Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Treehouse Of Horror VII With Louis Peitzman

Episode Date: July 18, 2018

Don't blame us, we voted for Kodos! Louis Pietzman did the definitive ranking of Treehouse Of Horror Segments, so he's the perfect guest for our season eight premiere! We talk about fish heads, debigulators, and most importantly, alien replicons from beyond the moon replacing the 1996 presidential candidates! Listen along and keep twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom! This podcast is brought to you by VRV, the streaming network full of cartoons, anime and more. sign up for a free 30-day trial at VRV.co/WAC and help support Talking Simpsons! Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons!

Attention Talking Simpsons listeners, would you love to hear us give the same treatment to Futurama? Who would do a thing like that? Who could do a thing like that? Then you'll be delighted to know we're doing just that for Futurama's entire first season. Hey, when you look this good, you don't have to know anything. And it'll only be available for people who donate at the $5 level to the Talking Simpsons Patreon. Oh god, no! And along with 13 episodes of Talking Futurama, you'll get all 23 episodes of Talking Critic,

the entire first season of Talking Simpsons, monthly community podcasts, interviews with Simpsons writers, and so much more! Shut up and take my money! Remember, go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to get your hands on podcasts from the world of tomorrow! I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, the only podcast that's full of nude conspiracies.

I'm your host, the very disappointed and terrified Bob Mackie, and this is a chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, a.k.a. Mumbly Joe. And who is calling in on the line? This is Lewis Pipeson with nothing clever to add. That's okay. And today's episode is Treehouse of Horror 7.

These candidates make me want to vomit in terror! Me too. Today's episode aired on October 27th, 1996, and as always,ry will tell us what happened in this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby the yankees beat the atlanta braves to win the world series vh1 airs its first ever pop-up video and stephen king's thinner curses theaters nationwide. So baseball is what will eventually push all of these Halloween shows into November. I definitely felt like starting off at the top with baseball because that's why this is the season premiere as well because they couldn't air earlier Simpsons because Fox had the playoffs that year. Yeah God premiering at the end of

October I was probably in hell waiting for this first season, first episode to air. The latest Halloween episode has aired. It's been November 7th. Oh my God. I was addicted to pop-up video. It was like commentary in Wikipedia's before that. Why was Fabio in this music video? I would find out.

I'm surprised it didn't have longer legs. It's still not on TV today. I feel like there's always a market for that. Didn't they reboot Papa Video at some point or they tried to? You know what they might have I'm just surprised that like it's I didn't hear about it if they did because it was it seemed Like to be such a sensation like it would make you this is sort of the era when people were stop stopping videos on MTV and VH1 as much or they weren't watching them as much and I think that got people back into the idea of watching videos Yeah, revisiting old ones.

I think they brought it back when they were in the afterglow of Return to Relevance thanks to the I Love the Whatevers stuff. Oh, right. Which has now just been replaced by listicles online. And us. Yeah, and us.

I'm your lower-rent Michael Ian Black to sneer at everything. Also, Stephen King's Thinner, that's one of the... I like how weird that one is. I mean, all Stephen King movies are weird, but this one featured Joe Mantegna. I believe this is from the author Richard Bachman, not Stephen King. I'm sorry. Different people.

Totally different. He's the Chris Gaines of the Stephen King world. I remember that Thinner ends after he blows up a Romani village and then he eats a pie to curse someone else. I actually just watched Thinner like two days ago. Whoa. Really good timing. Does it hold up?

Not at all. Aw. I mean, it's, it's deeply offensive. Like I know that, you know, nineties movies weren't great for their Romani representation,

but it's like even worse than I remember it being. Ooh, I forgot about that angle because that's the entire angle of the movie. Yes. I mean, ultimately I can't forgive that, but more, more horror movies need to end with a cursed pie,

the serving of a cursed pie. It also has like the worst fat makeup I've ever seen in the film. It's shockingly bad. Who's the, is Joe Montagna the most famous person in that movie um yes i would say well you know stephen king has a has a cameo as a pharmacist uh named mr banger uh which is which is subtle and uh yeah robert john burke is the the main guy there's no one really famous in it so fat tony himself is starring in thinner this week in history that's right uh well so we're we're at the eighth season but uh our special

guest this week lewis pikesman you uh are a writer for buzzfeed and uh you're a simpsons fan right that is correct actually i i'm i'm a season eight fan this is like the season that i re-watched the most oh wow so i've i've watched this halloween episode countless times i'd always wanted to invite you on here but especially for treehouse of horror because you i other people have tried to write this but i do believe your article ranking all the treehouse of horror segments is the definitive one on the internet well thank you um it was a labor of love that became a burden because now I have to update it every year. And it's not great, but I'm keeping at it. The only thing that was more impressive than that was whoever ranked every Mystery Science Theater episode, but I think they went mad and were committed after that article was written. you just can't rank. I mean, people take on these rankings, like someone wanted to rank like all the Friends episodes. And it's like, it's just an exercise. And I don't know, it's just there's no way you can distinguish those episodes after a while, you're just going to destroy yourself and

your mind in the process. That's true. What was the process for writing that? That was pretty easy. I mean, I do the same thing for for every ranking, which is just kind of like, I rewatch everything, I take notes, and I give a letter grade, in this case to every segment. And then I kind of like I rewatch everything. I take notes and I give a letter grade, in this case, to every segment. And then I kind of just organize it based on that and sort of tweak things as needed. But it's pretty straightforward. And I try to also make sure I'm not just favoring my personal favorites, the things that I grew up with. But they do tend to end up on top.

As someone who's written a lot of lists, they're kind of my favorite thing to write because they make the most people mad for the worst reasons. Well, people get like not only mad, but like just, I mean, yeah, I guess it's just, it's how angry they get that really always surprises me. Like people are very personally offended if your list does not match up with theirs. Who are more offended, Simpsons fans or Disney fans at your ranking of all Disney movies? Oh, Disney fans for sure. What was number one on that?

It was Beauty and the Beast, right? It was Beauty and the Beast. I accept that. That's a good pick. I stand behind. Thank you. And I also do agree with your number one on that. On the Simpsons list too,

the shinning I think is the most, I'd maybe, my personal number one, I think was your number three, Homer Sells His Soul, but the shinning is pretty great. Yeah, I think, I it's it's it's hard to to top that uh what was your history with the simpsons too like how early were you a viewer of it i yeah i mean i was watching as long as i can remember i i like one of my earliest memories

is telling a teacher in preschool that i was watching the simpsons and getting like told that was inappropriate then you knew it was cool. I knew it was cool. I mean, it came on when I was three, and I don't know if I was consciously watching at that point, but I really don't remember ever not watching. It was always something that I watched, and then as I got older, it was appointment TV for me.

And I would get really upset because there was a time when it was on Sundays. I think it was on Wednesdays or Thursdays and then Sundays. I don't remember the schedule. But I remember that whatever day it was, was when I would go to my grandparents' house and I was really worried about missing the couch gag on the way back. I think we covered it. That was a huge deal for me.

It was on Sunday, what, seasons two and three? Season one was Sunday, then it shifted to Thursday for two through five, and then six was when it moved back to Sunday. I had it flipped in my head, yeah. They had to destroy Cosby. Who knew he would destroy himself? Well, the treehouse crosses over. You're a big horror fan as well,

so the treehouses must have been some of your favorites. Yeah, I wasn't always a horror fan, but I definitely, I mean, I always liked Halloween. What gay kid doesn't like Halloween? So yeah i wasn't always a horror fan but i definitely i mean i always liked halloween you know what gay kid doesn't like halloween so i yeah i remember always really enjoying them and and i i also remember being mystified when they would air after halloween because it felt wrong it always did yeah seasons 12 through 13 were always they were the season premieres just like this is and they came after halloween thanks to just the

delays yeah good old baseball. Just air it on a different night of the week if it's going to miss Sunday. Yeah, it's sacrilege to be post-Halloween. I still can't believe it happens. I mean, they even joke about it on the specials now. There have been jokes about how it's now a post-Halloween, Halloween special.

Do you keep up with the show today, Lewis? I do not. I watch Trios of Horror every year to update my ranking, but that's about it. And then every once in a while someone will be talking about something, there was a good episode or something that I should watch, and I usually try and am not convinced.

But yeah, I will continue watching the Halloween episodes until the world ends, which hopefully won't be too much longer. It's coming soon. Sweet release. So we should get into the episode then. So The Thing and I, written by Ken Keeler, he did not know about the movie Basket Case,

but apparently the director of this episode did, and he said he referenced a lot of that movie. And I personally, I love the movie Basket Case. It's the trashiest, sweatiest, New York armpittiest movie you've ever watched. Lewis, have you seen Basket Case before? You know, I never actually have seen it.

I mean, I'm familiar with it, but I haven't seen it all the way through ever. It's about a creature in a basket, of course, hence Basket Case. And basically, he is the brother of a normal human that was removed at birth and almost murdered. And the brother now carries him around in a basket and avenges all the people who wanted to murder him during the operation or whatever. Wow so it's a revenge i like i didn't know that it was a revenge movie i kind of like that and he kills an abortionist whose name is dr cutter not into that uh the puppet doesn't it settles such a commentary i will say the puppet does

rape somebody so um jesus it's not for everybody and it's hard for me to watch now but uh it's a horrible puppet uh well this one is number 19 on lewis's rankings of the treehouse of horror i i think that's a fair space for it too i do also love the opening to this like they don't even do they just cut right to like. Like, Homer lights himself on fire. No parody of the opening. It's just, let's just speed this up. Homer's on fire and screaming. And it's fine. It's fine. And then the couch gag sees them all just die at the feet of death, which it's even funnier that the first one is Maggie.

That Maggie just drops dead. It's like, I wonder if they would question now killing the baby. I mean, in the previous year, we saw them all hanging from ropes, right? Yeah, that's true. Putting a dead hanging baby. Yeah. I kind of like cutting right to the episode, though, I have to say.

You know, like, there's no filler. We got some very, I don't know, longer segments or for whatever reason, they didn't need an opening. Yeah. I think that's admirable. We've moved beyond the age of Marge warning people about the episode.

