Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Viva Ned Flanders With Dan Ryckert

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

We welcome back our pal Dan Ryckert (from Giant Bomb and the podcast Panning The Stream) for a trip to Sin City! After Dan details his unique Vegas wedding and his Simpsons table read experience, we... dig into Ned Flanders' age, the importance of roof cooking, the neon nuttiness of Las Vegas casinos, and the dangers of drunken weddings! Listen now to learn all our gaming secrets (it means gambling)!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!  

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Attention Talking Simpsons listeners, we have a special mini-series just for you. We're going through the entire first season of King of the Hill, and you can only hear it if you're a $5 and up patron at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. We're giving the Talking Simpsons treatment to all 13 episodes of King of the Hill's first season, and if you want a free sample, you'll find the first episode available for free in the Talking Simpsons feed. Patreon.com slash talking simpsons. It's the only place you'll find the first season of Talk King of the Hill. Major, go click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It's real easy, man.
Starting point is 00:00:34 I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where we give you a daily dose of vitamin church. I'm your host, the wet bread enjoyer, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today. Henry Gilbert and the Shebangs, featuring Big Timmy. And who do we have on the line? We've got Dan Reichert, who just bet the payroll and lost. Excellent. And today's episode is Viva Ned Flanders. Dad, we hit Don Rickles.
Starting point is 00:01:13 I'm okay, but the Puerto Rican guy's trying to steal your hubcaps. Just kidding. I'm a nice guy. Today's episode aired on January 10th, 1999. The first episode of 1999. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God! Let's party like it's 1999, Bobby.
Starting point is 00:01:35 Fatboy Slim's Praise You hits number one on the charts in the UK. NWO WCW Thunder hits the PlayStation. Oh yeah. The Sopranos debuts on HBO, changing the medium of television forever. So the most important thing on this list is that wrestling game. Yes. For the two people on this podcast that aren't me.
Starting point is 00:01:55 Well, specifically for that game, the most important part is the character select screen where you hit triangle to hear the rants of everyone. Henry, do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. All the classic. I think Nash's is the best on that one. one well it's great because it seems like they didn't get any direction sorry to immediately go into wrestling it's like none of the wrestlers knew
Starting point is 00:02:14 the direction for the rant because some of them were like come on pick me i'm the best i'm gonna win and some are like oh you pick me i'm gonna beat you i'm gonna kick your ass and say no no they don't seem to understand at all pick the other guy don't pick me i haven't heard these before but it reminds me of the line readings that aerosmith gives in revolution x oh yeah it's very similar stop the new order bus the n64 had the better games way better games if you were to play thunder or revenge i would definitely say play revenge but the only only advantage that CD-based games had was that they could actually have the cut scenes
Starting point is 00:02:50 or music playing instead. And so they'd get the pro wrestlers, both for WWF at the time or WCW, and they'd record them in person. Actually, you know what? I got to pull up that Kevin Nash one. I should have done that ahead of time, but let me... Believe it or not. or not 64 couldn't do real video but it would do that sweet cutscene at the beginning with uh is it hogan or sting uh standing in the highway with like someone driving a truck
Starting point is 00:03:14 towards him in a thunderstorm oh yeah it's like the opening super street fighter believe it or not i did play a lot of the wrestling games of the late 90s because they were just the fun multiplayer games and i could recognize most of the wwf at late 90s because they were just the fun multiplayer games and i could recognize most of the wwf at the time wrestlers but the ones we played the most were the wcw games and all i knew was sting and maybe rick flair we would choose rick flair and then make fun of how old he is and he's still alive uh 20 years later right okay yes somehow yes uh so you knew surfer sting back then right so not crow So not Crow Sting, Surfer Sting, right? Oh, I think it was the Crow Sting. Oh, really?
Starting point is 00:03:46 Yeah. Okay. I played the crap out of these on N64 and would never touch the PlayStation games. I only know them from the many people who made fun of the cut scenes on these. Actually, here's the classic Kevin Nash choose me rant. Hey, wait a second. I know what you're thinking. You want to be me like everybody else.
Starting point is 00:04:07 Forget about it. You don't have the mental skills or the dexterity. Go on. Go pick somebody else. Pick Hogan or some. Don't pick me. Move. Go.
Starting point is 00:04:18 Go. So recorded after what? A three cocktail lunch? At the very least. You're going to pick pick him i don't care i had a conversation once with a drunk kevin nash where he was telling me that he wanted to voice a character in a book i wrote called air force gator and he wanted to do the voice of air force gator for an animated series you should have gotten a signature i got a picture with him
Starting point is 00:04:42 he's very tall that's an incredible story we have to move on from wrestling though to talk about The Sopranos yes yeah so despite it being the favorite show of many an asshole I still feel like it is worth returning to like sort of like Breaking Bad is notoriously lots of bad people like the show
Starting point is 00:04:59 but it's actually a very good show it's boring as hell to say but it's one of the best tv shows of all time like every actor in it is great james candelfini like a typecast for the rest of his life thanks to the success of the show everybody just saw him and saw tony soprano just like everybody saw al bundy when they see ed o'neill like when i've returned to the sopranos the stuff i love the most is just the funny scenes between all these low-intelligence
Starting point is 00:05:28 jerks just having stupid conversations. That's my favorite bits in it. Unfortunately, I've seen very little of it because I tried watching it when I moved out to California for the first time. I was staying in a room I rented from a single dad, and he was living with his nine-year-old son. So I was
Starting point is 00:05:43 sitting in my room watching The Sopranos while he was playing in the next room and like every line of dialogue was like you motherfucker i'm gonna fucking slit your throat fuck you and i was like oh i don't know this feels irresponsible of me i don't want to get kicked out of this room i'm renting so uh i kind of gave up on the sopranos but i've always wanted to go back to it i made it about uh i got to the same point with sopranos and mad men i, where I made it like three and a half seasons in, and then for some reason just kind of stopped. Like both, you know, very well-made shows and everything, but I just, I don't know if it was the pacing or something,
Starting point is 00:06:12 but I fell off of both of those. No, I stuck with it to the end. It was the first show, I believe it's the first TV on DVD show I watched. I think for a lot of people it was the alert of like, oh, I can rent a DVD at Blockbuster and watch a television show. That's amazing. That was when they were first figuring out how much to charge for a season on DVD. So you go to Suncoast to be like, season one of The Sopranos, $300. What? I used to back then. Do you guys have Hastings? Are you familiar with Hastings?
Starting point is 00:06:42 It's like a used DVD place. It might be a Midwestern thing. But they had a deal where if you trade in any three DVDs you can get any DVD for free and if you trade in any three video games you can get a full price video game. So I would go to Walmart and they had all these like $1 DVDs. Oh here's this one episode of like
Starting point is 00:07:00 a Bible cartoon. And I would buy three of those for $3 and I would take them to Hastings and get like a full season of Curb Your Enthusiasm or something. And then I would buy these three, there's a three pack for $10 of like Ford racing and truck racing, like most generic games, spend 10 bucks, bring it to Hastings
Starting point is 00:07:15 and get like Chronicles of Riddick for a $60 game for 10 bucks. Did that constantly. I like the idea of cheap media as an alternate currency. Yes, it worked. That's how walmart killed a small business right there that's yes go to trader joe's what can i get for five eva labams uh and fat boy slim praise you i think that was the first fat boy slim song i heard as well
Starting point is 00:07:38 i believe that's the music video where spike jones is dancing uh in the streets and people are like stopping him from dancing yeah yeah and then and then at the mtv music awards uh he then did that live with a group of people but people didn't even know that was spike jones then just doing like one of his proto jackass things like he's but anyway today our guest dan reichert for this episode he uh you are here for two reasons one you've been to a simpsons table read and two you got married in las vegas just like the characters on this episode both of those things are true i did both of those things let's start with your wedding because you you got a vegas wedding but a little different than even most people's Vegas weddings.
Starting point is 00:08:25 Your wedding had a sponsor. Yes, it did. It had a corporate sponsor. It was planned ahead, unlike many Vegas weddings. Yeah, I got married at a Taco Bell on the Vegas Strip. The Taco Bell Chapel, the first Taco Bell you could be married in, I think, in the world.
Starting point is 00:08:41 And you, I believe, are the first person to be married in a Taco Bell, correct? As far as I know, yes. That is how they pitched the contest that I think, in the world. And you, I believe, are the first person to be married in a Taco Bell, correct? As far as I know, yes. That is how they pitched the contest that I won. Is that like, oh, be the first couple to get married. Well, I guess it's to get married at the Taco Bell Wedding Chapel. So I'm not discounting the possibility that someone has gotten married in a Taco Bell location. But if it's happened, I have never heard of it.
Starting point is 00:09:00 So instead of a wedding cake, did you have a pile of cinnamon twists? Just a huge pile? It was actually a Cinnabon Delights cake. Oh, cool. I mean, it's all the yum brands together there. Drink the ceremonial Pepsi. It was definitely the best Taco Bell I've ever had. And I say that as someone who just worships at the altar of Taco Bell. This is the best I've ever had. And not just because of the occasion, and it was very special, obviously, but because this was a big obviously publicity stunt marketing move by Taco Bell, and so they knew they were going to
Starting point is 00:09:30 have these professional photographers taking all these pictures to send to the Today Show or Time Magazine and all this stuff. And so it was going to be super up-close photographed. And so it was all just the crispiest looking like the commercial. You get a sad chalupa or something if you go to Taco Bell. it tastes delicious, but it looks sad sometimes.
Starting point is 00:09:47 These all look just fluffy and perfect, like fresh out of the oven, like the commercial. It was incredible. No, and your lovely wife's bouquet looked so nice too. Oh, the fire sauce packet bouquet. Yeah, yeah. They made us give that back. Oh, not cool. Come on. Now I want to time any future wedding I have to the launch of a new chicken sandwich. Because that'll turn heads.
Starting point is 00:10:11 There was a time when KFC was talking to me in about 2013 about doing a series of commercials to be the face of the Double Down sandwich that they were reintroducing. But I was not allowed to do it for work reasons. Oh, boo. CBS Interactive had to sign off on that i bet no i was actually a game informer and i actually oh we're certainly afterwards like god damn it i had to turn down the kfc thing man man that boy that's game informer has made their employees suffer a lot of indignities and that's one of them that's
Starting point is 00:10:39 they're in the pocket of what popeyes who knows oh, yeah. That's just one of the many charmed life of Dan Reichert stories. I just love that. I remember when you first moved to San Francisco, I had a conversation with you. I think it was on Twitter where you're like, hey, where's the good Taco Bell in San Francisco? And I was like, San Francisco is full of Mexican restaurants. I found that that is one of the quickest ways to get some cheap heat from anyone that lives in San Francisco.
Starting point is 00:11:08 I mean this, but I know people hate to hear it. Mission Burritos in San Francisco are very, very good. I really enjoy them. I would still take Taco Bell over them any day of the week. You're such a heel. It's true. I grew up eating, this like a very trite common and obvious too but i grew up eating taco bell and it wasn't until much later that i had real mexican
Starting point is 00:11:29 food and i was like this is mexican food it's completely different in every way so like i'm always very confused when i go to an actual mexican restaurant like you know i live in new york now there's just every kind of restaurant you can imagine but you go to like an authentic place and it's like not everything is just drenched in cheese it maybe has like a dusting of queso fresco or something on it yeah it's delicious but it's like in my mind like mexican food is just like everything is covered in 80 layers of cheese and taco bell sort of like a parody of mexican food it's the weird al version yeah yeah well now well to show how uninformed and sheltered i was too like when when i went finally in my like late teens i think to a real mexican restaurant that
Starting point is 00:12:05 was me too i was one of those guys like wait why isn't this taco crispy tacos are crispy right like i the definition of a taco was a taco bell fried taco not the soft kind scoop up yourself my question was why is the cheese not a color found in nature no it is a color found in nature it's not the color not found in nature i want and i I will say, I haven't eaten Taco Bell in a while, but nothing can capture the perfect saltiness of their chemical sludge cheese. I'm drooling just thinking about it. They even sold it packaged in grocery stores, but it was a different recipe entirely. I still have a craving for that hot sludge, that hot cheese sludge. That neon, like, Nickelodeon orange cheese is one of the substances I've ingested the most in my life. I remember every single lunch at school, I would get the same thing. I would get a giant bowl of nacho cheese,
Starting point is 00:12:54 fries, and a soft pretzel. That was my lunch every single day all through high school. Anytime I go to a ball game or a wrestling event, I always get the soft pretzel with a giant vat of that cheese. It's my absolute favorite. That is cheese to me. When you went to Las Vegas, I mean, did you do a lot of gaming or other things around your wedding? Or was it just like a one night in town for the wedding kind of thing?
Starting point is 00:13:15 It was kind of a whirlwind. We actually had a couple nights. They gave us this like crazy suite in Planet Hollywood. It was just this huge panoramic thing with like two bathrooms and like several bedrooms and it had a bar in it and it had a big wall that slid and it opened up to like a hot tub area and it was very, very awesome. It came with the prize package. And so they gave us a lot of stuff,
Starting point is 00:13:36 like not just the wedding, which by the way, I had to wind up paying many thousands of dollars on taxes on all this. So don't win a sweepstakes because they will surprise you. Because you can't even like say what you want and what you don't want because i won the prize
Starting point is 00:13:47 package and they're like all right well you've got a vip table at this migos concert and i was like ah you know thanks but can i turn that down and not pay taxes on it and they're like no you have to take the migos concert so it's like me and my you know mailman kansan father sitting like in front of a bunch of like nba draft picks at this Migos concert. We had to hit this minimum. A bottle of Jack Daniels, a normal one, was $600. Me and my dad and my friends were drinking $600 bottles of Jack at a Migos concert.
Starting point is 00:14:18 It was a surreal moment for sure. Meanwhile, there's a Yum Brand sniper trained on you making sure you don't leave. Yes. You must drink. We're not paying for these taxes. Yes. Yeah, so they gave us a lot of different little things.
Starting point is 00:14:31 You know, they gave us like this cabana at the pool. They gave us the suite. They gave us some spending money. So, yeah, it was a whole prize package thing. But then it did culminate with the actual wedding at the Taco Bell, which I found out afterwards. My mother-in-law thought it was fake. We got back and she was like, you didn't really get married, did you? I was like, yes, that was a legally binding marriage.
