although, Ian, was it at your wedding, too, or did your best man messed up there? Yeah, no, he really should have said it. It would have been perfect. Homer's also stupid bug, you go squish now. A great, dumb thing for Homer to say. The toast pops out and he's brought back to present. He goes

upstairs and sees things are seemingly unchanged but this is where a T-1000 style liquid metal pops out of the ground which also like they use the checker bore the linoleum of it and keep it in motion with it like that made it much harder than it needed to be. It's truly beautiful

yeah. I love this segment maybe slightly derivative of making Flanders the devil the previous year and it's the same writers but it just Flanders being evil in a different context so it really works for me. I honestly think the whole like Ned running the and reading education camp.

It honestly could be its own segment. You could have an entire segment about that. So to get that in here, it's just like a nice little bonus. Homer instantly questions it and they're going to get a freeze and signed up for reading education. This is where another deleted scene is on the DVD where things get explained a little better about how things happened. What's going on here?

Oh, dad, you know as well as we do. Flanders is the unquestioned Lord and Master of the World. He's created an air-perfect society where there's no crime, hunger, or war, and all have access to the lively arts. If that's your world, I don't want to live in it. So, yeah, you get to see that apparently it's a pretty, aside from, you know, Orwellian structures for rene education, apparently it's pretty great. If you're not a negative Nellie, it really works out for you. They enter into the Reneducation Center where the elite meet to have their spirits broken. And this is where we are treated to the disturbing vision of civil.

Simpson gums in our next clip. 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. Oh, hello. Hello there. Who's that big man there? Who's that?

Join us, father. It's bled. Waiting on me. Wait. I have an idea. These weaners will give me the quick energy I need to escape. God. That quick energy weaners joke is so good that they were able to basically do a second version of it

in the same season in Lemon of Troy and it's still hilarious. They found two variants of it. They've got a taste for meat now. Where is the term quick energy? Is that from like a specific thing? I've always wondered that. It feels like Homer has some beliefs about the health benefits of sausage

that we're not really privy to. I wonder because I believe we do know that George Meyer was the one who pitched the Quick Energy Chocobot Hour bit bit from later in the series that I want to say This is also George Meyer, but it definitely feels like a thing boomers or older Gen X grew up with is advertisers and so like, you know, for sugar grams might have said, quick energy you need. They also credit George Meyer for let the hooks do their work. Yeah, those forced smile drawings are all fantastic, just like a funny row of great art. And that every person has to dress like Ned or my.

or the kids, too. The shots of everybody after their lobotomy is so funny. Asaria is hilarious as Mo, like, what a great pick of all the characters to tell Homer about the brain surgery. It really calms them down. I think Mo needs a

lobotomy. This should happen in real life. You'll be causing a lot less problems. Also, I love another great animation bit. Homer, when he goes no, like his muzzle doesn't move and his head just bounces behind his muzzle. It's a great

little bit. There was also if you're thinking like, oh, there should have been three beats to this. In the read education camp in the original script, they are also forced to all sit around a campfire and sing happy and you know it, clap your hands to an continually quickening tempo

that becomes torturous. So that was the lost one there. Homer then teleports back to fix the past. This is where he is almost eaten by a T-Rex. An incredible looking T-Rex. Like, This T-Rex looks, I mean, they're just drawn the Jurassic Park T-Rex. What's even more

credible is how all of the dinosaurs fall like dominoes in this very long pan after he sneezes in its face. Yes. Yeah. Well, first he squishes the fish and then in the next one, he sneezes on the T-Rex, yes. I love that T-Rex and I love how they, the way

that they gave it, like the Simpsons overbite also to make it look like extra goofy. Like, actually having that overbite but you can actually like see in perspective, like in the dinosaur's mouth. It's just like really well, well, well done. It can even make subtler motions, as we'll see later when it like sniffs to sneeze,

like it's nostrils move in a really, like a small way. And yeah, somehow Homer's squishing fish that came out of the water. It made it so everybody grows gigantic in the future. This is probably the weakest of the universes, but it's still like fun enough to look at it. They don't really linger on it for too long. You know, when we watch this, we've been. Bill Oakley back in 28. I think you recall too, Bob, that Bill's major anecdote was that while he understood why they made it about Ned to make it more personal for a big chunk of it for Homer, that he liked so many other places they flash too quicker. And he was sad that ones got cut. And there's two other big ones that got cut in the original script. One that Bill Oakley really remembered loving, though the first one was after the fish squishing in the original script. Homer teleports to a world where everybody talks backwards,

and he is married to Patty and Selma. And they start kissing him, and he runs off. So then I will read you directly from the script here. Then Homer goes back in time. And he happens to run into Barney, who is there too, who also has accidentally built a time machine. And Barney is saying, saying, oh, hey, Homer. And he goes, eh, don't worry about it.