Yeah, there you go. You don't need it anymore. And they're always pressed for time anyway. This is a good segment, but they want to do a mystery, but there's so little time. They barely have any time for a mystery in this. Though it is pretty cool on second watch that when you know what Hugo is and what he is doing, then the noises, all the sounds make sense. The shadows fit with what Hugo looks like.

Mike B. Anderson and his team on the animation side really did this well. Yeah, and it's great. I recommend that you listen to this episode, the Simpsons episode, with good headphones on or a nice stereo because it's seriously creepy. This segment is actually very creepy. This segment is actually very creepy. Well, in here, after they are awoken to the noises of something upstairs, and we get a little joke of a cat wearing mittens, which Snowball should be more upset of having her feet covered.

But then we get to the morning breakfast. Did you guys hear something moving around in the attic last night? Attic? Oh, that's silly. Seriously, though, don't ever go up there. Homer, isn't it about time for the, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'll go feed it. Fish head, fish head.

Okay, we have to talk about fish heads. It's like the one pop culture reference in this episode. Homer is singing the 1978 novelty song Fish Heads by Barnes & Barnes. We do have a clip of this amazing song that I first heard on a Dr. D heads, fish heads. Roly-poly fish heads. Fish heads, fish heads. Beat them up, yum. They can't play baseball. They don't wear sweaters.

They're not good dancers. They don't play drums. That's fish heads. So Barnes and Barnes, those aren't their real names. They are two people playing identical twins in this comedy musical troupe. One of them is Bill Moomy, a child actor who was on Lost in Space in the Twilight Zone. I did not know that. In the 70s, I think he just did a ton of drugs and started this comedic music group.

And they have done way more than just fish heads. I have another clip. I was diving into the Barnes and and barnes discography for this uh episode no one will ever date me again but i know so much about them now uh my favorite song that i found is the song i had sex with pac-man off of the album i had sex with et and imagine if weird al was uh imagine if weird al was part of the dead kennedys and you'll get an idea for what they are and i have a clip of this song too i'm sorry oh yeah you have to hear i had sex with pac-man all right it's part of the Dead Kennedys and you'll get an idea for what they are. And I have a clip of this song too. I'm sorry. You have to hear I Had Sex With Pac-Man.

It's part of the show. Oh, I had sex with Pac-Man. It happened yesterday. Oh, I had sex with Pac-Man. Oh, he won't go away. He gobbles me, I gobble him. We're gobbling all day. Oh, I had sex with Pac We're gobbling all day.

Oh, I had sex with Pac-Man. Hey, it started with a corner, but quickly fizzled out. I see him in my dreams at night, he's cuddling about. I know this love will never die. His spongy face, his hungry eye, the points mount up. It gets me high having sex with Pac-Man. Way better than Pac-Man fever. You know what? I have to agree with you.

I like that more. They even referenced Weird Al Yankovic. I had no idea that this band was a thing. Yeah. I have to check out their entire discography. They've been releasing albums up until 2009. I think they just released one in 2016. So Barnes & Barnes, still doing it.

The Fish Heads people really rode that all the way to uh whatever they do now yeah the the novelty bank though while that i had sex with pac-man song dr demento's not going to play something that dirty oh he would yeah okay i've heard some pretty randy songs on the dr demento program i guess i'm just used to the g-ratedness of al yankovic that i assume that that's what dr demento always is. But because Al Yankovic, if he ever says hell in a song, I'm like, gasp. He never gets that.

He's PG at best. But also that Fish Heads music video, I didn't know this until the untimely passing of Bill Paxton, but that was one of his first things he did. He made the music video for that. He's in it. He edited it.

He directed it. That video is crazy because there's like eight minutes before the song actually starts. It's like weird experimental movie. Again, we're getting really self-indulgent here. This is the one pop culture reference in this episode. So we have to milk it for all its worth. So that's your history lesson on Barnes and Barnes. I just learned from Wikipedia that Eagle Eye Cherry did a cover of Fish Heads.

Whoa. Which I would like to hear now. I should hear that like at my dentist office or something uh my mom was a big fan of fish heads like she before i ever heard the actual song when if we had fish my mom would sing the fish head song out loud i was like this is a weird what are you talking about mom like i and then i think i eventually saw it in the pre-YouTube era because I would of course watch any SNL rerun that aired even the bad 1981 ones and they put Fish Heads on that

they just played it straight on an episode back to the Street House of Horror that Fish Head song was fun too because I think they said that Dan just ad-libbed sang it and they're like that's funny let's just keep it then they had to pay for it. I bet they did, yeah. Yeah.

I wonder how much that costs. How much are the rights to fish heads? I bet we could do it. I would bet Barnes & Barnes is not, they're not asking for much. Like, comparatively, they're not the Beatles. I would hope not. But I don't know. Bill Boomy, he could use the money.

Otherwise, he just appears at conventions signing things of like, yep, that's me. i talked to a carrot in that one episode of lost you can see him at chiller con this weekend i'm making that up but it's probably happening uh what was oh yeah he was he was also in twilight zone the uh that he was the character that bart played yeah it's a good life it's a good it's good the part did that very good but i like how, in general, Homer is very bad at keeping this entire secret. He's like, it's, and this time I said it's, it's, I just like the general continuity of this that they mess around with how Hugo just appeared overnight, but he's always existed. Yeah, they do dip into the Simpsons timeline a bit to mess with it. I do enjoy that. And it's amazing how they were able to keep it a secret for a decade. Until they suddenly weren't.

They just suddenly forgot how to keep a secret. And then they go upstairs to the attic. They check it out. I love the little visual of Maggie holding the lantern and Bart holding Maggie. And there's a lot of Simpsons memorabilia up there. There's the Merriworth phone.

Marge's Ringo painting, one of them. Bart's discarded guitar from the auto show. It's the exact same color, too. I looked up a clip. Some B-sharp stuff and I think the Spine Melter 2000, the chair that Herb got him, rather. Yeah, whatever happened to that? It's so weird.

He just, that chair disappeared. Those vibrating chairs from the 90s, they didn't vibrate for long. I'll tell you that much. We had one of those. And there was an I Didn't Do It shirt as well, so. I like seeing this attic because it also reminds me of the kind of

junk-filled attic full of continuity that they had in Two Bad Neighbors, but they also redesigned it to make it spooky to have, like have tattered window dressing and just like it's too it's a much taller attic than they normally are given and then they have to run away from hugo we get to see hugo in the dark and you can totally see his character outline when you pause it hugo's right there it's it's a really great way they play with the uh the continuity here and here again is hom Homer being very bad three nosy kids. And you know what happens to nosy kids who ask

too many questions? What happens to nosy kids who ask too many questions? What happens? Huh, Dad? I do enjoy that line a lot. What happens to nosy kids? And then they set him free by going in the attic and you had to find out that Homer and Marge left

three kids home alone to wash their car in the rain. They're really bad parents in this one segment. That's a great little joke that explains why they were out of the house, driving around in the rain. It's so cheap. And I like the little misdirect on the vases versus them being in the closet. It reminds me of the shorts, honestly, because there's like three different shorts about... Vases. Yeah, vases or closets, and then just messing around with them.

Yeah. Marge delivers what, I'm going to just say here, our lining episode jingle, I think we should say for Citizen Kang. Yes. There are some really good lines in the other parts. I mean, this is one of my favorite lines from the show, period, but Citizen Kang has some of the best lines ever spoken by humans. Yes. But here's when they find out about Hugo. Do you think it's safe? I don't care. I can't breathe in here.

See, Marge? Who needs a car wash when you can just drive around in the rain? Mom, Dad, we saw something in the attic! You went into the attic? I'm very disappointed and terrified. I love that. It's almost as good as Vomit and Terror. I like it a little more.

Disappointed and terrified. She is accounting both of her feelings at once. She can feel them at the same time. I love the visual of the... Visual? I love the visual of the open door with the claw marks on it. Like that feels like taking straight

out of a werewolf movie or something. And then Dr. Hibbert arrives very quickly after that phone call. Yes, doctor. It's what we've always feared. It's loose. Hugo is loose. See you soon.

Who or what is Hugo? I'm afraid we haven't been entirely honest with you, Bart. You see, you have a brother. So I have two brothers? Lisa, please. Yes, Bart, you have a twin brother. You see, when you were born, there was an

irregularity. A monstrous irregularity. Yes, I remember Bart's birth well. You don't forget a thing like Siamese twins. I believe they prefer to be called conjoined twins. And hillbillies prefer to be called sons of the soil. But it ain't going to happen. Now, normally the birth of Samese twins is a joyous occasion

but unfortunately one of them was pure evil i do really enjoy hibbert meeting marge's scream with oh yeah i'd be shocked too it's like you called me here i like that little scream i don't know it adds a lot for me yeah i like that a lot the uh and and also just that how hibbert's choice choice of words first on conjoined twins and then also saying saying that it's normally a happy occasion but but lisa just gets dumped on twice in the scene it's like quiet lisa and then like hibbert just being very patronizing it's like it's not gonna happen i'm not gonna change the way when did we when did we stop saying siamese twins like when did that become the non-PC way to refer to conjoined twins? I think this was the era in which Jerry Springer would have those conjoined twins that would play country music.

And one was much smaller than the other, and she sort of sat in a high rolly chair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they were promoting the use of the word conjoined, and that sort of caught on from there. Yeah, I remember, I think this episode might have been the first time I'd heard that term, conjoined and that sort of caught on from there. Yeah, I remember, I think this episode might have been the first time I'd heard that term, conjoined, used, and found out that it was the preferred term, especially with,

well, then it connects to that, what was that, the Conjoined Twins movie from the- Dark Half? No, from the Farrelly Brothers. Oh, Stuck on You? Stuck on You, that's the one, yeah. I think that's when it really came up. I think the came up they got the title first and then worked backwards yes i mean i

cashed in my chips with shallow how i didn't follow him that far if you watch the that movie you get to see share play herself oh that doesn't happen very often and i also remember the conjoined twins who were on a different i was thinking of a different pair of conjoined twins who were on a different – I was thinking of a different pair of conjoined twins who were these two guys who – like nerdy-looking dudes. And I just remember this – I didn't watch Jerry Springer directly. I watched Talk Soup. And I remember a clip on there where they asked – someone in the audience asked, like, are you guys virgins? They're like, no. And then they high-five each other.

