Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror VI

Episode Date: February 28, 2018

Has anyone here seen the movie Tron? Well, it doesn't matter, because this Halloween classic parodies Twilight Zone, Nightmare on Elm Street, Godzilla and so much more. This one even features the historic debut of a CGI Homer and Bart. Learn about every confusing reference in detail in this extra long episode of Talking Simpsons!

this week's episode is brought to you by patreon at patreon.com slash talking simpsons not only you get access to every episode a week early and ad free but we have tons of extras including our two newest interviews we chat with mike scully about his time executive producing the show i ran it through seasons 9 through 12 which I always characterize as the four most consecutive seasons of the show. And we talked with writer Mimi Pond about what it was like to write the first episode of The Simpsons. You know, and I get to be the turd in the punch bowl every single time I tell this story,

because nobody wants to hear anything bad about The Simpsons. You can find all that and more exclusively on patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, a Twilight-y show about that zone. I'm your host, Bob Dervish of Declension Mackey, and this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? This is Henry Gilbert, and this will all sound better coming out of Paul Angle. Everything does. And who else?

Lousy, smart host, Chris Antista. Oh boy, the Smarch weather is really getting to me. And today's episode is Treehouse of Horror 6. Remember the story. We're newlyweds on our way to Earth's capital. Oh, Shazbutt. Oh, I'm working Mindy references. That feeling when you get a reference in 1995. I'm sad that I got that.

Today's episode aired on October 29th, 1995. And as always, Chris will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my gosh. Oh, Shazbot Bobby. Destruction Derby tears it up on PS1. The world was introduced to Jason Lee and Kevin Smith's box office smash, Mallrats. And the baseball network takes a bow. Oh, wow.

I wanted to explain that a little more because I don't like sports. Oh, because of the strike? Yeah. I don't like sports sports but I do love media history the Braves won or something I cared in time but CBS was in such financial peril they had to give away the rights to baseball

so NBC and ABC and the Major League Baseball Corporation teamed up for one year to make the Baseball Network because up to that point Major League Baseball Corporation teamed up for one year to make the Baseball Network, because up to that point, Major League Baseball wasn't producing its own show. It's like their show was produced by ABC and NBC. So it's the first World Series to air on two networks, like one game NBC, next game ABC, and it's still to this day the last World Series to air on ABC. But the Baseball Network, there's a shitty logo and theme, you might hear it on a laser

type thing. Boy, I don't remember that at all. it was one year and the player strike totally like bombed it i obviously didn't see mall rats in theaters nobody did anyone did nobody likes mall rats but i think a year later i watched both it and clerks back to back on the hs and it blew my mind like now it's easy to make fun of kevin smith but it was in Smith But I was at the right age for it My dad showed me Clerks The second it came out on video He heard about it on NPR

He was always ahead of the game And the Lazer Time Network We're rediscovering Kevin Smith stuff We're doing Clerks cartoon commentaries We just did a commentary for the Clerks movie Because Kevin Smith gets shit on a ton But Mallrats If someone told me the Clerks guy made another movie

I would have gone That wasn't in the Mallrats marketing I was like, if someone told me the Clerks guy made another movie, I would have gone. That wasn't in the Mallrats marketing. No. There were none of the same characters. Mallrats was supposed to be a titty raunch fest of the 80s for the 90s. Yeah. That's what it was supposed to be. That's what it was marketed as.

It really was. I was so disappointed. The guy from Clerks made another movie and nobody told me? I love Mallrats. I will say Clerks does hold up folks holds up please don't rewatch mall rats not so my message to you you want to see something that doesn't hold up J and

silent Bob strike that oh boy yeah but it's wonderful because like it'd be like making a Marvel movie but you didn't tell anybody what any characters name was or like who they are what this joke means I would it is a meaningless movie with the score from Beethoven. I had read every

Askewniverse comic book, so I got every reference in it. And once it was over, I was like, I can close this chapter of my life now. I feel safe in this. I'm in my mid-twenties now. I'm kind of good. I loved it at the time because it was like, it rewarded you for paying attention to this whole universe,

but how did this come into theater? No one can follow this at all. It doesn't make any sense. But back to Mallrats, there has never been a bigger Mallrats fan than Bob Mackie. I had a framed Mallrats poster. Mallrats was my first DVD, and I was never more disappointed when, if you don't remember, Mallrats had a huge amount

of footage cut out of it, an entire subplot. And I was never more excited to see that footage. It is all a Jeremy London subplot. And he is the worst actor in the 90s. Does he work anymore? I don't think so. His identical twin brother, I think, is still kicking it. I would quite honestly think that Jeremy London was like,

this is Hollywood Babylon, but that Schistifler from American Pie is said to be David, was David Geffen's like house boy at one time, and that's why he got to be in movies. I would not be surprised if Jeremy London wasn't just some other kept man of an executive who they just

shoved into movies, and that's why you don't see him or Stifler in movies anymore. Well, they do make fun of his acting on the Mallrats commentary, that he acts like a chicken. He's always crossing his arms and darting hisler in movies anymore. Well, they do make fun of his acting on the Mallrats commentary. He acts like a chicken. He's always crossing his arms and darting his head in and out. It's weird. You gotta watch his tiger-beat hair move every time he does it. I recall watching

I have that haircut now. I wanted to stop in the middle of the sentence. I recall watching the TV versions of it because they had to add scenes to it to make it longer, so it was like seeing the deleted scenes there. But in that one, they had to redo, I would say, 40% of the dialogue. Oh, and Jason Mewes didn't show up. And Jason Mewes didn't fucking show up,

because he was a drug addict at the time. It's a different guy. In fact, hey, man, this is Snoochie Boochies. During some of those Clerks cartoons, you could tell Jason Mewes is in the middle of a bender. It's like, that's right, Silent Bob. That's right yeah cartoon is fascinating we do that on our patreon patreon.com slash laser time and i think this speaks to the need that matt and i do people want to celebrate kevin smith's library at this point and like yes yes we do yeah i mean what i would

well for one thing as a professional podcaster I can't really throw stones at Kevin Smith for giving up films mostly to be a podcaster. But second, my issue with Kevin Smith now is that he just became like a dad who's just like, no, my daughter is the greatest thing ever. It's like, it's cool to take pride, but she shouldn't, maybe not all your movies. Yeah, it's like you don't need to cast your wife and your daughter.

It's like the family movies are in my family. I'll say it a billion times if we go into it further. He got a lot of hate because I think everybody thought what he did was easy. And I know it looks easy. He makes it look easy. And I know you think you can be Kevin Smith. So my question to you is, why aren't you? Why don't you do something?

Why don't you make something? What hurt Kevin Smith for me as a fan was seeing the evening with Kevin Smith, which I actually have. I do love them, they are good, but that is when it finally hit me like, oh, every character in a Kevin Smith movie is Kevin Smith, talking to himself all of the time.

Especially Randall. Come on, come on, Henry. When I saw Clerks 2 and saw Randall say an exact speech from Evening with Kevin Smith about Lord of the Rings, I was like, come on, dude. You know your fans already saw this.

You know what your problem with Kevin Smith is, Henry? Last thing I'll say about Mallrats. You're a cigarette. I have one more thing to say. The last thing I will say is that one of my favorite things about Mallrats is on the, I bet it was Laserdisc commentary for Clerks. Oh, yes. on the, I bet it was Laserdisc commentary for Clerks is recorded during production of Mallrats

and like the executive who's working on Mallrats comes in there and is like fluffing up Kevin Smith and Kevin Smith is just like Mallrats are going to be so huge. Kevin Smith is so full of himself about Mallrats. It's such a crystalline point in time.

I thought you were going to mention the same anecdote Matt told me because I think the Chasing Amy Laserdisc the first sentence in the commentary is fuck DVD he recorded a segment saying I was wrong and apologizing for that I will say though, this is going on a bit long

my problem with Kevin Smith is, I was a big fan of him but what frustrated me about him was and a lot of creators fall into this trap, especially if you grew up in the 90s, is that he insults himself first so you can't. And I find that just to be a very self-defeating attitude that I'm kind of sick of now. It's just like, fucking have confidence in what you do.

No, I will not. Kevin Smith should have confidence. So should you, Chris. I wasn't talking directly to you, Chris, but I'm saying everyone out there, be proud of what you do. You know, i said i have my last mall rat story but this is now turning into the mall rats laser time let's just stop right here it speaks to the need i have the soundtrack to it oh yeah and listen to it eight million times oh me too tells us what we ought to buy bag of cocaine into your heart support your conscience that's a start

you only need three chords for any song, really. And I paid $18 for that CD in 1998. The CD cost me more than the VHS back in those days. As a Weezer fanboy, I loved hearing any Weezer B-side. And Suzanne was the name of the monkey. So we definitely need a Kevin Smith episode of Lazer Time. For sure. Simpsons Podcast. I guess we're forced to talk about a Treehouse of Horror episode.

Those are never good. A really excellent one. This is quite about a Treehouse of Horror episode. Those are never good. A really excellent one. This is quite an excellent Treehouse of Horror. It is jam-packed with lots of stories. In fact, the intro is just crusty as a headless horseman. There were going to be more scenes with Simpsons characters as different horror villains. I think Ned Flanders was going to be Leatherface and things like that. But it's like, no, we only have time for one thing.

Because these are all stories with a beginning a middle and an end not just like a pastiche of jokes about things and there it's super speed yeah just want to say The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for me is always

a Halloween must watch it's really really great which version? The Ichabod Crane oh sorry the Disney one oh okay Ichabod and Mr. Toad also this is the first episode

with a writing credit from Steve Topkins that's right who I wanted to go over a little bit like you heard me steve topkins that's a critic reference out there listening to talking critic folks uh but that steve topkins was fresh off the critic he had worked on seasons one and two and now had would work on the simpsons from season seven and eight and he actually has no full episode writing credit for his entire time there he only wrote

segments in either tree houses or 22 shorts or the spin-off showcase he never did a full run episode but oakley weinstein like say that he was on the level of george meyer for his contributions to those seasons it's sort of one of those guys that's just in the room making scripts better. And he is one of the few openly Christian Simpsons writers they cite. But it didn't make the shows worse. No, no, no. He also worked on the PJs, the Bernie Mac show. That's right.

Now on Hulu. And Two and a Half Men. I love the PJs. It was good. No, it was a good show. It was what they produced it in. It's a very segmented show. I didn't realize until I think it was Bob pointed out on one of our things that they had to produce it so far in advance.

And I think he might work on the Danny Matheson show. Let's call it the Ask the Teacher show. The Netflix Hit the Ranch? Yes, yeah. It's one of those. Well, now it's a controversial show. To quote Mother Simpson, I don't know who that is. Yes, exactly. yeah it's one of those well now it's a controversial show but to quote uh to quote mother simpson i don't know who that is yes exactly uh well he's scientology's own felon oh okay oh hi yes yes okay

uh sex pervert and sex pervert and ashton kutcher friend that that show the ranch is just one of those shows that you see on the netflix list like oh, I guess that exists. Did you have to check every box for entertainment? Nobody wanted this fucking show. They are going into the red just to have a show, a season premiere every week of something. I think we could get a show on Netflix. I read a great argument about it. I haven't wanted to anybody else watch the Cloverfield Netflix thing. I know.

It's not awful. It's just like, sorry. I couldn't stop talking about it because how much did Netflix pay for that? Because essentially you have to pay whatever that was going to make at the box office, but I think that's why they bought it because I don't think it would have done very well.