Starting point is 00:14:50 She thought the real wedding was coming some other place. Right. We did have what we kind of consider like kind of our real wedding. We had it in New Jersey with a bunch of family and friends later. Like we were legally wed at the Taco Bell, but, you know, we wanted to make sure we had the actual normal let's get the family and friends together thing. So we still did that.
Starting point is 00:15:09 That's sweet. Yeah. Well, and also, Dan, yes, since we last had you on, you got to attend a real Simpsons script reading with the cast and everything. Yeah, a live table read at Fox Studios in LA. It happened to coincide with E3, so I was in town, and
Starting point is 00:15:27 a fan of the Beast Cast reached out to me and said, hey, I work on the Simpsons. I would love to have you out here. This guy actually, on one of the Treehouse 4 episodes, his spooky nickname was Beast Cast. Wow. Yeah, so that's when he first got on our radar. We were like, what the hell? Somebody put Beast Cast on the Simpsons?
Starting point is 00:15:44 And then he invited us. Yeah, absolutely just incredible when he first got on our radar. We're like, what the hell? Somebody put Beast Cast on The Simpsons? And then he invited us. So yeah, absolutely just incredible, surreal thing to go to. I'm so glad I lined up with my schedule because there was a good chance I would have had an appointment or something at E3. But it was early enough in the day. It was only an hour long. It wasn't too far away. And yeah, one of the most surreal moments of my life, for sure.
Starting point is 00:16:03 What I always want to know is who are the people that show up? Because they've been doing this for so long that for a lot of the actors, it is a remote thing. And from what I've heard, there are lots of stand-ins for actors, especially Harry Shearer, who is famously not a fan of table reads for Simpsons shows. Yeah, it was interesting because they had Shearer and Azaria call in. Oh, cool. They were not there. So we heard them on a speakerphone for a bit but then there was some sort of tech error and they dropped out and so like immediately uh this guy this really
Starting point is 00:16:30 talented voice actor i forget his name but he started doing all of the like wickham lines and stuff like that but it sounded like exactly like sheer in his area for sure there were there were a few people that weren't like the core six that you know they would do the voices and i'd be like oh right i you know i forgot that someone else does that voice but it's just so weird to see like you know dan castellanetto is doing all these like homer grunts and sounds and stuff and it's not like he's doing a really good homer impression it's like you're sitting across the room from this guy and that is just homer's voice coming out of an adult man you know it's just and hearing like bart's voice come out of nancy cartwright which is so so i it felt like not real if that makes any sense it's just like it's like that doesn't
Starting point is 00:17:09 it's like somebody hit play on something and they're miming with their mouths but like uh it I I'm so so lucky I got to do that there were fun moments where uh like there would be data would show up in the script and I think Nancy Cartwright would start doing the voice and then she would stop and she'd be like wait I forgot it's been It's been a long time since I've done Data. I forgot what his voice is and she would have to find it again. Oh my god. I'm seething with jealousy as I hear all of this.
Starting point is 00:17:34 Yeah, the closest Henry and I got to this was seeing a live King of the Hill table reading and I had the same surreal experience where all of these voices I know are coming out of people. But then I got into it because it's just fun to see what Mike Judge does with his head to make hank hill's voice just sinking his chin into his neck it's very good uh dan castellaneta did that with some homer stuff too he kind of like yeah exactly how you describe with his chin and you also got to
Starting point is 00:17:56 meet werner herzog as well that was the uh okay the whole thing was a surprise and surreal but then we got there and uh the guy who invited us said, oh, normally when we have celebrity guests, they aren't here for the table read, but we do have a guest voice, and he's going to be here today. I'm just going through my head. I'm like, oh, who the hell is it going to be? And then we asked, and he goes, oh, it's Werner Herzog. And then we look in the room, and he's just sitting there.
Starting point is 00:18:20 He was the first to arrive. So he was there before the rest of the cast was pouring over the script and really, really hamming it up. He's just sitting there. He was the first to arrive. So he was there before the rest of the cast was like pouring over the script. Really, really hamming it up. Like they weren't obviously recording during this, but he was just really getting into it and just doing these loud cackles and stuff. Seemed to really enjoy it. And I asked him afterwards, I was like, oh, you know, Werner, that was great. Can I get a picture?
Starting point is 00:18:49 And he's like, this is fine uh it i also felt so bad for uh friend of the show alex navarro that he uh had to miss out on that i i have to say you guys are more if i've been invited to a simpsons thing on the thursday of e3 when that is like the least important day of e3 anyway i would have just been like fuck everything i'm going to this I would have quit my job. Yeah. Well, it's really hilarious to me. It's darkly hilarious because I know Alex probably was very jealous about it. I'm sure he's talked about it on this podcast and on Giant Bomb, but
Starting point is 00:19:15 he was already super jealous about it because he couldn't make it. And then we get there and he loves Werner Herzog. I hear him do Werner Herzog impressions all the time. He's seen all his movies and everything. And so whenog. I hear him do Werner Herzog impressions all the time. He's seen all his movies and everything. And so when I heard it was him, it's just like tripling down on the like,
Starting point is 00:19:33 oh my God, Alex is going to die when I tell him about this. I liked hearing him curse God on the E3. Denounce creation, yeah. But all right, we should probably get into Viva Ned Flanders. This episode, I did want to mention, it's the return of David M. Stern, classic Simpsons writer. So he moved from the Wonder Years to the Simpsons. And of course, his brother is Daniel Stern, the famous Home Alone burglar and City Slickers star. But he wrote a lot of great episodes. I'll name a few of them.
Starting point is 00:20:03 Principal Charming, Homer Alone, Camp Krusty, Selma's Choice, Dufflis. So Dufflis was his last episode in season four. I mean, it was the last episode until this one in season four. So six years have passed. He would write one more in season 10 and then not come back until like season 27.
Starting point is 00:20:19 That's so weird. For Camp Krusty-er, I think it is. Ah, right. Or season 28 or 29. I forget which one it is. I forgot he came back for Crustier to do that throwback episode, which isn't much of a sequel, I have to say, but that's for another
Starting point is 00:20:33 day. Yeah, but famously, he was really good at writing things for Patty and Salma, like Principal Charming and Salma's Choice were two major Patty and Salma episodes, making them into less grotesque caricatures of, you know, the battle axes that they were established as. He makes you care a bit more for them than you normally would. They are not found in this episode.
Starting point is 00:20:53 It's interesting hearing you, like the concept of a sequel episode, because I think like a lot of people, I fell off probably around like season 12. And so it makes sense that as the show kept going, that they were like, okay, I guess let's do another take on like basically a sequel episode which uh i i feel like they didn't really do that
Starting point is 00:21:10 in those first like 12 seasons or so did they the closest thing that we saw was sideshow bob in which yeah we'd see references to past adventures but the joke was homer didn't remember that's right yeah other than the bob episodes i mean they all mean, they always had a yearly treehouse of horror and other yearly traditions. But sequels of like this character returns other than Sideshow Bob was kind of rare. I mean, I guess Krusty's, the one with Krusty's father, like Father Like Clown, that's kind of a sequel to Krusty Gets Busted also. Like it is a direct follow up toup to the flashback to that episode to explain why he has dinner with them. But yeah,
Starting point is 00:21:49 they didn't do just a random season 2 episode. They'd make a direct sequel to that in season 10. They didn't do that back then. I guess at a certain point, you only have so many locations and characters to work with and different plot lines and things like that.
Starting point is 00:22:05 It was weird for me even at the table read hearing them talk about Bart being on his iPhone and stuff like that. It's like, whoa, that doesn't match in my brain. I'm not used to that at all. But obviously at some point in the show, they start bringing up the internet and phones and stuff like that. They get an HDTV. Yeah, there was a plot point in a season 30 episode I watched
Starting point is 00:22:24 that the plot point was Lisa records Bart using her phone and uploads it online. And then I just had to accept the movement of time when that scene happened. I did want to mention the chalkboard gag really quick because it does seem a little out of date for when this episode aired. But the joke is my mom is not dating Jerry Seinfeld. And so it's something that we let pass. And I don't know why, but at some point in his life in the 90s during the height of Seinfeld,
Starting point is 00:22:49 Jerry Seinfeld was dating a literal child. A 17 year old girl. Yeah. To be fair, I guess she was on the tail end of 17, but still a mega creepy move that I think it, like he was just so powerful that no one wanted to make fun of it. I think like Howard Stern was the only one
Starting point is 00:23:04 to really make fun of it and bite into it. But because of that, Jerry no longer appeared on his show. Like Jerry would come on Stern all the time in the 90s, but that was a bridge too far. So I feel like just the sheer amount of power made it so it was just whispered about. I'm like, this is kind of creepy. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:18 Well, so though this was when he had left Shoshanna to marry a, or to start dating a married woman. Oh, so that is the joke. Yes. Okay, I couldn't find that. That's Jessica Seinfeld now. Jessica Sklar at the time. She had actually just gotten married to some other guy over the summer and then in the fall started dating Jerry Seinfeld.
Starting point is 00:23:41 She's the co-creator of The Wedding Ref or whatever that show was. Oh, yes. The one thing he made after b movie the marriage ref i hate oh yeah it's just shocking to me that like god i mean 99 like that how was that not all over the news back then like when he's dating a 17 year old like i i remember hearing it but i remember it was like reading the wikipedia of him like 10 years later and be like wait why weren't people talking about this it was a different time it was i mean you hear all these things now where you're always just like why did we all let that happen like why did we all just let it go uh i don't understand it we all just went like i guess that is weird anyway like you just moved on you would see more jokes about
Starting point is 00:24:22 woody allen because he was in movies and he couldn't destroy your television career if you made a joke about him on say snl well this episode too when when i was a teen i dreamed of going to las vegas someday so i i did like this episode i uh now for me las vegas is fun for 36 to 48 hours and then i i it. But I do enjoy gambling. It's fun. But though my last trip to Vegas was actually my least favorite one because it was the first time I'd gone with my husband and he really does not like Las Vegas at all. Well, because my husband doesn't drink alcohol basically ever and he doesn't care for gambling so i perfect great city for him yeah vegas is not for me there's too much uh divorced that energy in the air and to be fair no one wants a person like me in las vegas i have my own spaces so uh i kind of opt out of it i've only been there
Starting point is 00:25:17 for video game events and i've gotten to walk around casinos and stuff and like it's cool but once you're outside and you realize that some parts of the outsider condition you're like we're all dying we're all just gonna die we're killing the earth yeah i had a period like in college where i used to go there fairly frequently because it's just like oh let's we're gonna go get wasted and gamble all night and everything that that seemed like a fun time but like i definitely got to a an age where it's just like i'm good i don't i don't need to go to vegas anymore unless i'm getting married i guess well the magical thing about vegas too is that i think everything feels like you're in a movie when you walk around there or like it doesn't feel real which i think is what they want you to feel so you'll like well i'm not gambling real money i'm i'm i'm a star of oceans 14 or whatever but i i
Starting point is 00:26:01 think that also makes people act as selfishly as they ever would anywhere. And so my husband had the worst introduction to Vegas he could have, too, which was, so we went there in May to go to a pro wrestling show. Of course we were going to a pro wrestling show. This was for Double or Nothing, the big AEW event. Oh, nice. You went there live? It was pretty great, yeah. Awesome. That sounds great.
Starting point is 00:26:24 And the show was great. Everything around it was pretty great yeah it was great uh and the show was great everything around it was not uh the happiest so we land there that night the night before the show we go into our hotel room uh my husband was like i'm pretty tired from the flight let's just rest i'm like oh no come on we gotta let's go to new york new york i'll just walk you over there on so then this like asshole guy shoves right past my husband and whistles right in his ear. Because he's like, hey, guys, pay attention to me. He's trying to get his friend's attention. And he whistles like the kind where you pull at both sides of your mouth with your fingers
Starting point is 00:26:57 and whistles right in my husband's ear. So he kind of has echoes in his ear the whole rest of the weekend. And it just like god ruined it ruined his weekend i was like well that's the worst introduction to vegas you could possibly have oh that sucks like yeah some people can do that super duper loud and right in your ear that'd be terrible yeah which uh and of course the guy didn't apologize or anything no why would he it's somewhere to be clearly the simpsons will be right back It's somewhere to be, clearly.
Starting point is 00:27:28 The Simpsons will be right back. Now, I'm no big city lawyer, but I still want to thank this week's guest, Dan Reichert, for coming on. Be sure to check out all of his stuff, not just on Giant Bomb, but also on his podcast he does with his wife, Panning the Stream. Be sure to check out all of his stuff not just on giant bomb but also on his podcast he does with his wife panning the stream be sure to check it out they just launched their patreon folks and by the way we have a patreon of our own in fact that's how me and bob do this podcast every week for all you listeners and if you were to sign up for five dollars a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons not only would you be supporting us doing this as our full-time jobs but you'd also be getting access to a ton of extras not only would you get to hear next week's episode of talking simpsons right now with no ads the same is true for our sister podcast what a cartoon plus get access to our gigantic backlog of exclusive patreon podcast
Starting point is 00:28:23 mini series that cover the entire series of The Critic, the first season of King of the Hill, the first season of Futurama, and coming soon, our newest mini-series that's exclusive to the Patreon, where we'll be covering the first 10 episodes of season two of Futurama. Please check all of that out at the $5 and up level one more time at patreon.com slash talking simpsons but if you want the high of getting a white wine spritzer then you need to jump up to the $10 level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for $ dollar subscribers they not only get all of the things i mentioned in the previous bit about five dollar subscribers but you also get our monthly what a
Starting point is 00:29:12 cartoon movie podcast where me and bob cover a different animated feature film once a month this month in september we're doing cowboy bebop the month before we did rocco's modern life static cling and if you sign up at the ten dollar level you get those plus all the previous ones like a goofy movie kiki's delivery service batman mask of the phantasm into the spider verse and so so many more you can only hear those if you're a ten dollar and up patron at patreon.com talking simpsons it's so easy to sign up there you'll get an rss feed you can plug in to wherever you you listen to podcasts or you can listen to them on the patreon app so please please check it all out one more time patreon.com slash talking simpsons uh so this episode too uh speaking of sequel episodes this feels like a prequel episode to me
Starting point is 00:30:21 to the mods death episode oh, I can see that. Was that this season? Was that later in the season? That's three, it's two years from now in season 12. Yes, yeah. Okay. Because next season, the voice of Maud will quit the show after being mistreated
Starting point is 00:30:39 financially. They really kind of screw her over and pay. So she leaves the show. We'll talk about that when the episode comes. But then in the next season, in 12, they decide to just kill off Maude for that reason. Was that the only character she did?