He is looking at two mushrooms. And he says, eh, don't worry about it. I got it figured out. If you smash this mushroom, the Beatles never break up. But if you smash this one, the Germans win World War II. Then he accidentally smashes both mushrooms. And then when Homer teleports back, it says stage directions here. On a reviewing stand behind giant Mao style posters of themselves are four military dictators, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Adolf Hitler. They all have beetle haircuts and military uniforms and whole. And whole, electric guitars as a parade of chained

as slaves trudges before them. Very, very funny image, but I feel like David Merkin wanted Paul McCartney on the show. I just love that if he smashes both of them, then both the we lose World War II and the Beatles never break up. And seemingly, Adolf Hitler is hired to be their drummer instead of Ringo.

So yes, that was Bill Oakley, remember that as his favorite one of the jokes in the It was sad to see it go, he remembers. So they cut that to tell Taranism and kept in Ned instead. Though there was also another thing that was in, Greg Daniels remembers it. And so did Dan McGrath when he talked to him. But Bill Oakley did not remember it. Roy.

All right. They were working in jokes about Roy because now I'm going to make some assumptions here because they're tiptoeing around it on the commentary. It said that someone from outside the show was suggesting they had a teenage character who would out Bart Bart. and there's some discussion on the commentary Oh, are you sure that they're coming from outside the show? They seem pretty inside to me.

I think it's James L. Brooks. That would be an assumption I would make as well. And it was maybe one of the few times they were allowed to say no to James L. Brooks. But I think James L. Brooks, he was working on the critic. He's like, oh, Margo's a fun character. She's like an older, like, she's, I guess technically an adult, but she's still like, we can get different stories out of her. Why don't we have another person live with The Simpsons or whatever?

So I could see it feels like. They want to say it's James L. Brooks. But then the Roy jokes really come out in full force with Itchy and Scratchy and Pucci show in a few years. And that the Roy, they wrote, Daniels and McGrath wrote, as Daniels remembered, he was more of a droopy-voiced guy for it. Interesting. Yeah.

My conclusion I would jump to the way they are talking around it is they're afraid to say James L. Brooks had this idea we didn't want to do. That's what it sounds like to me, too, and that I watched a few Brooks movies lately. he does really like sassy teenagers in his films, like teenagers who talk back. That's even in Ella McKay, which we all were doing the L.O.M.K. Challenge.

We've been doing it for the last six months. Yeah, it hurt myself. I was hospitalized for weeks. Do not imitate Ella McKay. She is not a role model. And now everybody can watch Ella McKay in their homes, as I'm sure we've all done

on Disney Plus by now, guys, right? It's Lisa's favorite movie. You have to watch it. Though it was funny, Bill, when we asked him about it in 2018, did not, he had no memories of Roy being in this original script. Interesting.

Though he also remembered, how did Bill put it when we did talk about Poochoo with him, that somebody very senior in The Simpsons machinery wanted that. I think he was also implying it was somebody. The truth will come out one day. Yeah. Roy Gates. Then also, here's one more from the script. Another timeline Homer sees, Homer throws open the door to reveal a hellish sweatshop

full of loathsome gray emaciated Morlocks with bulging albino eyes la the time machine. They lost a direct time machine reference here too. But yes, this is where Homer's knees kills all of the dinosaurs immediately with his futuristic, calm and cold. And I just love his, this is going to cost me. These animators have to draw a mass extinction event in this episode. That's pretty big. Pretty big ass.

Gorgeous, too. It's amazing. It does lead to his best possible future. It's a very David Merkin joke in that he does not stick around long enough to realize just how good his life could be. Let's give a listen to The Perfect World Homer doesn't realize. Don't! I mean, hey.

Good morning, Father, dear. Hope you're well. Are we taking the new Lexus to Aunt Patty and Salma's funeral today? Fabulous house, well-behaved kids, sisters-in-law dead, luxury sedan. Woo-hoo! I hit the jackpot! Marge, dear, would you kindly pass me a donut? Donut? What's a donut? A!

It's raining again. You're still not in your own world, Homer. I can get you home, but you have to do exactly as a... This is indeed a disturbing universe. Don't touch anything. I'll touch whatever I feel like. I love that. Homer freaking out and smashing everything is one of my favorites.

That's another my favorite, like, physical jokes in the series. It does feel like in duck amuck when Daffy can take no more and just starts tearing apart the scenery, which is just as satisfying in that too. And that was the second and second to last appearance of James Earl Jones in the series. He would appear again in Das Bus saying, oh, let's say Mo. Yes. Two different times. They're like, wouldn't it be funny if James Earl Jones said this silly thing for one line and Jones was up for it?

He was up for coming in for one line. And it's his return to the series. He was in the first tree house doing many more lines than that one. Well, actually, yeah, man, he's like probably, he might have the most lines in the whole episode since he does like the voice narration for the third act. It's fun to hear his voice, especially when it's not, you know, puppeted by a computer as it is these days in Fortnite.