I saw someone on Twitter say that this is just now an excuse to shine up what would have been a direct-to-DVD movie and say, no, it's the prestige of Netflix. As of this recording, they just bought a Universal movie. They were like, we're not releasing this in theaters.

And so Netflix bought it. And because of Bright, they don't care if the movie's good, just that it's new. Bright could have gone in theaters. That one could have been released in theaters. Wouldn't have done well, but it could have, well, who's to say? We haven't podcasted in a while. But, okay, that opening of all the Simpsons hanging at once, that's a gruesome but great opening. They, okay, that opening of all the Simpsons hanging at once. That's great.

It's a gruesome but great opening. They hang a baby in the beginning of the episode. I was like, she has to suck her pacifier. I wonder if they had a rule of, like, Maggie can't appear that dead. Like, not the baby. An eight-year-old we can hang, but a baby. That baby did nothing wrong, except for original sin. And I also got to give Matt Graney credit.

Every year he comes up with multiple nicknames for himself. Meanwhile, it's always James Hellbrooks and Sam Sayonara Simon. Oh, that Sayonara means a lot more now, doesn't it? It means way more things. It also means, like, goodbye, women in this office. You're not going here. One thing, though, I think after this season they cut back on how long the Halloween names could be because it's just this huge, glowy, green

fawn across the screen, kind of like ruining certain shots. Yes. Alright, so Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores. Written by John Swartzwelder. It's his first Halloween segment he's done since 2. He hadn't worked on a treehouse since Treehouse 2. But this one is a perfect fit

for him because he got his start in writing in the jingle world. Unlike Steve Topkins, for example, who again was another Harvard jerk, Schwarzwelder came up through just being an oddball that other comedy writers really liked. Yeah, I think George Meyer got him onto SNL, too. But the ad agency in this segment is named after the ad agency he worked at. Ah, it was so specific. Yeah.

You had to think it had to be based on something. I was like, is this a joke? But it's not. It's just where he worked. And we get our first introduction to Lard Lad.

Ah, the Miracle Mile. Where value wears a neon sombrero and there's not a single church or library to offend the eye. There it is.

The chain that put the fat in fat southern sheriffs. I want a colossal donut just like the one on the sign. Oh! Nuts! That's false advertising. Sorry, sir. No refunds. I paid for a colossal donut

and I'm gonna get a colossal donut. You don't scare us. So I did about an hour of research on this segment alone, looking at what every mascot is a reference to. This one is the most obvious. You find Vegas Vic. Vegas Vic, yes, and his many clones.

But this is, Lard Lad is actually Bob's big boy. It's a mixture of that California donut place. I forget what that is. But Bob's Big Boy. I've never been to a Big Boy. Oh, they were in Ohio. I saw them on a news segment because it was somebody decrying the fall of America. Because Big Boys had been around since the 50s?

No, the 20s. The 20s. It started as Bob's Pantry in the 20s. It became Bob's Big Boy in 1937. And the original design was designed by Warner Brothers artists. Because every store had a statue and all of a sudden in the

80s kids started defacing Bob's Big Boy statues. And they were never this big. They're like, you're hype. Boy, that's so, that

Big Boy design so fits like the early Mary Melodies, like little fat kids who sing stupid songs. He looks like the Animani's version of bosco yeah yes you're right bob buddy who is real he's a real character too so there are many big

boy designs if you go to the wiki you can find out a lot about big boy and i did and this version of lard lad holding the donut aloft is a parody of the 1956 version he's changed subtly over the years in some cases he's not holding anything he's sort of just like running. So maybe it's like, we're not going to make your kids fat. This little big boy's active. You're active. He's not a fat little guy who eats burgers. I knew Big Boy was a reference because you'd see it in tons of stuff. In The Critic, they had one of him eating the Austin Burgers dressed as Big Boy.

And belching. But I didn't know Big Boy as the name of it until Austin Powers. Like, the classic scene. Like, his, well, wasn't Dr. Evil's spaceship was a Big Boy? Yes. Yeah. And Clint Howard had to explain, like, well, actually, Big Boys are making a resurgent these days. I forgot about that joke.

It's easy to forget the other spaceship that looks like a giant Johnson or Woody from Austin Powell. I've never been in one of these in person. I've never been to a Bob's Big Boy. It's your garden variety.

It might as well be a Shoney's or an Applebee's or whatever. Greasy Spoon Americana. Who are the other guys? Who are the other guys? Yeah, I want to hear.

Let's get this out of the way now. How about when we get to them I'll explain them. Oh, all right. I do want to say like Blard Lad he does debut in this episode.

Yep. This is a non-canon episode that introduces kind of a major part of Springfield. It's shocking they didn't have a name for a donut place in the Simpsons world until this point. All the times they ate donuts, they never had a name for it. If you watch the new episodes of The Simpsons, that Blard Lad is there to let you know. He's an iconic piece of Springfield. You go to the Springfield in Orlando Universal, you're seeing Lard Lad.

In video games. In video games, Lard Lad became a huge thing. It's perfect. It's how you know you're in Springfield. And this was the first time I noticed a continuity thing that works in that if you're asking yourself, well, why would Homer have never gone to this donut place before to know they don't sell colossal donuts?

There's a grand opening sign when he arrives. So that's how Homer has never been to Lard Lad. I don't know if we've seen that Miracle Mile since this episode. I love that intro. Like, to offend the eye. But yes, Homer steals the big donut. And we get a pretty cool little moment here. I got your donut, Lard Lad, and what are you going to do about it? Just those sounds

The sounds of the metal And plastic Or plaster moving Is so perfect It's really a great sound design And on the commentary David Silverman says They didn't let us use

The Godzilla scream In Monsters Inc. And David Cohen said That's because you asked We didn't ask Yeah I wonder about that How true that is Because

Toho is very litigious yeah though in 95 you know it would have been it took them two years to show america shin godzilla that's true yeah though so in 95 though my personal theory i'm not a godzilla expert like brett elston sometime guest on the show in 95 they would toho would have definitely been in bed with Fox to work on Godzilla America. Oh, you're right. That was 97. That was a 97 or 98 release. That was probably just a 70s year.

It's pretty early. I could also just see Simpsons saying, like, hey, who cares? We can just use it as TV. I think the roar comes from a rubber glove run across the strings of a stand-up bass and then played backwards. That's awesome. I think that's where... So you could just ask Alf Clausen to do it.

Anybody can make it. You're not even stealing their thing. I would think perhaps that Pixar and Disney in a film would be more worried about a lawsuit than Fox on a TV show, perhaps. I felt bad for Silverman. It was also funny to hear Silverman on that mention his Pixar work because this episode, we'll get to it later, perhaps i felt bad for silverman it was also funny near silverman on that mentioning his pixar work

because this episode i will get to it later but this episode must have been his warm-up for working in 3d animation which he would later do full time uh when he abandoned the simpsons for pixar and then he came crawling back uh but hey oh but i also love just homer homer just drinking beer in his underwear in a giant donut he's drinking a 40 i think for the first time it's so big it has to be a 40 i i wondered if it was a 40 or any kind of malt liquor but could also just be a poorly drawn duff beer i like to think that they gave him a 40 just to uh he can revel in his decadence it's i mean it makes it even more dingy that he's drinking a 40 after robbing. In his underwear. Homer, where did you get that?

Get what? That giant donut. Well, I acquired it legally. You can be sure of that. I think they brought it in through the same door Extopol Apple Kettle came in through. Oh, that's true. How else could that thing get in uh but yeah i love seeing all the the little jokes about the zip boys who are the pep boys and oh i've got

i've got pep boy wisdom to share and the giant beer the giant duff beer guy who is like the marlboro man or no he's kind of like the las vegas uh smiling cowboy isn't he so let me get into it the zip boys you're right hen, a parody of the Pep Boys. They were formally named that in 1923. I think it was just like another, had another name before that. And they're caricatures of the original owners, Manny, Moe, and Jack. And they go by those nicknames because two of them are extremely Jewish. And you don't want to be a business owner in the 1920s advertising how Jewish you are for some reason. I can't buy this muffler from a Jew.

He's going to Jew me out of mufflers i think one of them is named like emmanuel goldstein or something it just like it is the most jewish name that's terrible yes and what was the other one oh vegas vic oh so we have vegas fix i want to say that this they were inspired by a miller highlife commercial at the time where he comes to life and then he drinks with a large woman neon sign. But in that commercial, the people aren't celebrating. They're like, that cowboy stuff is so corny. But then he's like, I'm actually cool.

And the Simpsons are like, yeah, let's party with a giant cowboy. I drink white trash beer. I love the friction you can feel of him crushing the people under his beer bottle. Did we say the planter's peanut? Oh, yeah, then there's Professor Peanut. Professor Peanut. I think it's Bill Hader now. Oh, is he the official peanut guy?

I think he, or he was the last time I heard him talk. Bill Hader deserves it. He needs a cash in. He does so many cool things. Let him make some money. So Vegas Vic, erected in 1951 at the Pioneer Club in Vegas. Do not confuse him with Wendover Will or River Rick, who are clones built to capitalize on the success of Vegas Vic.

Ah, I see. So I've seen the clone and thought it was the real Vegas Vic. People had made giant neon signs before, but never really a person. And that's why I was like, that's pretty cool. We don't have the internet yet, and I'll stare at this giant cowboy for a while. Also, the amount of people who are murdered by a giant thing in this is so callously and humorously. It absolutely reminds me of King Homer especially when Professor Peanut eats the people in the car.

There's more death in this episode than there has been recently in Treehouse of Horrors. So many casual deaths happen. That's true. They are pretty cool. And I just like the animation all over the place is great. The scratching of the zip boy's heads on the ground here

fellas where you going at this time hey don't scratch up them heads good morning everybody panic is gripping springfield as giant advertising mascots rampage through the city perhaps it's part of some daring new ad campaign but what new product could justify some carnage a cleanser a fat-free fudge cake that doesn't let you down in the flavor department like so many others? Ah! Let me go! No! Stop!

No! Oh, gruesome. Now, this is my one problem with this episode. It is a good act break, but Kent is obviously murdered here. He's dead. Oh, you're right. He comes back. But he will come back for the act break.

I totally forgot about that. Everybody does. I can't help it. It's Willie. The crazy old man got his stuff together, and now he runs a Pep Boys or Zip Boys or whatever. Yeah, it's impressive he's running the Zip Boys. I guess they realize, like, well, who's the funniest voice to hear demanding the Zip Boys

come back? Here's a funny voice. I like the Please Stand By dog, but it's not, to me, as funny as Crazy Kent or Drunk Cameraman. Those are my preferred please stand by and there's no clip for it but the red devil realty i think he's an amalgam of a bunch of devil mascots there's a great mr show sketch where it's like anton levay uh is complaining about there are too many devil mascots for innocuous products it's making satan look bad i did love that one uh that episode ended with them just dubbing over an old

cartoon. Like Little Lulu or whatever. Yes, yeah. I gotta say, this joke makes me laugh more than ever. Oh, me too. But also this joke hurts more than ever now too of a policeman casually shooting the wrong person. It was funnier 20 years ago.

Ah, they're not so tough. Uh, Chief, chief that wasn't a monster that was the captain of the high school basketball team uh yeah well yeah he was turning into a monster though yeah it has a different flavor in 2018 uh but but i i'm betting the writers were just so excited of like well we can't have him actually kill people in a normal episode, but let's have him shoot and murder a tall person. I wonder if he was the son of a very tall man. Oh my god, no wonder he's calling for a small

car, his son is dead. I find nothing comical about this situation. We'll get to him soon. Also, though, turning into a monster is the actual defense in real cop shootings. That's true. Well, how did I know that 12-year-old boy wasn't turning into a giant scary black man who would kill me? He was in the middle of a marijuana rampage.