Oh, my god. Were these the guys that galloped? Hmm. Might be. There were those two guys that they were kind of facing each other? Yeah, these were the facing each other. Oh my God. I mean, were these the guys that galloped? Hmm. Might be. There were those two guys that they were kind of facing each other. Yeah. These were the facing each other. Yeah.

They would sort of gallop. That's right. Oh my God. I mean, I don't want to offend any of our conjoined twin listeners, but you're supposed to devour your twin in the womb. You get rid of that before birth. That's the plan.

Speaking of the dark half. Yeah. Since you mentioned the dark half, which I also just rewatched, I'm, I'm rewatching every Stephen King movie. It's what's happening. Oh, no, that's just why I watched the dark half in Thinno recently.

Not for my enjoyment. I am watching every Stephen King movie, and it's a serious undertaking. I think they later remade the dark half into a TV series with Anthony Michael Hall. Am I misremembering this? That's the dead zone. Oh, the dead zone okay it's a different stephen king thing yes the dark half would be really hard to pull off as a as a series there's not much going on there i mean there's there's 800 stephen king things it's that's true it's kudos to you for being able to watch all of them at least every film i don't know what i signed up for well i'm

doing every film every mini series and know what I signed up for. Well, I'm doing every film, every miniseries, and every limited series, because that counts. But I'm not doing full-on TV series like The Dead Zone, and I'm not doing things that were written by him for the screen, the adaptations, because otherwise I would go insane. I'll only watch the movies he directs. They're the best. Oh, really? So it's just Maximum the movies he directs. They're the best.

Oh, really? So it's just Maximum Overdrive and nothing else? That's the only movie that I own and will watch. I love that trailer for Maximum Overdrive. He's just like looking so bonkers staring at the camera like, I'm going to scare you to death. Yardley Smith is in that movie. She was on a great episode of... It is one of the worst performances I've ever seen in the film.

But bless her heart. It's just so deeply irritating. I had a hard time getting through it. Listen to the podcast I Was There Too with Yardley Smith. She talks about making that movie and how everyone was drunk. Everybody was drunk. He was definitely on cocaine. I mean, he was not just drunk.

Stephen King himself. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was on coke. All the actors were drunk. Because she was like, the set sucked and they just brought out beer for us all the time to calm us down. I remember that movie. She has the line like, he's bleeding like a stuck pig.

I also just watched the... They actually did another version of that story. The story Trucks that became Maximum Overdrive was also made into a TV movie in Canada called Trucks. It is somehow worse than Maximum Overdrive. Wow. At least Maximum Overdrive. Wow. At least Maximum Overdrive looks like it has some money.

Like, some budget to it. I mean, they could afford to license Marvel Comics character the Green Goblin for it. It's very confusing why the Green Goblin is so central to that movie. Yeah, I mean, for a long time I thought that was a Spider-Man movie. I'm not even kidding. I never saw it. I'm like, well, Spider-Man

must show up at some point. I know this goblin guy's associated with him. Spidey will save us. In the flashback to their birth, I really love, this is some stuff they wouldn't do in Current Simpsons. I don't want to just complain about Current Simpsons, but in this flashback, it looks just like his birth in the season three episode, I Married Marge. Yeah, Homer, Marge, and Hibbert all have the same haircuts from that episode. It specifically dates it to 1980, which also doesn't work with a 10-year-old Bart. But still, I like that they went to that effort. I feel like they do that now.

They just look the same, or I don't know. They wouldn't have the same attention to detail. Or they'd make it that Bart was born in 2008, which is just depressing. I don't know they they wouldn't have the same attention to detail or they'd make it that they were you let bart was born in like 2008 which is just depressing i don't like it's stressful i hate it yeah just the in general aging up of bart is no no fun i i also i love marty's reaction to the biting and just the way she like grabs her chest of like think i'll bottle feed that one and uh i mean after you watch it once, it's the Joker's room, but I like the paper cutter gag.

Yes. There are two jokes about him about the cut something and it's not the conjoined twins. It's pretty great. And then we get another, one of my, there's so many great lines in this episode.

I love this one so much. But what to do with poor Hugo? Too crazy for Boys Town. Too much of a boy for Crazy Town. The child was an outcast. So we did the only humane thing. We chained Hugo up in the attic like an animal and fed him a bucket of fish heads once a week. It saved our marriage.

You expect me to believe all this? If any of it was true, wouldn't I have a big hideous scar? We've got to find Hugo. We'll search out every place a sick, twisted, solitary misfit might run to. I'll start with Radio Shack. Right. Bart, you stay home and tape the hockey game. Homer has

other priorities. I love that in the Simpsons world there is a place called quote, crazy town, unquote. And that's a place where you send the crazy people but they can't be too boyish yeah too there's an age limit it's crazy town and that i also love how they have to rush through like all the plotting consistencies here just like the margin homer i have to say so quickly like yeah we chained him up in the attic and fed him fish heads uh a buck of the fish heads a Goodbye. And Bart suddenly seeing a hideous scar down the side of his body.

That he'd never noticed before now, ever. They cram a lot of story into this, what is it, eight-minute segment? Yeah, even more like six with the opening. They barely have time in this one for it. They zip right through it, which I love. Same with the, there's no real reason for them to abandon bart at home alone but the hockey game is such a great such a great bad reason for it we're pre-dvr folks he's got to stay home hit that vcr button also homer famously a fan of hockey he loves he tapes every

hockey he likes uh betting on children's hockey right oh yeah that's true i also uh radio shack does that can you even go to Radio Shack anymore? Are there any left? There's a Radio Shack like 10 minutes from here. Oh, I was going to say there was not any, so I'm clearly misinformed. I guess, is that Radio Shack still open, the one? It is, and I don't know how or why. I mean, I assumed it was just for like grandparents to go to, to buy you disappointing Christmas presents, like a radio control car with a wire attached to the controls once every few years if i need a power cord asap i gotta go to radio shack it's kind of my only option in this area i think i mean i still think technically there's a couple blockbuster videos still open just thanks to like in alaska they're only in

alaska they're only in alaska yeah mean, technically, they are still open. I actually think they're not part of the Blockbuster company. They're just, have all of the signage and everything. They're just independently owned.

Oh, okay. I worked at a Blockbuster video, rented many scary movies there. It was no fun, and I'm glad they're gone. They deserve to die. So Bart is left alone, and Hugo finally

makes his appearance. You're here. Aren't you? to die. So Bart is left alone and Hugo finally makes his appearance. You're crazy. Am I? Well, perhaps we're all a little crazy. I know I am. I went mad after they tore us apart. But I'll be sane once I sew us back together. But you'll kill both of us. No, it's easy. Look, I've been practicing.

I made a pigeon rat. Well, let's get started Hey, the pigeon rat survived Yeah It's not a good life Though I don't trust He's having to sew himself together there That is true So I have a feeling he won't do that

Not as much control So we did Talking Futurama The first season of Futurama Available only on our Patreon And having watched all of the first season And doing all my notes and research for that, I do hear a lot of Futurama-y lines in some of these, especially when they're written by Futurama writers.

So this segment is written by Ken Keeler. And the line of dialogue, am I? Well, perhaps we're all a little crazy. I know I am. It's a very Futurama-y line. It's like when a character immediately contradicts himself in the same three sentences,

I feel like that is a very Futuramaama futurami dialogue i just want to say that the pigeon rat is one of my favorite designs of anything ever why was there never a pigeon rat like plushie uh i mean i'm sure if you go on etsy there are but i want an official simpsons someone made that or at least someone is probably taxidermied a real version of that oh for sure that's got to be real that had to happen in like november of 1996 well i think that uh that pigeon rat i would maybe it's come as an accessory with other simpson toys the hugo toy i wonder if there was a hugo toy uh maybe to take a look but i think the uh i also like the pigeon rat design i thought it was very futurama-y just the ridiculousness of it and the uh i like just the blank, like the pigeon and

the rat have just blank looks on their face. They're not upset either way about being a pigeon rat. They've just come to accept it of like, well, sometimes I fly and sometimes I crawl on the ground. That's just how it is. They adapt well, those creatures. That's true. So I believe, I think the kid robot version of Hugo has the pigeon rat. Oh, nice. Just in the nick of time to say Bart Hibbert is here. There, there, Hugo, I understand. All those years caged up in here,

why, you've probably never even seen your own face in the mirror, have you? Here. We think we saw Hugo at the airport He was boarding a plane to Switzerland Oh You know Isn't it interesting how the left or sinister twin Is invariably the evil one I had this theory that

Wait a minute Hugo's scar is on the wrong side. He couldn't have been the evil left twin. That means the evil twin is and always has been Bart. Oh, don't look so shocked. So Hibbert with absolutely no expression on his face punching a child through a frame is such a great visual

gag. And I think it's popped up in a lot of memes lately and a lot of shitposting. Yeah, I think so too. And that he punches a child through the picture frame. It's just how... And I love how Hugo so trustingly looks at the picture like... And it would be the very pat ending of another

worse story where the monster seats itself in the mirror and has some kind of revelation or something about its existence. But no, it's just a trick to punch him in the face. To punch a child. It's not a particularly clever trick either, which is what makes it really special. No, I mean, Hugo probably has never seen himself in the mirror. So, well, it's good at fooling him. You feel so bad for Hugo that he turned,

he is more monstrous than Bart, but he's nice in every way. Like he doesn't want to kill or hurt anybody. He just wants his bucket of fish heads a week. That's all he wants. I did love that too in the reveal of Hugo that even when he's free, all he does is go to the fridge and get a fish head.

That's all he knows. That's all he doesn't know any better. It's consistent within the episode, too, the reveal of Bart being the left twin. His scar is on the wrong side the second you see it. He was always the left twin, and it is the left twin who's doing all the

biting when they are born, too. And we learn that left means sinister when Flanders failed. That's right. It's the only way I learned that. I was not going to learn it from reading a book of some kind. It seems they need to find a new solution. Well, chalk this one up to carelessness on my part. But I think there's a way to set everything right.

Care for a drumstick, Hugo? Mom, Hugo's eating his napkin Hey, can I have some turkey? Oh, you finish your fish heads, then we'll talk Both of their humane solutions involve chaining a boy up in the attic and feeding him fish heads. I wonder how they arrived at fish heads as a food. Maybe they have a connection with a fishmonger who can get them all the fish heads they want for free. Yeah, I feel it's a fairly inexpensive item.