Right. Poor Homer, though, he has denied it, his perfect universe. And this is where Homer's smashing. Oh, also, and then this aired just a few months after the Lion King broke all animation records, too. So James Earl Jones was riding a whole new high with a whole new generation of kids who, well, yeah, I bet there was a generation of kids who first started him in Lion King before seeing. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

For sure. This is where now it's time for like, you know, this wasn't hard enough for the animators. Let's truly torture them in one of the most famous torturing an artist's stories in Simpson's history. That's right, because we are cutting just to a bunch of flashes of the house changing. We're not seeing the stories that are taking place in these weird houses. But the final joke was going to be a Simpsons house made of squirrels. And background artist Lance Wilder spent two days drawing this. And it just didn't really read well on the old tube TVs.

There's just like too many details packed and you couldn't tell what was going on there. So that was cut. And for years he used that for like Christmas cards. He found ways to use that two days worth of work that were just thrown in the trash. But I believe that is on the DVD. that cut scene. You can see what they would have looked like. I believe Lance Wilder even like put it on his desk or like displayed it on his desk for years afterwards. It's just kind of like a statement of you guys murdered me with this and

didn't even use it. I mean, on the disc, you can see how it was animated. And even on an HD display, it's a little blobby. You can also like hit the enter button on it on your remote and it will then display the line art, the black and white line art of it where you can truly appreciate the detail of each squirrel. And it's like, let's say for the Simpsons doorframe, encircling it, I think is like 30 squirrels. Like that's how dense in squirrels it is. The artist dated June 29th, 1994. And just that I'm glad that it's out there. And folks, I'm sure it's online too. And it's been uploaded from the disc. But yeah, I mean, I mean, Ian, when you hear that story as an artist yourself, I don't know how much background design work

you've done, but that must sound insane. No, it drives me nuts. I feel like they should have kept it. And the drawing is magnificent. It's like the squirrels are arranged so neatly. It's almost like looking at a magic eye. But yeah, it's a great drawing. I can see why it just would not have read. In color, the browns all just kind of goop together, I think, a bit. That's the problem. It was also led Bill Oakley. Like, Bill Oakley remembered it too is just like, God, we were so horrible to them. when we talk about it in 2018 with him. And he mentioned his own memory of when Bill with Josh Weinstein wrote a joke of a multi-crash-up of a zoo train or train swapping tracks and all this that he got like, he remembered a pleading phone call from David Silver

and of like, please don't make us do this. Now, I'm looking at this image too right now. We're all looking at the same image. And I like how it is like giving you a little clue to get the joke in case it's too visually and distinct. because the mailbox is sitting on top of a squirrel. And you can then look at that and look at the house and see like, oh, I understand now. I feel like that's a key visual element of this gag. Also, it's a, I got to think Lance Wilder or Jim Reardon or somebody would have said to them like,

guys, even in how we've timed this out, this will be seen on screen for two seconds. Yeah. This is so much. Yeah. It also turns into the Flintstones home, the first McDonald's, the old lady who, lives in the shoehouse, part is a sphinx or is the sphinx from Egypt. And this is where Kang and Kodos get their quick appearance in the episode, laughing at another person who doesn't understand something.

And this is where they turn into Peabody and Sherman for one more quiet, you. Now, in the original deleted scene, it's pretty visual, but I want folks to hear Kang and Kodos laughter is something to enjoy, even if it's just slightly different. Foolish time traveling earthling. Thinking his pathetic actions can alter the universe. Boxing glove pops out of earth and punches it. Don't blame yourself, Kodos.

There was no way to foresee that. It wasn't a bad joke, though it's animated a little weirdly. I prefer the Peabody and Sherman. I feel like they didn't have time for all the laughing. The laughing was their way to stretch things out if they needed it. And so the episode wraps up with Homer finally getting back home after all of this. And it's a happy ending. Foolish earthling, totally unprepared for the effects of time travel.

What happened to us, Kudos? Quiet, you. Oh, good morning, dear. What's my name? What color is the sky? What of donuts? What! What a love of God, tell me! Homer, the sky is blue. Donuts are plentiful. Friday is TGIF night on ABC. What's gotten into you? Nothing. Nothing at all. Let's just eat.

Eh, close enough. of perfect ending and you know what they have utensils on they each have a fork at their table too it's an option you can optionally eat with your like giant lizard uh it's just gonna say i love how you know them having lizard tongues it is actually like a really perfect ending because it's not as outrageous as anything you've seen it's still funny and weird but it's actually kind of it's truly a meh sort of joke and the fact that homer is like with you as the audience. It just feels great.