Oh, we got to laugh or else we'll cry. Yes. So then, speaking of sociopathic behavior, Homer is ready to kill Ned and Moe. This is some real jerk-ass Homer here. Hello? Yes? Oh, if you're looking for that big donut of yours, Flanders has it. Just smash open his house. He came to life.

Good for him. Help me, Lord! I told you, Flanders has it! Or Moe. Go kill Moe. Flanders, just give him the donut. Once he has it, that will be the end of all this horror. Well, okay.

If it'll end horror. Don't you ever get tired of being wrong all the time? Sometimes. Oh, poor Marge. I also think kicking, killing the dog may be a step too far. We don't know that he's dead. That dog is dead. That dog is dead. That dog is dead. But it wasn't clear it was Santos El Halper.

That's true. It was just a brown dog. I don't like it. Wow, brown. I mean, animal violence, they've murdered so many people, but animal violence is harder to take. Yeah. That's true. I also love the little callback of the zip boys pushing their heads around in shopping carts

and because of Lard Lad's rampage Lisa sees where he came from the ad company who made him I also love that in a previous treehouse that would have been the end of like okay we gave it back it's over like in a treehouse one or two

that would have been the end of the segment and that they like fuck you over no, that's not the end. They love killing things too much. And Lisa goes to the ad agency, which you said was named after the one. Van Brunt and Churchill. And there are two great little jokes in the background. One is easy to read. 50 million cigarette smokers can't be wrong.

The other one, I needed to go to the internet because it's so illegible. It says, if you like Ike, you'll love laramie septic tanks so i guess the laramie company makes cigarettes and septic tanks but i love harry shearer's very jowly addicts like monsters well and then he's such a proto madman type like he is totally pulled from the era that oakley and wein love, which is 60s-type dudes. He's from the 60s ad exec who would have been on Bewitched or something. Oh, for sure, yeah. But he's gotten older. And when I think of what it's like to write a song, I do think of, like, don't watch the monsters.

So can we talk about Paul Anka? Yeah, before we hear his tune. A little bio. So he's still alive, born in 1941. He's on the show because on the episode Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy, Marge calls Homer, Rex Harrison, and Paul Anka rolled into one. Rolled into one. And Paul Anka was like, thank you, I want to be on the show now. So they got him on the show thanks to that.

He broke out in the late 50s with the song I Confess. But I think the reason the Simpsons writers wanted him on the show because he had a comeback in the 70s, and they loved cheesy 70s stuff in the 90s, and he wrote the song She's Having My Baby. So what a lovely way. And I think I might have a clip of that if you want to hear it. I do.

Having my baby What a lovely way of saying how much you love me. Having my baby. So cornball. Freakly crap. What a lovely way of saying what you're thinking of me. Having a child, I guess, is a way to say what you're thinking of me. Have you heard the duet versions of that where a man and a woman sing to one another?

I'm having your baby. He also wrote the Sinatra classic My Way, which is forever poisoned by being the first dance of our current president and first lady as president. What? You haven't seen that? I know I couldn't stand to watch more than two minutes of footage from Inauguration Day, but his big dance was to My Way.

And when it comes to i did it my way he then turns to where he knows the camera is looks away from his wife and is singing along to his like this has destroyed this song for me forever i don't like it so the most famous song i think that he wrote is this next clip right here. That's right. What? Oh, man. And as Chris has pointed out, every talk show has to ape this. Yes. Oh, I could make so much money off of this.

I never get tired of pointing that out. Because that music has now become synonymous with every talk show. It really has. It's a big band. But this was just the kind of music Johnny Carson liked. Yeah. That music has now become synonymous with every talk show. It really has. It's a big band. But this was just the kind of music Johnny Carson liked. Yeah. So we wanted... There was no music in any talk show.

They all have to do... Well, when they try to counter that, I think people are just like, Nah, that's weird. I don't like that. And that's actually a big band version of the song Toot Sweet, which I have a clip of here. Toot Sweet? Paul Inker wrote this, and they adapted it. It's getting there.

Whoa! Oh, wow! Man, I want a cocktail now. Oh my goodness. But a little shout out for Paul Inker. I think a lot of younger fans would recognize him. He's in Austin Powers, I think the first two? Ladies lot of younger fans would recognize him. He's in Austin Powers.

I think the first two. Ladies and gentlemen, he plays the song. He comes back. Oh, yeah. That's right. He breaks the fourth wall. That's right. And a shout out to my Canadian animation fans.

George and the Christmas Star is an ancient and forgotten Christmas special. And he wrote all these. He's fantastic at authentic cheese. And all these horribly un-Christmassy wonderful 70s gems for this lost 80s animation Christmas special. Well, I, as a kid,

listened to oldies stations all the time, so I knew his 50s stuff the best, including like Diana, or push your head on my shoulder.

What put him on the map for me is the Mystery Science Theater episode, Girlstown. It is one of the most underrated episodes of that series. Watch it. It's got Mamie Van Doren. They just put it out on the last DVD set. Oh, it's so good. They held out so long because there's like four songs they have to license to put it out on DVD. I never thought Girlstown would be out on DVD.

Yeah, Mel Torme's in it. Dick Contino from Daddy-O's in it. The Platters are in it. I wish my name was Dick Contino. But yeah, Paul Inka sings two or three songs in Girlstown. I think two songs live, and then a third song, he sings the Girlstown theme with Mamie Van Doren.

Yeah, watch your P's and Q's. So you'll be sent to Girlstown. You know I'm old, because Girlstown, that episode, is one of 12 Mystery Science episodes I bought on eBay on VHS. Because they were impossible to obtain. I tape traded for that boy. So yes, Mr. Paul Anka. If you stop paying attention to the monsters, they'll lose their powers. But people can't help looking at them. They're wrecking the town.

You know, maybe a jingle would help. Don't watch the mon... Don't watch the... Monsters! Well, it'll sound a lot better coming out of Paul Anka. Hey, Springfield! Are you suffering from the heartbreak of... Monstaritis?

Then take a tip from Mr. Paul Anka! To stop those monsters, one, two, three, here's a fresh new way that's trouble-free. It's got Paul Anka's guarantee. Guarantee void in Tennessee. Just don't look. Just don't look. Just don't look. Just don't look. Just don't look. Just don't look. Just don't look.

Just don't look. Boy, that's so great. I love that song so much. It's really good. So that guarantee void in Tennessee reminds me of something else. And I think that in the 90s... Talk Soup? Talk Soup.

Can you let me talk about it, please? Sorry. It's okay. Because there must have been some consumer rights thing where Tennessee had lesser consumer rights laws or no consumer rights laws. Because in the series Talk Soup, the ones hosted by John Henson, there was this character named Baldo. And whenever Baldo appeared, after the segment, they would do this long spiel about all this... Voidware prohibited. Yeah, exactly.

Offer valid in 49 states. Sorry, Tennessee! So, there. Yes. I could not find a clip of that anywhere. Talk Soup is like lost. You can find some best of Talk Soup compilations. What I meant to grab...

I think Harry Shearer's impression there was... Monster. there was of the voiceover guy for the Smuckers commercials. Because I didn't find the commercial with a name like Smuckers. It's gotta be good. That was also the Family Feedback commercial narrator. Yeah, okay. Uncle Mo. I mean, maybe he does his own voiceover and commercial. Maybe.

Perhaps. I'm dead now. He's gotta to be. For our international listeners, some states have different laws on that shit, and apparently Tennessee was one of the worst ones. I just love that Paul Anka is like point to people, like his turd point, and like, guarantee. It's a great image. Do you like that it's the ending of Sphere, where they have to forget about the monsters?

That's true. Man, Cricht and ripped him off i also like yardley smith rarely gets to talk outside of her lisa voice but her saying monsteritis i like that that's cute but and then it gets kind of dark that lisa threatens to gouge out homer's eyes if he doesn't stop looking at lard lad that's right and there's a cute little throwback to homer saying sprinkles is the exact line robo homer says in treehouse of horror 2 oh you're right and i wonder if it's even the exact like clip there but i also want to explain norman vincent peel oh boy so uh when the three guys die in a row first the the Paul Bunyan dude falls on the general hospital. Blade the Blue Ox falls on the orphanage. And the magic carpet guy, who is that, by the way, Bob?

I have to say, I think like the Red Devil, he's an amalgam of many magic carpet mascots. Because I went on Twitter and I asked, like, who is this guy? And everyone had a local carpet dealer that had a magic carpet guy as the mascot. I did, too. I think it was called Remnant Room. Ah. What? Yeah.

We've got the deals for you remnant room so the carpet guy falls on the birthplace of norman vincent peel who was a technically a uh religious leader but really a cult of personality guy in the 50s who wrote the classic book the power of positive thinking and and many theologians actually don't like him and see him as a guy who twisted the Bible into a worship of narcissism. And would it surprise you to let you know that Donald Trump was a parishioner of his in the 50s. The Trump family went to Norman Vincent Peale and he said he learned quite a lot from him that his father and mother were buried in services at Norman Vincent Peale's church.

That Donald Trump was married to Ivana, not Ivanka, his daughter, Ivana, married in Peale's church. This is how I learned a lot of stuff about Peale because there were multiple articles of like, oh, is this who first taught Donald Trump to be a very selfish person who doesn't think of anyone but himself and so that's also norman vincent peel was longtime friends with nixon and reagan as well

so quite quite a great guy i would say my question is though what is the joke there i believe some people think that his i don't know what the joke is i I'm not sure. It's a name to pull out there. I saw some people say that, well, his, he gave a lot to the 50s idea of selfishness and thinking of yourself, narcissism, or the power of positive thinking. Like, just think great things will happen and they'll happen, which is kind of a 50s bury your feelings type thing, which could kind of go into branding and mascots of the 50s which is what they're fighting. I see. But as far as I can tell there is no direct line you can build from peel to advertisements

but I don't know listeners if you've got a different thing I'd love to hear from that. So I think I have two more mascots we didn't cover. So Paul Bunyan and Baby Blue Ox erected in 1936 in Bemidji, Minnesota as a cheesy roadside attraction back when that happened. The Fargo

thing we see? Yes, that's it. And also the giant hat you see, the giant Irish hat, in the very beginning if you pause for a tenth of a second, you see it as the mascot for Tam O'Shanter tax preparation. Oh, okay. Yes, and there's also a parody of the Western Exterminator guy. Do you know the guy with the glasses and the mallet about to hit the mouse?

I've seen that mallet hit the mouse. I've seen that mascot still up. It was on the drive from my old job at Future U.S. Publishing in the South Bay to San Francisco. There was one of those of him killing some vermin with a mallet. Speaking of video games, Color Dreams made an unlicensed game called Pesterminator that is a licensed Western exterminator video game, and it sucks. Wow, man.

Why would you do that? You know I'm not going to play that. I'm an Orkin man. My father was an Orkin man. And we already covered the Kang and Kodos thing, but their appearance is random, but I did like the Shaz-Botter-Grip capital. I say that all the time on the show,

that when I was a little, when I was not a little kid at this point, I guess. I've grown up, what, six or seven years since we started

doing the show. But I got that reference. Mork and Mindy, it was how Robert Williams said shit on an 80s sitcom. It was classy

Robin Williams. Shazbot. Shazbot. Oh, Shazbot. And then we get to maybe the greatest act break of all time, which why don't we actually take a commercial break? Oh, yeah.