Yeah, I love that they have to accept like, well, we need a balance here. Someone needs to be in the attic. Bart has proven that he cannot be in the attic and exist, but no, he needs to go upstairs. Ultimately, Bart has committed more evil in the world than Hugo. Hugo was never given a chance to be evil, truly evil. There's been different levels to how evil Bart is. Like, he's sometimes a rapscallion and other times has been in flashbacks seen as the Damien from the open. I also do love that they flash forward to Thanksgiving at the end there too, which, you know, when you're watching this in Halloween, you're already thinking like, oh yeah, Thanksgiving, that's coming up too.

See, they could have aired this in late November and it would have still been time. I would watch, even when it wasn't a new episode i'd watch the reruns on sunday night and it was always funny when in the halloween special came around in like march or whatever same with the christmas episodes too yeah i can do a halloween episode any time of the year but christmas that needs to be in the christmas zone from like halloween till january 1st remember when cartoon network would do the christmas in july marathons i always would think that had to be like some contractual agreement. Like, if you license these shows, you gotta show them twice

a year. The kids need to see the Pac-Man Christmas again. I can't think about Pac-Man the same way ever again after you played that song. God, I mean... The spoiler at the end of that song, it's revealed that Pac-Man left that man to date Weird Al Yankovic.

That Pac-Man, you can't trust him. Did Ms. Pac-Man left that man to date Weird Al Yankovic. Son of a... Yep. That Pac-Man, you can't trust him. Did Ms. Pac-Man exist at that time, or was it pre-Ms. Pac-Man? It was... That's from a 1982 album, so I think Ms. Pac-Man was 83. Oh, yeah. So, okay. I was wondering if it was made in a world post-Ms. Pac-Man, and they chose to have it about still having sex with Pac-Man instead of Ms. Pac-Man.

That's an interesting choice to make. I'm sure people are Pac-Man instead of Ms. Pac-Man. That's an interesting choice to me. I'm sure people are asking, is there a Ms. Pac-Man? But there was no answer until the next year. The Simpsons will be right back. hope you're enjoying your fish heads for this halloween in july episode and welcome to the eighth season of the simpsons and talking simpsons then we appreciate all your support here and did you know that every season at the end of it we do a season wrap-up where we go over all of the news and events that happen in the world of the simpsons and pick our favorite episodes and favorite characters of the season and do a whole deleted scene special well we do but it's only on patreon you can only hear

it if you sign up at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for just five dollars a month you get access to that and tons more things including every episode of talking simpsons a week early and ad free you can also hear all of our cool interviews that we've done over the years including our most recent one with mike reese executive producer of the simpsons for almost 30 years who wrote a brand new book springfield confidential and he tells us all about it not to mention you get access to the entirety of talking futurama where we go through the entire first season of talking critic where we covered the entire critic series even the webisodes check out all that and so many more things at patreon.com slash talking simpsons we also do a weekly podcast called what a cartoon do you love how we do our talking simpsons style deconstructions but wish we did it for every cartoon well we're

doing our best with this show where we go through a different episode of a different show each week we've done rocko's modern life we've done batman the animated series we've done king of the hill we've done anime like cowboy bebop we've done samurai jack we've done so many shows and you can check those out on itunes or at the rss feed or if you sign up at patreon.com slash talking simpsons on top of your simpsons content you'll also get what a cartoon a week early and ad free and. And if you'd like to watch along with some of the tunes we do on What a Cartoon, many of them are available on Hulu, and you can get a free 30-day trial of Hulu on us at tiny.cc slash tshulu. That's tiny.cc

slash t, as in talking, s, as in Simpsons, Hulu. If if you go there you can sign up for a 30-day free trial of hulu and it's a great way to support the show on top of going to the patreon tiny.cc slash t s hulu so then we move on to the genesis tub which lewis ranks as number 10 all time of the halloween segments so this is a parody of the twilight episode, The Little People, and that is currently on Netflix. Have either of you seen this episode before? I think I must have, but I don't remember it. It's pretty stupid. I'll explain it.

So like a lot of Twilight Zone episodes, it's two people having a very stagey argument and saying each other's names a lot. But I find that very entertaining. So what happens is two astronauts have to make an emergency landing on a planet. One of them is very sensible. The other one is very like brazen and sort of like shiftless. And that guy finds a tiny civilization and he decides that he's going to be their God. And he goes insane and they build a giant statue of him. And he basically makes the other guy leave him alone on the planet. Like, no, I'm going to be the God of this planet. You just get the hell out of here. And then immediately after that, two larger people show up and crush him to death.

It's a very stupid ending. What a twist. And even Rod Serling. I like it. I mean, it's fun in a way that, like, my favorite Twilight Zone episode are the ones where someone just gets fucked over by the world for no reason. Like, when the guy breaks his glasses, there's no message there. there like rod sterling does not try to spin his way out of this episode have a backup pair of glasses at all times exactly it's about it's about planning to me but uh yeah i mean it's it's fun it's goofy and it's just uh just two people arguing in front of

a rock for 20 minutes but um it's uh uh not a lot of it has to do with this episode uh in fact even the ending is way different But you can see some similarities here I think the guy also, like Bart Cruelly crushes them with his finger But that's what makes them Think he's a god and not the devil Like an angry god

They blame themselves, just like we do With religion But I do know in that episode That the sensible one is played by claude akins aka lobo lobo sheriff lobo bring back sheriff lobo now he's great in that i actually didn't know this was a twilight zone episode until a 2002 episode of south park then referenced this episode oh you're right which that would be the uh the season six episode seven of south park called simpsons did it which not as big a fan of the South Park now as I was then.

Not even a tenth as big a fan. I'm pretty much done with South Park, to be honest. But I did like this episode when it was new because – so they wrote this episode. It was about the Professor Chaos character, and they then wanted a story where he blots out the sun. And then somebody told them, like, like well the simpsons did that like a year ago or no they did that like six years ago and they then became obsessed with the idea of like any idea we have the simpsons already did we're going to copy it and this genesis tub bit actually is the resolution to the episode which i'll play now very impressive eric what do you

intend to do with your underwater society i'm going to send a message to my people and tell them to develop a great machine that will shrink me down to their size so I can live amongst them forever. Ah-ha! Ah-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! The hell is wrong with you, Butters? They did that on The Simpsons!

Ha! Treehouse of Horror, Episode 4FO2, The Genesis Tub. Lisa loses a tooth, and the bacteriana starts to grow and makes a little society, and they build a statue of her thinking she's God. Ha! Ha-ha-O-2, the Genesis tub. Lisa loses a tooth, and the bacteriana starts to grow and makes a little society, and they build a statue of her thinking she's God. Ha! Ha-ha-ha! So? Yeah, so?

Dude, the Simpsons have done everything already. Who cares? Yeah, they've been on the air for, like, 13 years. Of course they've done everything. Every idea's been done, Butters, even before the Simpsons. Yeah. In fact, that episode was a ripoff of a Twilight Zone episode. Really? So I shouldn't care if I come up with an idea and the Simpsons. Yeah. In fact, that episode was a rip-off of a Twilight Zone episode. Really?

So I shouldn't care if I come up with an idea and the Simpsons already did it. It doesn't matter. Boy, to think of a time when there were only 13 years of the Simpsons, and also to hear Isaac Hayes... So quaint. So quaint to think about that. There's been 13 whole years of the Simpsons. Now we're gonna hit season 30 next year. Or this

coming year, I think. In the summer or fall, yeah. And yeah, also hearing Isaac Hayes, it's like, oh yeah, before he made the split with them over Scientology, which, sad, sad. And Butters had the production code right, this is 4F02. I forget what 4F01 is, the first production episode. I think that is You Only Move Twice. Oh, you're right, yeah. That was the first one in the order.

But hey, I remember we interviewed Dan Graney, and he was, because he wrote this segment, and we asked him about this, and he was jealous in the reverse way of just like, well, South Park now beats, Simpsons can never do current event stuff sooner than South Park. They always, they get beat by months to any current events thing.

It's impossible for them to catch up. But so no one corrects us, 4F01 is Lisa's date with density. Apologies, sorry. I'm no one corrects us. 4-F-O-1 is Lisa's date with density. Apologies. Yes. Sorry. I'm so glad you checked that. Yes.

Fall into the start here with Lisa and her test. Testing out her tooth. This tooth will be perfect for my science project. Science has already proven the dangers of smoking, alcohol, and Chinese food, but I can still ruin soft drinks for everyone. Hey, Lisa, check out my science project. How? What's that supposed to prove?

That nerds conduct electricity. Ow! It's also like a Twilight Zone episode in that its scope is pretty much just Lise's bedroom. Yeah, pretty much. So according to Snopes, the Coke dissolving a tooth thing is an old wives' tale. Can't happen.

Like, that it would... Is that true? I always believed that. According to Snopes, multiple... They have quotes from multiple sourced scientists saying, like, no, it won't destroy a tooth. Like, it couldn't even destroy, like, a fly's corpse overnight. They showed off in there. But Bubble Yum is still full of spiders.

How many, like like kids and tried to do that science experiment at some point and were disappointed that their teeth did not dissolve i know so many that's why it's such a perfect like little kid science experiment that i mean yeah little kids have access to teeth to like yeah free teeth well they also when people talk about the tooth decaying nature of soda it's like well you don't keep soda in your mouth for 24 hours like you do with the teeth i do i like to go to sleep at night holding a bunch of soda in my mouth well also lisa mentions chinese food that is goes to the fears of msg which which has been debunked heavily debunked and msg is delicious i believe the fear from msg

was people would be allergic to it. And that's why you'd see a lot of restaurants saying no MSG. But it's like the secret like sixth flavor or whatever. Yeah, it's umami. Is it related to umami? I think it is, yeah. No, MSG is tangy. MSG is the flavor that goes on Doritos.