Starting point is 00:30:55 No, she did Helen Lovejoy as well. It's a very similar character. And Miss Hoover and Sherry Bobbins. I think the thing was that she would have to fly in from where she lived to do voices, and Fox would not pay for that plane ticket. So eventually she just quit because that was a tiny fee that she just wanted them to comp, and they wouldn't do it.
Starting point is 00:31:18 That sucks. And she had been working on the show for a decade doing one of their most popular characters, and she was almost like losing money doing episodes to do it's yeah so yeah it was actually the next season season 11 that ma dies in wow so did the rest just kind of disappear but they felt that mod was too big of a character and they had to address it is that what happened um i mean the others just didn't get lines for a while yeah she would she would come back within a decade. But yeah, I think with Maude, they're just like, well, we can't write jokes for anymore. And they liked Homer.
Starting point is 00:31:51 Like in this episode, they like Homer and Ned relationship stuff. Homer teaching Ned things. And so as Scully even said to us in our interview with him, he's like that Homer hates Ned because he's the man he wishes he could be and so you definitely see a bit of that in this episode like so yeah i think they just felt they had run i mean they don't do much with maude in this episode you know and that's also why the death of maude opens up the door for the return of the characters we meet in this episode yeah they do come back and uh also this episode was the one nominated for an emmy that year but it lost to king of the hill for the episode and they call it bobby love that's a great episode of king of the hill i was shocked to find out that's
Starting point is 00:32:39 the only king of the hill episode to win that emmy like they the entire rest of this show apparently never won an Emmy for an original program. I don't know why, but there's a lot of crossover between Simpsons and King of the Hill fans, but I've never seen a single episode of King of the Hill or Futurama. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 00:32:57 I was obsessed with The Simpsons growing up, but I just never saw any of those other ones. I want to think you would like both of them. Oh, yeah. I probably would. I think I would. They're readily available on Disney+. No, I mean, if we can't... Holy shit, you're right. Well, right now, King of the Hill's on
Starting point is 00:33:13 Hulu, and you can just consume the whole thing. It is a perfect binge-watch show of just background hilariousness all the time. I think you'd really enjoy it. Okay, I should check it out. Though now you're a big-time New Yorker, binge-watch show of just like background hilariousness all the time i think i think you'd really enjoy it okay i should check it out though now you're a big time new yorker so you futurama might appeal to you more than the oh yeah is it wait is it set in new york uh new new york
Starting point is 00:33:36 oh okay okay gotcha i thought it was set in space or something parts of it I mean also that, yes In a way, we're all in space right now Whoa And this episode also annoyed me for the longest time And still makes me grumble in how it messes with continuity My beloved continuity It's so important on this show I don't know, I've softened on it I was one of the people complaining on all TV Simpsons Or at least reading the complaints
Starting point is 00:34:02 But now 60 doesn't seem so old So I'm a little okay with him being 60 on all TV Simpsons, or at least reading the complaints. But now, 60 doesn't seem so old. So, I'm a little okay with him being 60. Although, if he was 60 in the 90s, it would conflict with the being raised by beatnik. Exactly. Although, they could have been some early beatniks.
Starting point is 00:34:17 They would have had him in beatniks in 1948. Sure. That doesn't work. I'm sure there were beatniks then. Why not? Or bohemians. I know. It would mean, for him to be 60 in 99 meant he was born in 1939, or 38
Starting point is 00:34:33 even. So it just doesn't work with Hurricane Nettie, but they basically, every episode of the show pretends Hurricane Nettie didn't happen after that episode aired. They just completely ignore it. But I just didn't like Nettie didn't happen after that episode aired. Like, they just completely ignore it. But I just didn't like it.
Starting point is 00:34:48 I didn't like that it invalidated it, that it made him 60. I do like the idea of a man who you're like, oh, how old are you? What? 60? Like that. I like that. That's funny. But, man.
Starting point is 00:35:01 Dan, your thoughts on his 60-year-oldness? I remember being surprised by that, but I don't know, it seemed less shocking watching it now because it's like, I don't know, the way he's drawn, I think he was always supposed to be at least middle-aged looking, so maybe 60 just doesn't sound that old nowadays. It's funny you think he's like 20 years older than Homer. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:23 For all their reference points points they seem to share but uh yeah it's well it's funny that ned has gone from the guy who could own better stuff than homer to the 60 year old man who who never lived a day in his life which really doesn't fit with a man who owns a rumpus room with uh with a beer uh keg in it and everything. But it also, like, I don't know, the stress of the... He says he's never lived a day in his life, but the stress of running the leftorium alone, that seems
Starting point is 00:35:54 like that would age him a little bit. Is it still open in canon on The Simpsons? I believe so. That episode established that there are many left-handed characters in Springfield, so... Yeah. I mean, the Leftorium did get destroyed in Hurricane Nettie, but it would show up again.
Starting point is 00:36:13 I think the last time we saw it was in the Baboon County, USA episode. Yeah, that's right. And speaking of beloved continuity, this episode opens with them kind of sneering at the idea of continuity as we hear about Burns' Casino. This is Kent Brockman live at the Monty Burns Casino. Moments from now, the house that Social Security checks built will be demolished to make way for a casino-themed family hotel. This must be heartbreaking for you, sir. I'm just thinking of my employees. All the card traps, bottom dealers, and shills. Where will they go?
Starting point is 00:36:56 They're managing your chain of nursing homes, sir. Excellent. Gone are such headliners as Little Timmy and the Shebangs, The Shebangs, and The New Shebangs, featuring Big Timmy. Remember how excited we were when this place opened? Then a week later, we just forgot
Starting point is 00:37:11 about it. I'm surprised they bothered to move it when they moved the town. Oh, I can explain that. You see? Bye. Yeah, I vaguely remembered them moving the town when I heard that line, but I don't think I'd seen that episode probably since it aired, basically. What was that? Why did they move the town? That was in the Trash of the Titans episode, the 200th one, where there was a major trash problem, so they just moved the town down the road.
Starting point is 00:37:36 Wasn't there a big celebrity voice for the 200th one? Was that Tony Hawk or something? Steve Martin and U2. Tony Hawk was 300. Barting over, i think it was called okay yeah that's right you two is what i'm thinking of yeah the uh the burns's casino hasn't been seen since season five and it uh it's a funny gag too because it's one of the few times where you know in a homer gets a new job episode normally at the end they close the loop on the place he worked at of like but at the end of that episode burns's casino is still running burns quits working at it but it's still open
Starting point is 00:38:11 but in this case like uh it was it was there the entire time and they just dug out their old design of it even the gag of mr burns as a mermaid in neon was that the one the original one was when they did the how Hughes stuff, right? Yes. Yep, yep, that was it. So I guess that's why we see Guter and Ernst in Vegas, because they had to go somewhere else to perform. It explains why they have to go to Vegas at all, because they could always go to their local casino in this one before. Wait, Guter, is that the Siegfried and Roy?
Starting point is 00:38:42 Yes. Okay, actually, last time I was in Vegas, I was on the tram at the airport, the thing that takes you between terminals and stuff like that. And I walked in, and these two guys were right next to me, and they looked just, they were old, but they had very kind of like outlandish hair and jackets and stuff like that, and one was in a wheelchair. And I remember thinking at first, like, are these guys in like some rock band, or they must play at some casino band or something.
Starting point is 00:39:03 And then I realized, like, oh, wait wait this is totally sigfried and roy and i had to look it up like slyly on my phone to see if like is roy in a wheelchair now and sure enough he he is yeah that that tiger attack a long time ago yes yeah yeah and he still is in a wheelchair uh but yeah sure enough it was definitely them my my recent airport experience was much less depressing because over the announcement in the vancouver airportuff McKagan from Guns N' Roses said, welcome to Vancouver. Oh, that's awesome. I only know that because there's a Mega Man X5 boss called Duff McWhalen who's a whale. Yes.
Starting point is 00:39:33 And that's my only reference point because I don't listen to Guns N' Roses. I'm sorry. Yeah, everyone in the X5 is named after a Guns N' Roses member. Man, the experience of being Siegfried and Roy or that kind of celebrity to know that everywhere you go if you see someone looking at a phone they're probably Google image searching you. They're searching your name dead? That would drive me insane.
Starting point is 00:39:56 At the airport they had this giant mural of all these Vegas legends. It's Elvis and all this stuff. Siegfried and Roy in their prime and then I just look over and here's them being very oldfried and Roy in their prime, and then I just look over and here's them being very old and unfortunately not in their prime. Yeah. It happens to us all. We'll always have Father of the
Starting point is 00:40:12 Pride. Oh, God. A coming miniseries from Honor Network, right? Yes, yeah. They live forever in that. You know Father of the Pride, right, Dan? I don't think so. Oh, that's a DreamWorks series unfortunately commissioned around the time that the attack happened. So I believe it was a 2004 series, CGI, made for NBC.
Starting point is 00:40:31 Dan, sorry, John Goodman was a major voice, but it didn't last very long. Oh, wow. Yeah, on the success of Shrek, they're like, we could do a TV series. We don't just have to make Shrek movies. Let's do a TV series. We don't just have to make Shrek movies. Let's do a TV series. And we'll do it with a famous brand we'd all want to see a sitcom about, Siegfried and Roy.
Starting point is 00:40:51 What do their cats get up to when the lights are off? And I believe Donkey has a guest appearance in one episode. Yeah, they shoved him in there. But yes, then they just had to shelve it for years because of the tiger attack and uh which you know roy forgave that tiger they he would perform with it one more time just to show like
Starting point is 00:41:13 he does not he didn't blame the tiger it was just one of those those accidents that happened but but yes the you know the gag of lisa wondering about why it was moved in the 200th episode it's a bad habit of the show again they highlight that they know there's inconsistencies and they are going to ignore it like that's antagonism with the fans of this era a lot of lisa's role in this era is saying well that doesn't make any sense shut up lisa yeah just shut up uh there's several reused character designs in this episode and one of them is the the man running the explosion is the head of the gay steel mill oh okay oh wow i thought he looked familiar yeah that's uh i mean he looks like a worker guy he could he could be doing explosion maybe though he's too good his specialty is steel so that's
Starting point is 00:42:04 why he fucked up and did an explosion instead of an implosion. Is he the we work hard, we play hard guy? Yep, that's the one. Okay, got it. And them running from the dust is apparently supposed to be an Independence Day reference. I think of other real life things when I see that.
Starting point is 00:42:20 I mean, I don't want to bring us down here, but there's a famous... We are recording this September 10th. There's famous 9-11 B-roll of people running from a cloud of dust. You see it whenever there's a 9-11 thing on TV, like remembering the tragedy or whatever. So immediately that's in my head when Marge is like, dust! Yeah. Unfortunately. It's crazy to think that this aired 19 months before that.
Starting point is 00:42:44 It's a real countdown on our network. Oh, God. What year was the one where they go to New York and he goes up and down the Twin Towers? 97. Okay, got it. Late 97, yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:56 And this also, that was the opening gag there with them running over Don Rickles who explodes. They finally get their revenge on Don Rickles, The Simpsons does. He turned down doing the show in season four. That was in New Kid on the Block, right? Yes.
Starting point is 00:43:13 Which had he said yes, we'd never have the sea captain. I think what happened was they wrote material for him to perform in the show. We wrote Don Rickles jokes and he assumed that they were ripping him off or stealing his material. I guess there was some confusion
Starting point is 00:43:27 in them communicating with him. That was crazy. I also forgot that in this episode, they run over two old comedians. They do it twice. That's right. And this is also the era where Homer was doing this runner of, like,
Starting point is 00:43:41 he zinged you, Marge. Like, this is the second time he's said it this season. He said it before in the Lisa Gets an A episode. As they're running from the dust, the car gets covered in dust, and a nice but mean gag about how Homer is a husband who doesn't listen to his wife until a friend says the exact same thing.
Starting point is 00:44:01 Well, Lenny is the voice of reason. You gotta listen to Lenny. And all these car wash gags, they mean nothing to me as I have not owned a car in 13 years. Right. Is this one of the first times we saw the entirety of Cletus' family,
Starting point is 00:44:14 or were they established at this point? The twisted world of Marge Simpson is where we meet the many names of his children. We're introduced to. I like how it's punctuated with the dog howling, though. That's a good gag. And then we get to see comic book guy being the typical internet snarkster
Starting point is 00:44:33 with his unfunny nerd bumper stickers, which I like to believe that the attendant did speak English and just wanted to destroy those bumper stickers. There's some weak glue on those bumper stickers, I gotta say. If you try to pull a John Kerry sticker off of your car in shame after he loses, very, very hard to do.
Starting point is 00:44:54 I just covered it back up. I forgot who ran with John Kerry. Is it Edward? Oh, yeah. The shamed John. The Democrats would prefer you forget John Edwards. It's never happened. Worked on me.
Starting point is 00:45:06 As they get their car washed, I never watched from the outside. I always preferred being inside the car wash as you get to watch the rollers go over. Yeah, it's like a fun space adventure. But I like that there's an extra robot arm that intentionally destroys your antenna.
Starting point is 00:45:23 That's the only thing it does, it seems. And as they head inside, we get to also see Marge's taste in music is pretty great. Wow, you can't find this stuff anywhere. Seals and Crofts, Pablo Cruz, Air Supply, oh, Loggins and Oats, and it's free. I've never heard of these bands, Mom. What kind of music do they play crab rock no wuss rock that's it i think it's yacht rock yes yeah i like that she's excited
Starting point is 00:45:53 like yeah wuss rock that's it and it's free all free the i my favorite is they made up a mythical band that would be kennygins and Daryl Oates. Isn't there a current comedy duo that kind of uses that joke? It's like Oates and Garfunkel or something? Oh, yeah. Garfunkel and Oates, yep. Yeah, yeah, that's right. They're fine.