After what he's been through, he can definitely live with that. And I guess this is canon because in the Simpsons movie, Homer has a lizard tongue. You're right. He evolved as part of the lizard tongue universe. Marge, for no reason,

offers up the Friday's TGIF night on ABC as part of the standards of the time. Just let you know, the TGIF that week was a Halloween night where Family Matters was an episode called Dark and Stormy Night, where this was the only one I felt like I partially remembered of the four shows was they tell a story that basically is Erkel is a vampire hunter and the Winslow's or Vampires in the 19th century one.

If you remember this one. The Boy Meets World was Corey thinks he's turning into a werewolf and then step by step, Cody grows a giant pumpkin. And then hanging with Mr. Cooper missed the memo and just had one about like, Mr. Cooper buys a vending machine that he sets up in the school and makes money on. I mean, that could be scary. All the maintenance, it could fall and crush a child. When I was like, oh, Family Matters Halloween, when I was thinking of like the evil Urkel puppet, wasn't that? Yeah, the evil urkel puppet.

That's what I was hoping would be. I do not remember this vampire hunter one at all. Yeah, I think Stevel, which is his name, comes much later. I am ashamed. They had not gotten to puppets yet on Family Matters. You can believe it. Season three, it's like, oh, yeah, he's Robocop now. And now we're at vampires, but puppets are the final two seasons.

Yeah. Just like in The Simpsons, they're not far gone enough yet on Family Matters to get rid of like, well, we have to make this a story that's being told to set up a vampire thing instead of just, oh, in this episode, the Winslowers are vampires and Steve Urkel is hunting them. I do remember the Boy Meets World that's a scream parody that comes a few years after this. Also because our pals on gayest episode ever covered it. The one where they are all getting murdered and Jennifer Love Hewitt appears in it as well. Because she was dating Will Friedel at the time and some star snoop.

Okay. Anyway, all right, that's time and punishment. And that brings us to the third act, Nightmare Cafeteria written by David S. Cope. I believe he was hired towards the beginning of season five. He would not have a full episode credited to him until Lisa the Vegetarian in season seven. So I guess Merkin like to sit on these guys for a while

and put him in the joke minds before was time to move on to the big leagues of having an on-screen credit, at least at the front of the show. And yeah, this was named after a very short-lived Wes Craven anthology series called Nightmare Cafe, which lasted all of six episodes when it aired on NBC in 1992. So there you have it. That's what the references. That could have been the framing device. Then it ran even less than the Freddie Kruger hosted anthology series, too. It did even worse than that.

would think that for like, oh, Wes Craven worked on this. Their horror fans are some of the most devoted purchasers of physical media. You would think Nightmare Cafe would have gotten a DVD release at least at some point, but never. It has never had a physical release. I mean, Freddy's Nightmares was the other

West Craven adjacent anthology horror show. Was that ever on DVD? That lasted for like two seasons. It wasn't either. I remember because I tried to find like, oh, this would be a funny clip to show. When we talked about Freddie Kruger with Bill Oakley at a different Portland podcast. I wanted to play one of the funny like

the Rap Master Freddy one where he's one of my favorites. But I could not find a video of it that didn't look like shit because it's just people taping it off the sci-fi channel he was sort of like a cryptkeeper. We're talking about Freddy's Nightmares, the better show. And that's because the first episode of

Freddy's Nightmare actually showed you the trial of Fred Kruger. They could get Robert England to do two actual full episodes. and otherwise the rest is is him hosting, I think, which again, I say about horror fans, they will buy

every nightmare on Elm Street film, even the worst one, in every version they possibly can. And yet, that isn't on physical media either. I wonder if there's like some legal issue or something with it or like rights issues. I mean, not like a crime happens in it. So the crimes do happen because that Freddie Krueger

is pretty bad. I like on the commentary that Merkin also jokes that he had to hire Cohen because he was a Harvard guy and that's what he's forced to do for any Harvard person. Oh, and the boards done by Martin Archer, the talented brother of West Archer, who's done a lot. This begins also with a concept that Merkin loves playing with, that he will play with a lot in this season two, not just the blood, but also like this is kind of, this feels like them trying out the ideas for the PTA disbands, as in like the school has bad funding and is all the crap.

And it's all a reference to prison overcrowding, which I feel like was kind of conservative propaganda that a lot of people fell for. Yes. Yeah. We were getting a lot of that in the Clinton era, I think, too. Yes. Well, hey, that's all fixed now, right? I don't really do. I mean, I feel like the commentary was there are too many criminals, not we are putting too many people in jail for bad reasons.

I think that's what the commentary was. Yes. This was the era of the tough on crime Democrats, which also, I have checked the news. I think that went away, right? It's best to never check that thing. Yeah. Yeah. It starts with Bart trying to pray Edna, but nobody follows him to turning around his desk backwards. And backwards boy gets sent to detention.