Oh, okay. It's that kind of sour, delicious, tangy flavor that's on like most chips. I call it monosodium glutamate. You should sprinkle MSG on everything. It is delicious. And a lot of that, that fear mongering was super racist. It was all about, you know, Chinese restaurants and, you know, what they were putting in the food. So yeah, I mean, we should all eat more MSG. Growing up in the Midwest, I did not eat Chinese food until I was like 18 because the, the rumors were they're dirty their food is

dirty yeah no the msg fear is is so racialized that until the 80s uh and maybe into the 80s even the common term was chinese restaurant syndrome oh my god that's that was the official title for it that's crazy i didn't even know that and then it just spread from like in the 50s, a Chinese restaurant was a new idea still for very much of America. And the idea of like, oh, I tasted something I don't understand. And then my neck started feeling weird. I got some numbness in my arms and it's all seemed pretty psychosomatic. I think a lot of it is just that like Chinese food is also very salty. And if you eat a lot of very salty food, you feel a little weird afterwards.

Yeah. I think that's why Americans started making up their own bad Chinese food, like chop suey. Just like, well, this could be Chinese food, honey. It could be anything from the far off east. So Lisa is wrong. Chinese food has not been ruined. Another Futurama dorky. All this science stuff definitely feels very futurami that it's a very

nerdy joke the idea that your microscope is at 1x there's a 1x setting on your microscope you have to be a nerd to even think of that and then lisa awakes to quite a discovery the next morning tiny little people my god i've created life. Lisa, breakfast! We're having waffles! Ooh, waffles. Hey, these aren't waffles.

These are just square pancakes. I'm sorry, honey. The waffle iron's in the shop. Waffle iron's been in the shop forever. Oh, how are my little Stone Age tub dwellers? Oh my gosh. They're evolving so quickly. They've already reached the Renaissance.

Wait. One of them is nailing something to the door of the cathedral. I've created Lutherans. I really enjoy it. They have so little time in these segments that they waste time sending Lisa to the kitchen to be disappointed with square pancakes. It's a great joke. I don't know. It seems worth it to me. No, I like it.

I like how they're squandering the more interesting science stuff with pancake disappointments. It's a very Simpson thing to do. First, the idea that Lisa finds waffles more exciting than creating life. And then second, that Marge, I mean, the work Marge puts into making square pancakes, too. That's so funny, dude. I find in general, it's much harder to find waffles than it is pancakes at restaurants. So, like, for some reason, I don't know,

they just don't want to go through the effort. But a good waffle is so good. I mean, it's the same starchy junk either way, which I love. I want to cover it in syrup and eat all of it. Cornmeal. Cornmeal waffles. Try it. The waffle iron has been in the shop forever. It's like, what? Just get a new waffle iron. That's a lie. They just tell the kids that lie.

You're right. I realize now that also I'm going to have to count on one of our more religious nerd fans to tell me how that Martin Luther joke... I mean, I know what it means. Yeah. Martin Luther nailed the theses to the door of the church and basically created Protestantism. And that was a long, long, long, long time ago. And so she created Lutherans. And fortunately, Protestantism had none of the problems the Catholic Church did. Nope, nope. They're all fine.

Bart arrives and causes some trouble. Wow, it's almost like seeing into the future. Hey, what is this goo? You trying to grow a friend? Hey, you built a model city. Is that the school? Whoops, my finger slipped. Oops, my finger slipped.

Oops, my finger slipped. Bard, stop it! Oh, my poor little guys. That Bard is so rude. So in the Twilight Zone episode, the guy starts smashing stuff not to get even with anyone or not to mess with anybody. He's just a budding sociopath. What would happen if I crushed these people?

That's scarier than Bart. Bart's an innocent sociopath. But I at least like to read that Bart at this time doesn't think they're real. Yeah, yeah. He thinks it's fake. When he says model city, yeah yeah it's fake when he says model city he thinks it's fake though i love that lisa has like almost a stephanie on full house reaction to a holocaust like a little people how rude so many are dead and lisa is just like how that party is so rude

how many people are there i mean it's not really that much room right it's a pretty big microscope is uh you know making it look i mean i guess there are going to be a lot of them shoved in there it's a pretty nicely sized city once we get down in it i you got to figure everyone in the city is there when lisa gets teleported down and that looks like thousands of people at least a thousand i also like that they everything is central to the tooth when they go this is skipping ahead a little bit but when you just see in there that everything is central to the tooth they all built around the tooth the tooth is like their church the one church one of the guys has like a scepter with the tooth on it too yeah it means everything to that i i just love that silliness too and then we get not good for audio spaceship battle which

is like it's insane that on this tv show they basically do like a Star Wars trench run on shooting Barts with spaceships. It kind of reminded me in anime when they'll do like a first person perspective shot, like in animation of someone moving down a hallway or someone like running or like a car driving down the road. Like they use the computer to figure this out. This is not computer animated, but like with the pan around the car in Bart on the Road, they use the computer to figure out the logistics of how the camera would move

and what everything around the camera would be doing. So that's why this looks so good. I especially love them going over the blanket towards Bart. And then they have a very cartoony thing of flying between Bart's ears as if there's nothing between them and shooting inside of it. And the smoke coming out of his ears,

he's like, ugh, like, ouch. I would think somebody flying through my brain would kill me yeah it should and then we get another like great line i just love the uh the alliteration of this line yeah your micro jerks attacked me well you practically destroyed their whole world you can't protect them every second. Sooner or later, you let your guard down and then flush. It's toilet time for Tiny Town. I think of that like once a week. It's not even like a great joke, but it's a toilet time

for Tiny Town. It's fun to say. It is. It really is. I think about it, but it's not one that you really can reuse. The best Simpsons lines you can reuse in real life, but Toilet Time for Tiny Town doesn't have any practical use.

Oh, I gotta give tons of reasons why I would say that on any given day. When I get rid of my Lego city, it's right down the toilet. Again, if there wasn't Citizen Kang, that's a contender for line of the episode. And I also forgot how fast this episode goes. The second Bart's gone, she's teleported away.

They had to move so fast. She's debigulated, Henry. Oh, pardon me. And I have to say, also, the little halos of science stuff going around her, that is taken from the movie Metropolis, the first version of that movie. The classic one from the 20s. The robot radiates that, I believe. Yeah, it doesn't work as a de-bigulator in that, but the visual effect is the same. And I remember, too, to go back to that Dan Groening interview, I accidentally thought that this came before he invented the word embiggen. And so like, oh, it's kind of like this prefigures in Biggin, this Debigulator. And then later he like texted me to correct me like this actually came after in Biggin.

So I did not steal for myself with that. And Biggin came for her. Okay. Like I want to say that David S. Cohen, creator of most of the fake words on The Simpsons, he created Debigulator, but then Dan created Rebigulator. Is that how it worked out i think based on the commentary uh dan grainy makes a joke like my job is to like one up david cohen's fake words well i just love d uh the dan grainy he remembers he has seemingly one of the best

memories for who came up with what joke well usually whether it was him or whether it was not well you had to think of all the intense rivalries happening in that room. Like, oh, I wanted that joke. I'm funnier. I would have been. I would have exactly been that person. Oh, me too. So I also love that in the world that Lisa created, somehow through evolution, a Frink

exists within it as well. Yeah. I'm glad that there weren't different versions of every Simpsons character. Frink is the only existing Simpsons character to just be there. Just a Frank. Yeah, let's hear. Well, not that we see. The others could be somewhere else. That's true. They could be just off screen. There is Bill Watson, my favorite character.

It worked! The De-Bigulator worked! Hail Lisa! Welcome to our world, most gracious Lisa. Your world is incredible, and you speak English. We have listened to you speak since the dawn of time, O Creator,

and we have learned to imitate you exactly. You think I'm God? But of course. You looked down on us from heaven. You gave us life, and only your divine intervention can save us from the devil. The devil? What devil? The one you call Bart. It doesn't make sense Bart is the devil. It's really creepy the way they wail at even hearing his name.

He just caused like 34 9-11s. Yes, yes. Not very long ago. The worst thing that's ever happened to them was done by Bart. I think this was a very stupid plan of theirs of like, well, how are we going to stop the devil? Well, we'll shrink down God to our size and then we'll ask her to fix it. I thought that was going to be the end of the Twilight Zone episode

where the guy is like just cursed to be living in like the little town. That would have been better. He gets shrunk down to their size and then see how he likes it but ultimately he is made to be small based on the two huge other astronauts that show up at the end and crush him to death it's pretty cool you should you should write a letter to rod serling and let him know i'm gonna etch it onto his tombstone yeah either way uh it's the most respectful way to do it and uh and, yeah, they think that Bart... This is just such a funny segment of like, well, what would you ask God if God was in front of you?

I really love Hank Azaria's normal-ass guy in this tiny world. So great. God, hi, Bill Watson. I live in the Clark building. I have a question. If you're so good, why do you allow bad things to happen? Boy, am I so fat. Why do bad things bad things to happen? Boy, am I so fat. Why do bad things

happen to good people? Listen, I can take care of everything. All you have to do is unshrink me. Unshrink you? Well, that would require some sort of a rebigulator. It's a concept so ridiculous it makes me want to laugh out loud and chortle, but

not at you, oh holiest of gods, with the wrathfulness and the vengeance and the blood rain and the hey, hey, hey, it hurts me. Look, the destroyer, he returns. Help! My son! Apparently there was a lot of scenes in this or just a chunk of stuff they had to take out about how bad it was to live in the Clark building.

Apparently the Clark building was a real hellhole they love that clark bill so i i wonder doesn't time pass differently down there like do we i don't overthink this but oh no i think we're evolving that quickly shouldn't the time be totally off i mean wouldn't lisa be an old woman i was over barn. I was definitely overthinking this quite a lot. Me too. That Lisa, time is accelerated to the point that like, that every time she looks away, a millennia, at least 200 years passes. But then once Lisa's there, their time has just stopped. And they seem to live as long as she does. Instead, like, she should be watching them live and die in front of her in

super speed but that's not as funny or the rest of the world outside of the um outside of the tub should be going super super slow like barely perceptible yeah like she should just be in like in the room for the rest of her life with nothing changing it's true yeah that's very dark it's a very dark ending that that's more dark in this style of like i have to say one of the most disturbing we talked about it when it appeared last year but one of the most disturbing simpsons treehouse ones ever might be homer eating himself and that would be on the level of homer eating himself that was that was hard to handle it was oh where did where did that one rank lewis sorry this just off the top of my head i was curious i don't i don't remember um i did find it to be very disturbing yeah just the way homer walking

around with less of himself beneath hiding beneath of him it's like just like carving parts of his body off yeah just uh you know i'm gagging let's move on the uh so we get to the we get to the end here and the milk carton ukulele for martin is one of my favorite visuals he's so disappointed and this is no diorama rama but i do enjoy how uh at the end willie's order to throw away all the experiments immediately first rate work part this universe you've created is even more impressive than martin's milk carton ukulele willie you can throw out the other projects. We have a winner. Principal Skinner, wait!