Even as I speak, the scourge of advertising could be heading toward your town. Walk your doors. Bar your windows. Because the next advertisement you see could destroy your house and eat your family. We'll be right back. The Simpsons will be right back. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't

remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Are you suffering from podcast-itis? Well, then take a tip from Mr. Henry Gilbert and sign up for patreon.com slash talking simpsons. If you go there, you'll get all the podcasts you can stand and more. If you're not yet a member, for just $5 a month, you'll get access to every episode of Talking Simpsons a week early and ad-free, access to a ton of exclusive podcasts like interviews with showrunners of The Simpsons, Mike Scully and Bill Oakley, plus the entire first season of Talking Simpsons and

our entire analysis of The Critic, and coming very soon, our exclusive first season of talking simpsons and our entire analysis of the critic and coming very soon our exclusive first season of talking futurama where we go through every episode of futurama's entire first 13 episodes and the launch of what a cartoon our brand new podcast is series where we're gonna do this type of thing but for a random cartoon every week you're getting so much content just for five dollars a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you won't know what to do with yourself so check it out Sure, you could spend your money on erotic cakes, but did you know you could also get yourself a Talking Simpsons t-shirt? The Talking Simpsons official t-shirt is still on sale,

and you can get one for yourself at Shirtsicle, or you can find it at tiny.cc slash talking shirt. It's a lovely sky blue done in the style of the Ion Springfield logo by the wonderful Nina Matsumoto, friend of the show. She did such great work on it. Thank you again. And you can get one for yourself starting at just $19.99. It comes in multiple sizes and ships somewhat internationally. So even if you don't live in the United united states you might be able to get your hands

on your very own talking simpsons t-shirt another great way to support the show that's tiny.cc slash talking shirt hey this is Hank Azaria. You're listening to Talking Simpsons on Laser Time. I didn't know that was a thing. Is the world of today getting you down? Well, then why not check in on some of the good stuff that happened this week in movies, TV, games, and more 30, 20, and 10 years ago this very week with our show 302010. Here's a clip from 1987.

So this one looking up what Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School is, is it's Scooby-Doo ends up at Hogwarts slash Hotel Transylvania. So someone put this up as like the trailer. And it's like, this is clearly the end of the film because they're talking about the outcomes for all the characters and it's in the form of a fucking rap by fucking Scrappy Doo so with the cadets it was a snap to escape

Revolta's trap now let's get loose and dance and clap while I lay on my scrappy rap over there is Daddy Drack who's glad to have his daughter back and all the guys from Calloway are here to dance the night away. Man, the science is too tight. Jump into the past with 302010 every Thursday on LasertimePodcast.com

or iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. 5, 4, 3, two, one. I love that. Wasn't there a Futurama act break with Bender saying we'll be right back? Yeah, I think he did that several times on that. I believe that was in one of the Tales to Astonish. Wait, that wasn't the name of the Tales to Astonish. Okay. Wait, that wasn't the name of the episode. Tales of Interest?

Yeah, Tales of Interest. Tales of Interest. Tales to Astonish was me mixing it up with Astonishing Tales in Marvel, yes. Yeah, but... All right, well now,

45 minutes into the episode, section two, which they say in the commentary, and I think it is one of the scariest ones they've ever done. It's gruesome.

But Chris, you're the expert on this one because you did a whole podcast on Nightmare on Elm Street. On Elm Street Nightmare. You can find that at Elm Street. I forget the URL. Just Google it. It's on every podcast service. It's on LasertimePodcast.com as well.

It's my favorite horror series. It's super hokey now, but it really terrified me as a kid. Freddy Krueger was terrifying. It was also impressive when this episode was new. Freddy Krueger, compared to all the Twilight Zones and other old, old stuff they parody in Treehouse, this is a very recent movie for them to parody on the Treehouse. Because it actually involves people being murdered.

Being murdered was the highlight. Part of the reason I love Nightmare on Elm Street, even the bad ones, is because all they had to be at their core were little tiny music videos buried inside of a horror movie. So Freddy would kill you in your dreams. Now we have a skateboard dream and a cartoon dream and a power glove dream. He literally puts on sunglasses and kills a woman. No, he doesn't kill a woman. He'll hack to death a comic book kid.

He'll turn someone into a cockroach. Even the worst Freddy movie would have, you'd get a good killer too. Dude, 4, Everyone Hates 4,

it's like my favorite because everything is over the top and crazy, but it was created by, from the mind of Wes Craven

after he read an article in the LA Times about something that was called Asian Death Syndrome. But it was, it was,

it was the early 80s. It was like PTSD killing people? It was, it was these people, like as it was like PTSD killing people it was it was these people like people who were coming over to America who were dying

in their sleep but they felt in their dreams they were being chased and I think the specific article of this guy he thought he couldn't fall asleep

so he's making cups of coffee and trying to stay awake because he knew he would die when he went to sleep and he did so and it was I don't know it's hard to trust reporting on this from that era,

especially when you call it Asian Death Syndrome. It was in Weekly World News. It does sound like one of those things like, a weird story from the magical Orient. A man runs to Death Street. Oh, and I didn't get the trailer, because I remember we got the trailer for Nightmare on Elm Street. The first trailer for Nightmare on Elm Street is pretty cool

in that no one knows who Freddy Krueger is, so he's not mentioned. He's never mentioned. I think that's super important about this, because Willie, I don't know if it was just a half-assed surrogate, but yeah, Freddy Krueger was the janitor at the Elm Street. It actually fits really well. It fits real well. Yeah. That Willie's not a, what do they call it, child torturer?

Child murderer. They called him child murderer to imply nothing sexual was done. Though in the Jackie Earl Haley one, I believe they make it a little more clear he did sex things with them too. You can't sell toys of Freddy Krueger if he is a sex murderer. And what I like about this timeline,

I think what makes a good Simpsons joke a reference is that it has to be over. And there were no more Nightmare on Elm Street at this point. They were done. It was a year after New Nightmare, right? New Nightmare. And a year before Scream.

So they were super done, yeah. Like, Freddy Krueger was over, and I think they wouldn't have done it in earlier seasons because it was still a popular thing. And he was still, he hadn't become fully cornball yet due to overexposure, though. Well, Freddy's dead. Yes. Oh, yeah. But, I mean, I love Robert Englund as, like, the camp guy. He leaned into the camp so hard, and he's great at it. overexposure though well i mean i love yes oh yeah but i mean i love robert england is like

the camp he he leaned into the camp so hard and he's great at it he's so good but yeah freddy krueger was a janitor who murdered a bunch of the elm street children and the it's awesome the lore is slowly unspooled throughout the entire series and freddy krueger's tv show uh but that the parents he got let off on a technicality, the parents took vigilante justice against him, burned him alive, and he threatened to haunt the children of Elm Street in their dreams for the rest of their life. And Six establishes that a sleep demon

makes a pact with him. It's crazy. And then you find out he is the son of a thousand... Bastard son of a thousand maniacs. Yeah, yeah. One of the movies has his origin story. It's like his mother was raped by a thousand maniacs. That's not how biology works. More evil sperm makes more evil children.

It's established in three, and you get to see it in five. Oh, I'm glad they did that. Yeah, no, it was pretty great. I mean, it's... You don't see anything. No, but I mean, you see the nun be surrounded by men, and then the scene kind of ends. In a mental institution.

And a guy who looks suspiciously like Robert England. Yeah, I know. I guess they imply that that's his father. But then again, like the... It's implied that like this woman was raped by a hundred mental patients and no one knows who her father is. Yeah. No one knows who Freddy's father is. They did a lot of stuff with the...

Well, they always had to get a new wrinkle to Freddy's origin to... It's weird, man. Give an excuse for him to come back. I mean, the Freddy movies are so messy too because each one kind of ends with them going like, well, we vanquished Freddy forever. Oh, no, we didn't. That's how this segment ends.

Yes. Well, it's perfect. It's just like Freddy 1 and 2 both end with them like, well, I guess everything's fine. Let's get into a vehicle. Oh, Freddy's here! That's what's great about the device of Killing in Dreams is that with them like, well, I guess everything's fine. Let's get into a vehicle. Oh, Freddy's here! Oh, no! But that's what's great about the device of killing in dreams, is that you never really have to end it, and everything can be ambiguous, because it's supposed to replicate dreams. Yeah, yeah.

And that Willy is definitely terrifying in Bart's dream. Like, he's pulling his head back and laughing while wearing his version of the Freddy sweater, which he does not wear in any other scene in this episode. The sweater is chosen because it's supposed to be scientifically two jarring colors. And Wes Craven picked the hat. And I loved it. He tells the story in, I think, Never Sleep Again, the documentary. But listen to Elm Street Nightmare first.

Shout out to Lizzie Cuevas. He mentions it was like the middle of the night and he encountered a drunk guy stumbling down the street and he had Freddy's hat and he's just like hey boy

and he's like I'm getting goosebumps just like imagining it in my head it seems horrifying my favorite bit in the first Nightmare on Elm Street

is when he is cutting off his own fingers like that is so creepy in front of people in front of people yeah the first one alone I'd say one two and three

are all uh worth watching they're all worth watching even the bad ones are great i love new west craven's new nightmare sex is the only one i would skip 2003 would give us freddy versus jason which is amazing it's so good so the bart stream i think the animators really loved being able to break the rules of Bart and have him do all the cartoony things. Everything Matt Graney hates is in this first segment. The first season is flooded with Simpsons dream sequences, and they kind of go away for a while.

They kind of do, yeah. Was that something Matt didn't like? I don't think so. I think they had too much story to tell. Maybe it's hard. They don't have to write them anymore, I guess. There's no time for subtlety or analogies we can just say it bart gets to does a lot of extra movement it's not even just the you know the big tex avery wild takes or the no sale

stuff it's also just his like with like his extra movements are the things he does not do in normal simpsons yeah visually it's a weird premise to, let's make this cartoon be more like a cartoon. So yes, they move more. Also, there are no hard black lines in the backgrounds. They're all just painted. So from the beginning, you're like, the first time you watch it, something does seem off about it. And then SLA starts talking. I will say, Willie is very good at the one-liners that Freddy is known for.

He's better. He's better than freddy though he does not say bitch all that much buckle up bitch man he sure says bitch a lot you can run but you can't hide bitch god damn it's scary terry i love being able to watch them in chronological order freddy does not say the word bitch until three yeah and the famous scene that i had now have a christmas ornament of welcome to prime time bitch Love being able to watch them in chronological order. Freddie does not say the word bitch until three. Yeah. In the famous scene that I now have a Christmas ornament of. Welcome to prime time, bitch. And Robert Englund improvised that on set.

It was not supposed to be a thing. And he says, I love he said something about it. I've been signing autographs with bitch in it ever since. Because the producers loved it. Him and Jesse from Breaking Bad. Yeah, I was going to say. If he's like Jesse of Jesse, everybody assumes he said bitch every other line on the show. It's like, maybe

you're making up those bitches. I hear he's super sweet about it too. Yeah, I'll call your mom a bitch. Give me the phone. Give me the phone. My favorite Jesse line is like, he can't keep getting away with it. I love when he played the game Rage. Yes. As a sign of his inner rage.

With a light gun. Yeah. Also, Yes. As a sign of his inner rage. With a light gun, and she would play Rage. Also, Bart, it follows the rules of Nightmare. Bart wakes up with the damage from his dreams. It's the same damage Nancy gets. Yes, yeah, that's right. Oh, man. And Nancy, one of the saddest things in the Freddy films is that they kill off Nancy in three.