Starting point is 00:46:15 I love those two. Loggins and Oates also, it's like a parody of Loggins and Messina, which is like they're the kings of Yacht Rock. If you guys have watched the hilarious Yacht Rock sketch, those are the main characters of it. Sketch series from Channel 101. Yeah, I like that Marge. Marge accepts that it's Wuss Rock, and she's totally cool with that. Homer is going to pay $10, which I'd say in 99, pretty good price for a car wash.
Starting point is 00:46:38 I would say so, yeah. Meanwhile, a 50% off senior discount, that's pretty good. Ned only has to pay $5. You never see that anymore. I have gone now with my parents to the movies and told them they can get a senior discount, and they are far too honest where they're just like, well, I better pull out my ID to show you I'm in the senior discount range. I worked at a movie theater, and the rule was if someone looks old enough to get a senior discount,
Starting point is 00:47:06 you do not insult them by asking to see their ID. We never had strict rules about that. I worked at the theater, too, and you'd see people that clearly had college IDs from the University of Kansas, 1994, and this is like 12 years later or something. But don't ask questions. It's like, that fucks off.
Starting point is 00:47:24 I'm going to be sad when I stop being carded. Yeah, when I worked at the movie theater, I did not care if somebody got a discount. It wasn't, I, my pay would not change if somebody paid $12 or $15 for a movie ticket. Like, so. Same if you could tell people were obviously like sneaking in candy from the outside or whatever.
Starting point is 00:47:42 It's like, yeah, whatever. It's fine. Go with God like that. The only time i ever would enforce it if i not on age things but if somebody was trying to there was a group of people who was like look i'll let two of you underage kids sneak into an r-rated movie but you have a group of seven and it just feels like i will get in trouble for this. Like, I have to turn you away. They should have been doing it in smaller groups.
Starting point is 00:48:11 That's also what annoyed me, that I was like, you kids should be trying harder to sneak past me. Yeah, raise the bar for them. The most obvious one for me was, I want to say it was the weekend that South Park, the movie, came out, and I want to say it was Wild Wild West was also out, so you would see all these kids that were like 15 buying like tons of tickets for Wild Wild West and you'd watch them and sure enough they just walked straight into South Park.
Starting point is 00:48:30 Yeah, I wonder how much of Wild Wild West's gross belongs to South Park. But as Homer sees that Ned got a senior discount, he's ready to expose him at church in this next clip. And once again, tithing is 10% off the top. That's gross income, not net.
Starting point is 00:48:51 Please, people, don't force us to audit. Now we're going to pass this around a second time. Brother Ned, if you'll do the honors. I wouldn't do that, Reverend. You see, St. Flanders is as crooked as you or me. That's right. It's my sad duty to rat out this man for defrauding a car wash. How, you ask?
Starting point is 00:49:16 With a phony senior discount card. Well, that's not quite true. Did you or did you not use a senior citizen discount card At said car wash Well I did but Now I'm not a fancy big city lawyer But it seems to me that a senior citizen Has to be over 55 Isn't that so
Starting point is 00:49:35 Well yes And you are how old I suppose if you must know Well I'm 60 I love that Homer just gets into the Big city lawyer and pulling on his suspenders. And the gas when he says he's not one. Especially since you never really see him wear suspenders, and all of a sudden he's just got them ready to go. At one point, were senior citizens considered to be 55?
Starting point is 00:49:59 Because I feel like the retirement age keeps sliding forward. It's like, you can work until you're 89 now. I think that's when you would start getting AARP and stuff like that i want to say it was around 55 yeah now that seems young to me yeah i think uh i think it was 60 no i think it was 65 now for like social security checks to start coming in i believe that's when my mom started getting hers 55 i think was how it felt back then because people could afford to retire earlier uh now you get the news reports of just like what an amazing opportunity that you never have to stop working there's always jobs available you can wave the
Starting point is 00:50:35 people in a walmart until they roll you away in a casket uh but the homer like putting ned on trial i love he's like it's my sad duty to rat out Ned. And poor Ned having to admit that he's 60. He is a little ashamed how old he is, which he should be proud. Proud how good he looks at that age. And apparently that came from in the writer's room that Ron Hauge, he found out he's a little older than other people it was in there. But he was 40. But when somebody asked him, oh, what is your age?
Starting point is 00:51:11 He said 60. And people believed him more than he thought they would. Oh, God. Oh, no. That's rough. I do like a surprise age find out of somebody. Like, oh, wow, they're that? I mean, there's those people who are like
Starting point is 00:51:26 old forever like tv's frank from mst3k yeah if you go white in your 30s you're old forever you don't age uh wishing him the best he's he's on the recovery he had a health scare this summer but frank conniff is doing better now so thumbs up to him. But yes, I complained about it earlier. A man who is 60 would have been born in 38 or 39. There is no way he would have had beatnik parents or have been filmed. The video of him at the psychiatry thing was filmed in the 60s, like the Swanson's Angry Day at Dinner.
Starting point is 00:52:01 That's right. It's one of these problems that they couldn't have foreseen. They wouldn't have expected the show to go 30 fucking years or whatever. So it's like, yeah, 60, that's fine. Well,
Starting point is 00:52:09 now Homer graduated high school in the year 2000 and nothing is as it seems. I mean, that sliding timeline, it's just what happens. And I accept it. I'm not really mad about it, listeners. But I was thinking of this sliding timeline today too
Starting point is 00:52:25 because i i watched a video on right after 9-11 happened i'm sorry to keep talking about that but uh marvel did a comic book of like 9-11 happens to spider-man and all that it was kind of a you know a tribute issue to the heroes of 9-11 all that but so the story is that you know 9-11 happened in the comics but now thanks to sliding timelines when it's 18 years ago spider-man has not been spider-man for 18 years in the universe of the comics so he technically can't have experienced 9-11 as spider-man that's that's just how the sliding timeline works. Because if Spider-Man became Spider-Man in high school, but he also isn't over 30, then he can't possibly have been Spider-Man in 9, 11, 18 years ago. Canonically, he was born in what, like 1953? He was 15 in 1962, so actually 47.
Starting point is 00:53:22 Okay. Spider-Man was born in 1947. Neat. Happy 70th birthday to Spider-Man. But yes, as everyone finds out in Ned's age, they want to know what his secret is. What's your secret, Flanders? Goat placenta? Monkey sweat?
Starting point is 00:53:40 Some kind of electric hat? Holy water? It's holy water, right? Ah, it burns! Well, listen, folks, there's no magic formula. I just follow the three C's. Clean living, chewing thoroughly, and a daily dose of vitamin church.
Starting point is 00:53:56 And, of course, I resist all the major urges. All of them? You mean you've never splurged and, say, eaten an entire birthday cake and blamed it on the dog? You've never licked maple syrup off your lover's stomach? You've never snuck out of church to break into cars? No, no, and double no.
Starting point is 00:54:15 I haven't done any of those things, folks. You name it, I haven't done it. Geez, Flanders, you're 60 years old and you haven't lived a day in your life. Yeah, even the boy in the bubble had a deck of cards. I remember that. Mel remembers that TV movie. I love that. I remember that.
Starting point is 00:54:34 Was that the Travolta movie? Yeah, there's a great, I haven't seen it playing, but I've watched the riff tracks of it. It's very good. Oh, wow. I watched it playing a long time ago and it was on E! Network because I thought, I need to see this to get all those references to Boy in the Bubble. Yeah, we've been considering watching it lately, actually, my wife and I, for our podcast. We just kind of scrolled through Amazon Prime Video and tried to find garbage things to watch,
Starting point is 00:54:59 and we saw that, and we hadn't even, I think we'd heard of it, but we didn't know it was Travolta, and it's like, oh, this sounds like a special breed of awful that we should probably watch. I believe there's a scene in the movie where he meets another bubble boy. And they both like wink at each other that they masturbate. They're like, do you do that? And he's like, yeah, I do it all the time. That raises questions. Yeah. it all the time like that that raises questions yeah which also like what do you like when you
Starting point is 00:55:25 live in literally a glass house like how can you uh that causes problems i would think with doing it's got a spherical curtain that goes around it i think like for most of that movie he's just in a room oh yeah just in his own like hyperbaric chamber or whatever i guess you know the first bubble boy reference must have been on seinfeld that i recognize yeah yeah that's right the classic moops the moments definitely i think that'd be a good one for we didn't even we should have promoted that earlier dan you've got not just all your giant bomb stuff but your your weekly podcast with your wife yeah we do a podcast it's called panning the stream and uh yeah like i mentioned it's not just amazon prime video we do hulu netflix sometimes youtube just a lot of times it's not just Amazon Prime Video. We do Hulu, Netflix, sometimes YouTube.
Starting point is 00:56:05 A lot of times it's obscure, weird stuff we've never heard of or sometimes it'll be the new big Netflix series or something. As you guys do, we watch the stuff and then we discuss it. I think we're on our 77th episode we put up every Sunday. It's on all the podcast
Starting point is 00:56:21 apps if you want to check it out. That's awesome. I was just thinking of you guys did the third season of Glow and I was thinking of that too with all the podcast apps if you want to check it out. That's awesome. I was just thinking of you guys did the third season of Glow, and I was thinking of that too with all the Vegas stuff in this. Yeah, totally. That third season is a pretty fun one. Oh, really great. Yeah, I love that show. But enough about Glow. Ned goes to church every single day.
Starting point is 00:56:39 That's a lot. That's excessive. I went to Catholic school growing up in Kansas, and people really liked going to church there, but I don't think anyone went every day. I think the people whose job it is to go every day don't actually go every day. I had a friend's mom who did, but I think she had a thing for the priest
Starting point is 00:56:55 because she kept inviting the priest over for dinner and stuff like that, so I think she was trying to change him. From gay to straight. Tempt him away from the Lord. He was a lordosexual. She was looking to receive some communion. Sure.
Starting point is 00:57:10 I'm trying. I'm trying. But Bart breaking into cars during church, that almost seems too evil for him. And it takes me back to when Jessica Lovejoy tried to get him to steal in church and he refused to do it. Bart's been flandering.
Starting point is 00:57:25 I just love the shot of him, just the insert shot of him peeping through the window. With a crowbar. With a crowbar, yeah. Yeah, it's like he's not laughing or something. Also, the gag of Krabappel admitting to licking maple syrup off a lover's stomach. I just love the Seymour Groen. Everybody knows his secret problems. But yes, everybody rejects Ned and laughs at him.
Starting point is 00:57:51 I complain about the continuity, but they do cut to him driving his Geo, the classic Flanders Geo, right after that. That's right, yeah. It is funny, though, that it's realistic and that people are disappointed to hear that the key to being healthy is clean living. It's always true. But then you see these stories about Edna something or other is 140 years old. What's your secret? She's like, I don't know why I'm alive. It's just like, the answer is
Starting point is 00:58:15 always just like, I smoke my entire life. I drink whiskey every day. I've just been cursed to live this long. One of my favorite Norm McDonald Weekend Update jokes ever is when George Burns died at the age of 102 or whatever. It's like, let this be a lesson to you kids. Smoking kills.
Starting point is 00:58:32 Yes. That's good. Yeah, I mean, it is a crapshoot. I mean, your odds of living a long time definitely lower if you smoke, but there are some people who just genetically have the gift of living a long time if you smoke. So who knows?
Starting point is 00:58:50 Who knows? Was it smoking to kill John Wayne or was it filming that Genghis Khan movie? We'll never know. But yes, I also do love this next little clip here of how predictable Ned is. Can you believe it? It almost seemed like those folks were making fun of old Steady Neddy. Well, you may be a bit cautious, but what's wrong with that? Some people like chunky peanut butter, some like smooth.
Starting point is 00:59:16 And some people just steer clear of that whole hornet's nest. I'll stick with just plain white bread, thank you very much. Maybe with a glass of water on the side for dipping. Gosh darn it. Am I that pre-diddley-ictable? I wasted my whole thing-diddley life. Tanger! Look at that.
Starting point is 00:59:40 Everyone's living it up except Ned. Now, we're being hijacked Dumb dick clever old man Now take us to Dress Barn Henry, play the death jingle please Oh yes Death stalks you at every turn There it is, death
Starting point is 01:00:00 So RIP to the Dress Barn Corporation Which just closed this year They closed like 650 stores Wow, I didn't know that The funniest name for a women's clothing store in the universe They opened 20 more years past this joke God, the idea of dipping bread in water Is so gross to me for some reason
Starting point is 01:00:18 Yeah, I guess he downgraded from ice milk It was too sinful Unflavored for me Yeah, oh, God. Wet white bread blick. The hornet's nest of peanut butter choices. Yeah. You know, I've always been a creamy guy,
Starting point is 01:00:37 but maybe I should walk on the wild side and have a little crunchy. It's like a chewing adventure. You never know what shape you'll hit next with crunchy peanut butter. I'm super chunk all the way, every time. No, as a kid, I hated it. I mean, I hated it. I mean, I was a very picky child. I've grown into a slightly picky man. But crunchy peanut butter sounded too crazy for me.
Starting point is 01:00:57 Not processed enough. Certainly not, no. Though now I'm one of those natural peanut butter, stirrum kind of guys. Where all the oil collects on the top. Yeah. I do enjoy that. It's some nice peanut butter.
Starting point is 01:01:14 Though now also I don't have peanut butter as much because it's just like, it is all calories. Like, it is just so many calories. Like, what's a tablespoon? 5,000. Yeah. Though I found out how, like how Europeans hate peanut butter. It's just not peanuts. This is what I've heard from British people,
Starting point is 01:01:29 that the peanuts are not a thing there in candy. I watched some video recently of a British person eating American candy, and they're like, oh, peanuts. God, you Americans and your peanuts. It's crazy. I haven't heard that Journey song since the Larry Burns episode. Yeah, yeah. Which I wonder, like, that almost, I wonder if they're like, well, we had the license already.
Starting point is 01:01:54 We could just use it again. I wonder how long it is good for. What is the, because I know Dangerfield and Caddyshack, his thing would play that. What did they do with him and Larry Burns with that song? Oh, yeah, they just end the episode with that song playing as they do a Caddyshack-style party. And no one knows where the music is coming from. Yep.