Now, in the original script, it helped me. I never knew what the kid said up against the wall. As a youth from my recorded things, what the kid whispers, I could never tell what he said. Probably it is in the close caption. You know, I didn't check that. Oh, he says oxygen running out, right? Yes, yeah. I could never discern that from my tapes as a kid.

I think I heard it as like, can I go now or something like that? But it's funnier that it's oxygen running out. And of course, that's being said by everybody's favorite character, Yellow Weasel. Right, the Weasel, yeah. Once like a minion of Nelson, right? I forget the name of the other Weasel. It's Yellow Weasel and Weasel 2 or whatever, who are the sidekicks to Nelson in Bart of War. And that was the name in the character pack.

And that's the name on the wiki still. It is Yellow Weasel. Yeah, Wendell gets to shine in this segment, too. The season one kids who were created with so many big plans, they only really get to shine in episodes like this. Then Bart is sent to the cafeteria, and this is where a new recipe is invented. 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.

My favorite outfit. Jimbo, this is by far the worst. Mmm. Uh, Jimbo, why don't you assist Lunch Lady Doris in the kitchen? Bite me, Skinner. Well, might we? It's hard for me to clean this giant pot when you keep spilling meat tenderizer all over me.

Oh, great. Now I've got to work in the dark. Mmm. Mmm. This sandwich tastes so young and impudent. Seymour, what's with a good grab. Well, perhaps I ought to let you folks in on a secret. You remember me telling Jimbo Jones

that I'd make something of him one day? are you saying you killed jimbo processed his carcass and served him for lunch yeah i think a big shortcut to laughter for me on these tree house of horrors is turning a bland moral character into a murderer or a cannibal or both this is full of the conchoinisms that make futurama such a great show like the way that skinner and doris just agree out loud of like huh, what should be the next step? If only there was some way that they could come together and just any innuendo is instantly like, oh, you mean this exactly, don't you? Yes, that's right. That's what I mean. Futurama is filled with jokes exactly like that. If only this episode had like also this as a punchline to something, it would be all of the Futuramaisms that Cohen put the bakes into that show. Also, the great F meat line. I couldn't fit that in there, but that's also great that it's circus animals, some filler. So in the original script, it's actually a bit, they make it darker.

I prefer that Jimbo is never aware that he's being killed. In the original script, and maybe they even animated this or had it recorded, but the static shot of the cafeteria door, it's Jimbo screaming in pain. And then Bart says, oh, they must be making him wash dishes. Yeah, the Jimbo gag as it exists feels like a Bugs Bunny joke because I swear, there are eight Bugs Bunny cartoons in which he's being cooked alive and he thinks he's being given a bath. Oh, rabbit. Boy, rabbit. Though Jimbo's not saying La-a-de-da-da-da-da-da.

This is where there is the last deleted scene of the episode where Lunch Lady Doris had a couple extra lines here, though one of them is from a temp track. So maybe this is why they had to cut it because it couldn't get Doris Crowe in to finish the line. Doris? What? What do you got here? Oh.

Oh, dang a combo. That's her tasting it extra from the previous scene. Also, the sloppy jimboes, they look both appetizing and disgusting. Yeah, it's a very slight animation error. They always stick out in this episode because everything else is so beautiful. When the kids are being served, the sloppy jimbo's, the buns are not colored in. They're just like white semi-sphere. So they look like they're being served on top of, like, styrofoam balls.

Right. This is where they are all being served sloppy jimbos. The kids are eating them too. And this is where Bart wonders like he should have taken our lunch money an hour ago. And then comes a line that I wish they kept in. You can see when Bart says that line standing next to him is Martin. Well, Martin had a line in the original script saying, Indeed, he should have.

For him to wait until after lunch flies in the face of logic. A good job. I guess that's what we see Martin later. Right. Yeah, poor Martin. Martin has more lines in the script, too, that he says he'll never, when they're in the detention later, he says, oh, well, I am a well-behaved student and I get every question right, so I'll never be sent to detention. And then Edna catches him up by asking him how to define love and he can't do it in a satisfactory day and sent to detention. Then we go to the star of Trihastafar at this time. Uter.

Uter's back, the Trias of Har original, setting up for the many horrible things that's going to happen to him in this season. They love killing Uter. they just always were like, we can't write more things for Uter, just kill him. I mean, he'll also be like horribly bullied in this season two and he's playing on the hockey team. That drawing, one of my favorite drawings is

Skinner looking down at Uter and Uter is perfectly spherical and you can see, you can instantly see what Skinner's perspective of eating him is. Seven minutes a pound should do it. This is where Uter-Brotten is served. The school really invested in it and everybody's dressed up for it.

in our next clip. Okay, I got your German grub right here. Bart, does it strike you as odd that Uder disappeared and suddenly they're serving us this mysterious food called Uderbrotten? Oh, relax, kids. I've got a gut-feeling ooters around here somewhere. After all, isn't there a little ouder in all of us?