I created the universe! Give me the gift certificate! Oh, great. I'm stuck in this lousy tub for the rest of my life. Shouldn't you people be groveling? And bring me some shoes nice ones she'll want socks too i'll get socks it's a good act break they knew how to make socks in that world just from seeing lisa above them it's very advanced society outside of the clark building i love how just empty willie's eyes are too as he's just throwing away all their sides. He doesn't care.

He does not care. Willie don't care. The, all right. So then we get to the best one of this episode, the number two on Lewis's rankings. Like, so Lewis, do you recall why,

what, what ultimately made this be your number two choice on the, the ranking of segments? I mean, I think that it's, it's definitely the most quotable of all the treehouse of horror segments i i would say um it's probably my personal favorite i think that i i tried to be a little bit objective in terms of like overall quality but i think that

like personally it's my favorite yeah there's just so many good lines here it's very politically cynical which i enjoy it could only happen in 1996. Like this was, I think back to how they try to make so many Simpsons episodes timeless. And this one only works for nine days. Yeah. Yeah. And we should remind people in case you forgot the production schedule of the Simpsons, this was likely written towards the end of 95 or the very beginning of 96. So I believe at that point, it was pretty clear that Bob Dole would be the front runner in the Republican party for the nomination. The rest of them were just total wieners,

I guess. Bob Dole isn't a wiener. He's a wiener of his own, of his own brand, but he was the strongest wiener. And he was a veteran wiener. Well, I just said,

what a visual. Well, he built a, he eventually was a spokesperson for strong wieners so uh it's true yeah i had a uh high school teacher who was uh he was his main job was a preacher and he got to be a teacher in high school i'm just like what the fuck like how are you allowed to do this it was 2000 and he was uh the run-up to the 2000 election and he was so offended that bob dole did boner pill commercials he was so amazed like my candidates are better than doing boner pill commercials listen get over it he did also like a master card commercial commercial where he like he comes home and everyone remember doesn't remember bob or they they remember him and then they ask for ID or something.

Yeah, yeah. I remember that. I don't know why. I have a lot of Bob Dole memories. I remember that I had a very visceral nightmare about Bob Dole during the 96 campaign that I'll never forget. He was a very charismatic guy. But I mean, people need to get over the fact

A, Bob Dole kills people. B, Bob Dole fucks. Just get over it. And Bob Dole kills people, B, Bob Dole fucks. Just get over it. And Bob Dole, still alive, and he will be alive long into the future. He is 94 years old, and I feel like we should play the anti-death jingle to ward off the curse of talking citizens. Please, please do it. Damn buzzards, I ain't dead yet. Yeah, Bob Dole is still hanging in there

And as Dale Gribble says, he's a fake in that dead arm Well, I don't know how much you've seen of Bob Dole lately He pretty much, he can just get on the phone and shout Just kind of wheeled around If you want to see a very depressing picture, it's him Surrounded by the other Republican ghouls giving him an award last year all he can do is dial and yell but and then he is i looked up bob dole as well and unlike a lot of his republican assholes uh that he came up with he actually isn't even trying to pretend to be distant from our current president like paul Manafort worked on his campaign. Oh, right. He sent him to the Trump

campaign. He worked with them. He is more friendly to, he was the only pre-living Republican nominee for president that went to the RNC the year Trump was nominated. Like, that's how cool he is with our current president. He can't even pretend to be offended by it. So he, Trump is invited to his funeral. Yes. Okay. I'm sure he's sending out those invites soon. I mean, you got to think about these things. But I also want to say that I think what made him a very, I mean, of course he was running for president. He was very popular.

What really put him in my mind as like a comedic figure was Norm Macdonald's admittedly terrible impression of him. Even Norm Macdonald will say that. He's like, it was a terrible impression. I don't do impressions. Well, he did a good Larry King. I'll say that. And a good David Ledman.

What am I saying? He does some good impressions. But Bob Dole does this. Bob don't do impressions. Well, he did a good Larry King. I'll say that. And a good David Ledman. What am I saying? He does some good impressions, but Bob Dole does this. Bob Dole says this. That was his entire impression. Like just saying Bob, did Bob Dole speak of himself in the third person a lot? It happens once in this episode. I think he did. Right. I thought he, I thought that was his thing. Or maybe I just like believe that now because I was ruined by, by the impression. It could be one of those Carvey things where Carvey created like a new character based on George H.W. Bush that wasn't really him. And we just sort of took that as the real person over time. we all extrapolated from it but also i can't i knew bob dole when i was 14 and i saw way more of the impressions of him in things that i saw yeah it was like and i'm kind of surprised so phil hartman does play clinton in this episode doing his snl clinton impression i'm just like

why couldn't they get norm it would have been great i mean harry does a great bob dole don't get me wrong but if you're going to get one snl guy bring the other one on you know it's still a great segment don't get me wrong i i looked up, and apparently he did speak in the third person during the debates. So they really just... At least once, but I don't know if that was enough to really make it a thing. Yeah, someone just took that and ran with it, I guess. This is also the triumphant return of Kang and Kodos, who they had been in minor appearances every year,

though they joke about how they almost forget to put them in some years in the treehouse episodes but their last real plot appearance in a treehouse episode was in number two with a monkey's paw ah that's right i'm bored with a nail in it this is their first big return and that's why they have to be like reintroduced renamed all that stuff and uh first I love Homer fishing. That underwater shot, looking up at the sky as the flying saucer arrives is wonderful. Yeah, they didn't need to go that far,

but so many great shots and angles in this episode. And the UFO catcher, literal UFO catcher, grabbing him is pretty funny too. And dropping him the first time. Homer meets the aliens for the third and first time oh my god space aliens don't eat me i have a wife and kids eat them silence we are travelers from a certain nearby ringed planet whose name we'd prefer not to mention my name is kang and this is my sister kodos hello i suppose you want to probe me.

Well, might as well get it over with. Stop. We have reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us. So David S. Cohen, co-creator of Futurama, said on the commentary, for every segment in this episode, there is a corresponding Futurama episode that's very similar to it. And I can see that. So this will be ahead in the polls, obviously, the Futurama episode ahead in the polls. it. And I can see that. So this will be Head in the Polls, obviously, the Futurama episode of Head in the Polls. Yes, yeah, we're nixed in.

But when I heard the Kang or Kodo say, silence, it reminded me of the Robot Elders a lot. Yes, yes, silence. In the same bit there that they fit in a Uranus joke and a rectal probing joke, that they get both of them in there. Yeah, I mean, we were reaching the end of the rectal probing jokes uh kids in the hall had a great one around this time i love that one oh sorry one in ten guys enjoy it yeah that's the whole the whole sketch was like why are we still doing this yeah what is the point of this and then i believe um scott thompson is a hayseed about to get probed in the end one yeah i love how homer just points his butt at them and they're just revulsion at it, too.

And then Homer's, I feel like Homer's having like a doctor's office reaction, like, well, all right, let's just get this over with. Yeah, I mean, Homer probably watched that Jonathan Frakes hosted a Fox special about aliens. Well, I think the rectal probing thing does come from the visitation, the movie that Christopher Walken was in. Communion? Communion, yeah. There was also Fire in the sky yeah which though when you think of that i i remember lots of people point this out but john hodgman has a very funny joke in his book about how like that you have a found memory of being like kidnapped and then something going up your butt and it's like well that has no

relation to anything else that could happen in real life and it definitely is aliens i think too they say that uh codos has been written rather inconsistently as a female uh in it though honestly what is gender on their planet anyway it's true and serac the preparer has never come back because he's too expensive i i love the homer barely remembering bob dole because it did feel like, I don't know, I guess he could have won. But once Clinton won and it was so, it reminded me that Bob Dole wasn't that well known and nobody was really rooting for him. It's just the Republicans had to have somebody. Yeah, but I do use the term Mumbly Joe a lot when I can't think of someone's name. Mumbly Joe.

Take us to your leader. I guess you mean President Clinton He usually hangs around Washington D.C. President Clinton Excellent Except There's this election next week So after that it might not be him anymore

It might be what's his name Mumbly Joe I saw him on TV The other Bob Dole An election That complicates matters I saw him on TV the other... Bob Dole! Hmm. An election that complicates matters.

Set grid coordinates for Bob Dole. Well, night, everybody. Night, Senator. Take it easy. Good luck next week. What? Bob Dole doesn't need this. What's happening?

Is it noon already? My favorite Bob Dole line of dialogue in this is What the hell is this? Some kind of tube? Yes, yes Coming up later And so, the matter of fact statement of things is good I think Harry Shearer He didn't discover a new impersonation for him He's just doing the popular impersonation, but

he does a good job with it. I also love that he's leaving the Republican National Committee and that one of them is just like, hey, good luck next week. Not that they've been working for two years to get him elected, but they're just like, hey, good luck next week. He didn't just drop by.

Also, did you know, not only Paul Manafort, but Roger Stone, like insane, crazy, racist Roger Stone of the Trump campaign. He also worked for Bob Dole. Roger Stone has worked on every presidential Republican campaign since the beginning of time. He's a 3,000-year-old demon, and there's no other explanation for his whole shtick. Yeah, no, I mean, no non-immortal wears that kind of top hat in public with a cane. Absolutely not. You've got to wonder what deals with the devil they made.

Like, Kissinger is still alive. He looks like a leopard head infected now, but he had to make some sort of demon contract to live this long. Yes, yeah. He's a boomer, everybody. Yeah. Do you want to play that clip again or not worried about it? Do you want to play that clip again to ward off death for Kissinger? Oh, no, yeah. He's a boomer, everybody. Yeah. Get away from me. Do you want to play that clip again or not worried about it? Do you want to play that clip again to ward off death for Kissinger?