Starting point is 01:02:12 That's right, okay. And, yeah, the dress barn is a funny thing, that these women are holding them hostage, and they could go anywhere, and they're picking a cheap place like dress barn. Though where did dave even get that convertible from i wonder uh and also at least one of those uh young ladies will be reused in the catholic church super bowl commercial oh you're right yeah as long as we're
Starting point is 01:02:37 talking about the catholics uh but i just love how they she's pointing the way she holds up the gun at them too is pretty great. Yeah, so as Ned decides he's going to shake things up, he lets his mustache get a little unkempt, like Trouble Detrubador David Crosby. Love that phrase, Trouble Detrubador. Previous guest star. The David Crosby thing, the Moody Blues stuff, and the Wuss Rock.
Starting point is 01:03:00 There is a whole lot of that specific era of rock. Scully, it's Scully's era of rock. He loves that era. You specific era of rock scully it's scully's era of rock he loves that you can you can kind of pin scully's age on what he's referencing yeah i'm i'll get to it later but they have a real good own on mike scully on the commentary for his taste in music uh but i really like ned's uncombed unkempt mustache design which actually does uh stay that way until the end of, until he's in the kitchen with Homer. So it at least maintains
Starting point is 01:03:29 for this continuous scene. Homer cooking on the roof is a very crazy thing for him to do. One of my favorite- Also leaving the raw meat on top of the roof. Yeah, and that is the origin of one of my favorite Marge lines
Starting point is 01:03:42 that I co-op for myself all the time. It's like, now it's Bob's time to shine. Yes, actually, let's give that a little listen. Yeah. Full power! Never a dull moment, huh, Homer? You got that right. Throw on the mesquite, Bart! Mesquite it is!
Starting point is 01:04:00 You know, this may sound just a teensy bit insane in the old membrane, Homer, but I was wondering if you could show me how to have some fun. Well, well, well. So Flawless Flanders needs help from Stinky Pants Simpson. Yeah, I guess I do. Welly, welly, welly. Mr. Clean wants to hang with Dirty Dingus McGee.
Starting point is 01:04:20 How about it, Homer? Will you teach me the secret of your intoxicating lust for life? Wellity, wellity, wellity. Stop that! Will you help me or not? Let's do it. So what about all this meat? The missus will clean that up.
Starting point is 01:04:37 Now it's Marge's time to shine. She disappears. I really love the name Dirty Dingus McGee. Yeah, that's a good one. But, I i mean in this and in bart star we saw ned have like little snaps oh yeah of anger so i think they are referencing it a bit where he will snap a little bit yeah it's true actually the way his arms kind of go back as he shouts at homer that is his pose from yelling at everybody at the at the freak out
Starting point is 01:05:01 oh man that yeah that i use that uh I think both of us on a podcast, if it comes to a thing where we have expertise in it, we will say, now it's blank's time to shine. Or it's the part I was born to play, baby. Though, you know, I don't like in these seasons that they pigeonhole Marge as a homemaker, but that line is really funny. And very sad.
Starting point is 01:05:25 Yes, yeah. She just happily cleans up that blood. She goes straight to scrubbing the blood. She was just waiting for it. I don't remember in previous seasons there being as many jokes about her being in the, like, you know, just there to clean and all that stuff, because that's Homer's fantasy later, obviously, in the hammock, too, is just seeing her, like, chop wood and stuff. And there's, like, several jokes like that that of like homer kind of being a bad husband that like yeah he was always kind of
Starting point is 01:05:47 aloof but i don't remember him like delighting and like making marge do the chores and stuff as much yeah he's uh i mean we're just a few episodes removed from marge asking him to take out the garbage and him knocking her unconscious to not have to do it oh Oh, Jesus. With a sleeper hold, not like a punch. With comedy abuse. Yes, yeah. No, I think they were getting much more into Homer the bad husband
Starting point is 01:06:14 and Marge the perfect housewife who actually loves it, though. Yeah, I mean, we're at the dawn of Family Guy, so soon there will be a much worse animated TV dad. So Homer will look a lot better. That's true. I believe in two weeks after this episode airs is the premiere of Family Guy. Wow.
Starting point is 01:06:32 And then Homer overplays his well, well, well lines. I love that. And also, for as boring as Ned is, he makes a reference to Cypress Hill, which is unexpected. I wondered if that was unintentional or if he had actually heard that song at some point well they were on the they did sing that song on the show that's true maybe he was at uh homer palooza or hullabalooza maybe he talked with marge about this delightful band that she saw there now this i like and so homer puts on his nice business outfit for the contract signing he even gets power of
Starting point is 01:07:06 attorney which taught me that phrase so homer saying like you'll never know when the game begins i don't know what that's referencing i thought it was from the game the 1997 michael douglas film the game but i couldn't find a matching scene from it online when i look for it i haven't seen that film in a million years and And I think I just tricked myself into thinking that because when this episode came out, I hadn't seen the movie. It's a David Fincher film. It's one of his lesser-seen movies.
Starting point is 01:07:34 But I saw the trailers before this episode came out and so I think that's why I just mentally made the connection. That movie is probably the only place that you can see the voice of Mario commit suicide. Whoa. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:07:48 Wow. Charles Martinet is his dad, yeah. It's such a ridiculous movie, but it's very, very good. I like it a lot, yeah. It operates on the thinnest strands of logic. Like, well, he couldn't have, he had to be at this right,
Starting point is 01:07:59 this point in time, right at this moment for this thing to work, but he is, he's there. That's how good the game is. He's got to fall at this location through this but yeah he does it to land on a one mattress where they're like well we definitely knew you were going to jump right where that mattress is it has like a sitcom ending like it is like uh it's literally a surprise it's sort of like smash mouth showing up at the end of rat race like what a terrible movie. What a comparison.
Starting point is 01:08:28 And so Homer is going to be showing Ned how to live life freely, and that starts with a car trip. Okay, Homer. I'm ready to learn. What's the first lesson? Just give me the topic sentence. Give me that. That's your problem. You're living up here.
Starting point is 01:08:44 You gotta live down here in the impulse zone. If you want to be like me, you gotta make snap decisions like this. We're going to break the bank at the Monty Burns Casino. Homer, they blew that up yesterday. Oh, yeah, right. Then we're going to Las Vegas, which is actually back in that direction. Nobody's going to take my Ned,
Starting point is 01:09:15 going to teach him to have fun. Oh, he's a Flanders machine. Then we have the fear and loathing gag right after that. Yes, yeah. Drawn in the Stedman style straight out of the book, which I had seen fear and loathing the year before, so I finally got that joke on first viewing. Though that's a parody version of Deep Purple's Highway Star
Starting point is 01:09:38 that Homer's singing, which I always associate with the video game Elite Beat Agents. Me too. Oh, yeah, yeah. About the dog trying to get back somewhere isn't it is it one of the rock bands like rock band two that starts with like a big montage set to that song oh i think so yeah yeah where they're all like driving on a van and they're out there playing that song yeah i love the gag of homer pointing like an inch lower in his head
Starting point is 01:10:02 god that's such a good for some reason i thought the joke was going to be him pointing to his crotch after his brain or something like that. But the lower part of his brain is a better joke. Yeah. And all of his dangerous U-turns is so funny. He almost kills a bunch of people, which, like you said, it's just like in Lost Our Lisa,
Starting point is 01:10:21 his crazy turns that give people heart attacks. Yeah, we talked before the show, but this reminds me of that episode a lot because he's teaching a very square character how to be impulsive and dangerous and have fun. So sort of replicating that story with a more adult Lisa. So they head into Las Vegas. I mean, entering Las Vegas, it's almost exactly like the shot in Fear and Loathing that Terry Gilliam used in that movie. There's another classic Homer saying sucker gag of Ned thinking that Homer called Maude
Starting point is 01:10:52 and Homer simply lies but thinks it's a good thing and just goes like, sucker. So one of these sign jokes I don't get, the R.A.P. Taylor Negron joke. I don't get. The R.A.P. Taylor Negron joke. I don't get it at all. He lived until 2015 and I mean I think the joke is like there's a very saucy, tacky Vegas sign and then they're mourning somebody underneath that. Yeah, I
Starting point is 01:11:15 guess that's the guy, but Taylor Negron of all people, I don't understand that. Actually, that happened at our Portland show where it says on the marquee, it was like, tonight, Talking Simpsons underneath RIP some person. I'm sorry, I don't remember the name, but I was like, ooh, how does this affect
Starting point is 01:11:32 us? I'm very sad now. They show the Luxor here. I think the Luxor was built in kind of like the mid to late 90s, but it used to look pretty cool, like this cool, sleek pyramid. But now, I don't know if you've been to Vegas lately, it's just plastered with gigantic esports logos oh that's wonderful and it says something like oh it's like the wells fargo esports arena or something super tacky oh i mean they gotta sell
Starting point is 01:11:55 they gotta sell tickets to the younger people now they then they're not watching boxing or even ufc as much they yeah like the biggest fighting game tournament in the world happens in Las Vegas every year, Evo, which I thought my husband would want to go to, and I was going to surprise him with tickets to that. But then after our trip to Vegas in May, he was like, don't, if you're planning to surprise me with tickets to that, do not get those tickets. I never want to come back to Las Vegas. Yeah, that's what my wife is about vegas too i will say i'm not saying there aren't a lot of gay things in vegas
Starting point is 01:12:30 because there's a couple but it's more like very mainstream drag shows that they don't even call drag they're called female impersonator shows uh but there certainly aren't as many gay shows as you'll see on the signs and i couldn't believe there was a joke with the word quote dykes in it yeah simpson to follow up the homo joke yeah oklahoma and yeah i was surprised too i was very shocked to see clon dykes as as a gag now now the performers in vegas are much different in that they're just the people you that sort of faded away in the 90s and like some of them went to branson as we will see in a future episode, but some of them will go to Vegas.
Starting point is 01:13:08 For some reason, Brad Garrett is the Jerry Seinfeld of Vegas right now. The Brad Garrett Comedy Club. I've walked by it many a time when I stay in the MGM Grand. I was just there. Carrot Top owns his own theater there, and he just lives there. And Penn & Teller, too? Yeah, Penn & Teller have been in the Rio forever. Carr carrot top has had a residency at the luxor for what feels like 20 years now it's nuts have you have you seen either of those shows dan i have not no i've seen the
Starting point is 01:13:34 posters everywhere in vegas for them though yeah the the only big time vegas shows i've seen are the cirque du soleil ones which basically every major what every major casino has a circ show there like it's just one after the other except i think no even the one that has blue man group they still also have a circ to do soleil show there too oh wow i've only seen one of those which was the uh the beatles one i think the easiest most mainstream one of them to see was that love yes yeah yeah if i were to tell you to see one i'd pick that one but uh i do like the wordplay of oklahoma uh and it also does remind me though that i found out about it because a friend of the show uh and writer slash broadway reviewer lewis pitesman uh he saw there's a current revival of Oklahoma in Broadway right now that they say is like the sexiest Oklahoma ever and full of like queer coding and stuff.
Starting point is 01:14:32 Again, I'm more of a state fair guy. That's my go to Midwestern musical. Dan, you got to go to see this new sexy Oklahoma. Oh, yeah. I don't know what normal Oklahoma is. Oh, man. You're missing out. We've seen Cannibal
Starting point is 01:14:49 the Musical, right? I think I saw that a long time ago, yeah. I always preferred Trey and Matt's animated stuff over Orgasmo and all that, but they have their moments. Well, if you remember Cannibal the Musical and then were to see Oklahoma, you would get every reference to it. Cannibal the Musical.
Starting point is 01:15:09 I did see Book of Mormon out here in New York, and that was pretty good good times yeah i love book of mormon was a i only got to see their touring company not their fancy broadway one you uh man all the broadway you could be seeing dan and i've seen a few now actually a good friend of mine actually i went to raw with him last night alex bonillo he's one of the the leads and uh dear evan hansen so Ever since I came here, I saw Dear Evan Hansen, I saw Hamilton, and then I saw Book of Mormon. Those are the three I've seen. That's amazing. Wow.
Starting point is 01:15:33 Boy, every detail of your life just amazes me. It was fun. I enjoyed it. And you're about to go to SmackDown after this recording, aren't you? Yes, yes. Actually, I was backstage at Madison Square Garden at Raw like 12 hours ago. Yeah, it was really surreal.
Starting point is 01:15:51 You motherfucker. I mean, how cool. This bastard. I saw Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H catching up. It was a cool thing to see in person. Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:16:04 So we get to see the Moody Blues mentioned before. We'll see them later i just love that i finally get that so the moody blues is big hit song is knights of white satin and so the band they're opening for it's called satin knights meaning they're a cover band of moody blues so they're opening for their own cover band i think that's my favorite joke in this episode. That really got a laugh out of me. And also, as they arrive in town, Ned is being overwhelmed by lights and rivers. Gee, Homer, this all looks so garish. The lights, the noise, the letter X,
Starting point is 01:16:44 it's all designed to inflame the senses. I'm overstimulated. I gotta get out of this town. I don't think so. I think you'll find escape is quite impossible. No, I got it. Oh, oh, would you like to be in the audience for my infomercial? Ah! Help me!
Starting point is 01:17:05 My daughter's not talented! Oh, so mean. They killed her. Yeah, but Melissa Rivers, come on. What was she doing on TV? You know what? Family Guy made an extremely similar joke in that Brian is accosted by Joan Rivers.
Starting point is 01:17:20 He's like, wait a minute. There's no tape in your camera. Your mic's not plugged in. Oh, yeah. That's the same. Hope you all enjoyed my Brian impression from Family Guy. I'll be replacing Seth MacFarlane soon. You're right.
Starting point is 01:17:30 I wrote down the note that he was very Family Guy, but I totally forgot there's the exact joke on Family Guy. And there might even be a joke about her daughter. I think so. I mean, everybody takes shots at Melissa Rivers. I mean, she's fine, I guess. She can host things. But not to bring up our president I don't like it but there was the funny there is it's not exactly funny but Joan Rivers she did Apprentice only because she wanted her daughter to be on the
Starting point is 01:17:59 show so she's like look I'll be a contestant on a season of apprentice only if we're there as a couple and then her daughter got voted off in the very first episode so they could just ditch her and be like there now we've got joan rivers the only one we wanted and she was so pissed but she had to honor her contract and stay on the show i was a mega e watcher in the late 90s mid to late 90s so i saw her a lot. The Joan Rivers documentary is amazing. Joan Rivers was a legend. She was at a low point in her career, though she would have liked that joke there anyway.