So they had to just do a post-modern one for seven just to bring her back. Wes Craven's new nightmare is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It only stutters in the ending when it has to be a nightmare movie. I think it's okay. I think Scream is a better version of that idea. But Heather Langenkamp really can't carry a movie. They're asking her to do way too much. She's that little kid.

It ups the ante. It's true. It made me miss Heather Langenkamp because I was just like, man, I miss her. But it was also weird. You don't like her because way too much. She's that little kid. It ups the ante. It's true. It made me miss Heather Langenkamp because I was just like, man, I miss her. Do you not like her because she has Butthead's mouth? Well, kind of. It was weird to see that movie too, though, because they're like, oh no, James Spader

is playing a character. He's not James Spader, but she is Heather Langenkamp. It took me out of it a little bit. Yes, the damage in Dreams continues into the real world. And then he raked me across the chest. And the weirdest thing was, it was that school janitor who mysteriously disappeared. Groundskeeper Willie.

Oh my God, Bart. Groundskeeper Willie was in my nightmare too. But he got me with hedge clippers. He ran his floor buffer over me! Children, I couldn't help monitoring your conversation. There's no mystery about Willie why he simply disappeared.

Now, let's have no more curiosity about this bizarre cover-up. And that's one of those things you get mad at at Nightmare on Elm Street, that kids are dying, and the adults are still covering up the story. Well, I don't know. Stop talking about nancy there is no freddy krueger like she just name checked the guy you killed from her dreams listen to the lady i like that nelson is so clean he has a sound effect yeah i noticed in this so there's damage to all of the kids standing

there visible damage except for millhouse and i wonder if there was a deleted millhouse joke in there or something maybe it's weird that no violence would have happened to millhouse like that he's the first kid you kill exactly yeah which i was shocked that he was not the first kid they kill on screen oh boy i love this martin scene so much you have three hours to finish then put your head down on your desk and sit quietly. Ah, a duet of pleasures. So cute. I am the wondrous wizard of Latin!

I am a dervish of declension and a conjurer of conjugation with a million hit points and maximum charisma! Aha! Morire! To die! Morit! He, she, or it dies! Moris! You! Die! to die. Or it, he, she, or it dies. Or it's you.

Die. You've mastered a dead tongue, but can you handle a live one? Wheel him out quietly it's best the children don't see it we'll just get it out of here not into the kindergarten i wanted to stay quiet during that russie taylor screaming her lungs out it is a horrifying scream the the only joke to it is just like that it's so terrifying it makes the haha funny that it's followed up with but just like yeah i i borrow the line a duet of pleasures all the time i want to give her credit because like it's a very specific scream from Nightmare on Elm Street.

Oh. And it's a very specific, semi-specific scene because Nightmare on Elm Street 4, forget her name, but she is killed in class. Is it Sheila? Oh. She's killed in class. Pug her up, bitch. And he sucks the life out of this girl.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. And she gets wheeled out in front of the whole class. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. I completely forgot that. So I don't think that's the only time that happens in the series. Also, as a kid I did, or as a 14, 13-year-old seeing this,

I was not as into tabletop role-playing games as I was, so I didn't get the a million hit points and maximum charisma. That's great. That is some D&D statage there, which, again, like, I love that in Martin's dreams he gets to be as gay and dorky as he wants to be. He's like, I am the Latin. The king of Latin. And all the, like, dorky Harvard jokes about Latin.

Yes. I love it. But once again, Willie's line is way too smart for Freddy Krueger. That is a Harvard writer line. That is true. Maurice, you die. You can handle a dead tongue. Just, yeah, that it's funny to see him strangled by a tongue, but then to see him just like,

no, Martin is strangled to death here. I guess it's not as bad. It's as equally bad as being ground up into meat as Martin had been done before. Or no, wait, no, he was making himself tired and stringy. Oh, right. That's what they call it. Tired and stringy. But so, yes, we get the origin of Willie where he is murdered by, through inaction by all the parents, but killed nonetheless.

He should get revenge against Homer. Yeah, Homer. Just Homer. I think this might be line of the show, the start of this. I think so, yeah. That's the joke. It all started on the 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month. We were there to discuss the misprinted calendars the school had purchased.

Lousy, smart weather. Do not touch Willie. Good advice. Our next budget item, $12 for doorknob repair. Nay! Recharge fire extinguishers. This is a free service of the fire department. Nay.

Nay. Lousy Smarch weather. Anytime you're in bad weather, I want to say lousy Smarch weather. It's lived on forever. It reminds me of that ALF calendar someone sent us. If you look underneath, they have Melmac-ian months. And fake Melmac-ian holidays. Fake Melmac-ian holidays. I believe it's still on June, which is

O-ring on Melmac. It's like Ikea furniture they're named after. But Smarch being the 13th month, that would be January. That would be the 13th month. We're out of Smarch now. I said that after everybody was like, 2016, the worst

year ever. Then I was like, I think January of 2017 is really the Smarch of 2016. It really is. And, yeah, so every January 13th at 1 p.m., you should celebrate the death of Willie. And Smarch is just such a fucking funny joke. It actually obscures almost the also funny don't touch willie yeah good advice i didn't for the longest time i didn't take it as like oh homer sees that as a the advice to kids of like don't masturbate don't touch your willie but that's finally what he and i just love the punchy editing to like ah three twelve dollars for doorknob repair like it just like smashes into

this is a free service yes it's may uh and so in the second part of willie's death oh boy we found out about a deleted scene thanks to them that this was when kirk van houten was officially named that's right uh they cut the scene where they respond to his uh complaint about the spaghetti meals but i looked on frankie and i think the first time he's called kirk in a millhouse divided. Wow. So not until season eight is he called Kirk, but they knew he was Kirk from this episode onward internally. I love this too. Help. Please help me.

Well, please. Mr. Ben Houghton has a floor. I for one would like to see the cafeteria menus in advance. So parents can adjust their dinner menus accordingly. I don't like the idea of millhouse having two spaghetti meals in one day. You'll pay for this with your children's blood!

Oh, right. How are you going to get them? Skeleton power? Strike where you cannot protect them. In their dreams. Great design on Skeleton Willie. I also love Kirk's choice of words. Very specific. A spaghetti meal. I borrow that all the time.

Would you like to go out for a hamburger meal with me? Or perhaps a sushi meal? And I love Wiggum's unnecessary taunting of him of just like, Skeleton pal! He's not even impressed. Like the skeleton is talking to me. How are you going to get me? In Nightmare on Elm Street, John Saxon plays one of the main culprits.

He's a police officer. Yes, that's right. And he is killed by a skeleton in part three. I like it, but it's so stupid. I'm putting it all together. It's like Ray Harryhausen helped out with that. That's such a cool sequence. And then in New Nightmare, isn't John Saxton also murdered?

Yes. The real actor. Who was best friends with Heather Lick. Yeah. Who also disappears from Mitchell, the MST3K classic. John Saxton wants the film, and just over the radio, they're like, John Saxton characters died in between these scenes. You won't see me again.

Between these episodes. Yes. Between these episodes yes between these episodes of the show the failed pilot mitchell but oh i didn't know that uh yeah they uh so abe is used really good in tiny doses in this episode including his like welcome to my world i love that line it also follows the elm street path of like the kids realizing we can't run forever we've got to face him ourselves in the dream yeah and the battle him in the dream world it makes it a mental struggle which is much i always preferred to just like what are we gonna do with jason i don't know hit him with something

bigger what if we get a gun and shoot him more yeah you always need some kind of caveat to take down freddie i think i've complained about this on the air before i love the first movie so much but the ending makes no sense it's like oh we just decide we don't believe in you anymore and your power goes away just like you can't just make that up in the nightmare on elm street one yeah it's like it ends on like no freddie one it's true but it's like when they when they quote unquote get rid of him she's just like i don't believe in you anymore you can't hurt me and it's just like well this sucks but that's that's why there's so there's a fake out by him yeah that's why it's an awesome interpretation because the everyone who

was killed comes back to life and they drive away in an automobile where the convertible where the cover is Freddy Krueger colored and he laughs I heard what's such a wacky hated that there's

multiple and there was multiple ending shots he just wanted to make one movie but they keep it open every single time they never close it on Freddy though one joke that's real dated in this

is the idea of like well we're up really late there's only boring things to watch on TV it's like when The one joke that's real dated in this is the idea of like, well, we're up really late. There's only boring things to watch on TV. It's like, well, in a streaming age, that's over. You always have something interesting. You never have to suffer Dick Cavett ever again. I think it was Asian Market Roundup. I love that.

The farm report is four hours early. So when they go into the dreams, I also love the design in the final dream really does remind me of when they have the dreams about freddy's home and the two little girls who are singing one two freddy's coming for you oh yeah it reminds me of the same kind of layout except it's the school i don't know it's really cool i love the way this sequence looks i do wish they had sherry and terry as sing sing a song jump and rope he just did not miss that yeah it's like too much last year and uh but i also love the design of willie has become he has become his beloved tractor oh but this is like a straight-up cartoon dream like this is the most cartoon the simpsons has ever been it rules when i'm done with you i'll have to do a compost mortem Post-mortem!

Sinky son! Ha ha ha! Help! Help! Help! Willie's gone for good. Now I can get back to my normal dreams. Me and Krusty winning the Super Bowl. Bart, there's two seconds left. Now I can get back to my normal dreams. Me and Krusty winning the Super Bowl. Bart, there's two seconds left. Now listen up. It's your basic Statue of Liberty play. With one quiz, you throw it to me. Newt Rockne called it the forward pass. Now, the

clock's still running, so it's important we start this play as quickly as possible. Oh, boy. Don't dream about me no more, kid. Linda, help! Bart, you're in trouble! Wake up! Wait a minute. If you're here, then you've fallen asleep, too. I'm not asleep. I'm just resting my eyes. Uh-oh. So, Newt Rockne, if you want to know

who that is. Ronald Reagan. He was the Notre Dame coach in the early 20th century. He died in 1931, so he was really coaching during those leather helmet days where all the best concussions came from. That's all you need to know. He was played by Jason Momoa in the Drunk History on Newt Rock. Oh, I didn't know there was one.

Okay. Or I'm confused with a different one, but I do know Ronald Reagan played Newt Rock. Doesn't everybody wish when they died they'd be played by Jason Momoa? Jesus Christ. Did he do something important outside of win football games i mean he was just the probably the first name famous name uh in the world of football the first famous norwegian i just love that crusty his his first think of like well the standard football play is statue of liberty which is in case you don't know which i know because they did it in every cartoon it is an overly complicated play that never works.