In fact, you might even say we just ate Uter and he's in our stomachs right now. Wait, let's scratch that one. You're cooking kids in a school cafeteria? Listen, kids, you're 8 and 10 years old now. I can't be fighting all your battles for you. But mom? No butts.

You march right back to that school, look them straight in the eye and say, don't eat me. Okay. And notably, no Homer in this segment, although he was going to have a line in this scene. He had a whole plan of how to eat the other children if he were to. Specifically Millhouse. When he says, oh, polite society won't allow this, but I thought of many recipes for Millhouse.

And, you know, of course, I would never act on this. And his parents were upset when I showed him the recipes. But, you know, got saved at least a little in the joy of cooking millhouse books. Right, right. That would have been the start of that runner. I really love how over the top, in a very future, on my way, the Jimbo scene, or sorry, the Urdur scene goes. because not only are they naming the food after the child they murdered, they're theming an entire day around it.

And Skinner's euphemisms go beyond euphemisms to directly describing what he did to Uder. Yes, Zap Branigan would have said the same things in a regular episode, for sure. Also, Harry Shearer, perfect delivery of those lines. Cohen also said on the commentary, it's not in the script. He also had Sherry and Terry get killed and turned into terriaki steak with sherry sauce. That was another of his jokes there. I also like that they pull out a realistic thing from your own life of unhelpful adults when you tell them you're being bullied as a kid. Just like, I can't fight all your battles for you.

It's just the way they back out of the room, like, okay. Yeah, it's sort of like, well, this advice does not really apply anymore. Whenever an adult would tell you, you'd go into that store and you ask for the manager and you ask him if he's hiring. In the original script in the classroom two, I think he is visible in the scene. Ralph is there. They have a little bit that Ralph is, well, he's eating his boogers, as Ralph does. It makes him too disgusting for

Edna to want to eat him. So that's why Ralph is being uneas. Yeah, notably they abandoned Ralph when they decide to escape. But first, poor Wendell drops his pencil and gets sent to attention by a very well-fed Edna. I really like the design of Edna,

who's been eating quite a lot of students these days. Then that's where she's reading the joy of cooking millhouse. That's a great joke. But then when Millhouse says that, he's like, guys, I think any one of us could be next. Like, no, just you're next, Millhouse. Parody of a real cookbook, very famous. Probably in all of the boomer writers' kitchens growing up. The ninth edition just came out in 2019.

You can still experience the joy of cooking. Oh, nice. I wonder with those, I bet you don't have to read too many paragraphs of descriptions of things before you get to the recipe. No, but I imagine it's mostly Aspix that you'll be making, like meat gelatins because the book was written in 1931. Maybe they've edited those out over the years. This is where they then sneak away, and this also satirizes another thing Merkin was getting into at the time. He both hates strict public education and cruel factory farming, and that it brings both together in that Martin is becoming tired and stringy, is shaking in his cage, and then we see the free-range children running around. I think of this joke whenever I buy the eggs that promise to be nicest of the chickens, the ones that cost three times the amount of normal eggs.

Yeah. Then this is where Willie makes his third of four appearances, again, trying to save them. And another axe in the back, this time from Skinner. Oh, no, he screams. Ow! I'm getting bad at this. Falls over dead one more time. This is where Skinner has a magic apron, which I hope somebody got fired for this blunder.

His children at play bib. Yes, yeah. He's wearing it as he approaches Bart, and then it's off, and then he puts it on. And then it's, I mean, come on, guys. No, I'm kidding. But he wants to eat Bart's shorts finally. After all this time, it's going to happen. He's going to eat his shorts.

Oh, and then Lunch Lady Doris, meanwhile, has just gone insane and is a bloodthirsty, like, gargling blood type person with her egg beaters spinning in front. I love this. Yeah, Lunch Lady Doris. Completely unhinged. It's great. This is when, like, Doris is a big guest star at this point because she's like a regular on the critic by now. She'll only be with us to 96, so a couple more years.

This is where they get cornered in front of a. Hamilton Beach, B-E-C-H. It's legally fine. No copyright to get in the way there. This is where the medigag comes in that they have been cornered, and Bart is certain they won't die. Don't worry, guys. Something always comes along to save us.

Nevertheless, I remain confident that something will come along and save the two Simpson children. Black, 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. Huh? Uh-oh, it's seeping in.

Stupid cheap weather stripping. And it continues for their listeners. I won't make you listen to the whole two minutes of it. We're talking about the tone in this, how the horrifying is then met with a lighthearted joke, like Homer seemingly about to kill Marge and then Marge dragging him away and saying, Chili would be nice.

One of the funniest parts about this, the inside out joke, is that they're fine afterwards. They're like touching their bodies and it's okay. It doesn't hurt to the inside out. They screamed when it happened. They're like, you know what? We feel so good.