Starting point is 01:18:34 She could take a joke. But yeah, Melissa Rivers, looking at her IMDb, she hasn't really been in anything in the last couple years, I think. Once her mom passed, she really didn't get too many jobs. It's true. What does she need jobs for? imdb she hasn't really been in anything in the last couple years i think uh once her once her mom passed she really didn't get too many jobs it's true what does she need jobs for she's a rich kid like just yeah just just have fun so uh returning characters coming back because we
Starting point is 01:18:54 haven't seen him in a long time lance murdoch he last appeared in selma's choice in the duff gardens commercial and that was a daniel stern episode man or david stern sorry david stern and the last time he was mentioned was in homer the smithers where he was recovering from cirrhosis of the liver liver liver so the last time we saw him was uh six years ago in a tv ad like i'm going to duff gardens i'm so happy they remembered this character yeah like i think it was david's that brought him back yeah yeah i my my only other guess was that like they just they wrote a scene that involved a stunt guy and then they realized like well we don't have to make up a new one we've got lance murdoch but i you know david stern he seems like he was a favorite of day of stern's yeah it was all the
Starting point is 01:19:40 kids who grew up with evil kenevil i mean uh, that was what Bart the Daredevil was all about. That was his major episode he got in the series. I saw that Murdoch comes back in the Jean years, the Al Jean years, but I see this as at least Scully killing him off. Then Al Jean decided to retcon that death. That's what I think happened. Also, though, I wish they'd have used... So they go to Nero's Palace.
Starting point is 01:20:03 That's the name of the casino. I wish they'd gone to Plato's Republic Casino. That's the I think happened. Also, though, I wish they'd have used... So they go to Nero's Palace. That's the name of the casino. I wish they'd gone to Plato's Republic Casino. That's the funnier casino. Yeah, that's in Capital City, though, right? Oh, that's true. You got me. They went to a real city, not a fake city. They don't address at all how long it took them to drive to Vegas, do they?
Starting point is 01:20:21 No, no. I guess they leave in the daytime and then it's night. But yeah, they don't really though it does it does seem to imply the more like la view of well we're just gonna drive to vegas it'll just be six hours or something yeah yeah also on a time thing i forgot to mention like ned says they blew up the burns casino yesterday that would mean that the place exploded, they went to the car wash, they did church that night, and then the next morning Ned asked Homer to teach him to be crazy. So that timeline doesn't exactly work when he says yesterday. But yes, Homer decides it's time to volunteer somebody for
Starting point is 01:21:05 Lance Murdoch. will jump his suicide over an audience member and he'll do it while attempting to open a locked safe on his head. Any volunteers? Pick him! Pick him! No, Homer, no! I want to do something exciting, but I can't just go from zero to 30 like that.
Starting point is 01:21:40 I could be killed. Fine, I'll do it. Where do you want me? On the X. You mean the one with the red paint? Uh, yeah, paint. Now, it's of critical importance that you don't... Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll figure it out.
Starting point is 01:21:56 This isn't rocket science. Well, actually, there are several rockets mounted to the... Sorry. So Homer kills him. That does feel too mean by Homer in this sequence here. Also, I feel like that is the final time you could make a
Starting point is 01:22:14 joke that Bob Saget is boring. Yeah, I feel like I wonder, because I think it was known for a long time that he was a super dirty stand-up comic, so I wonder if that was an intentional joke of Flanders thinking that this really really family friendly guy from america's funniest home videos and full house but he actually doesn't know what a stand-up's like yeah there was a joke uh maybe two years before this where wigum thought he was going to see bob seeker and it was bob saget
Starting point is 01:22:38 yeah so i think maybe even the writers thought like oh yeah the very lame full house america's funniest videos guy but i think around this time, he was being like loud and proud about being dirty. Like he was sort of pivoting publicly around this time. Like, no, I'm not the TV dad. I'll make jokes about, you know, the most disgusting things you've ever heard in your life. And you can come see me.
Starting point is 01:22:57 That was sort of his gimmick and it still is. Yeah, I think that started, like I first learned that when I saw he directed Dirty Work. Yeah, yeah. The cult classic. That I think was directed Dirty Work. Yeah, yeah, the cult classic. That, I think, was when it hit me that he wasn't the clean, terrible jokester on America's Funny Stone videos that I grew up with. Remember years later in The Aristocrats, I think he had one of the most dirty versions
Starting point is 01:23:19 of that. Yeah, I think his is one of the filthiest, I think. Yeah. You know, everyone talks about Dirty Work. No one talks about Screwed. Norm MacDonald's second and last movie. I've never seen it. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 01:23:30 I saw it because I'm just a huge Lifelong Norm fan. And just saying it was Norm and Chappelle. And I was like, oh, my God, how could this not be amazing? And it is a just straight up terrible comedy. I never saw. I did see Dirty Work in theaters. Me too. Me with two other people in that theater.
Starting point is 01:23:50 Yeah, it holds up. Dirty Work's fun. And I believe by the time that movie came out, Farley was dead, right? So this was like a posthumous appearance in that film. Yeah, I think it was Dirty Work. And then there was that one Almost Heroes or something with Matthew Perry. I think that came out. That was the last one that came out i think if you are a large comedian don't do a pioneer comedy it will kill you john candy and chris farley they fell yeah because they
Starting point is 01:24:14 wanted to do a pioneer comedy it's you're too active it's too stressful on your heart to do too much salted meat uh once me i mentioned too uh they reuse character designs and other character model reused in here i didn't notice it until pointed out on the commentary the show girl who closes the door on his safe hat or whatever that's awesome yeah uh that's that's the recasted lisa from the spinoff showcase oh you're right yeah yeah neil affleck on the commentary just says they pulled it out of says they pulled it out of uh they pulled it out of the character pack and he he joked of like this is what this was her next job after doing the spinoff showcase she's down on her luck working in vegas i also didn't like
Starting point is 01:24:57 the dog do stick joke i felt that was too too scatological to face yeah yeah i like the ice ring after the fire ring yeah uh and yes homer homer sits up while which he is not supposed to do uh and you gotta hand it to lance he actually doesn't want to hit homer so he saves homer which in turn kills him i do love the guy saying like he's all right folks as they are resuscitating him live wasn't that the joke i don't think i realized he died uh i mean they are definitely trying to restart his heart so right right yeah they leave it up to you that he's dead or not i like to assume this is his death i think there was a similar he's all right folks joke in uh bartha daredevil too yes yeah but at least in that one they waited for his thumbs up and yeah Yeah. As a pro wrestling fan, I have been party to those things.
Starting point is 01:25:48 It's not as funny in real life when you get told that. Yeah. Oh, I didn't want to bring this. Yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But that rings true for me as being there when Owen Hart fell. Oh, no. Yeah, I forgot about that.
Starting point is 01:26:01 Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No, I was just there for a very serious accident that happened last year at a wrestling show. One of my favorite guys right now, Hiromu Takahashi, I was there live when he broke his neck and finished the match with a broken neck
Starting point is 01:26:18 and now has not been seen in public since. He says he's recovering. He wants to get back into the ring, but that was, uh, 14 months ago, which is, uh,
Starting point is 01:26:27 yeah, it's always tough seeing wrestlers that are like adamant about finishing a match despite being like concussed or clearly injured. Yeah. Yeah. It's this sad thing of like, well, it's weird.
Starting point is 01:26:37 Cause as a wrestling fan in retrospect, I love hearing stories by, you know, old timers, like say Terry Funk saying like, well, yes, I broke my foot and I finished this match. I got a horrible concussion, but I finished this match. I like hearing those stories. But then when I see it happen live of here is a wrestler horribly concussed and then they finished a match, I think, no, just stop this match.
Starting point is 01:27:02 I don't care. Yeah. I think like, no, just stop this match. I don't care. But I think they all have those stories in their heads, or especially if they came from a sports background. Well, it's a bad mix of like you play football hurt, so you think I got to wrestle hurt. But then it's also the show must go on. That's the feeling that gets in the way. It's the carny code.
Starting point is 01:27:22 It is the carny code. Homer and Ned just walk away from the horrible damage they caused, which, like, Homer should be arrested after that, or at least held for questioning, but they just let him walk away. And then Homer gets to find out that Ned has got a little bloodlust. Clear! She's all right, folks! Rogito, let's hit the tables.
Starting point is 01:27:49 My God, Homer, watching you risk your life, turned my beatbox all the way up to rumba. Yeah, I was praying you'd be safe, but to be honest, that part of me wanted to see you get splattered. Oh, I think someone just had his first taste of bloodlust. I love his little to that. And then they hit the roulette
Starting point is 01:28:12 tables, which roulette I actually have gotten into as a gambling thing. I used to be more of a slots guy. I hate roulette. What's your problem with roulette, Dan? It's just the pure, literal spin of the wheel. the house always wins no matter what the game is but like there are different odds on different things and i feel
Starting point is 01:28:29 like roulette is the one that you just have the least control over everything i i prefer like poker and craps and stuff because like craps is still the roll of a dice but like you can bet smart you know and and the odds are actually better on craps but uh oh roulette just i feel like i i don't really gamble anymore but that used to be my thing you know back when i lived in kansas where it's like if i was down like a hundred bucks and i was bummed about it i'd be like you know what i can put a hundred dollars on red right now and i got almost 50 chance to get an all back and then i can leave and then you're just like double in the hole and it's like okay i feel like i mean it's the ultimate uh random number generator there's no there's no other frills to it well, okay, here's why I like roulette.
Starting point is 01:29:05 I don't like how much you have to think during poker or blackjack. I don't want to make multiple-level decisions. And craps has too many rules. I don't like that either. Well, meanwhile, with roulette, you basically bet money every two minutes or so. And I do like the opportunity for conversation or just like you get a little cool down in between roles of it. So I do like that. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:29:32 Though I don't like that at Vegas the minimum bets on tables I found were $10, which I'm like, can you just have a $5 table, please? I would usually walk around until like the Excalibur. If it's the midweek of the Excalibur you can find some five dollar tables but yeah 10 is definitely more prevalent uh my number if i you know do a one number bet just like uh time to go crazy ten dollars on one number like not on like odds or evens or red or black my number is six because i was born on the sixth but i should try playing seven one of these times since it paid off so much wrong. That's my birth date.
Starting point is 01:30:08 You know, you should do it. Bob, next time you're there, put $100 on seven. Will do. That's how we're spending our Patreon money. Vegas. But yes, Ned is enjoying his gaming. Let's see. What's Marge's birthday?
Starting point is 01:30:23 Barney's is July 15th, same as last year, so March must be 50... Oh, forget it. Flanders, what's your birthday? Oh, leave me out of these, Homer. Games of chance are strictly forbidden by Deuteronomy 7. 7, eh? 7 will win him. Way to go, Flanders. The Bible's finally pulling its weight. Got any more holy numbers? Oh, I got a bunch, Homer, but I just don't feel right. Oh, Lord, what should I do? Keep gaming. What? It means gambling. Keep gambling.
Starting point is 01:31:00 Oh, rightio. One betting disc, please. One betting disc, please. Watch and learn. And 14 black. Well, there you go. Now, how about a drink? I don't think if you put a credit card on the table, they take that as a bet. No, no. They say, please remove that, sir. That's another of my favorite things in roulette is when they take all as no no they say please remove that sir uh that's another of my favorite things in roulette is when they when they take all the bets they then like wave their hand like a magician
Starting point is 01:31:31 like no more bets like it's uh i like that magic to it yeah but yes that that ned believes that voice was god telling him i love that uh and that he uses the legal term gaming and then he has to clarify that he means gambling from my googling there is no canonical birthday for lassie that i can find there are many lassies yes yeah once in hell oh god the one who bit timmy oh yeah the one that bit timmy or mauled timmy he's the one he's the one in doggy hell with uh along with checkers yeah uh but homer emptying ned's wallet like that that's uh pretty cruel that's pretty cool uh and then they head off to uh to grab some drinks i uh it's a good version of the cheapo vegas like uh eating area and i i like that you drink out of the head of a nero bust too
Starting point is 01:32:21 that's a good design and the waffle bar really rings true, because every casino has that. I've gone to a lot of casinos with my dad, and he gambles all the time, and so it's constantly like, oh, breakfast buffet, let's get waffles. Oh, man, I love... I'll get to the breakfast buffet in a minute, but I love a breakfast buffet. Yeah, it's... But as they are
Starting point is 01:32:39 drinking away their troubles, Ned takes a risk. How do you silence that little voice that says, Think. You mean Lisa? No, I mean common sense. Oh, that. That can be treated with our good friend alcohol.
Starting point is 01:32:54 You might want to write that down. Where the hell's your notebook? You threw it out the- Never mind, just pay attention. Slave girl. Oh, slave girl. More libations, my imperial conquerors? What? More booze. Oh, yeah. Two More libations, my imperial conquerors. What?
Starting point is 01:33:06 More booze. Oh, yeah. Two more of these, please. And for you, Ned. I'll have a Shirley. Oh, a virgin. No, make it a children's. Oh, what the heck.
Starting point is 01:33:19 You only live once. Give me a white wine spritzer. Spritzer. Spritzer. Spritzer. Spritzer. Spritzer. Spritzer. Spritzer. I really enjoy the lost weekend he has after having watered down wine.
Starting point is 01:33:31 A single. Watered down white wine. Yeah. What do you think is a witsier drink? That or Blackberry Schnapps? Is that what he drank when he called Ann Flanders a boring old bitty? Sorry, Ann Landers, not Ann Flanders. Yes.
Starting point is 01:33:44 I think the white wine spritzer, probably. Yeah, I think Blackberry Schnapps is at least like a straight liquor. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Though, that's a real specialty one, a Blackberry. When I think of Schnapps, I really only think of a thing
Starting point is 01:33:58 that high schoolers steal to drink at a party. Yeah. Like peppermint Schnapps, yeah. Yeah, good times. All the wonderful drinks that are clearly made for underage people to drink at a party. Yeah. Like peppermint schnapps, yeah. Yeah, good times. All the wonderful drinks that are clearly made for underage people to drink, not for adults to drink. Though, I mean, I love a wussy drink.