It's so rarely done in real life. The examples I read about were like only from college games. Like it would almost never work in a professional game. But it is a fake pass. You put your two, the quarterback has both hands on the ball. He then lifts both hands up behind him, pretends to have the ball in his right hand while dropping the ball behind him in his left,

does a fake pass with his right hand while meanwhile the running back behind him has grabbed the ball he dropped behind him. It's called Statue of Liberty because when you do the fake pass, you're sort of in the torch holding up position. I feel like any play that's close to a magic trick should not be on the field it never works yeah it's like where's the ball where's

the ball but if you're putting it in a cartoon show like say tiny tunes or it's on the brady bunch then you're like all right statue of liberty play hut hut hike that sounds like a football play because if you freeze frame any bit of a throw you might look like the statue of liberty i will admit to watching an episode of the brady bunch last night to try on the wiki page for Statue of Liberty play. This is mentioned. And then an episode of the Brady Bunch is mentioned where they say, like, Michael explains to Peter how to do it. And so I looked up the fucking episode and I watched it. I will admit I half watched it, like double speed, but I could not find when he i i will admit i half watched it like double speed

but i could not find where he explains the statue of liberty does jan get her nose broken via statue of liberty play uh no the plot of this one is that uh michael is training for the big game against their rival uh high school team mike well the don't wait peter whoever the oldest one greg greg sorry greg is learning all the plays in his playbook meanwhile jan no she's the oldest one greg greg sorry greg is learning all the plays in his playbook meanwhile jan no she's the oldest brady girl marcia marcia marcia marcia i'm all over this all right marcia is dating starts dating the captain of the football team from the rival school and greg is like he's only dating you to steal our playbook and then greg jealous makes a great plan to create a fake playbook that he lets the guy steal so then they're learning from the wrong playbook but of course uh

mr brady is just like now greg that was wrong you're just as bad as him for tricking him with that playbook so twenty thousand dollars talking brady's hosted by henry and nobody else it was a bad episode of brady's and I couldn't even find him explaining a statue of Liberty play. That episode is called a quarterback snack. Wow. Remember bear in mind, Henry didn't even mention the Terminator two reference in the sink.

Oh yes. Yeah. And the sink. Instead he focused on the watching the Brady bunch. What kind of nerd are you? Well, I also loved they, the transformations with plaid What kind of nerd are you? Well, I also loved the transformations

with Plaid on top of it, of him trying to get out of the sinky sand was great. Yeah, a bunch of split-second transformations. I forgot about that. It reminded me of the wizard fight in Sword in the Stone, actually, all the transformations. That is beautiful.

It reminded me of Feet of Clay Part 2, the Batman the Animated Series episode, where Clayface turns into all the actors he portrayed. TMS is probably best animation in the entire series. That's really sad. It is gorgeous. I also like that he's so clever with compost mortem, but then when he's stuck in the sand, he's just like, Sinky sand!

Sinky sand. All his cleverness is gone. And it's legitimately scary, him rising out of the sand it's really great reminds me of the TV version of It which is awful yes yeah

I haven't watched the new It oh it's great it's a really good Nightmare on Elm Street movie like more so than I haven't read the book

but more so than the original yeah it's just the clown It creating a bunch of fake scary facades built to scare the specific person

so that's why in a Freddy movie the specific person. So that's why, in a Freddy movie, if you have a fear, that's the thing Freddy will exploit. Okay. And it makes less sense as we go on because that girl didn't like roaches and then she becomes a roach.

Nobody likes roaches. Nobody likes roaches. I mean, I get it for like the girl whose parents pushed her into not eating anything and making her bulimic. But yeah, nobody likes roaches. Open wide, bitch.

So Maggie saves the day in very convenient fashion. Not unlike the ending of an Elm Street movie. By plugging his bag hole. Yeah, kind of dirty when you do that. I also like the animation of when they land safely on the moon. It's like they have their own gravity around the moon when they spin around it. It's really cute. I like it.

It's Bob Anderson and his animation team on this really did a lot of great little flourishes, especially in the willy section here. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you.

Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs weird i don't remember saying that part visit dejaden.com care and get insurance that's really big on care did i mention that we care actually yeah finally in a very similar kind of oh, he's not really dead ending to Elm Street, we get a bit of silliness at the end here. I don't know, Bart. Something tells me Willy's still out there and that he could come back any time in any form and kill us in ways we can't even imagine. Stop! I left my gun on the seat!

Wait here, please. The yakety-sax version of the Simpsons theme. We were just going to shoot Bart and Lisa in the head. His final plan was like, I will get off this bus and shoot children in the street. And in Freddy's Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street Part 6, Freddy returns. How? Via bus? In a bus.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he also ends two on a bus, too, doesn't he? Yes, he does. Yeah, I love that ending because in that film, Freddy represents the gay urges of the lead character. Please, if you listen to only one episode of Elm Street Nightmare, please, episode two.

I love his reaction of like, oh, do you think Freddy's back? It's like he's getting a boner. Freddy's like, could Freddy come back? Oh, boy. back when it's just like it's like he's getting a boner like could freddie come back oh boy that's when a girl like kissing a girl cures him of his uh freddie urges it's all takes according to the actor that yet footage from footage from the movie is so gay it played in gay nightclubs in the 80s uh i love that our friend of the show louis pitesman who we should totally man saying this out loud i wish it kind of the show, Lewis Pitesman, who we should totally, man, saying this out loud, I wish it kind of,

I wish I knew how to mom this one. Deputy editor of Buzzfeed Entertainment? Really? Yeah. Wow. We need to have him. I will make this promise henceforth. I will do my best to have him on the next Treehouse one,

because he did. He ranked them all. If you've seen the list on Buzzfeed that ranks every Treehouse segment from best to worst to best, that was all Pitesman and so he we should totally have him on the next one it's best i think kids today don't understand how amazing this cgi looked in the third segment homer cute in terms i just watched the community season six episode where

they go into vr and like that looks intentionally bad this still looks better it looks better and i remember the commercials for this i uh if listeners remember on the bart sells the souls i talked about watching the preview for the whole season that showed clips from like the first six episodes or so when they showed bart saying cool man, or Homer's holy macaroni. I was like, how is this possible? This is impossible. This is the greatest thing that's ever happened. And I will say, it holds up pretty well for being 22 years old

in CGI, but I think the scenes in 3D aren't very funny, but they didn't need to be. They were just a visual showcase. I think the jokes in the 3D world are kind of lame. They count on you being impressed. Yeah, and I was. I mean, we were all impressed.

That carries a lot of it. And they had gone with Pacific Image Data. Yes. Which PDI, who up to this point had worked on such commercials as the Pillsbury Doughboy. He had also done the, which also really holds up, the morphing in the black or white Michael Jackson. They were eventually acquired by DreamWorks

to go on to make ants. And Shrek. And Shrek. And then they were shuttered in 2015 because they made a bunch of crap. Yes, but I do like pointing this out. Toy Story is one month off. The world has not really seen computer animation.

And I wanted to ask you, do you remember when you first saw computer animation? I believe the first time I saw computer animation was at a department store in the TV section because they had some VHS of just a ton of student CGI films, including some of the first Pixar's like the Tin Soldier one, they would play that on a loop and I was spellbound. I was like, Mom, please don't decide on a refrigerator yet.

I have to see all of these. That's moving liquid metal. It's amazing. Probably I saw Terminator 2 before this, but an actual entire animated thing that was all CG was probably that. That's the first time. Early 90s.

I don't really know what it was. Just try it. I know these episodes are old, but there's nothing that feels older than being in a pre-Pixar world, where this show is and still being CG. So unless you were reading the trades, which we might not have been, we didn't know Toy Story was even coming,

that a movie looked like that. And once again, Toy Story changed animation forever. There is no longer any traditionally animated... You can argue it hurt it, damaged it a bit. I think it has one of the most perfect scripts in the world, just like a clockwork script. And I will say, I was exposed to 3D animation with the Dire Straits Money for Nothing video,

which David Silverman designed those characters. Oh, wow, I didn't know that. That's crazy. Well, and he says on the commentary he just wanted it to look better than Dire Straits Money for Nothing video, which David Silverman designed those characters. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. That's crazy. He says on the commentary he just wanted it to look better than Dire Straits. I remember, I can't think of an equivalent technology. Because I remember noticing, when at first something

hit me, I remember it was this Coke commercial where a museum T-Rex skeleton came to life. And I was like, how the fuck did they do that? That wasn't drawn. And it first occurred to me and I found out later that was Pixar. Because Pixar is a company that has existed forever,

has a fascinating history. George Lucas lost it in a bet that was called Howard the Duck. Sold it to Steve Jobs, essentially. And they made commercials because you couldn't afford to make an entire movie about it in that process

because it was so expensive and so time consuming that the only way you could fund that kind of it was so expensive and so time consuming that the only way you could fund that kind of animation was commercial work because the money per second was so high compared to even traditional animation yeah which is by no means cheap traditional animations isn't cheap either and the reason they went to pdi is because they specialized in character animation in 3d where we're talking about pixar their early shorts were inanimate objects moving around like like unicycles

and things like that. And even, like, I read a bunch about Flight of the Navigator, and it's boring to read technically, but, like, watching this guy tell you about, for three years, how their big struggle, all they were trying to do in Flight of the Navigator, was make a reflective surface. And it was, like, fucking impossible, or it could crash in the middle

of it. And, like, that, in 1986, that sold the whole movie reflective technology but i also think pdi really leveled up their game working on this because they learned a lot from david silverman and other like david silverman is a master animator like one of the best of his generation and i don't think it's a surprise that this i think this was the assignment that landed them dreamworks skgz, which would come out three years later. They signed the deal for that. It was directed at PDI by Tim Johnson.

But it's interesting. There's a special feature on the disc that, like, they storyboarded it like a normal episode. So they couldn't really behave outside the lines of what the Simpsons model. So I just thought that was fascinating. It was really great. I think they learned a lot from there's also a funny bit on the commentary

where they say that the animators didn't know what to do with all of Bart's hair but they're like, well, no, there's a toy. Yes. There's Bart toys.

There's even a thousand toys. Just add more triangles. And it still looks weird but yeah, the only CGI I could think of that was on TV before this was the series Reboot which I think was

started in 93 or 94 but... This looks better than Reboot. Reboot looks hideous. And I mean, they had to make an entire TV series. No offense, 90s kids. I mean, I watched it all, but they had to make an entire series for CGI, and they had to cut a lot of corners, but this looks so much better than Reboot.

And we just watched UHF on the Later Time Patreon, and there's that sequence in the Dire Straits video, and like, this is the best Hollywood could do. Three years later, they get to reboot, which still sucks. This is a long process. And then eventually the Donkey Kong Donkey Kong cartoon Bob made us watch last year. I like how

I like how Weird Al replaces the F slur with clamp it. Look at this clamp it. It's true. Oh, and the last thing about PDI though, I think Chris as a fellow Muppet head will love they designed waldo the first cgi muppet which jim henson was so excited to show off in one of his

hints and hour specials and that's another place where i remember discovering cg for the first time and that's the muppets 3d right muppets 3d in the jim henson hour the opening had a lot of cg in it but i'm just trying it was one of those things like hence it was like it's fun to experiment with things and the cg is is part of the future but they still couldn't do a whole episode out of it you got little bits of it so i'm trying to think of some like modern technology like you're not getting trickles of vr throughout the decade until it eventually becomes a standard but yes this looked amazing i don't know how else to put it like if you didn't see this originally this might look kind of like lame especially the water the water looks like ass it's just there to show off really and i will say that

uh it's not the artist's fault that the pdi was shuttered do you remember like it was only 10 years ago where dreamworks reigned supreme and like disney and pixar were trying to catch up won the first oscar for best animated film correct good for them yeah they made lots of great stuff but they were told to make 8 million things. Everything needed to be a franchise. Eventually it was just overload of like, I can't see another smug character. I just can't.

Yeah, and like a Peabody and Sherman movie, that's honestly 20 years too late. Yes, I love them so much. We were too old. They were too old in the 90s. But like, I would have lapped it up then. But speaking of CGI, boy, the Rocky and Bullwinkle in CG, they don't look so good now. I forgot about that.