We can sing a show tune. And this is a very strange reference to something most people haven't heard about. I only know about it because of the commentary. There was a radio show called Lights Out and they later put out an album called Drop Dead. And there's a segment called The Dark in which I believe it is shadows

that turn people inside out. Dave Merkin heard it as a very young boy. It stayed with him all of his life. He put it in a TV show much later, and that's why we have the fog that turns you inside out. Thanks to the radio star Arch Obler. Good old Arch Obler. Thanks to Merkin's older brother buying that record release of it.

Bob sent me it. You can find the whole thing online on YouTube upload of it. It does sound very creepy, but here's what people getting turned inside out sounds like in the actual recording. And listeners, just be ready. It starts with a screen. so I don't want to scare you, listeners.

No. Inside out. It turned her. Inside out. Man. God. Sam, open your eyes. The shadows are crawling along the floor toward it.

Come on. See, it's that little, like, squishy sound. That was a sound. You know, if somebody turned inside out in front of me, I wouldn't have the power to narrate it. Inside out, inside out. The designs for them inside out are insane, and they're like so detailed. There's like a lot of like surface detail and line mileage on them.

It's great how well this was animated for how detailed these designs are on like a TV budget, especially like in the close-ups, like when Willie jumps in, you can really see like all the musculature. and like the legs are very leg muscles are like super defined it's like very fun to look at apparently overseas three guys worked for two weeks on this at rough draft korea and they were not happy with jim reared in i could imagine that the biggest crime though is that we don't have access to this without the credits over it because at a certain point the credits just really fill the screen so i'd love to see the credits free version of this sequence because like you said ian the characters are so intricately detailed and when the credits are over it you lose so much of that yeah it's true

six characters having to do as complicated. The choreography for the song, one, which they basically are imitating with the top hats and the canes, it already is complicated. And I would bet having six characters do it in, you know, at the same time, probably already hard if it's the regular character designs of the Simpsons. But instead, it's brand new character designs

with all of their bones, their muscles exposed, and then they all have to do it in time. I think there will be two cuts in this. sequence total right their long sequences too man so if one thing screwed up like can you even do a retake like how hard is that going to be yeah it'd be very

difficult so yeah it's just like it's an amazing amazing sequence it's really campy and silly too you know but that's what's so fun about it you really do need that camp I think after the incredibly graphic like

the way they scream and turn inside out is also insane animation Like horrifying. In the original script, this chorus line stuff isn't there. The last line of the episode is instead March saying, all right, nobody sit on the new slip covers. That's it. Then cut to black.

They called it right by having it be a big silly. I guess too, this is sort of expanding on the end of the previous tree house was they're all about to kill Lisa. The vampires are going to kill Lisa. And then they start singing the Charlie Brown Christmas music. This makes it an even big. parody be their diversion from horror and death. I've seen this one a lot, and this time I really focused on the fact that Marge's hair is made of meat. Yes, that is disturbing.

And then she has to squish it down pretty fast to fit the top hat, right? It's been in the hat, yeah. I thought when you look really closely at Bart being chewed on by Santa's Little Helper, his intestines are like he's dragged by his intestines. Like, it's very graphic, too. Also speaking of graphic, when they fall into it, you see the kids, all three of them, the second, like the millisecond before they're gooified. Like the look of terror on Millhouse's face is the scariest one to me. You see Millhouse like a frame before he gets gowified and then 20 seconds later you watch a baby turn inside out. This is prime time TV in 1994.

And a great play on their classic. not only are they making fun of the old rule, which was, well, you can't kill the kids in a treehouse. Then it also is like, well, how many tree houses they have are like, oh, it was just a dream. It doesn't count. It was just a nightmare. Ian, it reminds me on OK, KEO, I can think of that happening at least once any great nonpolitical episode skeleton. Yeah, I think like the chance to, yeah, push past what is normal in the series and have it be a dream is always fun. And, you know, especially here where we see, yeah, Millhouse's death is probably the scariest one.

I remember, like, freeze framing those faces he makes as he, like, falls into the blender. Super good. I could imagine the internal rule wouldn't come from a bad place of like, well, the little kids watching this who are already worried about scaring. They see themselves as Bart and Lisa. And if they specifically are harmed, it's even scarier to a little kid, right? I would think so. Yeah. Yeah.

can't have death that, you know, doesn't have some sort of catch at the end. So it's like, okay, they didn't really die. Hats off and skins off to those rough draft animators who animated this, those three in particular, who worked so hard for two whole weeks on just 90 seconds of it. And it turned out great. And yes, you're right, Bob. For all the great extras that this DVD has, there should be just like on an anime DVD, creditless outro. Yeah, that would be great. What more is there to say on this? This is the best tree house. It really is. Every time we do four, five, I'm mistakenly safe.