Starting point is 01:34:14 Bob has seen me order many number of fruited drinks at places. I'm fully on the White Claw train, so I'm kind of there, too. Oh, what's a White Claw? Oh, there's a nationwide shortage. You don't know about the phenomenon that's sweeping the nation no i don't hear about have you ever seen joey janela's thing joey janela always drinks white claws oh yeah parody of the logo it's just like it's basically just a vodka seltzer in a can i have seen that yeah extremely
Starting point is 01:34:38 convenient it tastes really good it's like alcoholic version of uh remember like those those popsicles that you'd cut the top off of oh yeah remember that so it's like it's like an alcoholic version of, remember those popsicles that you'd cut the top off of? Oh, yeah. Remember that? So it's like a lime one of those if you melted it and drank it and it got you drunk. That's what the lime one is like. I'm listening. Man, you're selling me on White Claws here.
Starting point is 01:34:58 Dude, it's like 90 or 100 calories. There's almost no sugar. They're delicious. Wow. I'm totally going to have this. Yeah. delicious wow i'm totally gonna have this yeah uh i i pretty much only drink i uh drink things that i've watched movie characters drink like a white russian yeah or uh well actually my favorite was screwdrivers that's uh that's my go-to well drink i order and it and it's because of jackie brown like they just drink screwdrivers through the whole movie there was a while when i was
Starting point is 01:35:22 watching deadwood that i tried to become like a straight guy, and it's like, nah, I just can't do this all the time. Well, there's a reason the characters in Deadwood don't live into their 60s. It's all that straight whiskey they drink. I love brown liquor. I like drinking in general, but I'm a huge beer guy, so my girlfriend and I are now competing on the untapped app to tap
Starting point is 01:35:40 all of our beers and rate them and unlock badges. Wow, I didn't know there was an app for that. Of course there's an app. That's my version of Pokemon Go. You Pokemon went to the bar. I did. But yeah, White Wine Spritzer seemingly just won,
Starting point is 01:35:58 knocks out Ned for the weekend. The camera pan over the suite is a very fear and loathing thing too i have to imagine that is uh they had to pay for that suite 100 which uh boy that's hey how does that suite in the episode compared to the one you stayed in dan honestly kind of reminded me of it just this like really huge thing with like a hot tub and all that stuff like it was there were similarities i've uh i've only walked through those those kind of suites if it's for a game industry event. Right. They're doing E3 demos at a hotel across the street and you come to the suite.
Starting point is 01:36:32 I got to stay in one of those suites once for the Sony's PSX event. I don't know if they still have those. One was in Vegas, and for whatever reason, they booked us all suites. I had my own suite to myself, and I was just running from one end of the suite to the other, like, this is three times bigger than my apartment. I took a bath because there was a bathtub big enough for me. Because I'm tall, I cannot fit in any bathtub. I was like, I'm taking a bath because I can fit in this bathtub.
Starting point is 01:36:57 It was amazing. Damn, damn. I've had a nice hotel paid for by PR, but never a suite. It was one time I got a suite, one time I flew first class, and that was with you. Oh, yeah, we flew first class. To see a MOBA that was canceled in six months.
Starting point is 01:37:12 Yes, yeah. I mean, that was an hour in first class. But I did get to meet one of the many YouTubers with Angry in his name, and I'll never forget that. Good times. We were both playing Dong and Rampa on that flight. We were, yeah, it's true good that
Starting point is 01:37:26 puts me back uh so i do like that when they wake back up ned enjoys it at first he's so happy he finally went wild and had a great night uh but one that he can't even remember that his mouth tastes like vomit though apparently ned nilaf like wanted to draw them grosser. Like in the animatic, he wanted the scene to start with a point of view from inside Homer's mouth. That's pretty complicated. I do like that Ned is in his sweater in the hot tub. Yeah, yeah. So we'll see in the videotape they're wearing different clothes. So they changed clothes twice in that night.
Starting point is 01:38:03 Yeah. So they changed clothes twice in that night. Well, also Matt Groening, he actually was the one who pitched that he wanted them to wake up naked to then make you question even more what happened with their new wives. I mean, they do imply that they cheated, right? I mean, they kiss them. Yeah. Yeah, they leave it up to you. But I don't want to believe that homer would cheat on marge even then it's interesting yeah yeah the third act of this episode is pretty short right it's like four or five minutes yeah yeah and uh i think the joke is their scheme is
Starting point is 01:38:36 just running away like there's nothing clever about it so you feel like the third act would be them dealing with the aftermath of this but instead it's a very sort of dumb plot on purpose where they run away so it won't be until a later episode that they have to deal with the aftermath of having married these women which is an interesting choice like they save that payoff for another episode yeah oh yeah they get tricked into get blackout drunk and wake up in bed with abe yeah that's how it ends Which leads to one of the grossest jokes in the show's history, which is, are you going to let President Abe have another term in the Oval Office?
Starting point is 01:39:11 It's really gross. I was expecting that joke in this episode and also Moe's two knives joke. He's very happy with having two knives instead of two wives. And so after they wake up, they meet their new wives Wake up
Starting point is 01:39:26 Look at this place We must have really painted the town last night I have a pounding headache My mouth tastes like vomit And I don't remember a thing Welcome to my world Oh I did it I conquered my fears And I'm made up for a lot of lost living.
Starting point is 01:39:47 And I owe it all to the Homer Simpson program. The what now? Well, it's about time you two woke up. Well, of course. Ah! Who are you? Who am I? I'm Mrs. Ned Flanders. Ah!
Starting point is 01:40:02 Hey, smooth move, Flanders. And I'm Mrs. Homer Simpson. Here comes that vomit again. Ew. They also said in the animatic they drew Ned throwing up on screen, but that got thrown out, which I'm glad. That's, again, a more family guy thing to just see the vomit on screen. Yeah, mostly on the simpsons
Starting point is 01:40:25 i think people turn away from the screen to vomit or from the south park for sure when we come back from commercial break homer is just uh doing a great parody of like okay okay okay and he just won't stop saying okay i do like that it's very funny uh and then ned very seriously is about to kill himself with Yeah, the suicide joke with Ned. He's going to hang himself with his belt. He's like, way ahead of you. And Homer's like, think of your wives. Love that line.
Starting point is 01:40:52 But I wonder, too, I think when I saw this, this was right after Raw did a similar storyline of Triple H marrying an unconscious Stephanie McMahon. Of course, he interrupted the nuptials of Stephanie McMahon in test. To reveal that he had secretly married her in Las Vegas in a drive-thru chapel while she was unconscious. But don't worry, Bob. Gasp.
Starting point is 01:41:15 It was actually a secret plan the whole time Stephanie was pretending to be drunk and that to trick Vince McMahon. She consented to the marriage with Triple H, and she was evil all along. And now she's a politician? No, that's Linda. No, that's Linda. Okay.
Starting point is 01:41:30 Well, she failed at that, too. It's nice to know that not only did she lose two elections for senator, but it cost her like $100 million. That's good to know. Though she just left the White House to campaign more for our powerful president. But anyway, yeah, it says, not unlike on Monday Night Raw, they show a wedding video. Boy, you did have a lot to drink last night, homeo. Take a look at this.
Starting point is 01:41:59 Oh, precious memory. I oakley, doakley, shmokeley do. And to you Homer, take this cocktail waitress you just met to be your lawfully wedded wife. What did you call me? Do you want to get married? Married? Sure, suck it to me baby. By the power vested in me by the Chicago outfit, I now pronounce you husbands and wives. We are so dead. I do think the way they react to being kissed means they didn't do anything with them. Yeah, I think they're very careful, the writers,
Starting point is 01:42:41 on how this is being presented. They're sort of not understanding what's happening. They're just too drunk to get it. Yeah. Though, you do have to wonder, if the women kiss them at the wedding, did they try to do more with them? I would say probably, but they were just too wasted.
Starting point is 01:42:57 Yeah, that's true. White wine spritzer dick. But the footage of them kissing them at the altar is enough to destroy their marriage. I would take that tape and just burn it in front of them. Just rip it out of the VCR. Throw it in the hot tub right there. That's all you've got to do.
Starting point is 01:43:15 Homer apparently bought a hat for the occasion. Yeah. It's Frank Sinatra cosplay, and Ned's got a full Saturday Night Fever kind of thing going on. Yeah. That has to be one of those $800 hats you can buy at the expensive malls down the strip in Vegas. Those things have to exist to only sell one thing a day to a person who hit the jackpot. Yeah, some tourist.
Starting point is 01:43:39 So, yes, then we head to the Vegas Breakfast Buffet, which, man, I love a Vegas Breakfast Buffet. I really do. Like, look, I know it's a bunch of warmed-over garbage, but I just, like, you just eat it all day. Breakfast food is my favorite food, and being able to eat all of it all the time. I've never been to a Vegas breakfast buffet, but the upside of being forced to go to church with my friends if I slept over on a Saturday night was going to Shoney's. Oh, good old Shoney's. The next morning and saying, how much bacon can I put on this plate?
Starting point is 01:44:07 You guys have Old Country Buffet or Golden Corral? I had Old Country when I was growing up in Ohio. Okay, those are great too. Yeah, oh man, so many great times at Golden Corral. I love that place. The best breakfast buffet I had in Vegas was at the Caesars Palace Bacchanalia one. Like, its whole thing is that it's the priciest,
Starting point is 01:44:27 but with the most, like, alcohol and craziest foods. Oh, nice. It's a good one. Though the one I've had the most is the MGM Grand one, just because I stay there the most if I stay anywhere in Vegas. It has waffles. I don't think it's Make Em Fresh waffles there, but they do have like
Starting point is 01:44:45 omelet station and a meat cutter who's just like, we got turkey, we got ham, we got chicken, we got steak. What do you want me to slice up? Is it the official meat cutters badge? He does look fancier than the other employees, the man cutting the meat. I also wonder with Amber and Ginger here, it's Pamela Hayden and Tress McNeil playing. I mean, they both do a great job, but I wonder why they aren't guest stars, you know? Yeah, that's true. They're a guest star kind of part, but...
Starting point is 01:45:14 I also noticed, you know, they had the Joan Rivers and Don Rickles stuff and neither of them were their actual voices. I could see them saying no to the jokes they do on their expense. Don already said no. I don't think Joan would want to say my daughter is so untalented. Yeah. But Amber and Ginger, they could have been
Starting point is 01:45:29 99. Jennifer Love Hewitt. Carmen Electra. Yeah, there you go. And somebody else. Sarah Michelle Gellar. Oh, I could see. Oh, actually, isn't she the vegetarian on that episode? Yeah, King of the Hill. She was on the King of the Hill that beat this.
Starting point is 01:45:45 Oh, wow. And apparently, I saw this episode. It would happen a few years later. So Homer's wife, Amber, dies. One of the episodes opens with their funeral. So according to the wiki, I forgot what happened, but Amber died of an overdose at a theme park in front of a sign warning guests not to stand up on a roller coaster.
Starting point is 01:46:02 So that was her ignoble death. Oh, wow. Damn, that's harsh, Amber. Yeah, yeah. Jesus. park in front of a sign warning guests not to stand up on a roller coaster. So that was her ignoble death. Wow. Damn. That's hard. Jesus. I believe the next joke was like, she wanted to go to school to study computers. But yes,
Starting point is 01:46:15 as they, as they're trying to break up with the wives, the wives aren't having it. Ladies, we want to do the honorable thing. So breakfast is on us with full waffle bar privileges. But first, I'm afraid we have some bad news. The waffle bar is closed. I'm sorry, I'm so very...
Starting point is 01:46:32 Homer, the bad news, ladies, is we already have wives. Well, you can't be very happy with them if you married us. You two fellas are the nicest husbands we've ever had. And we're not giving you up without a fight. But Ginger, honey, I am not the catch I appear to be. Ginger's my wife. Are you sure? Oh, rats.
Starting point is 01:46:53 No offense, sweetie. Homer, why don't we go make the girls some custom omelets? Jeez, I've never seen anyone so whipped so fast. I love Homer constantly wanting to get with ginger and not amber yeah he'd be totally fine with this if he was married to ginger it seems amber just isn't his type i think later is planted let's switch wives yes which he apparently has been offering all day yeah i like how earnestly homer plays the plays the waffle bar admission. It's so very sorry. They consider what they could do.
Starting point is 01:47:29 Homer has a little fantasy, which I love this. I love this joke. You know, why I give this just his whole fantasy sequel, let's give that line of the episode. That's the joke. What are we going to do, Homer? My kids are going to be traumatized. And then there's Maude. And then there's the joke. What are we going to do, Homer? My kids are going to be traumatized. And then there's Maude.
Starting point is 01:47:48 And then there's Maude! I don't know, Flanders. Having two wives could have its advantages. Chop, chop, dig, dig. Chop, chop, dig, dig. Chop, chop, dig, dig. You know, homie, there's so much more two wives could do for you.
Starting point is 01:48:07 I hear digging, but I don't hear chopping. Ooh, a friendly bee. Ah! Ow! That sting hurts so much. We gotta get out of this, Ned. Well, do something. This is all your fault.
Starting point is 01:48:24 You and your stupid program. Blame me if you must, but don't ever speak ill of the program. The program is rock solid. The program is sound. Yoo-hoo. All those awful women want their omelets. How are we gonna get out of this mess in an honorable and decent... Oh, nuts. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:48:46 Omelets have a lot of fat in them. Forget it, you're married. Let yourself go. Hey, they're running away! So two things about that dream sequence I love, that they're chopping and digging for no reason just because Homer can make them do whatever he wants in this fantasy, but also that in this dream a bee stings him,
Starting point is 01:49:05 but it also hurts him in real life, but that gets him the resolve to figure out what to do that can also why did the bee even factor into that fantasy at all it's really weird yeah uh just the idea of like well that bee sting hurt so much we gotta end this marriage yeah but homer has like this program he keeps referencing too it's like we gotta stick to the program but for the rest of this episode they're just running away from things yes yeah well this is very in the era of homer running away from his problems yeah that's all he does i uh what i love about his fantasy is that his subconscious through marge is trying to tell him to have a more sexual fantasy and he still rejects it like the fantasy of his creation yeah that in his fantasy marge is like you know we could have more fun than this homer and he just shoves it down again he can't in a way that almost makes homer seem more innocent that he can't he
Starting point is 01:49:59 can't imagine something sexual with two wives it's just work it's just yard work he has no imagination sexual imagination uh but yes homer homer runs away from his problems as usual uh we get a fun little chase sequence set to the classic elvis song viva las vegas sung for the movie of the same name there aren't a whole lot of jokes in this running away scene actually i was expecting more i do like the joke about i love any twist on an old movie trope like we have to disguise ourselves to go into this room or whatever and i like how they're beaten up by those men yes they want to steal the costumes they want to steal the uniforms of like vegas workers so they go into the closet and they emerge beaten up because uh they didn't overpower them yeah the other instantly fail yeah the other
Starting point is 01:50:43 guys are better fighters i I also love the designs of them. Like, one of them kinda looks like Homer, so already in your mind, you're like, oh, Homer would steal his clothes, because he's bald like Homer. My favorite one is when they're hiding in the costume shop. Yes, yeah. By a costume relief.