Oh, no, no. We welcome death for Kissinger. This shows you where they were at with Bill Clinton jokes. I think in 96 you could do a Bill Clinton philanderer joke, but this is really before the whole blowjob thing exploded on us. Yeah. I mean, the previous year. The phrasing of that was not great.

Yes. The previous year on The Critic, we had the headline fat, lecherous, hillbilly elected. That's true. Yeah. But instead, this is just the lazy Bill Clinton who sleeps in and doesn't even do anything, which that's just the Obama complaint as well. Like, it's just the oldama complaint as well like it's just the old the old lazy thing what shocks me watching this now to think if you made today or even let's say in the obama administration too just to keep this bipartisan if during the either of these the simpsons did a halloween

segment where the president is stripped naked and later killed i feel like you could not do that or during the uh W administration either, they wouldn't have done this. Yeah, and I keep thinking back to, I think we referenced this earlier on the show, actually, when there's the wax museum with Reagan's head on a pike. In Game of Thrones, some clever prop person found a George W. Bush mold or whatever

and stuck a head on a pike. And you could barely tell it's him. It's on screen for like half a second. they had to like they had to recall dvds because of that and it was not at a time where george w bush was liked yeah so like killing two people two presidential candidates on the air one of which is a president seems pretty crazy but also like super daring and great i like it's a great joke too like they could have they could have survived in space for a while, right? They immediately died. And Homer has killed both. They're doing fine.

And, yes, we get to hear about the nude conspiracies. What the hell is this? Some kind of tube? Well, thanks for taking care of Dole for me. Hey! Commence bio-duplication. Love the animation on this character. Oh, no.

Aliens, bio-duplication, nude conspiracies. Oh, my God. Lyndon LaRouche was right. What? Are you still here? I'm afraid we'll have to dispose of you. No, no, what are you spraying me with? Rum, so no one will believe your story. And don't come back. Yeah! will believe your story and don't come back so lyndon larouche is a famously insane guy who keeps

running for president oh yes yeah he's uh and also he's one year younger than bob no he's one year older than bob dole and still with us as well 95 it's uh i looked up some of lyndon larouche's biggest conspiracies uh at the time of this, his biggest conspiracy was that Queen Elizabeth secretly controls the British army and that they are influencing the world. Also with the Jews. He does blame some Jews in there, but only the rich ones. And so he's got anti-Semitism in there, too. Later, he kind of was ahead of the curve on predicting Obama death panels as well. That was another of his.

And he was a 9-11 truther as well. So he kind of was Alex Jones before Alex Jones too, but not as popular on the radio. He's got the full deck of conspiracy cards. He's got it all, that LaRouche. Yeah. He's quite an interesting fellow and i also just love the way uh what what the hell some kind of tube that's such a great line and so is rum yes cutting him going rum so there are some plot holes that come up on the commentary

that they all laugh about it's like well the aliens could have waited until the election was over and just killed the winner yeah but also uh the bio duplication happens but later in the show homer pulls off masks so yeah they're forgetting about the whole like all the science behind it they're just crammed into suits at the end it's funny that the kangakotas are non-lethal like they they could have killed the president in but dole but they don't kill them and they don't even kill homer even though they really should it's easier to fool dumb americans yeah uh and that they that they know what rum is too to just soak him in liquor so no one believes also in the commentary they talk about something that i'm not a particularly big fan of which is just the the political stance of doesn't matter both guys are terrible vote for either they're an evil like it's i'm not a fan of

it was definitely how people felt in 96 yeah and in tooth i mean like in 2016 always yeah i mean like uh on the commentary that was recorded in deep in the george w bush years and i feel like david s cohen was a little like apologetic about making a futurama episode with the same uh the same premise like it doesn't matter who you vote for and dan graney's like like, no, it absolutely matters who you vote for. One is a fucking war criminal who's in office right now. And I'm surprised they didn't edit that out of a Fox DVD. Yeah. It is kind of surprising. Yeah. So thank you, Dan Graney from 14 years ago. But that, uh, though Matt Chrisman, uh, when he was on our Two Bad Neighbors episode,

he pointed out that like, well, Clinton and Dole did have such similar stances it was easy to believe that though i still am like hey look i'll complain about democratic candidates all day letting me down but uh on a national scale i they'd have to be a really bad candidate for me not to vote for to vote for a republican over them no no never just go third party we'll talk more about that later uh yeah so uh they throw homer out, and this is just all clips. I'm sorry. It's pretty much every line of dialogue from Citizen Kang I clipped. It's worth it.

These aliens campaigning is the greatest. Ket Brockman here with Campaign 96. America flips a coin. At an appearance this morning, President Clinton made some rather cryptic remarks, which aides attributed to an overly tight necktie. I am Clinton. As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me and obey my brutal commands. End communication.

That's slick Willie for you. Always with the smooth talk. March! March! There I was. I had just caught the largest fish you'd ever seen when I was abducted by a flying saucer. Sure you were, Rummy. That's one of the creatures! Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton?

It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. Doomed! Well, a refreshingly frank response there from Senator Bob Dole. These candidates make me want to vomit in terror. Vomit in terror is great. Yeah. Disappointed and terrified.

Every lie is amazing. I love that whole speech that, first, the wonderful cover, which does fit with, like, it was just a very hot day for Miss Clinton when she fell down. She has the flu. Yeah, the same of the the overly tight necktie no matter what he says like voters like marge are just like that's slick willie always with the smooth talk and i mean what the the stance that you're doomed either way and the i mean when you think about it from an ecological standpoint yes it doesn't matter our planet is doomed i also think there's something really dark about the whole like you could just say these awful things and it's considered to be refreshingly frank yeah like we've seen that more and more recently where

as long as you proceed to be honest about how terrible you are that's considered better than trying to sugarcoat anything it would be uncivil to attack people for being awful yes yeah you have to go sir sir uh sir sir you need to apologize for that, sir. Did you really mean that, sir? Really, sir. We can't even get that, like, honestly, we're recording this for a few weeks in advance, so I can't even get that specific on things about our current president, because I know it'll be topped, like, in the next three days after this.

His racially charged sentimonies. Yes. So racially charged. He should discharge this racialness. Just call him a racist. So, then part two of the campaigning. Ladies and gentlemen, 73 year old candidate, Bob Dole.

73. Abortions for all. Very well. No abortions for all. Very well. No abortions for anyone. Abortions for some. Miniature American flags for others. Yay! Fooling these Earth voters is easier than expected.

Yes, all they want to hear are bland pleasantries embellished by an occasional saxophone solo or infant kiss. Mr. President, sir, people are becoming a bit confused. By the way, you and your opponent are, well, constantly holding hands. We are merely exchanging long protein strings. If you can think of a simpler way i'd like to hear it that was george stephanopoulos making a rare simpsons appearance it's a very specific design yes that's that's absolutely george stephanopoulos the he's not as short

as i imagine he's kind of crouching in a van it's hard to tell that's true uh that's that's that's perfect casting there they didn't draw meanwhile i'll say unrealistically there was a black guy in the republican national convention yeah which i'm like no way what's going on there oh no no no it's so weird to hear the word abortion said on simpsons yeah it's a funny gag about how you can't play it's just how it's such a divisive issue but just to hear the word abortion on simpsons like boy that almost sounds like saying the f word on the show i'm gonna say that uh it was never said before on the simpsons or possibly after i probably since then yeah yeah i would think not well

let's go to frankie i could put abortion in let's see what we get but the also just i love the way everyone's looking at dole and clinton walking down the street holding hands and the idea of what a long protein string is that feels like a semen joke to me doesn't it maybe maybe bob dole is right to be mad at the secret service later in this because homer is able to do a good job of stalking the presidents uh the president and the senator without the secret Service noticing it. He's following pretty close behind them. So in the season 16 episode,

thank God it's doomsday, the word abortion appears again. Ah, okay. Oh, is that the Left Behind episode? It might be. They parody that. I remember that. I have to say, though,

I do appreciate... So when Clinton and Dole are speaking later in the segment, they're speaking in front of a factory with hard that is the that is a really great observational thing because these people don't care about these workers or these factories they're just shoved in front of a decaying factory to make some sort of statement about the jobs are coming back it happens every four years in my hometown a president stands in front of a depressing factory and makes promises he can't keep and everybody forgets about it and blames black people don't forget immigrants bob they blame uh they chased they chased all the immigrants out of

my town okay so they're oh jesus that's youngstown ohio yeah it sucks it's so well observed and also shows like it never changes like 20 years later than in the 2016 election the same posing the same hard hats the same the same locations that. Only the abandoned factories are just getting more decayed over time and a generation more poor. But okay, so I've been saving line of this show. I think this speech by Clinton is the line of the episode. That's the joke. My fellow Americans, as a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball.

But tonight I say we must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. Those candidates are phonies. You heard me. They're alien replicants from beyond the moon. I mean, yeah, I agree. It's lying to show, but I feel like with our current,

like oatmeal brain president, who's just, uh, his, his gray matter is rapidly decaying in front of us, this is not too far removed from what we hear him say. It's basically the same speech. Yes, that's true. Although he would brag that he was the greatest baseball player ever. He's like, oh, I could have been pro. I'm not doing it.

He would say there's never been a better baseball player than me. Never been. You ask everybody, they'd tell you the same. But I just love the little pause after like, I dreamed of being a baseball. And the extra fun to it too, the animation of like,

of him just actually whirling and twirling as he talks. He's doing it awkwardly like a middle-aged man would on stage. It's not very, I mean, the animation is great,

but it's very awkward looking. I think Kang and Kodos are really getting into their parts they're like you know this is fun it's fun to run for president i'm really getting into this they also on the commentary they make a funny joke about how like oh it's good homer interrupted dole so he didn't have to write another funny thing for him to say and i also just love his uh alien replicants from beyond the moon. Everyone's right to laugh at him. He is just being a crazy conspiracy theorist now. Take your stinking flag, too. I miss when conspiracy theories were about aliens.

They're still there. There's still reptilian conspiracy theories happening. Yeah, I guess so. But I thought the reptiles were like, it usually comes back to just like anti-Semitism, though. It's never actually aliens. I mean, Alex Jones used to do the fun conspiracy theories. Now he does like the FEMA camps and the pizza gates and the crisis actors and what have you. Yeah.