You know what? I think four is actually the best. And I take it back every time after I watch five. And I'm doing it again. I'm a flip-flopper. Oh, Henry, will you ever learn? For all the reasons we said, I could rewatch this one again right now. I can close my eyes and it all replays before me again. Yeah, I don't want to belabor the point. But yeah, it is my favorite.

And four is also very good. They're kind of neck and neck. but this one just has the edge and I think we've discussed that over the past two and a half hours. Yeah, I think every year when it becomes Halloween time and I do like my annual

rewatch of all the Simpsons Halloween specials to put on in the background while doing Halloween stuff, this one is always like the one I do like stop and pay attention to because the jokes are just so good. There's a million things in it and I don't know if I've,

gotten to appreciate all of them, but it's nice to, yeah, sit down and actually talk out the whole thing. Now I think, you know, I do have a full appreciation of it now and I never need to watch it again. So thanks. You're welcome. Well, Ian, thanks for coming back to the show. We can let people know where to find you online. Do you have anything you want to plug here? Sure.

You can find me online usually just at IANJQ, Ian JQ, on whatever services or whatever. Recently, I just finished the special The Elephant for Adult Swim. I was one director on Huge Triptych of Shorts that I also did with my partner, Rebecca Sugar, and that it just got nominated for some annies. So if you haven't seen The Elephant, look it up on wherever Adult Swim is for you. Also, running right now is a podcast I directed for Sega called The Chaotic Case Files. my first time doing any audio direction, but it was basically like making a cartoon without the visuals. And that's been running once a week from Sega.

So wherever you get your podcast. So watch out talking citizens. I'm coming for you guys. Oh, man. Wow. I had missed that. The Chaotic News. That's so cool that I really did enjoy the elephant.

I said it in my letterbox for it, but it really did feel like watching. I should have stayed up to like 1230 a night. to watch it because it feels like when we were young, like turning on MTV and seeing like Liquid Television and just seeing something weird. You and Rebecca's was the middle one of the- Yes, yeah. It was really fun because, yeah, and Liquid Television was like, for us, I was like one of the first things.

When they described us the idea of doing this special with these shorts that connect, but maybe they don't. And we don't know what the other two shorts are or how they're supposed to connect together. we immediately thought of like liquid television or genius party or like you know all those like 90s animated anthologies which were like hugely influential to us like you know spike in mike's tapes and stuff like that so yeah so i'm really glad you enjoyed it and yeah if you get a chance listeners please check it out oh and also you directed one of the music videos for lonely magic didn't you i did yes for my partner rebecca sugar's album lonely magic i did yes for my partner rebecca sugar's album lonely magic i do directed one of the music videos. And that is on YouTube now. It's called This is a Love Song. So please check it out.

It's a great music video too. Yeah, you've done so much lately. It's been great to see all the stuff coming out. Yeah, it's nuts. Animation, like you said, animation industry is super weird right now, very slow. But, you know, it's been great because now I just kind of get to focus on what's the most entertaining. And I kind of let that guide what I get to do.

And that's, it's been really fun. And since you're doing podcast now, it's Henry and my turn to do animation. How hard could it be? Yeah, yeah. I say give it a try. But thank you, Ian. So much, Ian. Yes, this was awesome.

Thank you so much for having it. Thank you so much, Deanne Jones, Cordy, for being on the show. If you want to support our show and give a little and also get a lot in return, go to patreon.com slash talking Simpson, sign up there for five bucks a month, and you will get ad-free episodes. You'll get access to a vast, back catalog of exclusive episodes, covering things like Futurama, King of the Hill, Batman, the Animated Series, The Critic, and Mission Hill. And you'll also get a new episode of both Talking Futurama and Talk King of the Hill every month.

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five or even six hours long. We started the year off with covering 1959's Sleeping Beauty from Disney, like we like to start with a Disney classic. Then we follow that up with the total opposite of it, 2004's Shrek 2 at one time, the highest grossing animated feature of all time. We have so much to say about both of those. We've been doing years and years of what a cartoon movie. If you sign up today, you can hear a gigantic back,

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You can find that where you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of awesome bonus stuff. And Henry, what about you? You can find me on Blue Sky and Instagram is talking, Henry, and I'm always posting fun stuff there. And don't forget the official account of this podcast network at Talk Simpsons Pod. That's it on Blue Sky and Instagram. At Talk Simpsons Pod will keep you in the loop whenever new things happen on the Patreon, on the free feed, when we do charity drives,

and tons of other cool stuff. It's all on at Talk Simpsons Pod, so follow that. And why don't you also check out all of the free podcasts we've ever done. Those can be found at Talking Simpsons.com. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for season 16's Mommy Beerist, and we'll see you then. So, what'll it be, Homer? Mo, give me a beer.

No, nothing I should kill your family. Why did I kill my family? They'd be much happier his ghosts. You don't look so happy. Oh, I'm happy. I'm very happy. La la la la la la la la see now waste your family. I'll give you a beer