Starting point is 01:50:59 The one joke in this is that they're running, so a bunch of senior citizens are joylessly working the slot machines, and they're running across the top, and they all sort of lean at a 45-degree angle, but they're still working the slot machines, not caring what happens. So that's the one other joke in this. Yeah, which, not slot machines, you just press a button on them. None of them even have a one-arm to be a bandit with.
Starting point is 01:51:19 That reminds me, we were talking about Vegas, and the few times I've been there, the most depressing things have been the old people on oxygen tanks just working slot machines just gambling away the last few precious days of their lives that kind of depressed me yeah it's like it can be extremely depressing if it's like you know five in the morning and you see people at the circus circus that like you can tell from their eyes and like kind of the robotic motions they've been doing it for like god knows how many hours yeah yeah well and with somebody on a machine like that they're surrounded by smoke like it's all yeah cigarette smoke is everywhere the uh now you know that again shows how we're aging that like the slot machines of today want to appeal to our generation so they're like ghostbusters slots machines and Willy Wonka. The Bazinga machine. Bazinga,
Starting point is 01:52:06 you won $100. I mean, it's real sad when I play the Ghostbusters one that Dan Aykroyd records new lines for it where him in the character of Ray goes like, ah, betting the maximum, that's a
Starting point is 01:52:22 great strategy. Well, his career's really got progressively more depressing, hasn't it? I wish Harold was here for this. Oh, God. I mean, Dan Aykroyd does what he wants to do. Yeah, he's having fun being a big kook. Yeah, a big old kook. Making crystal skulls.
Starting point is 01:52:36 I like them. They use the original Viva Las Vegas. Scully on the commentary talks about that he wanted to do this much lesser known Bruce Springsteen cover of the song, which was just on one album in the 70s that was tribute to Elvis or whatever. But he said he couldn't get it cleared in time for the episode airing, so he couldn't use it, which I've listened to it. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah. I mean, Bruce Springsteen is Scully's white whale. He basically wrote an entire episode to get him on. He got every major musician he wanted but Bruce.
Starting point is 01:53:09 Also, they make a joke. So they talk about his favorite rock bands, how he always put them on there. They joke in the commentary. Another writer says, that story tells me that NRBQ never covered this song. Oh, that's great. That's great. He loves that. That's great. Because he loves that. That's the Taking Care of Business band.
Starting point is 01:53:29 They're one of Mike Scully's favorite bands, and they appear on The Simpsons like twice, I think. I didn't like them until I heard their song about Lou Albano that I put on a Retronauts. Oh, that was a good song. Yeah. As they're running away from everybody, they then get cornered after we see gil fail at gambling and losing uh this this is after gil got audited the previous season for doing this very same thing he just
Starting point is 01:53:52 doesn't learn but apparently he has a job and runs a payroll so he's moving up from his uh living in an air balloon that's true i blame his employer for trusting him with the payroll like that. That was the mistake. But yes, they then get cornered as Vegas doesn't care for people who cheat on their wives. Somebody help. Our husbands are trying to ditch us. Someone dishonoring their marriage vows. Not in Las Vegas. Attention all employees. We've got two runaways.
Starting point is 01:54:23 Stop them. Oh, no. Attention all employees. We've got two runaways. Stop them. Oh, no. A lion. Frederick Tatum. Your behavior is unconscionable. The Moody Blues. Cold-hearted Homer ditching his wife while ancient Ned runs for his life. Chips of red and blue and white, but we decide. Pretty cool they got the Moody Blues in there.
Starting point is 01:54:56 Yeah, yeah. Four of them. Yeah, there's been a lot of members of the Moody Blues. I guess we have some jingles to play. Yes, this is going to be uh because this is a group jingle we're gonna have to do a double jingle here because one member of the band has passed away the other three are still with us but aging so we have to play the simpsons anti-death jingle as well the ancient blues to to protect these moody blues. So first off, the death jingle. Death stalks you at every turn.
Starting point is 01:55:26 Ah! There it is! Death! And now the anti-death. Damn buzzards! I ain't dead yet! This episode's a real graveyard. Dress Barn and now one of the moody blues?
Starting point is 01:55:40 Joan Rivers. Oh, Joan Rivers. John Rickles. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, so the four moody blues members who appear in this episode, John Rivers. Oh, John Rivers. John Rickles. Oh, my God. So the four Moody Blues members who appear in this episode, there's been many more, but this is most of the original members who sang the hit Nights in White Satin from 1967.
Starting point is 01:55:57 The four members in it are Graham Edge, Justin Hayward, John Lodge, and Ray Thomas. Ray Thomas is no longer with us, and he is the one who pulls the knife out of a flute and says, I want fatty. He passed away last year, 2018. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:56:16 No longer with us, though. It's sad. But his flute playing, apparently, from articles I read, him playing the flute on Nights in White Satin was a foundational part of the prog rock genre of music. So we salute you, Ray Thomas, for all your work in the Moody Blues. I've not heard any song of theirs other than Nights in White Satin. Same here.
Starting point is 01:56:41 I think my parents were listening to them a lot at this time. They might have had a Greatest Hits re-re or like a new album but uh that's really mainly reference point i think it's a cheap gag that homer mistakes a tiger for a lion but it is funny how he says yeah yeah it's kind of cheap but it's fine and they have to say out loud drederick tatum so like that's not mike tyson mike tyson can't sue us it's still drederic tatum although the don king look-alike is there too oh yeah lucius sweet does appear yeah but which they don't say that isn't don king but maybe by now they firmly establish that they're like ah we've got precedent but don king can't can't win against us so they they all get cornered. Homer offers to trade wives, which Ned says for the last time, no.
Starting point is 01:57:27 And then Homer spots their possible escape route, which this, again, I think this gave me my biggest laugh of the episode, actually, just the timing of it. He can scheme his way into this thing, but he can't scheme his way out. So everything is just very dumb, and it's not clever at all, but that's the joke. Yes. out so everything is just very dumb and it's not clever at all but that's the joke yes las vegas doesn't care for out-of-towners take your money and go someplace else and don't you ever try to marry us again We found some guys who know how to treat a woman. But Amber, I can change. Will you shut up? All right, let's get our story straight for Marge and Maude.
Starting point is 01:58:16 We were out buying them fabulous gifts. What's the occasion? Because we loved them, jackass. Anyhoo, we came out of Walmart when suddenly 100 spaceships... Homer? You're right, you're right. 50 spaceships beamed us aboard. They gang-probed you while I discovered an invention that blew their heads up and saved America.
Starting point is 01:58:34 Uh, do I have to be gang-probed? Would you rather tell Maude the truth? What did the aliens look like? Well, I only saw them from the back because they were so busy gang-probing you. Well, hello, little birdies. Cover your eyes! Cover your eyes! Weird jokes at the end there.
Starting point is 01:58:52 Yeah. I do like that he says we were buying him fabulous gifts, then we left Walmart. Yeah, yeah. That's funny. I didn't need a third version of gang probe jokes. Boy, the level's like, well, I couldn't even tell how many there were because they were too busy gang probing you. That was a hot joke back then between the very first South Park episode and this. Apparently people thought that was super hilarious in the late 90s.
Starting point is 01:59:17 Yeah, I mean, it falls into the prison rape joke genre as well. I mean, two years ago, I think Kangaroo Coast was like, we have reached the limits of what probing can teach us. Yeah, that should have been the final probing joke in the show. Especially the term gang probed. We know what that means. That feels a little
Starting point is 01:59:38 too dark for The Simpsons as well. They're competing against South Park directly now. They gotta keep up. You're right. Gotta get dirtier. i wonder if that's what pushed them to do that they're like look the kids are accepting south park now we can get away with more stuff uh and then the family guy also is going to be eating their lunches uh as far as getting the young people so maybe that's maybe that's why they felt like uh up in the the grossout factor in these seasons. But I do like the gag that they're apparently just going to die in the desert. Yeah, there's no real ending either.
Starting point is 02:00:11 You have to assume they hitched a ride back to Springfield somehow. Also, how did Homer get his car back, too? Clearly, it was left in Vegas. That'll all be covered in another episode. Actually, Homer would say, oh, there's a very good explanation for that, and he'd be cut off. That's a story for another day. That was a fun episode full of Vegas jokes. I think it's not their most thematically strong episode, but it's a fun episode about a bender and Vegas silliness.
Starting point is 02:00:40 Yeah. I don't even care about the 60-year-old Ned thing anymore. I still care. I think it's a very funny episode, but my favorite thing is the isolated things like Marge's time to shine and the chop-chop-dig-dig dream sequence. That's what I pull out most. And also white wine spritzer, spritzer, spritzer. Yeah, I really like this episode.
Starting point is 02:00:56 It's also a fun novelty whenever you get to see them go to real-world locations that aren't just like Shelbyville and Capital City and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Any other final thoughts on this one, Dan? You know, it had a couple laughs that got me but looking back now i can see that like okay yeah i think this is around when it started like slowly getting to the point where like i you know i stopped watching not too long after this and you know it's still funny uh for sure but i'd say it's kind of a far-crying quality from like you know the the glory you know season three through eight type
Starting point is 02:01:23 it's always good to see uh flanders out of his element though yeah yeah definitely so dan thanks for being our guest once again please let us know where we can find you online you're doing a ton of stuff podcasting uh web citing it up uh doing all kinds of cool things yeah i'll try to keep it uh simple and just say i'm dan reichert on twitter uh you can i'm on the giant beast cast that goes up every friday morning from giant Bomb and also Panning the Stream as we talked about earlier with my wife where we're just kind of reviewing streaming stuff in fact I think today actually we're going to launch a
Starting point is 02:01:51 just very small scale Patreon just for like ad free versions of the podcast but it's free on every podcast network and Spotify you can possibly find and that goes up every Sunday and we always take recommendations and everything at Pan the Stream on Twitter so yeah a lot of podcasts twitter you know the usual stuff oh congratulations on joining the patreon club with us yeah yeah you know we uh we go through anchor and they've got like a
Starting point is 02:02:14 listener support thing and uh you know that that's been nice we've done that for about a year but i figure like you know people have patreon accounts you know it's easier to just go there and click it when you've already got all your stuff on there. So we will be launching that probably today. And I also want to compliment your current, I think it's for premium members, but that your incredibly complicated Donkey Kong 64 sequence is so good. I really, really love that. Yes, I'm hosting a Donkey Kong 64 game show on GiantBomb.com called Burgle My Bananas. And you can watch the first episode. It's free. That's on YouTube if you want to get caught up on the very
Starting point is 02:02:47 simple and streamlined rules of that. That has been the perfect nightmare that I have wanted it to be all year. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dan. We will let you go off to SmackDown Live tonight. Indeed. Back to MSG. Thanks again to
Starting point is 02:03:03 Dan for joining us please check out all of his stuff but if you want to support us and all of our shows please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons and if you sign up for the low price of just $5 a month you will get every episode of talking simpsons and what a cartoon one week
Starting point is 02:03:19 ahead of time and ad free and you will also unlock all of the $5 paywall podcast everything we've made for the past two plus years and everything we will make far far into the future that includes all of our limited miniseries and so many more things so please check it out if you like hearing our voices there is so much of our podcast you haven't heard yet but henry what is happening at the ten dollar level extra long podcast every month yes if you enjoy this in our sister podcast what a cartoon you need to sign up for the $10
Starting point is 02:03:45 premium subscription because that will get you our monthly What a Cartoon movie where me and Bob talk about a different animated feature film once a month. We've done so many great ones in the past. In August, we did Rocco's Modern Life, the special that went up on Netflix. I had a ton of fun with that.
Starting point is 02:04:02 This month, we're going to be doing Cowboy Bebop, the movie. We usually talk between three to four hours in depth about the making of classic animated feature films, so you definitely want to hear that and the entire back catalog of $10 up content. Please check that out one more time. That's patreon.com
Starting point is 02:04:18 slash Talking Simpsons. So I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I have another podcast, by the way, it is called Retro Knots, and that is a classic gaming podcast. Check it out every Monday and occasionally on Friday at retronauts.com or just look for
Starting point is 02:04:33 Retro Knots wherever you find podcasts. You'll find it there. Henry, how about you? Hey, I'm Henry Gilbert. Follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. I am certain to tweet out any anytime new stuff goes live on the Patreon or on the free feeds or when we're doing cool new stuff
Starting point is 02:04:50 on our Patreon. You'll definitely learn about it from me. So please follow me there on Twitter, H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thanks so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you next week for the episode Wild Barts Can't Be Broken. And we will see you then.
Starting point is 02:05:04 How I wish that there were more the episode Wild Barts Can't Be Broken, and we will see you then.......... And the ruling will A fortune won and lost on every deal All you need is a strong heart and a nerve still Viva Las Vegas Viva Las Vegas Viva Las Vegas With your neon flashing And your one-armed bandits crashing All those hordes down the drain Viva Las Vegas
Starting point is 02:05:44 Turning day into night. Time turning night into day. Time if you see it once. You'll never be the same again. I'm gonna keep on the run. I'm gonna have me some fun. If it costs me my very last dime. If I wind up broke.
Starting point is 02:06:03 Well I'll always remember that I had a swingin' time I'm gonna give it everything I've got Lady, look, please let the dice stay hot Let me shoot a seven with every shot Viva Las Vegas! Viva Las Vegas! Viva Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas. Viva, viva Las Vegas..

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