He still has some old-fashioned crazy in there. So it's still a good mix, I would say. Yeah, I miss the Art Bell era of them. When he talks about crisis actors he should say the kids are aliens just say that like not not actors like that would make it less abhorrent sure yeah it dissociates it a little bit i uh re-watching this i legit laughed out loud at homer finding the barely hidden saucer like the way he bumps into it and then it just reveals it's not even hidden.

He should have seen it like, I don't know, 10 minutes ago. 10 miles away. As he was walking towards it. Homer is going to save the day, right? Oh no, am I still here? I don't want to serve up my term naked in a tube. I am so mad at the Secret Service right now.

Hey, who the hell are you? I'm Homer Simpson, sir, and I'm gonna get you back to Washington before it's too late. You know, Senator, being in suspended animation gave me time to think. Partisan politics are tearing our country apart.

You got a point there, Bill. If you and I are gonna whoop these one-eyed space fellas, we're gonna have to set aside our differences. Together we can lead America into a new golden age. Friend, you got a deal. Homer, let us out. It's time to tear those aliens a third corn shoot. That was not a dumb move by Homer.

He hit the two button. Yeah. It was there. that was not a dumb move by homer he hit the two button yeah it's and homer's doing a pretty good job of flying a space saucer to washington dc before this but god just the way they're the nude presidential candidates thrown into space and then they struggle for like one second before they're just killed in the vacuum and just floating just like in 2001 it reminds me of the 2001 uh uh suffocating in space and that yeah anybody looking at that label would think like no this is the open the tubes button and the the phrase third corn shoot i like that too a third corn shoot so uh homer's fly he's still flying to washington dc and I may not have watched the episode of Twilight Zone, but I did watch the ending of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. So on Wikipedia, it's like, oh, this is a reference to that.

And I had never seen that movie. It's an early Ray Harryhausen special effects. If you know it came out in 56, and then when you watch it, you're like, this is pretty good for 1956. And it's got a bunch of stop motion destroy. I mean, it's really Independence Day, 40 years before Independence Day. You get to see flying saucers destroy monuments. And the very last fly, the top moment, the money shot of the movie, the last flying saucer to explode,

is the one that crashes into the top of the capital building in the same way okay i really love uh the cheat they do in this episode where homer crashes it into the capital building and then there's just a pan down and you hear stairs he immediately like appears like he goes down one staircase in like three seconds and runs at the front door uh it's so i i love that too. There's so many great visual gags at the top of it, but the aliens are revealed. The politics of failure

have failed. We need to make them work again. Tomorrow when you are sealed in the voting cubicle, vote for me, Senator Bob Dole. I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow, which will eliminate the need for a violent bloodbath. America, take a good look at your beloved candidates.

They're nothing but hideous space reptiles. Yeah, we heard the nice, like, stare, and then, like, a normal door opening sound. Yeah, from the Capitol. And just the reveal, like, hideous space reptiles. That does fit with the lizard people. Yeah, exactly. And I like how they're kind of, like,

their eyes are sheepishly looking from above their collars. Yeah. Uh-oh. That's kind of cute. We're caught. Oh, I meant to talk about it earlier, but that it's only $5 to go to a presidential debate is pretty crazy. That's amazing. I would think it's free that they just pick the people out of there.

It's like a lottery you have to win to get into that, something like that. To be the next Ken Bone. He's into some really cool porn, everybody. Look it up. That's the least of his problems. I know. But all right, so we get to the finale here, which is really shitting on third parties. We are aliens, but what are you going to do about it?

It's a two-party system. You have to vote for one of us. He's right? It's a two-party system. You have to vote for one of us. He's right. This is a two-party system. Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate. Go ahead. Throw your vote away. All hail President K. I don't understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I never even heard of. Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.

Go! I just love that bit. That's where I disagree with you, Henry, and I find many people misinterpret that joke. I don't think it's shitting on third parties. I think it's shitting on the American brain infection that there can only be two parties, Democrat and Republican, and even though both will enslave you, you will not vote for a third party

because you cannot even think of the very idea. You're throwing your vote away. It might be shitting specifically on Ross Perot. A bit. I think they're just attacking the political system, which at this time, that's why they were making all the jokes like, i think they're just kind of attacking the like political system which at this time that's why they were making all the jokes like oh they're the same person because you only

have two choices and they're both the same so i feel like that is the message here yeah that's true and that ross perot was the most successful third party candidate like ever at least in modern electoral history because he he got to be in the debates. He was in the debates. And in 1996, he had started up the Reform Party where he was their presidential candidate, but he didn't get to be on the debates again. They kept him out of it. And he got 8% of the vote, which still for a third party candidate, pretty good. Yeah. I mean, I will say that obviously I do not like Donald Trump. I hate him a lot more than I dislike Hillary Clinton, but I didn't want to vote for her.

Pragmatically, I did vote for her because I knew that vote would count more, but I also don't like when people blame Jill Stein or Gary Johnson for Trump winning. Those 20,000 votes Jill Stein got would have totally gone to Hillary. It would have taken her over the edge, but yeah, I just want to say,

be nicer to the third party's people. I think if you're going to blame a jill stein or a ralph nader that also comes with this kind of gross assumption that the person who voted for them would have otherwise voted for the democratic candidate like if you're showing up to vote third party you the democrats haven't won you over and you wouldn't have voted for them anyway it shouldn't when counting the ballots it shouldn't get the same with like yeah well then did gary johnson take votes away from trump and he would have had the electoral he would have had a different victory like it's just i i'm not into blaming third parties in general but yes bob you're right this is not it's not mocking third parties it's that americans would on a national scale never accept a third party yeah between the

choice of slavery why do you think they voted for Kang over Kodos? I don't know. So which one was Kang? Was he Clinton or Dole? Kang was Dole. Oh, wow. So they were wrong on that front, too, with that prediction. Maybe they thought Clinton would be voted out.

Yeah. I think it might have just been alphabetical order for people voting. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, this is the era when Republicans were kind of taking over the country in terms of the House and the Senate and everything, right? Yeah, maybe they thought it would just be a Republican sweep in 96, but that's...

Yeah, it was Kang that won it, and I also love that his... When he's president, he sits on a throne with a giant scepter and a crown on his head, too. On the Capitol steps. God, Bob Dole could have been our oldest president elected. Yeah, if he had been elected in 96, he would have been two years older than Trump was when he was elected.

He is officially the oldest president ever. And also, though, I love the alien flag design. That's so beautiful. That is great, yeah. It went that far. Just the alien flag design. That's so beautiful. That is great, yeah. It went that far. Just the colors on it. And yeah, I also love, as a last line of the show, don't blame me, I voted for Kodos,

which is such a great, ridiculous line because it's so cynical and fatalist, but I love it. I'm just like, well, yeah, if you voted for Kodos, you'd be doing the same thing. You can't don't act fancy when you're like, well, don't blame me. I voted for this person. I've seen that on a bumper sticker before.

It's a good one. I'd get that before the Coexist bumper sticker. Oh, yeah. So, Lewis, any final thoughts on this treehouse of horror? I just think that this segment is so much more depressing than I remember it being. But then what isn't in 2018?

Yeah. It's true uh 20 uh like the past two years i put a certain stink on certain things i used to enjoy a lot more in the obama administration really yeah yeah everything basically everything existing in the obama administration i could watch political satire like say this or dr strange love and just kind of laugh with a certain remove of like well we're past that now and not so much anymore and that was just my brain problem anyway at the time it's just like i don't know there were things to be mad about under obama as well but it just seemed it was better to think everything was fixed yeah so lewis uh we'll do our own plugs once we're off

the air with you but anything you want to plug right now you know follow me on twitter at lewis pitesman read my articles i don't know fave my tweets if you want to that's about it i mean one of my uh a couple of my favorites i really like your um uh your recent chat about the spongebob musical and how amazing it is like oh i i i stand the spon musical. I will, I will defend it. I think it was robbed of Tony awards and I am not over it. Oh man. And, uh, and also you've done multiple great articles on nightmare on Elm street too. And especially your oral history of it is one of my all time favorites,

uh, of the stuff you've written. And I, I wish we'd had you on for the, uh, last year's treehouse when we talked about Freddy Krueger. But like, what did you think of that? Was that a good Freddy Krueger parody? Yeah, I think that I actually watched that before I was into Nightmare on Elm Street. Like I was

familiar with it. But I think that I mean, I watched that when it aired. And I don't think I'd actually seen a Nightmare on Elm Street movie at the time. But in retrospect, it's very well done. Awesome. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, we'll have you back for sure. Thanks for having me. So thanks again to Lewis Pitesman for being on this episode. It's been great, folks. Let's talk about the Patreon. Super quick to let you know how this entire network is funded. Just go

to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons to find out how you can help. We have so many different levels. $5 level is very popular. There's over 100 bonus podcasts you probably haven't heard. Waiting for you right now as soon as you sign up to check it out. Stuff like Talking Futurama and Talking Critic. What's our most recent bonus stuff henry well at this time since we're starting season eight we just did our season wrap-ups for season seven and the deleted scenes so uh in audio form you can listen to us chat about the deleted scenes and how good or not good maybe they were plus if you if you're at the $10 level, you can watch the video version of that

of me and Bob chatting over it, and you can see the deleted scenes there. And of course, our season seven wrap-up where we talk about all the news and events that happened to the Simpsons during that year. Yeah, and be sure to check out our interviews with people like David Silverman and Mike Reese and Nels Govo, all exclusive to the Patreon.

Sign up and you'll get to hear all of those immediately. But thanks a lot folks for listening. Be sure to go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons As for me, I've been one of the hosts, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast every Monday and

occasionally a bonus episode on Friday. Just go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast machine. We've been going on since 2006. There's so many topics we've covered. I'm sure you'll find something you'll like. Just dig it up and find it, and then subscribe. I think you'll like it.

Henry, how about you? Hi, I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter. You can follow me there for all the updates on when stuff goes live. So when we do bonus content on the Patreon or do regular episodes or even tease some of the cool stuff we're doing like our, well I guess when you're listening to this we might actually be in Los Angeles doing our cool LA trip stuff. I'm selling out

right now. So check all that out on my Twitter, H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week for You Only Move Twice with some very special guests. We'll see you then. Run!