Not me. I watched a bunch. Remember in the film when Robert De Niro does his taxi driver routine? Are you talking to me? That was his first Dirty Grandpa role. Yeah, it was the beginning of the Dirty Grandpa. There's a trailer for that movie that I haven't been able to find i don't think it's in the actual movie you're like on these animated characters have combined with the real world this is the first time it's happened

and someone's like you mean like who framed roger rabbit this is entirely different i do remember that trailer i do remember that that was good but okay the other thing that inspired this though is a classic Twilight Zone. That's right. From season three, episode 26. Yeah, Twilight Zone, Little Girl Lost, written by Richard Matheson. He's good. Of I Am Legend.

I love being able to say that. And it involves a little girl who just disappears into a portal to a different dimension in a room. It's such a great short story. It's really neat. And this is the father discovering his daughter and Serling telling you what's up what'd you do roll underneath daddy all right honey i'm right here now come on out come on you just crawled underneath the bed tina all right come on take my hand Tina. Tina. All right.

Come on, take my hand. Come on. Open it up. Daddy. Missing one frightened little girl. Named Bettina Miller. Description, six years of age, average height and build. Light brown hair, quite pretty.

Last seen being tucked in bed by her mother a few hours ago. Last heard, aye, there's the rub, as Hamlet put it. For Bettina Miller can be heard quite clearly, despite the rather curious fact that she can't be seen at all present location let's say for the moment in the twilight zone how convenient the scary door i put that that girl just screaming daddy from being nowhere it's terrifying to watch it's it's such a great simple premise and just like that this could happen to anybody this is just for no reason a wormhole can open anywhere for any reason theoretically so it could just be in your wall

and your daughter's just lost and it's it's like we always i think simpsons fans shorthand the name of homer cubed as the tron episode but it's it even the tron even the tron bit is a twilight zone parody like every season so far dimension instead of the fourth dimension which is what's in the influence i couldn't believe that i found is missed yeah that it's visually and the whole thing is visually inspired by missed because missed i think is still pound for pound the second best-selling video game of all time jesus christ and that nobody nobody likes or wants to talk about it anymore. When some jerk tried to make his own Myst game.

But you all played it. What was that game, Bob? Which game? It was terrible. The second Myst? The Prisoner? No, The Witness. Oh, The Witness.

It sucks. Read my US Game Review. Did everybody play Myst? It's difficult to describe. I didn't have my computer. No, no, no. I will say this a thousand times this season,

but Oakley and Weinstein patterned season seven after season three, their favorite TV season ever, and it only makes sense that there's a Twilight Zone parody. They're going back to the Twilight Zone parodies

that were in like three and four. So I didn't see Little Girl Lost until about eight years ago. I didn't know this was a Twilight Zone parody. I didn't even make the connection when it came up on Netflix

that this was the basis for her. Until when it clicked for me was when he drew on the wall in the exact way Frank does it. Oh, right. But I can't believe how much Miss visually inspired it, but the Gracie logo at the end. They changed the Gracie music theme for the Miss theme

for the Scyan opening. Yeah, I mean, throughout the Homer being in that space, there is that very new agey Misty music. And this is the, like, if you open up Miss Cyan, the company that published it, you'd hear this. That definitely sounds like what they play over the credits, too. I didn't know that's what they were going for until researching. You're totally right. I think at this era in time, most people, their first experience with 3D graphics or 3D modeling would be missed. Well, because these are rich dorks, the writers, and so they probably just got their first CD-ROM

drive computer, so they're going to play it missed. This segment is written by a guy with a PhD in computer science. David S. Cohen, yeah. This is proto-Futurama, if anything. There was a bunch of math shit written on Frank's chalkboard that I could tell you what it means, but it wouldn't mean anything to you.

David Cohen is like, this is based on something, something's wager. It also, I love it that there is a... This is Hitler's net. So there's a number in the background, there's a math equation that's wrong. And that Mike Reese tells this funny, I heard him in an interview tell this funny story about David Cohen of like, Mike Reese is also a smart dude. He went to Harvard and learned math stuff there. And he's like,

hey, wait, no, this is mathematically wrong, this thing you put in the background. And then David X. Cohen's like, ah, actually, it is a classic thing that people get wrong, but it's actually proven true through this equation. And it's like, Jesus Christ. The one thing I remember is, uh,

Frink Rules is written out in ASCII. Yes, yeah. That's the early alien-ese, I would say, too. I swear to God, Cohen spends about three minutes on the commentary explaining everything that's written on that chalkboard. It's great. Well, Cohen was totally just in the mood of like, well, this is how we do it on Futurama Commentary. I spend minutes explaining math. I will tell you what all my math things are.

I don't want to make fun of David Exo. He's got a fun voice. He's funny. Why don't we play a clip from this episode? Yeah. Just a second! Huh? I never looked behind this Whatchamacallit case before.

That's weird. It's like something out of that Twilight-y show about that zone. I love that line. Patty and Selma have arrived. Another season three throwback. They want to bore people

with the post-vacation stuff. Yeah, and shelling things also feels like a terrible ant thing to do that seems like fun but is actually like manual labor for nothing. You could just suck them out. It's like a bloody her thing to do that seems like fun but is actually like sheet of manual labor for nothing. You could just suck him out.

It's like a bloody hermit crab mustache. It's like the grossest thing I've ever seen simply animated. Also, when Homer tries to hide in the closet when Bart and Lisa are there, notice that the Homer bowling ball is on the top shelf there, which don't put bowling balls

on the top shelf of things, people. They should really go on the bottom but and i i really want if you watch this again pay attention to the part where both homer and bart enter the cg dimension it's an angle you never see at the simpsons they have to up the frame rate so it looks natural when homer steps through in the 3d it's it's a really it's slow it down it looks like one of the weirdest animated things you've seen on The Simpsons. Bill Oakley was a big believer that that was the moment to sell you, that that had to work. So they put extra effort into that.

So I could see them extra over-animating 2D Homer there. His saying of that reminded me of hearing that George Lucas made them redo the first shot of Star Wars 8 million times. He's like, this has to work. If this isn't perfect, the entire film fails. And I think it's the same deal with this special effects here. Yeah, and that's another thing I wanted to point out. I think this is the beginning of this press release stunt of the Treehouse of Horror. Up until this point, they were just Halloween episodes.

It wasn't newsworthy. There was no big guests. And now The Simpsons, at least three times a year, has a big giant stunt that deviates from form. I think they kind of overdo it now, but it's cute sometimes. A little bit. Oh, glory of glories. Oh, heavenly testament to the eternal majesty of God's creation. Holy macaroni!

Hey, you can just suck them out. Hello? Can anybody hear me? Homer, where are you? I'm somewhere where I don't know where I am. Do you see towels? If you see towels, you're probably in the linen closet again. Just a second. No, it's a place i've never been before the shower

his voice is just like tina's voice from a lot of loss which by the way tina the voice was by a veteran voice actress at the time who had most famously been the brunette stepsister in cinderella oh really villa oh yeah they're awful yeah that was that was uh the voice of tina it was not the girl you see in the episode doing the voice uh but just the homer also the i like the background of that like homer one time was trapped in the living closet. And he was screaming from the house. But I was just like, it's somewhere where I don't know where I am. And we get some more stuff of just seeing, like, other than Homer, everything around him is simple static shapes that will not really move all that much or change.

And it's just easy to light. Ever owned a Trapper Keeper. You probably should know what this imagery is. Yeah, really. It's like floating balls above marble floors. I also just love this bit of Marge's solution to the problem. I don't want to alarm you, Marge,

but I seem to be trapped in here. We better call Ned. He has a ladder. What's going on here? I'm so bulgy. My stomach sticks way out in front and my... Well, as the tree said to the lumberjack, I'm stumped.

It's like he just disappeared into fat air. Hey, shut up! There's totally scoring points off of Homer. It's great. Shut up! It's just beautiful disappearing in the fat air and uh that's also this line doesn't hold up anymore because it doesn't look expensive no no i do love this man this place looks expensive i feel like I'm wasting a fortune just standing here.

Better make the most of it. And they get stuck in the butt with a cone. I gotta shout out that episode of Community. I know most people haven't seen season six, but... I love that episode. And Jesus Wept that Keith David has designed. Jesus Wept, stop saying that! A VR operating system where you physically have to climb a ladder and open a drawer to create a new file. To move a folder.

And it's a very 1995 concept. So is that streaming on the Spongle network? It's on Hulu. It's on Hulu now. It didn't pull a CISO and just abandoned its content. Didn't Yahoo scream that you needed an Xbox 360 just to watch Community? Jesus Christ. They didn't pull a CISO and Chernobyl

everything they made. You just can't even watch. You can't even see it. It's gone. There's multiple seasons of shows like, you're not seeing this. They executed Scott Huckerman. There's comedians with specials like, I don't know where it goes. I honestly love that Dan Harmon et al defrauded Yahoo of money. They're just like,

yeah, we'll see your show. Yeah, he did defraud them of money too're just like yeah we'll see so yeah yeah he did fraud them on money too good for him good for him i hope we can find a cso someday to rip off oh yeah well but if you want to see what actually looks like expensive cg for the simpsons now the simpsons ride is them in cg when you really care about someone you shout it from the mountaintops so on behalf of desjardins insurance i'm standing 20 000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you home and auto insurance personalized to your needs weird i don't remember saying that part visit desjardins.com care and get insurance that's really big on care did I mention that we care

I mean I think it looks alright when I heard about the CGI immediately didn't want to ever go on it for me the ride like everything around the ride is better than the ride itself well the ride has to move in 3D space so they can't do 2D animation wouldn't really work or they could have worked really

hard I don't see that happening. Made a 3D world. We've seen cel-shady traditional animated stuff before. It seems lazy to me. It's not even cel-shaded? No. Weird. No, it's like this. I don't care for that. I mean, they didn't spend the money to get Montgomery

Burns to be the villain, so they're not gonna which she should have been. Sideshow Bob is a fine villain, and Krusty Land is a fine setting, but it's just so weird. Visiting all the Springfields is more rewarding than that ride, I think.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Well, can you imagine? I never went to Universal when it was just the ride in the Krusty Land exterior and not also Springfield. It feels disappointing.

And Hollywood, I think, is getting the rest of Springfield. Oh, it's got full Springfield. It's actually a bigger Springfield than Orlando feels disappointing. And Hollywood, I think, is getting the rest of Springfield. Oh, it's got full Springfield. It's actually a bigger Springfield than Orlando. Yeah, take that, Florida. Because they have to hide more stuff. So, like, say in Orlando they don't have Aztec theater. In Hollywood they do.

Is that a Patreon goal to send us to fucking both parks and be a nerd out over who has what reference? Okay, Bob, I have a question for you. Have you seen the movie Tron? No. No. Do you see a light, Homer? Yes.

Move into the light, my son. No! Homer, this is your physician, Dr. Julius Hibbert. Can you tell us what it's like in there? It's like, uh, did anyone see the movie Tron? No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Yes.

I mean, no. No. Two no's from Wiggum first, and then yes. Wiggum has a lot of Tron shame, so... Don't let me talk too long about Tron. Did Tron flop? Yes. And it was considered to be a bad movie, too.

I said the same thing about tron legacies like is it good you should see it it's awesome is it any good no yeah i mean i i do like kate beckinsdale i don't like her playing a sexy baby woman oh no wait that's not her oh it's not kate beckinsdale no olivia wild that's right okay she's also nice and that and that cg doesn't hold up at all no no the cg The aging down of Jeff Bridges. Oh, no, no, no. But Tron, I love the history of Tron. We were in Olympic time.

You ever see Animal Olympics? I love that cartoon back then. It's too sexy. Turn it down. That is an inside joke in the laser time world that if you ask somebody if they've seen something, then you have to say no like three times. Like Wiglam, too. No, no, no.

Now. But what's his name? Steven, I, no. Now. What's his name? Steven – I need to get his name. The guy he made – how did that work? He was contracted by NBC to make two summer and winter animal cartoons. Olympic cartoons. Animal Olympics. Oh, okay.

And they canceled the Summer Olympics. So like most people didn't get to see it. If you were a little kid with HBO in the 80s, like it ran a lot because it was like a cartoon without a home pretty good billy crystal's a voice in it and that somehow that got the guy to work on tron it's like the most notable thing ever going from animals in the olympics it's like hyper 70s animation to tron and tron tron is something that i think everybody has heard about but hasn't really seen. Well, Disney kind of didn't want you to see it for a very long time. But nerds loved it. They barely made it available, and then they decided they'd make a sequel to it,

which is just like, but you didn't foster enough nostalgia for it by letting us see it enough. Because that sequel was greenlit and shot and made about six months before they acquired Marvel and Star Wars. You will never see Tron again because Disney does not need to tackle that audience with that property ever again but it was a really magical thing for people a little older than me yeah like when you are our buddy dan amrick who is a little bit older than us he he loves his flint arcade t-shirt he i love i have the soundtrack on vinyl it's fucking excellent and i love what i really love about it when tron came out and dis Disney said they were making it, their animators went apeshit.

Like, this is going to replace us. And like, calm the fuck down. Nothing's going to replace you. You're fine. And for 20 years, they were right. Yeah. And now we find out, yeah, it is going to replace you for like three decades. It's the same deal of like, well, cable is being replaced

by the internet, just not overnight. It's like, it's death of a thousand cuts. It did replace you, but at the time, around the point you were going to retire.

But I just love, no, no, no, no. Just use it in your life, kids. But once a year,

I do like to get real baked and watch Ron. It's so much fun that way. It is an entertaining film. I've never probably watched it all the way through without commercials. I think I've only seen it on TV with commercials. That Blu-ray looks so good. I think the game Discs of Tron is not bad for what it is.

There's Tron 2.0. Tron has some good games. Sure. The original arcade game I played a lot. So we get to find out about the third dimension. Told you not to talk about Tron. Here is an ordinary square. Whoa, whoa, slow down, egghead.

But suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe along the hypothetical Z axis there. This forms a three-dimensional object known as a cube or a frincahedron in honor of its discoverer. Hey, hey. Help me! Are you helping me or are you going on and on? Oh, right, and of course, within we find the doomed individual. The doomed individual. I really love the idea of 2D

cartoon characters being horrified by the idea of a three-dimensional object. They just can't handle it. I love that. Well, and also, Frink here is 8,000% Farnsworth. This is all Farnsworth does, except he's just older. But it's the same deal of like, time to explain a thing that I'm interested in. They're doomed.

Yeah, and also like, oh, my, no, you're definitely dead. And also, Frank has an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, which is a great joke. A great joke. I also love the gag of Lisa turning off the light as he says the third dimension. When she says sorry, it's like a season two kind of squiggly smile she's got there. It's stuff that they would not let go in the animation usually there. Then we get another quick Abe joke of him being 100 years old. With his old Big Daddy diving costume.

And then Bart dives in, which when I first watched this, I was like, we're going to get to see Bart in CG2? Oh, boy! I was surprised because being 13 or whatever, I was savvy enough to be like, yes, this is expensive. We're just going to get Homer. And then when Bart jumps in, it's like, holy shit, they got Bart in there, too. The marketing didn't reveal that either. It was a real extra treat i like that a lot and bart's plan to save him is uh not very good no it sucks i can't get any closer you'll have to jump piece the cake son the cage, son. Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! He doesn't even try to jump. He takes it like a half step. He just kind of dives into the hole. Yeah, he does it on purpose. But it's just so beautiful the way

Bart, like also, when there's no ground anymore, the way Bart kind of wiggles in air and is then pulled back I like how he sucked back into the 2D world and they CG animated that rope and it moves pretty good for rope I have to say. Don't look too hard at the top of

Bart's head though. No no. It's frightening Looks like a bowl of nachos. Well as a kid I loved my Bart toys but I also would stare at him like how does this work it's just a ton of little cones on top of his head. But yeah, so then we get to the ending here, which is kind of cute, kind of funny. Bart, what happened? Well, we hit a little snag when the universe sort of collapsed on itself.

But Dad seemed cautiously optimistic. Grr! Oh, me. Be strong, Marge. I'm sure he's gone to a better place. This is no workplace yet. Oh, my God, look at this. Oh, my God, look at this. Oh my god, look at this. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. visually impressive yeah 3d cgi in a real world sorry like well like bart coming in that was one more thing we didn't expect like we knew we were gonna have somer to cg world but not bring homer into our world homer into our world he is reflected in the window to erotic cakes which is also like a little thing they didn't have to do nobody would have judged them for not animating a shadow on him yeah i'm not trying to shame you people for not being around in 1995 i'm just trying to express

how fucking magical this... An episode I was already going to love no matter what they did. This is Grandpa explaining the radio. Yes. Everybody loved the radio. The sound would come across the airwaves and you'd hear it. I will say I just watched a funny Patrick Stewart SNL sketch about erotic cakes. I love that sketch.

In honor of an episode of Laser Time I prepared for you guys. It was all asses, right? All women going to the bathroom. So if you want to visit So women going to the bathroom. If you want to visit the erotic cake store,

go to 13567 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, California. At the time it was a photography store. It is now a cafe called The Coffee Roaster. On our Simpsons field trip, we can visit that place too. We have an erotic cake store a block away, but it's one of those things I've never seen open and just assuming it's a

front for something. It's got to be. Who really wants an erotic cake? Really? That has to be a very small market. You tell me erotic pies, I'm in. I wonder if I got a job at that erotic cake store or something in our universe. Just really stick my face in and

But so, this is the first live action ever filmed for The Simpsons in a regular episode. Springfield's Most Wanted does not count. It doesn't. And David Merkin directed this. Yes. And he got a crane. He managed to get a crane out of the budget for that shot. I love that the commentary is so clear.

Like, Fox could not have been more unhelpful. They really sucked. They did not want to spend any money on this shot. I love that you can see in the shot it was done so haphazardly the crane kind of bobs a little bit. Yeah. If you look in the background, you can see a bunch of pissed off people stopped in traffic. When the crane starts moving, you can see the cars start moving. And you can see the cones as well from when they blocked off part of the oh i didn't see that it's something that like in a real live

action production you would have done it again yeah but that wasn't the point but david merkin and david merkin had filmed actual movies so he knows what it's like to work with a real crane but that's also i now see after re-watching Little Girl Lost is it also ends with a crane up from the street. So I wonder if that was an intentional connection to the Twilight Zone. But the music is beautiful. That's going to be the music taking us out. It's really great. And one last thing I want to say is Oakley and Weinstein were so proud of this segment, and rightfully so.

They submitted this episode for the Emmy, and they lost to the Pinky and the Brain Christmas special, which is also a very good episode of Pinky and the Brain. Which one is that? It's just the Christmas special. I get mad when I hear that. I'm tired of saying it in front of both of you. The WB took those cartoons away from me.

I've never seen Pinky and the Brain. It's a gorgeous Christmas special. It's also moving, but they have so many regrets about this, and Oakley says, we should have nominated Mother Simpson. Emmy voters will not vote for a Halloween thing. They're all old and crusty. They're not going to vote for some scary thing.

Especially one with CGI and blood. But if they have one about warm feelings for your mom, they would have voted for that. I think it would have won. Though, you know, the Emmy voters might have just been like, Simpsons always wins. Let's give it to somebody else. I should have also been going against that. They missed a few Emmys. Yeah, they did. Last year, it was

Lisa's Wedding, that one. Again, a heartstring puller. Which this one was not, but man, this was a good treehouse. Yes, thanks for hanging in with us. We haven't podcasted in a while, so we forgot how it works. We just enjoy talking. We haven't podcasted in a while, so we forgot how it works. We just enjoy talking. We haven't been on Mike since the live show.

So thanks for coming out to that, everybody. Yes, thanks. You can hear that on the Patreon and in the free feed as well. Yes, and thank you so much for listening, folks. I've been your host, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retronauts, a classic gaming podcast. Look for Retronauts in your podcast

device or go to retronauts.com we've been around for 11 years so i say find a topic that interests you and download that episode and you probably will like it if you like me and if you don't like me work on yourself goodbye have you done a missed episode yet uh no no jeremy has okay it's it's one of those things those games it's so fucking important but it sucks it does not age well it bored the shit out of me I never played it

and it I didn't get to say this in the missed rant it masqueraded itself as educational it's like the only game my parents bought me

like god damn it so you can follow this show on patreon.com slash talking simpsons which is home to tons of exclusive things

that are almost too hard to list but I'm gonna give it a try here. Do you have an interview with Dana Gould? We have our live show with Dana Gould. We have our second live show where we talk about Homer's best job. We did every episode of the first season of Talking Simpsons exclusively there. We have all of our season wrap-ups, which you can listen to.

Do you look at deleted scenes? Our deleted scenes specials as well. Doing my best. Every episode of Talking Critic from the beginning. And soon we'll be starting Talking Futurama, which I think you guys are going to really enjoy. We also have a third podcast we're getting ready to start up soon, which will be available a week early and ad free, just like this show is. And if you're a premium subscriber, you get access to one video a month, including me and Bob going over every short of the Simpsons in order. And you can watch it along with us.

And we've got some other really cool interviews are coming, but in the past, not on top of Dana Gould. We also have Bill Oakley, Mimi Pond, Mike Scully, Paul Provenzano, and Reed Harrison,

all folks who had worked on the Simpsons in one way or another. You learn so much from those. I'd be stupid not to donate. Yeah, come on. I feel like I've plugged the laser time Patreon too many times in one way or another. You learn so much from those. I'd be stupid not to donate. Yeah, come on. I feel like I've plugged the Laser Time Patreon too many times in one episode. That's also there. Get that Elm Street Nightmare podcast. Hell yeah.

Yeah, and then there's watching all the Clerks cartoons and doing commentaries for a lot of Kevin Smith movies. I can't believe we had the balls to do it. No, I think that's great. I had to steal the easy bait before you guys did. Bear is driving. And there's tons of Halloween-y classic episodes of Laser Time.

Monster Parties is obviously my favorite, but there's lots of great ones. I liked Facts About Dracula, and no one else did. Facts About Dracula. At that recording, and I think it was two years ago, there was still one person left alive from the Bela Lugosi Dracula movie, and she was in a movie that year. Holy cow. Indeed. Lasertimepodcast.com. We also do 302010. We look

30, 20, and 10 years in the past. Somewhat recently we had to discuss the airing of that 90s show, and my feelings on it have cooled a little bit. I hope yours have too. And Vigigame Apocalypse, our weekly video game show. We do a bonus show every week. You guys have been on a ton, talking about wrestling and other things.. You guys have been on a ton talking about wrestling

and other things. Bob and Henry have been on Bonus Time before. And that's Japan, my trip to Japan. Trip to Japan. And that's exclusive for patrons at

patreon.com slash laser time. That's cool. Oh, and if I may adjust our begging for money too, I should mention I just had a wedding.

So, you know, if you wanted to get a nice gift for old Henry, a Patreon sign-up is always a good gift. Yeah, I agree. So thanks so much for listening to this King Size episode. We'll see you next week for King Size Homer. © transcript Emily Beynon Barsh, don't you realize what this means? The next time we fall asleep, we could die. Welcome to my world.